Charlie Angus wants a different Canada – a Canada not afraid to talk about the big political issues, a Canada not afraid to take definitive action on Aboriginal rights and justice, on environmental protection, and economic renewal.
The member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay, noted as a champion of First Nations rights and environmental protection, was in Guelph on Thursday, as part of his campaign to lead the federal New Democratic Party.
Angus, 54, met with a group of party supporters in the morning at the The Bookshelf/Ebar, and was scheduled to take part in a kitchen party in the evening.
The current federal government carefully crafts a “nice” image of Canada, but the present reality of the country is far from nice for a great many Canadians, he suggested.
The inequity suffered by Aboriginals in this country is an injustice that has gone on far too long, but is an issue that no government has the will to change.
There can be no such thing as environmental justice without economic justice, he said. And progress can not be made on either of these fronts without First Nations justice.
After reading from his latest book, Children of the Broken Treaty, which explores the systematic ways that provincial and federal governments have neglected First Nations children, Angus levelled a sweeping condemnation of “the unwillingness of empowered people to take action” to do right by the Aboriginal children of Canada.
“We can not afford to squander the potential of another generation of children,” he said, and yet the inequity continues.
One of the main reasons why he is running for the leadership of the NDP is to “deal with this inequity.”
“I love Canada,” he said. “Every part of this country is an adventure.”
He loves the people, the immensity of the land and its beauty, he said. But it is not enough for Canadians to smugly content themselves with the idea that we are somehow better than our American neighbours.
“It is not enough to say that we are not those crazy Americans,” he said, calling such an attitude lame. The fissures in American society are spreading to this country, he said.
The same political and economic system in the US that favours the top one per cent of the most economically privileged, is taking hold in this country.
Canada has always been rich in natural resources, its economy rooted in those resources. But they are being squandered. As an example, he said forests are being cut down and the raw logs are being shipped abroad for processing. Thousands are left unemployed.
Angus is highly critical of capitalism in Canada, an economic system “that takes but does not put back.”
Government must get tough when it comes to environmental protection, he indicated. Hard limits must be set on greenhouse gas emissions and strictly enforced.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has no commitment to build a new economy based economic and environmental sustainability, he said.
“We need to say that we are going to start building the new economy,” he said.
Trudeau, he added, is fond of using the term ‘middle class’ at every opportunity. But what he is unwilling to admit is that the middle class in Canada has essentially disappeared, replaced by a “new working class.”
Young people are made to incur tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a post-secondary education that gives them access to the “gig economy” of unstable employment and no ability to own a home in the places they love and want to live.
The NDP leadership vote to replace leader Tom Mulcair happens in the month of October. Angus, Niki Ashton, Guy Caron, and Peter Julian are the candidates.
