00:09:05.620I wanted to ask you, what did you learn from
00:09:09.080not only the campaign itself, but also the end result?
00:09:12.640Yeah, I mean, going into that, I knew what the possibilities were, right? I knew that there was a chance that if the Liberals polled enough votes, that all it would do is like pave that yellow brick road for Erin.
00:09:28.360But like did not let that discourage me in any way, shape or form, because it shouldn't. Just because something's going to be hard or near impossible doesn't mean you don't do it.
00:09:36.100I definitely learned the lack of understanding of our unique political geography in North
00:09:45.040Island, Pal River, and arguably in a number of ridings across BC, where it doesn't matter
00:09:51.480what's happening on the East Coast as far as the Prime Minister is concerned for an
00:10:05.380And I think because it was a fear based election, everyone was terrified and they took this any anyone but Polly of approach.
00:10:14.500It's it freaked people out. And I think the Liberal Party championed on that really hard and made the entire country think that they had to vote for the liberals in order to keep Polly of from leadership.
00:10:26.620When realistically in North Island, Powell River specifically, that is absolutely not true. The only thing that was going to happen is what did happen is if you vote liberal, you're essentially paving the way for a conservative seat to be created.
00:10:41.480liberals haven't won here in in decades and decades and decades not even when justin trudeau
00:10:47.100was here with his fancy hair and his great personality it didn't work it didn't happen
00:10:52.100because we are blue orange we have been for forever and ever and and i i feel like that
00:10:58.020was a really hard learning for folks in north island pal river that that last election and
00:11:02.560something that we just didn't have the educational tools out early enough fast enough broad enough
00:11:07.700to really solidify to folks that your vote is orange if you want to keep out conservatives
00:11:12.780your vote is orange in North Island Power River. It is so interesting to me that so often people
00:11:19.920think that strategic voting just means vote liberal. Like I remember I was living in a
00:11:25.940riding that had been NDP for a long time in Ottawa Centre at the time. It had been NDP for a while
00:11:31.740and I was having drinks with some friends on election night and I was chatting with one of
00:11:36.860them and they said oh yeah I voted strategically in Ottawa Centre so I had to vote Liberal and I
00:11:41.140was like do you do you know how the math works down yeah we're gonna go through something here
00:11:48.100and don't be offended yeah so I really think there's like this this weird misunderstanding
00:11:52.400where people think voting strategically just means people who would otherwise vote NDP voting Liberal
00:11:56.820and they don't necessarily look at the the actual facts of the history of their writing and and what
00:12:02.760strategic voting would actually look like in that context. But, you know, I did want to ask you
00:12:07.840more broadly about, obviously, the NDP suffered a pretty brutal loss in that election. And this
00:12:16.040was something I asked on my live stream on Tuesday, and a lot of folks in the chat wanted
00:12:20.880to hear from you guys. How would you make the NDP relevant again? Yeah, I mean, we need a big
00:12:29.800change up, right? One of the biggest things for me is we need to own our faults. We need to own
00:12:36.700where we've made mistakes, where we haven't shown up. I think we relied too heavy on what we thought
00:12:42.500were pre-existing relationships, but we weren't actually honoring those relationships in a good
00:12:47.820way to realistically expect that vote to come behind us and those assurances with that. So we
00:12:54.640we need to kind of start start again start fresh accept accept our failures where they were uh
00:13:02.640listen to what folks need from us and then reinvest in those relationships and they have
00:13:07.520to be broader than you know the the labor industry so uh you know ndp champions being like the the
00:13:14.000working class party the party of the people um but a lot of folks don't identify as even being
00:13:20.240a worker. Like when I hear working class, I think of like, like the mine that my dad worked at. I
00:13:26.580think about, you know, the logging company that my uncle owns. Like I think about these types of
00:13:31.560industry, right? Not necessarily like our hairstylists that are, you know, they actually
00:13:36.400have unions that they belong to. So I think we need language that really represents a lot more
00:13:42.540Canadians that we can be that inclusive party and going to those spaces and places like touching
00:13:47.840base with our national pride collectives um across the country visiting our libraries one of our only
00:13:54.160public spaces left in the country to say hey librarians we see you we got you like like tell
00:13:59.760us what you need from us at a federal level because we don't do much federally for our our
00:14:04.000public libraries and and i think we and i think we should those folks are on the front lines of
00:14:08.400our housing crisis on the front lines of our toxic drug supply crisis and and we don't support them
00:14:13.200to do that work that they they never signed up for either i mean they're librarians like they
00:14:17.360They don't want to be, you know, witnessing some of the really hardest parts of lives of folks.
00:14:22.260Like they want to honor the, you know, the Dewey Decimal System.
00:14:29.520Get librarians back to the Dewey Decimal System, you know, by providing adequate social supports and rectifying root causes of poverty and addiction.
00:14:38.040Imagine the social media campaign around that.
00:14:45.300You know, speaking of, you know, policies and social programs and all that, you know, I was looking at what you highlighted on your website here about as your key priorities.
00:14:59.140And one thing I noticed about it, that is something that I hear the pundit class and like the panelists on various political analysts and analysis shows, yada, yada.
00:15:13.480they always come back with the same criticism and I heard them levy this at Jagmeet Singh a lot
00:15:19.320during the election too um and I don't necessarily fully buy it although as someone living in Quebec
00:15:25.480I also think that that's a very dramatic thing to say that could uh really piss some people off
00:15:31.220but a lot of the stuff that you define as key priorities will get you that classic pushback of
00:15:37.740you know those are provincial responsibilities health care education housing to a degree um
00:15:43.360How do you address these key priorities of yours without pissing off the provinces by stepping on their toes, especially in Quebec?
00:15:55.220Yeah, so I think, I mean, that's another key area where we have a ton of nation building to do.
00:16:01.060We arguably have a giant trench between the federal NDP party and the provincial NDP parties.
00:16:08.180And we need to fix that. We need to bridge that.
00:16:10.760And and we need to help is the way I see it. We sign checks over to the provinces all the time, yet we we don't really help in that space.
00:16:21.720We chuck money at a problem, but we're not necessarily moving the types of policies and legislation that we need to to actually allow our provinces to really get some stuff done.
00:16:32.380And especially in health care. I mean, our federal health transfers, in my opinion, are not nearly enough to offer our health care industry, our provinces a chance at having a really solid impact in our health care system.
00:16:48.500I mean, we just went through a pandemic. We are on like over a decade of toxic drug supply crisis
00:16:57.200in BC. It's these these challenges are monumental. And did we rise to the occasion and like
00:17:05.960permanently adjust funding to provinces? No. We sent, you know, a bunch of grants. We chucked
00:17:11.640money at a problem saying fix it, knowing that the repercussions of the pandemic are still alive
00:17:17.200and well. We have umpteen different flus now that everyone's getting. There's huge repercussions
00:17:22.860and our toxic drug supply is alive and well. So none of these things have changed yet the funding
00:17:29.120has not kept up to even give our provinces a fair shot. So I don't view it as stepping on toes but
00:17:34.600it's also how you frame it right. We should be going to our provinces saying where are like your
00:17:39.900big gaps, where are we in the way and how do we move out of the way to help you in that. So that's
00:17:46.260i view that work not necessarily kind of the big hammer coming down saying do better with less like
00:17:51.700i i don't think that's how we get anywhere we really we really need to help even like yesterday's
00:17:56.980announcement breaking down inter-provincial barriers for for purchasing a number of different
00:18:02.260goods across the country fantastic but we missed food we missed food like when all of our
00:18:11.540conversations and the bickering that's happening in the house of commons right now about the the
00:18:16.100of food costs like maybe that should have been the number one before you know being able to purchase
00:18:21.700that uh hyundai from across the border you know like so we need to set our priorities so that they
00:18:27.940match with the provinces because the provinces are doing the work they are doing they're the
00:18:32.580wheels of the vehicle you mean i can't eat lng that's wild i thought no way it's great right
00:18:40.820it's so great it'll just coat the entire inside of your body and you'll never i hear it i hear
00:18:46.260it's really good for you like uh carbon neutral or whatever same as calorie neutral definitely
00:18:51.940not carbon neutral but um so tenille i did have one last question for you before i turn to the
00:18:58.900audience and uh folks in the chat if you guys have some questions for tenille i'm gonna uh
00:19:03.940leave about seven minutes to for you guys at the end here um so feel free to drop those in the chat
00:19:10.660now. But Tenille, my last question for you is, I know you mentioned earlier, you know, on the
00:19:16.620playground, hearing some kids say racist stuff about your cousins. And I just want you to picture
00:19:23.800that little girl that you were. And she's standing in front of you. And you just became NDP leader.
00:19:33.720And I want to ask you, what do you see in the eyes of that young Indigenous girl when she looks at
00:19:40.380you and what would you say to her about it? I would say, take me to them. We're going to go
00:19:47.260have a conversation and we're going to set some stuff straight. Um, yeah, I, I hope that young
00:19:54.000indigenous people feel super empowered when us like older folks or whoever step into these
00:20:00.080positions because arguably this race was not built or structured for someone like me. It's not built
00:20:08.240for your actual average working Canadian it's not built for someone that's coming from a rural
00:20:13.740riding I'm arguably a nobody from from the middle of nowhere on the opposite side of the country
00:20:18.340of Ottawa there's there's a lot of inequities that are that are in the leadership race itself and
00:20:24.760and I believe as a party we can we can do better in that we can structure races where we are
00:20:29.560inclusive where we are lifting up people from rural areas that that that want to put their
00:20:33.920voice forward and feel they have the skills necessary to do the work that our party needs
00:20:37.480to do, especially right now where I feel like we need a nation builder. Arguably, I mean,
00:20:44.600wouldn't it be amazing if we won the prime minister spot next election, but arguably we
00:20:50.460have epic nation building to do before we do that. And I really feel that that's where my
00:20:53.980skillset is as a naturally inclusive, like collaborative person. So yeah, I think standing
00:20:59.520with our kiddos in that and showing them like how to have those strong conversations because racism
00:21:05.480is not going away um we we want to tackle it head on 100 um as a mother of two status indians um
00:21:14.900i'm very conscious of what the world's going to look like for them what it looks like right now
00:21:19.640and where they're going to have to have hard conversations because they're also white passing
00:21:22.760so they don't look they don't look native um and that carries its its own type of discrimination
00:21:28.180that that comes with it when you're when you're not you're not native enough you're not brown
00:21:33.180enough but then you're also not white enough at this at the same time so it yeah there's there's
00:21:39.340lots of work to do and i hope that those tiny kiddos feel that like i'm approachable and and
00:21:45.820that i'm willing to help in any of those really hard conversations that's great um so we did get
00:21:52.540a few questions coming in in the chat uh so the first one actually um you know you you just talked
00:21:59.740about inclusion and obviously there is a really big problem right now in Alberta um and it's
00:22:07.480happening in other provinces too uh Ninja Cupcake wants to know uh what would Tenille's plan be
00:22:15.220to tackle provinces like Alberta slashing the hell out of our civil rights like trans rights
00:22:20.380workers rights access to free health care um I'll just leave you to it do you have uh yeah I mean
00:22:26.180first like shout out it's trans day of remembrance today so shout out there please um hug your people
00:22:33.060give them some love today okay um i think alberta is a prime example of a province we need to spend
00:22:38.820a whole lot more time in it's one of those provinces that we've written off numerous
00:22:43.780ridings in alberta as being unattainable we can't go there we're never gonna win so we'll have a
00:22:49.940paper candidate and and call it a day we have some amazing human beings like i shout out calgary i
00:22:58.020see you i know you're there like there's some great humans um peace river like all you guys
00:23:04.420like there's so many rural ridings that are amazing in alberta and and i think we need to be
00:23:09.380a lot present there because to change these big things we have to win right we need to win we
00:23:14.020have to be strategic about it and we have to earn every single vote you can't just expect people to
00:23:19.220vote for you because maybe you said the right thing that one time you got to show face you got
00:23:23.860to show up and build those those networks to support each other because that's how we're going
00:23:28.260to be able to come come up against these huge challenges and and healthcare is one that i i
00:23:34.100know we need to fund better but we also need our uh canadian health act and the agreements that we
00:23:40.500have in place with provinces for what's going to happen for those money to be fairly robust
00:23:44.420right just sending a whole chunk of money with no kind of a responsibility attached to it outside
00:23:50.020of provide health care isn't enough we need specifics so that we can create accountability
00:23:54.500in those agreements so we have something to not only hold our provinces against but collect data
00:24:00.020on like where is that stuff going well how is it funded does it need more funding to actually hit
00:24:04.180the dot we need to be doing that type of work so that so that we're you know not totally reining
00:24:10.500in and controlling everything the provinces are doing but making sure there's a level of
00:24:14.500accountability for your tax dollars and that they're adequately funded to do the complex
00:24:19.780and specialized work that we're asking them to do yeah so we have another question here that
00:24:25.540i think is a good one which is how will you encourage the strategic voters to support the ndp
00:24:32.500yeah so this comes down to education and and i would love us and this is my whole thing too is
00:24:39.140is like every day, not just election day, showing up, showing up, showing up all the time. We're
00:24:43.480present everywhere all year long. It doesn't matter if it's election year or not. We need
00:24:48.020our candidates out early. We need those education pieces that shows folks what their political
00:24:54.560geography looks like in each of their ridings. Because even in the last election, talking to
00:24:59.800folks that were in different areas of the country, I urged them to talk to their EDAs,
00:25:04.720pull up their voting history and figure out how their riding sits because if it is truly like
00:25:10.720anyone but polyev like sometimes that does mean that the liberals are going to win in a riding
00:25:15.940that's going to keep a conservative seat out and that's a tough pill to swallow that's you know
00:25:20.800that's that's not you know all ndp all day long every single time but we have to be conscious of
00:25:26.860this stuff this is a part of the strategy that builds better coalitions that builds better
00:25:31.240relationships that can get you to that that um majority seat in in the house of commons but we
00:25:39.320have to be smart of it and we have to be out there nice and early we i know there's a lot of work
00:25:44.120happening right now within the ndp to do that that research um into how the last election went and
00:25:50.600bringing that forward but we need that information to get to every single member we need everyone to
00:25:55.880understand what happened in their riding and we can be doing all that work right now arguably we
00:26:00.120should have started as soon as possible resourcing EDAs to be able to do that educational piece out
00:26:06.360to their membership to to highlight um that history within each riding because that's the
00:26:11.880only way to do it there's there's no central strategic one-liner that's going to fit across
00:26:18.360the country it has to be EDA by EDA yeah well Tenille I wish there's more questions in the chat
00:26:25.640and I wish I could ask them, but I want to make sure we have time to do everything we have planned
00:26:31.080for today's episode. So I'll have to wrap it up there. I'm sorry, guys. I'm sure you can follow
00:26:36.000Tennille on socials and ask her these questions directly yourself. So Tennille, I'll give you the
00:26:41.000chance if you'd like to just tell people where they can keep up with you and how to support you
00:26:46.100if they liked what they heard today. Yeah, totally. So I'm on almost every social media
00:26:51.220platform that's reasonable i am not on x just to put that out there um i'm on mastodon if anyone
00:26:57.860knows what mastodon is or you want to know check it out um so yeah google me any social media
00:27:03.220platform that suits your abilities your needs the way you communicate find me on it uh shoot me an
00:27:08.100email shoot me a message on on facebook i do try to be as responsive as possible instagram's another
00:27:13.700good one you can message me on there and i try to get back to people in a in a fairly timely way
00:27:18.580because i want to personally answer your questions i want to be the person that you're hearing from
00:27:22.580um and i'd be more than happy to do that and then obviously if you ever get a chance to maybe hit
00:27:27.460the donate button we're fundraising like crazy right now because we want to stay on that ballot
00:27:31.860and the price tag is hefty so please anything you can five bucks 20 bucks the max at 1750 if
00:27:39.220you're really feeling it uh really great really really appreciate it and that's you can find that
00:27:43.700that on my website at Tenille.ca. Great. Thank you so much, Tenille. And Tenille will be back
00:27:49.700in about half an hour after we chat with our next guest. So thank you, Tenille. I'm going to
00:27:55.900pull you off screen now. So that was Tenille Johnston. But now it's time to turn to our
00:28:04.420other leadership hopeful today. As I already mentioned, Tony is a farmer who is seeking to
00:28:10.720merge the NDP and the Greens to mitigate vote splitting, which we just talked about a lot. So
00:28:16.820I think we're going to continue having a really good conversation about that. Tony also, like
00:28:21.900many Canadians, would like to see electoral reform in our country. On top of that, he's running on
00:28:29.360four R's, representation, regeneration, redesign, and redistribution. He's also talking about four
00:28:39.500Ds, but I'm going to let him tell you about those. Tony says that his approach prioritizes
00:28:45.800cooperation over division, renewable energy over resource depletion, and fairness over unchecked
00:28:52.520inequality. So with that, Tony, welcome to Bubble Pop. Well, thank you, Rachel. And I should correct,
00:29:00.060I made the mistake of doing a wordplay when I first announced it talking about the green
00:29:05.180democratic progressives and talking about a merger. So we'd have GDP as the initial because
00:29:13.660the economists love GDP, which ignores the main half of the economy, which is the unwaged part,
00:29:20.760which is mother nature and our communities and families. So that was sort of a joke.
00:29:25.260We don't have time to go through the process of trying to merge parties. But what we do need to
00:29:31.020do is figure out how people who are concerned about the environment and concerned about
00:29:36.840people in their community work together so we don't split the vote.
00:29:41.000And that's my first R, representation, because, you know, the first past the post system has
00:29:47.460been in place since confederation when only rich men had the vote.
00:29:53.100And after the first world war, when women and ordinary working people got the vote,
00:29:57.660They didn't change the system, so it has continued to keep the 99% from being fairly and adequately
00:30:06.200And until we change that, we're never going to get on to my regeneration, redistribution,
00:30:12.800and redesign ours, or all the good things that Tennille was talking about.
00:30:16.480So we've got to face up to that, and the whole thing about strategic voting is the political
00:30:22.320parties that believe that the environment and people are important need to behave strategically
00:30:28.160by talking way before an election and say, well, what can we agree on? We can disagree about stuff
00:30:36.000and that's fine. Any relationship, you're likely to disagree on some things. But what do we agree
00:30:40.460on? And do we agree that we got to close tax loopholes? Do we agree that a progressive wealth
00:30:46.460tax would make sense? What do we agree on? What do we agree on about the environment? What do we
00:30:51.940agree about how we really build a nation by investing in our communities across Canada,
00:30:58.420and then put together a program, and then only run one candidate for that program in
00:31:03.520each riding. So people know what the strategic vote is in their riding if they're concerned
00:31:07.740about the environment and concerned about building a Canada that works for people. Don't
00:31:12.000leave strategic voting up for them to try and figure out which of these people is under
00:31:18.120the right where's the p under the shell no let's figure that out and make sure it's really clear
00:31:23.400to them that's the strategic thing that the the parties and the leaders of the parties need to do
00:31:28.600so that's my first star but i'll let you go back to you because i know that's fine yeah if you'd
00:31:35.240like to keep explaining your r's because i was going to ask you about what sets you apart from
00:31:39.880the other leadership candidates and it sounds like that's part of it well it's certainly part of it
00:31:44.920I mean, I think one of the things that sets me apart is I'm a few years older than most of the
00:31:49.320candidates. So you put Tennille and me together, we'd make a great team. But I bring 45 years of
00:31:57.000experience to this process. I've run five times federally, twice provincially. I was a school
00:32:02.360board trustee for three terms, and I served as the executive assistant to the minister of agriculture.
00:32:08.200And I got involved in politics, not because I wanted to be a politician, because I like being
00:32:14.120a farmer but i got involved in politics during the high interest rate and energy crisis of the 1970s
00:32:22.360energy prices quadrupled and then they doubled again during that decade of the 70s
00:32:27.640and our brilliant leaders at the time and the conservative and liberal parties and
00:32:31.720their advisors decided that the way you fight inflation caused by energy price escalation
00:32:38.120which of course creates a huge inflationary wave across the economy because so everything depends
00:32:43.960to some extent on energy they fought it with high interest rates which just made the waves higher
00:32:51.240because for homeowners and farmers and small businesses now here was one more increased
00:32:57.640expense to their lives in operation so what they really did and what really made was clear to me
00:33:04.120is they created an excuse for creating a system that transferred wealth from farmers and small
00:33:09.480businesses and homeowners to the 1%, to the rich who already were the bankers and had big deposits
00:33:15.080in the banks. And it just was a crooked scheme. And it still is the way we've got our economy
00:33:20.760structured and our tax system structured. But Ed Broadbent was the person who made sense to me.
00:33:25.480So I got involved in politics because I wanted to change the way we treated the planet
00:33:30.600and how we treated each other. So I bring that longstanding conviction for well over 50 years
00:33:37.720because I felt that way before, but I really got politicized for the 1980 federal election.
00:33:47.560Representation is first because until we deal with that first-past-the-post system and actually
00:33:52.760get a proportional system in place, we have to figure out how to work together
00:33:56.760when those are the rules we're playing with. But then regeneration because, you know,
00:34:02.440this i'll get into the deep part our our leadership has been delusional for the last 45 years
00:34:09.720we knew i took an environmental studies degree at waterloo while i was farming
00:34:13.800and we knew in the 70s we'd seen photographs of the planet taken from the apollo missions right
00:34:20.760we knew it's this little space in space with a little atmosphere and a living film of people
00:34:27.560plants, animals on the surface. And you can't keep expanding energy and resource consumption
00:34:33.520in that. And you can't keep dumping into that atmosphere without serious consequences. But
00:34:39.220for the last 45 years, we've had a capitalist, corporate, consumerist ideology that tells us
00:34:46.320that we've got to keep growing. And we've got to keep growing what really is a cancer on the
00:34:52.380planet now in terms of how our economy works. And as a farmer, I see the shredding of the
00:34:58.380life support system that we have. When I was married 50 years ago in our orchard, it was just
00:35:04.160with the bees in the full blooms. And this year, 50 years on our anniversary date, I went out into
00:35:11.040our orchard and it was silent. And I saw an insect there, an insect there, an insect there.
00:35:16.260And, you know, insects are a very important part of the food web of life. And, you know, we are moving into a place where if we don't start, well, if we don't stop doing the damage and start healing the damage, we are not creating a space that's going to be good for my kids and grandkids.
00:35:37.780So that's why regeneration is second. We've really got to do this. And I think we can do it because what gives me hope is what I hear from people across the country in communities, nature clubs, pollution cleanup groups, all sorts of different things, people naturalizing their yards.
00:35:57.880that people want to do something but they need support and leadership to do that and that would
00:36:03.000be nation building because you could provide that support across the country people figuring out how
00:36:07.240to change the transportation so that they create maybe a municipal uber so regeneration we got to
00:36:13.400get on it but then the redistribution part you know our economy has been structured by people
00:36:19.160who believe that you want to accumulate capital for it to work well well they've done a really
00:36:23.320good job man when i got involved in the 80s we were talking about millionaires now we're talking
00:36:29.160about multi billionaires and there's a big difference between a million and a billion
00:36:33.960rachel because if i told you you had a million seconds to live you'd have 11 days but if i told
00:36:41.000you you had a billion seconds to live you'd have 31 years so it's just you know when you write it
00:36:48.040it's an m or a b or three zeros but you know when it's 31 years to 11 days that gives you a sense
00:36:54.360of how out of proportion really obscenely out of proportion things have gotten so we need you know
00:37:00.360we need a wealth tax uh we need a closing loopholes and we need to recognize that the rich
00:37:08.440need to pay for the services they get because they'll use airports uh seaports the road system
00:37:14.600the legal system, all that a lot more than a homeless person on the streets in Ottawa,
00:37:19.320which unfortunately I got to see when I was at the Canadian Labor Congress Forum.
00:37:24.040And so finally, the fourth R is redesign, because we need to work with people across Canada on how
00:37:31.240we redesign our communities and our activities so that we meet our basic needs while using a lot
00:37:37.320less energy and a lot fewer resources and figure out how to take what we have and share it in a
00:37:43.400way that benefits and builds our communities in a truly regenerative and long-term healthy
00:37:49.240sustainable manner. So that's where my 4Rs come from. These are the delusional thinking,
00:37:55.400the denialist behavior that they are engaged in which is saying, well, we can just keep on this
00:37:59.400track. Stability and growth, stability and growth. No, I do not want to stabilize a system that has
00:38:05.160created this kind of inequity in society in terms of wealth. And the people who produce the wealth
00:38:11.080aren't getting to share in it and that also is taking us down the track growing us into
00:38:16.920ecological collapse so you know we can't keep accepting their denial of reality and then we
00:38:24.680certainly got to stop the destructive choices i mean when i when i see carney talk at nation
00:38:29.320building about liquid liquefied natural gas pipelines large non-modular nuclear reactors
00:38:36.360and then more mining and more mineral extraction and then his second tier is uh is carbon capture
00:38:44.520by the people who brought you carbon release um what a bunch of um as a farmer we can take
00:38:52.520carbon dioxide out of the air through photosynthesis and growing plants if we invest in
00:38:57.960helping farmers do stuff they already you know know how to do and expand the um
00:39:04.360carbon capturing things there are benefits to farmers in terms of soil quality
00:39:09.240and better better crop growth and production there's benefits in terms of water retention
00:39:15.960because lands more porous when it has higher carbon or higher organic matter in it which
00:39:21.160reduces the risk of flooding downstream and from the farmer's perspective if you get a big rain
00:39:26.680it also means you hold on to it so if then you then followed by a drought there are win-win
00:39:31.400solutions out there but our current leadership are not interested in them because they don't
00:39:36.200make money for the corporate elite and so that's something we've got to address and understand
00:39:41.640i'll slow down there for a minute no no that was fantastic i think the whole point of these
00:39:47.640interviews is to give people an intro into who you and teneal are so uh you know feel free to
00:39:53.480to go on as long as you want i uh yeah well from i've been a holistic management certified
00:40:00.360educator for about the last 15 years but we took our first holistic management course
00:40:05.560back in the mid 90s and it was transformational for our farm which is why i became an educator
00:40:10.840some years later um but the idea of holistic management was that you know things there are
00:40:17.800complex things and there are complicated things my tractor's complicated the airplane's complicated
00:40:23.080but they they have linear relationships in a lot of the ways they connect a ranch a farm a family
00:40:29.320a country those are complex there's so many different things going on in them so you need
00:40:35.480management systems that let you manage complex systems and adapt so that you keep going toward
00:40:42.600a goal rather than assuming well we made the plan and now we just stick to it um so
00:40:49.320when i first was thinking about running i asked the people on my uh email contact list
00:40:56.120whether they thought it was a good idea whether they thought these concerns were worth
00:40:59.960putting at a national leadership process and got pretty good response on it but i also asked them
00:41:05.800what would you want for the quality of life in canada what would you hope for the future vision
00:41:10.760and what are some of the things you think we need to do to make that happen and i created what is a
00:41:16.840holistic goal for canada and i'd like to to read it um to you because the one of the real values
00:41:22.600of a holistic goal is by stating quality of life and vision it gives you something to aim for and
00:41:28.440i think that the quality of life goals here in in this holistic goal for canada would be something
00:41:34.600that could unify people because i believe we have to reach out well beyond the membership of the ndvp
00:41:41.160or the membership of the ndp and the green party we need to build a green progressive coalition
00:41:46.600of people who are concerned about the planet and they are concerned about their community
00:41:51.320and their family and want to figure out how we make something that works for both of those and
00:41:56.840so i i think we have to reach out to the over 50 of people who've given up on voting and i agree
00:42:02.760with teneal we have to have people understand and i don't know if you can see my cake chart in the
00:42:07.000back here but it's a cake chart designed by a woman named hazel henderson who said i'm tired
00:42:12.760of power charts i'm an economist but i'm tired of power charts i want a cake chart and their cake
00:42:17.800chart has nature at the bottom the family and community is the next layer the public sector
00:42:23.160and then the private sector and she said the really important thing to remember about a layer
00:42:28.200cake is every layer depends on all the layers below it and you know part of the problem from
00:42:34.360our economist point of view is these two layers don't show up in gdp because they're the unmonetized
00:42:40.120stuff so if we only use gdp as a measure of how well we're doing and what we should be doing
00:42:47.000we are neglecting the workers who are the unwaged workers in the family and community layer,
00:42:52.920which are somebody coaching the ball team or the hockey team, mom looking after the kids at home,
00:42:58.600somebody with a partner who has a disability and they're having to do care for. That whole layer
00:43:05.640is critical work for a society to succeed. And we need to make sure that when we talk about workers,
00:43:11.880the 99% understand that they're all part of what we're talking about with workers.
00:43:17.560And then when you get to the next layers, there's waged workers that are unionized,
00:43:23.000and there are wage workers that are not. And we need to be sure that people understand
00:43:27.240their people we're talking about, both in the public sector and the private sector.
00:43:31.960But it's the top three layers of that cake that are the people that I think we need to
00:43:37.400be working with and working for to create a green progressive movement.
00:43:40.840and so we need to reach out to the people who've stopped voting but we also need to reach out to
00:43:45.400the disillusioned liberals and the concerned conservatives who are starting to understand
00:43:51.080that the people who actually run their party and make the decisions are not them they are the one
00:43:57.160percent in canada and they've been doing it since confederation and before confederation
00:44:01.960that's why we have to solve the issue of first past the post but it's also if we're going to
00:44:05.960get a country that works for canadians the 99 have to be represented fairly around the table
00:44:13.400and you know our electoral system is rigged so let me let me read you the holistic goal
00:44:18.440for canada and then um that so quality of life as a country we meet the basic needs for water
00:44:25.800food shelter clothing health care and education for every canadian resident everyone has access
00:44:33.640to fresh air clean water and healthy green space everyone has time and energy for themselves their
00:44:40.440families their friends their occupation everyone has an opportunity to contribute and be involved
00:44:46.680in their community so that's the quality of life people have and this is a goal i know we're not
00:44:51.640there now and we'll never get there unless we get control of the decisions that governments make to
00:44:58.280help us get there but that's the quality of life the vision is canada is a compare a caring
00:45:04.920compassionate country both to its residents at home and the broader world community we make
00:45:11.240decisions carefully considering their impact on the planet the people and the economy the earth
00:45:17.800is healing communities are thriving and conflict at home and abroad is decreasing now how many
00:45:24.440people don't think that would be a nice idea. That's the vision that hopefully people can
00:45:29.880come together behind and then say, okay, how do we get there? And then in the holistic goal,
00:45:36.120there's three parts. And the third part is what are the systems and behaviors you have to do
00:45:41.000and work on to make this real? And that is we develop mechanisms for participatory democracy
00:45:48.440and proportional representation so that all voices can contribute to discussions and decisions
00:45:54.440from the local to the national level we support locally designed projects to enhance local well
00:46:00.680being and resilience we prioritize stable regenerative food production with adequate
00:46:06.440local processing and distribution to meet domestic needs before focusing on exports
00:46:12.680we work with provinces municipalities housing cooperatives and housing non-profits to build
00:46:18.520affordable and inclusive ecological housing we work with provinces and municipalities to address
00:46:25.000and discourage real estate speculation and profiteering we ensure that one full-time job
00:46:31.080can cover the basic cost of living for a family using a living wage supported by a fair tax system
00:46:37.480and guaranteed annual income we support non-violent communication and conflict conflict resolution
00:46:44.760from the individual to the national and international level and once you have your
00:46:50.440holistic goal then every time you're making a decision passing a law developing a program
00:46:58.520exploring a policy you test it against that decision that goal and say is this going to
00:47:04.440take us toward it and it worked wonders in terms of our farm and family when we did that and it's
00:47:11.800been used at municipal levels in community organizations as well as on farms and ranches
00:47:18.440and so you know that's what i would say is you know if if this is something that sounds good
00:47:24.280no you know it's just pie in the sky and no friggin government ever delivers what it says
00:47:28.920it's going to do well people people can feel that way because that's the way the damn system's
00:47:34.200working and will continue to work as long as we leave the power in the hands of the one percent
00:47:39.880but we can change that if we create a green progressive movement for all the people who do
00:47:46.840want something that will work for their families and work for their community and work for the
00:47:52.120planet and that that to me is why i'm in this race because i mean after the 2025 elections
00:47:59.480in ontario and federally i felt i could either lie down in despair or get on with stuff but
00:48:06.360But how much time do we have left in this part of the thing, Rachel?
00:48:11.360Well, I was going to probably ask you a quick final question
00:48:15.060while I give the audience a chance to ask some stuff and put it in the chat.
00:48:20.080So the one thing that I, and I guess I'll go ahead with that,
00:48:25.340if that's all right with you, time-wise.
00:48:28.220By being a typical politician, I may or may not answer it
00:48:30.880because there's something I need to say.
00:48:34.680So I just quickly wanted to ask you about, you know, and maybe this is me being the it's never going to happen person you were referring to.
00:48:45.400But, you know, that's sometimes the foil that the journalist plays. Right.
00:48:49.100And I did want to ask you, I mean, we saw Justin Trudeau.
00:48:53.080He promised electoral reform and, you know, broke his promise on that regard.
00:49:00.000And I think that was in large part also because of the fact that he was so wedded to the idea of a ranked ballot rather than actually listening to what experts and what the outcome of the study was when they studied the question.
00:49:14.420But, you know, that was the closest that we've gotten on a federal level to achieving electoral reform.
00:49:19.440And I wanted to ask you both sort of how you would suggest we approach this differently to actually achieve it and also how you would go about convincing people to join this sort of green progressive movement if they feel a lot of loyalty to the sort of more tribal party politics that exists now.
00:49:38.700Well, as I say, I think if we build a strong enough green progressive movement that doesn't
00:49:47.280run competing candidates in ridings, we could get there in the next election.
00:49:52.660And with the way things are going in terms of both the environment, I see ecological
00:49:56.860collapse from a farmer's viewpoint on the ground level, and I see social collapse at
00:57:27.360and particularly with respect to Tennille specifically to help her candidacy in this way?
00:57:32.880Well, my sense is that Abby Lewis is probably not going to have a big fundraising problem.
00:57:38.320I hope Heather doesn't have one, but she's already been an MP. She's got connections across.
00:57:44.240Rob, I assume, has pretty good union connections. I didn't call him to check on that,
00:57:50.560but I assume he's got some people who can donate close to the upper limit that you're allowed to
00:57:55.840donate. But Tennille and I are coming from this from a place of relatively national ignorance
00:58:01.920about who we are and what we offer. And we've had to build a campaign that then became a national
00:58:08.720campaign in a very, very short period of time with three very high financial hurdles. I mean,
00:58:14.800if the party had just taken the inflation rate to what the last leadership was,
00:58:21.040this wouldn't be a problem for me or Tennille because it would have been at $38,000.
00:58:25.840for the whole campaign. Not $100,000, but $133,000 of donation because the party is taking 25% of
00:58:34.160each donation. So my sense was that, and the reality was we got the nomination signatures
00:58:41.760and I got wonderful support from people in Huron-Bruce who've already worked with me for
00:58:46.940the last 45 years and know me. In fact, we're going to have to send some money back because
00:58:50.940one of our seniors has donated twice and they've over overdone the limit right um and it just came
00:58:57.980in yesterday so we got to figure out how to send money back to them but but we didn't i didn't have
00:59:04.140that kind of national exposure or experience from people who've known me and worked with me
00:59:09.180so we didn't make the first 25 000 it's a place where i had to draw on my my i still have a little
00:59:16.220business in terms of my consulting and our solar panel and a little bit of pay that my daughter
00:59:21.280pays me for working on the farm. I had to draw it out of that account and out of our personal account
00:59:27.300to send enough money to our campaign to pay the first $25,000. And so at some point, we'll need
00:59:34.860to raise the money. I think it's, my chief financial officer tells me it has to be a loan.
00:59:40.800i can't just give it um but i would like to get it back actually so hopefully after teniel's good
00:59:50.400and if i keep going it's all good we'll eventually raise enough money over 133 000 to pay me back
00:59:58.240but if i don't make it through this next hurdle then our campaign will be needing to figure out
01:00:03.920how to pay me back and pay a bunch of expenses because we've just been absorbing i've just been
01:00:08.240absorbing one at this point but we are going to be in montreal and i will be trying to use my
01:00:14.800two years of high school french from over 50 years ago to uh do a little something off i'll say um
01:00:22.560but we're coming we're going to ride share it there so we're going to have a little band that
01:00:27.040somebody has and we're all going to put in some gas money and we're going to get there because
01:00:31.920ride sharing is one of the best ways to reduce to increase the passenger kilometers per liter
01:00:39.200and to reduce the amount of vehicle traffic on the road so we're going to not only walk
01:00:44.880our talk but drive our talk as well so i might skip ahead and kind of do the little lightning
01:00:51.520round now if that's okay with you guys but tony before i do can you tell people where they can
01:00:56.320follow your campaign and keep up with you and support you and i guess also cheneal
01:01:01.920well there's um yeah uh at at tony mcwayo green progressive dot ca that's our website was started
01:01:09.600by a high school student who liked what i was saying and and came on board to start it and it's
01:01:15.680now got some other folks helping because his life got busy i'm apparently on a number of
01:01:19.840social media platforms that being an old farmer i don't know much about but there's we've got
01:01:25.760a wonderful team putting on blue sky mastodon um instagram i think there's some on x possibly on
01:01:34.720twitter um and if you want to get sort of connected to our instagram stuff if you go to our website
01:01:40.400and go to my campaign launch that's an instagram uh one um but uh yeah and and i'm i i know very
01:01:50.160little about running a website but i think maybe we'll try and put an x on the donate section of
01:01:56.560button on ours for a while and say go go to teniel's until we hear that they've got the money
01:02:02.400they need wow anyway that's great okay so one of the lightning things i just thought of that i
01:02:09.200really want to do is can i hear each of you say a little sentence in french about you know uh how
01:02:15.760you feel about next week's debate just one little sentence just go for it who wants to go first
01:02:37.760what would i say um a word that describes i mean bien i guess like good
01:02:45.760oh my god this is funny i'm looking forward to seeing how the debate goes i think it'll be a
01:02:57.980fun watch for the french components but uh i take it you guys are practicing your french though you
01:03:03.500know yeah for sure yeah my brain is like so challenged by it because my adult life has
01:03:12.340spent trying to learn licola which is like incredibly different so i went to start trying
01:03:18.660to read french and i was like my brain is like um what are you trying to make me do
01:03:24.020so it's just i was like wow that that brings up something that i think is really important to say
01:03:31.220as long as we let language or race or sexuality or sexual orientation divide us as a people
01:03:40.260we will always be under the thumb of the one percent. I will never be fluent in French,
01:03:46.660but I also won't be fluent in the more than 70 indigenous languages that are part of the nation.
01:03:52.580I don't speak Ukrainian. We have to accept that unless you plan to be a career politician and
01:04:00.340then go polish your French or go into schools where you were groomed to be one of the elite
01:04:07.460in this country you may not know french or you may not know english but does that mean that you can't
01:04:14.100i found when we had katimovic billets that i got along a lot better with the kids from working
01:04:19.940class quebec on the farm than i did with white privileged kids from rosemont and so we need to
01:04:28.260figure out how to not let race, language divide us in ways that disempower us as the 99% who
01:04:39.780make this country go round, who create the wealth of it, and have a real big vested interest in
01:04:45.940having an ecology in Canada that lasts and that we can all live in.
01:04:51.780yeah it's a very uh heartwarming message i uh i did also want to ask each of you to uh maybe in
01:05:02.420like ideally a sentence or less but if you if you need to do a little more that's okay too
01:05:07.460um i i really would love to hear one thing that you've heard from another leader ship hopeful
01:05:15.140not leader, leadership hopeful in this campaign that you thought was really great.
01:05:22.740And one thing that you found concerning or really disagreed with from another candidate
01:05:28.180in this campaign. So whoever wants to go first. I think Rob Ashton's comment that you need leaders
01:05:38.020who actually, when they put on working boots, they fit and have been broken in by working in them
01:05:43.040for a number of days and years rather than people who put on work boots for the photo op thank you
01:05:49.900Pierre so that was your uh your good one yeah good one yeah man there's there's there's a lot
01:05:59.740that we agree on there's a yeah there's a lot that we agree on so um one thing that's uh different
01:06:06.820on my campaign but um something that I don't disagree with on on another one that I would
01:06:11.280still support is like Avi's approach to electrifying buses. I think it's great. I think
01:06:17.080it's a plan that does use Canadian steel. I think putting electrified buses all over the country is
01:06:22.260a really great idea. My preference is rail for lots of reasons, but not something that I don't
01:06:28.520disagree with. I think we need variety in our approach to transportation that's accessible and
01:06:33.480can help all communities so yeah nice all right now be mean what's your uh oh god I find it I
01:06:41.980find it very endearing that you both immediately had the the positives and but you don't have to
01:06:48.380name the candidate if you don't well I'll say one thing that is kind of a blanket statement
01:06:52.200that has maybe um come up in a number of ways throughout this leadership race is
01:06:57.400is there is this um folks are trying to make a direct comparison to Mamdani
01:07:03.500and i have a soft spot sore spot for when minority successes are leveraged by privileged people
01:07:14.380and in this leadership race there is a lot of privilege that exists
01:07:18.780and and seeing the news articles and stuff come out and just conversations that are happening and
01:07:24.620and that minority success being leveraged for for the potential success of another person
01:07:29.420that is arguably white um is is challenging for me like i really it just it hits me differently
01:07:36.220when i when i see that when i witness that and i have not really inserted myself much in those
01:07:40.300conversations i wouldn't say i avoid it but i'm conscious of that each individual minority's
01:07:45.660success is should be celebrated for what it is and honored for what it is and not leveraged for
01:07:50.380someone else's you know uh opportunities that's actually i think a really important reminder and
01:07:55.660kind of call-in moment for all of us to recognize that Zoran Mamdani, I mean everyone in the
01:08:01.500progressive world is just aching to be compared to him, and I've certainly thrown it out there
01:08:07.420at folks too, but I think it's really important not to diminish the aspect that this was the victory
01:08:12.300of also a racialized person, and that's something that we need to remember and not diminish. So
01:08:17.900thank you for that, Tanil. That's really poignant. Tony, how about you? You gotta...
01:08:22.860Well, yeah, I think if there's a concern that I have is it's really easy to talk about being green and the environment, but I'm not hearing a clear call to get off the capitalist, corporate, consumerist, growth-oriented train crash that we're on.
01:08:43.720And so I'm not I'm not hearing people. And that's why I wanted to be in this race is to talk about degrowth, to talk about the need to severely reduce or significantly reduce our energy and resource use while figuring out how we do that while maintaining and improving the lives of people.
01:09:02.260As a small farmer for the last 50 plus years, we've had to live a frugal life.
01:09:10.040So materially, it's been a pretty frugal life, but it's also been an incredibly rich and wonderful life in terms of friendships and community and family.
01:09:19.140And as a farmer, I'm so blessed to be able to be out working in nature 95% of the time sleety days moving the cattle are not always a joy.
01:09:29.260But we have to figure out how we can get off the hamster wheel that that capitalist corporate consumer society has most people on.
01:09:41.100And that by limiting their access to housing, to food, to making that always a desperate struggle, means that we're destroying the planet on which we need to live so that the rich can get richer.
01:09:53.120Because that was the other thing that, you know, my father was an accountant and he told me two things.