Jack Layton is the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, a Position he has held since

2003. During a stopover in British Columbia, Layton agreed to sit down to an inter

the Other Press. 2

OP: On behalf of the Other Press I’d would like to thank you for agreeing to this

_ interview, Pll just jump into the issues right away. The NDP has been around a long”

- time, almost 75 years. You’ve had nine different leaders and yet the party still struggles
to win more than 20% of the vote. Why do you think that is? :

~ LAYTON: Well, first of all we have struggled to break through into Quebec. I think that’s

now changing. I think one of the reasons why the members made the choice to chose me as

leader was because I was born in and grew up in Quebec. We're working hard to break

through in Quebec because Quebec is a very progressive place. But they’re had this debate

about whether tobe in or out of Canada, the “national question” as it soon became called,

and they’ve had the Bloc Quebecois occupying space that really, New Democrats would most

naturally fit into. And also they’ve had the Liberal Party as the other choice, if you didn’t want

the Bloc. :

Well that’s all beginning to change now. We've seen the beginning of that with Stephen Harper

getting some seats there, from the right of the political spectrum, and we're seeing some

growth for the NDP too. I think thats key to opening up the level of support here.

Secondly, we had for a period of time a kind of prairie populism on the right; the Reform

Party. But they've now merged with the Conservatives and that process is still kind of going

on. Stephen Harper is still seen by some people as a populist to the right, but the longer he’s in

power, supporting Big Oil and gas companies for instance, and not helping out kids with their

education or helping out seniors—giving the GST rebate instead of investing in seniors’

health—I think there is going to be more and more skepticism there.

OP: I’ve interviewed Svend Robinson a couple of times. Last time, I asked him if the

NDP had peaked in terms of electoral success and political relevance, and he said “no

no no.” He felt very strongly that an NDP government would be elected in his lifetime.
Do you believe that’s likely to happen?

LAYTON: Yes. :

OP: In the last election it sounded like you’d sort of resigned yourself to the idea of
the NDP as the force of influence but not a force of government.

LAYTON: Well, each election has its dynamics and as you get down towards the close of an

election campaign certain things become relatively cleat.

What I’m asking Canadians to do- and I think it’s probably the first time in a generation one of

our party leaders has asked this of Canadians- is to consider an NDP-led government in the
next election.

Why? Because I think we have.a very positive vision of the country to offer the people. that is
in syne with the values of the majority of people. Secondly, I think the Conservatives are clear-
ly taking the country in a direction that most people actually do not support. Third- the
Liberals were there for 13 years, and they’ve only been out for a few months, and there’s no
reason to believe that if they came back there they would suddenly start doing what they didn’t
do for all that period of time. Canadians actually do have a choice here.

OP: So going into the next Seenen you believe the office of Prime Minister is within
your grasp?

LAYTON: Yes

OP: Critics ak the NDP often describe the party as being socialist, with the term
intended as an insult.

I was just wondering if “socialist” is still a label that you personally are comfortable
with.

LAYTON; Sure. I mean it’s sometimes called democratic socialism or it’s sometimes called

_ social-democracy, there are quite lengthy debates that can be had about the order of the words,

that the

and which words exactly are chosen. But I’m very comfortable with the term because what w
have in mind is an approach that puts the needs of people in the forefront, and recognizes
7 to mi key needs is through a collective approach; in our health-
care system, early childhood care, education, cate for seniors, some of those broad-brush

approach ss. That’s

something that even all the Premiers, of all stripes, are now advocating, So it’s sotcrepeny,

why we’re advocating a national pharmacare program for instance. It’s

because it’s clearly a socialist idea. _

On the other hand, we believe that wealth creation, the pursuit of prosperity, individual enter
prise, and a strong commercial and market sector are all very important. There does need to |
some regulation to deal with issues like the environment, exploitation of people, or safety for
instance. But innovation and creativity absolutely should be promoted, and that’s why we sup
port the idea of an industrial strategy that would help us there.

OP: What did you make of Hugo Chavez’ recent speech to the United Nations?
LAYTON: Well, I wouldn’t use language like that. I don’t know why somebody would use thz
kind of language. I don’t think that naming wrong policy, and calling those who pursue those
policies wrong is something appropriate to do. I don’t believe in his kind of labeling, myself.
don’t see how it advances, ultimately, the issues that we need to be dealing with.

Some of what has happened in Venezuela, such as the fact that they have a publicly-owned o
company, are things we’ve advocated. We pushed for the creation of Petro Canada and it was
great tragedy when Mulroney began to sell it off, and Chretien accelerated the sale. Where
would we be now if we still owned it? We could be using the profits of an old energy regime
to dramatically transform the way we produce and use energy in this country. We would have
had a tool, a vitally important tool. But now that it’s just another multi-national out there
around the world, squeezing out as much profits as it can from the world’s resources. We've
lost an opportunity there, where as the Venezuelans have kept their public ownership of thei
resources, as have the Mexicans. They’ve been frankly smarter about it than we have.

OP: One of the big polarizing issues of the current political climate is, of course,
Afghanistan. You recently wrote an editorial for the Toronto Star in which you said th
Afghanistan “cannot be won militarily” and that we need to put “reconstruction, dev
opment, and aid ahead of counter-insurgency”

My question is how can we even begin to reconstruct Afghanistan when the country /
still full of suicide bombers and other jihadists who have proven themselves more tha
willing to blow up schools, government buildings, economic centers, and the rest of
the country’s infrastructure? Shouldn’t getting rid of the people who oppose recon-
struction be priority number one?

LAYTON: Well, first the approach we are recommending is already underway in most of the
country, But because there is a war in the south of the country, and with the acceleration of
that wat we have produced more terrorist attacks in the rest of the country where headway
was beginning to be made with reconstruction. So not only is the war effort in the south bac
for the south, where people are being evacuated from the communities where supposedly
schools are being built, instead they're being evacuated and not going to school at all, but
rather going to refugee camps. The whole effort of war in the south is fueling the growth of
counter-insurgency and producing recruits. It is emboldening people elsewhere in the counts
to attack because they’re able to say that “we are fighting against an occupation of foreign
forces.” And what you’re finding is that care groups, including CARE itself, have had to sta
pulling out of Afghanistan since the war escalation in the south began. And now you're getti
less and less reconstruction.

So I think what we've learned from that is we should not be conducting an aggressive war, t
instead focusing on security issues and defense. But that’s very different than what’s happeni
in the south.

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