Front Burner - Avi Lewis on a Green New Deal for Canada

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

Filmmaker and activist Avi Lewis has just announced he’ll be running to be an NDP MP in the next federal election. He speaks to Jayme about why he’s decided to enter the political ring, and whether the NDP — and Canadians — are ready for his ambitious vision of a Green New Deal.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. You might know Avi Lewis as the filmmaker behind documentaries like The Shock Doctrine and The Take, or as the former host of CBC Newsworld shows like Counterspin, or as the former host of the Al Jazeera show Fault Lines, or as the husband of of the Al Jazeera show Fault Lines, or as the husband of Canadian

author Naomi Klein, or as one of the people behind the once controversial Leap Manifesto. Or this might be the first time you're hearing his name. But whatever the case, Avi Lewis is now hoping to add another title to that long list, a member of parliament for the NDP party. Today, my conversation with Avi about why he's decided to enter the political ring and whether the NDP and Canadians are ready for his ambitious vision of a Green New Deal. Avi Lewis, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

It's great to have you. So look, I think I got to start here. Your grandfather, David Lewis, was the federal NDP leader. Your father was the Ontario NDP leader. And for years, as you know, people have asked you if you were also going to run for the NDP. And until now, you've said no. And in fact, in 2016, you even told my colleague Jonathan Gatehouse at McLean's, having been a journalist for the past 25 years, I know what we do to these people. And I wouldn't relish being on the other side. And so what's what's changed? Why have you decided to be on the other side? Is it? Is it an adventure in midlife masochism? Is it, I don't know.

I don't disagree with my earlier self. I think we're in a unique political moment. I came light to the climate crisis as a operating principle for my work. I've only been doing this work around the climate emergency and responses for about a dozen years. But in that time, I've seen this country of Canada do absolutely nothing as concern and climate anxiety,

grief and panic rise among the population. We've just been through an extraordinary last 14 or 15 months with many months still to go when people are living in a state of emergency that everybody knows and everybody is reacting to but the pandemic is not the only emergency we face and as we come out of it we have massive opportunities to make this country so much better and we know now for good that we have the, that this is a rich country, that the toxic logic of austerity was always a lie. And so now we are coming out of this emergency with a knowledge of what crisis

feels like and an opportunity to meet all of the intersecting crises in our society with big, fast, emergency-level responses. I've been working on the outside, telling stories of social movements, developing climate solutions that are community-based at the grassroots, and doing journalism and storytelling and activism around them. And now it's time for me to go inside

and see if I can be some sort of intermediary between what I see as tremendous ingenuity and energy and creativity in mass movements and community organizations and in grassroots solutions making and the power to actually implement policy. Let's get into that now. You know what you stand for. You know, your platform centers around a Green New Deal, which has been very much a part of your life's work. And in a Canadian sense, what does that mean exactly? I think that there's a big opportunity for us coming out of the pandemic to connect the big crises that we face. We saw in the middle of the pandemic,

a racial justice uprising, people connecting the dots between who was getting sick and dying in disproportionate numbers, racialized communities, communities that have been historically excluded, communities that are poorer, postal codes, whole postal codes where people have lower incomes. We've seen the housing crisis deepen inequality in Canada so profoundly that even the Bank of Canada recognizes that this is the steepest inequality we've ever faced. And all of these crises, housing, climate, pandemic, inequality, racism, they are linked. They're linked in the body politic in our communities where we live. And we need rapid transformations of our economy and our society in order to deal with them.

And those solutions, we've left these problems so long, they've gotten so bad, especially the climate emergency, that we need solutions at scale and at speed. And only the federal government has the resources to really deliver. And we've seen the capacity of governments to act in the pandemic. deliver. And we've seen the capacity of governments to act in the pandemic. Unfortunately, government responses at the federal level showed who they think their real constituency is. They mobilized $750 billion in financial supports and liquidity for big banks and businesses in a matter of days in the early weeks of the pandemic, while they've only spent half of that on all the people they were elected to serve. So we see the capacity of the Canadian government to respond to crises.

We know that the pandemic is not the only one we face. And so a Green New Deal is an approach to taking our climate commitment seriously. The science says we have to slash emissions by 60% this decade. We've already wasted another year, like we've wasted the last 30 years in this country. And that slashing of emissions and transforming the basis of our economy is actually the greatest opportunity we've ever seen to confront the other crises, to solve the housing crisis

with hundreds of thousands of units of public and co-op housing, like the NDP has proposed just a couple of weeks ago. Jagmeet Singh put this beautiful proposal of $14 billion for half a million new homes, non-profit and cooperative housing, to build them in just a matter of a few years to address the housing crisis. That is part, in my view, that is part of a Green New Deal for housing, because those jobs can go to communities that have been excluded, where jobs, good union, family supporting jobs can go to those communities that need it the most. And that housing

can be beautiful, it can be public, it can be zero emissions, and buildings and housing is a huge source of emissions in our economy. So it's these holistic overlapping solutions. And we can go through sector by sector and look at how solving the climate crisis can also solve the inequality crisis and can address the crisis of racism and white supremacy. Right. I just want to note something you said earlier about the money that this government marshaled. I just want to note, I think that they will say that that money also trickled down or certainly got to the people who were employed by those businesses. My neck is sore like so many people of waiting, looking up and waiting for this trickle down that's going to happen since Milton Friedman promised it in the 1950s. It just doesn't work.

When you shovel hundreds of billions of dollars upwards, what happens? They pay it out in dividends and bonuses to CEOs in the 1%. That's why we've seen inequality deepen so steeply in the pandemic. How many corporations have made out like bandits on the wage subsidy? 70 corporations took billions in the wage subsidy. 64 of them paid out $15 billion in dividends in the time when they were crying poor to the government and taking subsidies that were meant for workers in the pandemic. I take your point there. Although, again, I think they will say that the majority of that money

did make it to employees. That is how they would respond to that. You know, it's so interesting. I remember back in 2015, when you and your wife, Naomi Klein, and others spearheaded this document, the Leap Manifesto, which called for a lot of the same things you're calling for right now in a Green New Deal. And at the time, it was considered really radical. And now so many of its ideas are considered so much more mainstream, hey, like, they're even being picked up by the current liberal government, the idea of a just transition for workers and a national child care program. Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting since I announced my run to see the pundits who stoked conflict and declared the bleep manifesto, the end of the NDP and all these outrageous

hyperbolic claims, this radical eco manifesto,, um, you know, a bunch of hot air pundits need conflict, um, and love to stoke divisions on the left. Um, and I, that's why I think there should be term limits for national columnists, but, um, I do, I do think it's been a little bit hilarious watching them all recognize that we were just maybe six years early in naming big crises needing big holistic solutions and calling for them all at once in a hurry. The problem is, Jamie, I'm not actually happy about the fact that the Leap Manifesto is being declared uncontroversial.

We don't get those six years back. Those are six years that we've lost and we never get them back. And when it comes to the climate emergency, I'm looking at a graph right now, which is emissions reductions among G7 countries since 1990, when the global community started negotiating on climate. You look at UK down 40%. You look at Germany down 30%. You look at France and Italy down 20%. Even the United States went up in the 2000s

and has brought their emissions back down to roughly where they were in 1990. Our climate pollution is up 21% under liberal and Tory governments that have occasionally said lovely things about reducing emissions and have done less than nothing. They've subsidized the oil and gas industry in the hundreds of billions of dollars over time.

And they are not using the power of government, which is the power to regulate and to reduce emissions drastically. It's what most Canadians want, and it's just not happening. Okay, I will also just jump in here and say, I know you don't think it's nearly ambitious enough, but the Liberals will say that they do have a plan here, a newly announced goal of slashing greenhouse gas pollution between 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels over the next nine years. Aaron O'Toole, the leader of the conservatives, was on the show last week.

He also says that he has a really excellent plan to get us to our Paris targets. Although, you know, I know, I know, I know you're going to say that that's not good enough. And that's no, I mean, they're just good enough. They're just plans. And announcing plans is wonderful. And announcing plans does not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that we emit or other greenhouse gases like methane. Plans just don't do it. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

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50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Avi, to pick up on something you said earlier, to pick up on something you said earlier i'm not trying to stoke division on the left with with my next oh you saw how i tried to free up that didn't you i've learned something 2016 yeah yeah but but i i do i do want to ask you uh about about some of this because this is something that

that i think about and and you know, and I know a lot of other people think about these are questions I'm very curious to hear your answers to. So you mentioned in 2016 at the NDP convention, the Leap Manifesto, it was very controversial. To put it mildly, it was divisive. Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley called it naive and tone deaf. Her environment minister called it a betrayal. You're going to give me PTSD by repeating all this stuff? Not a great time.

Do you remember the McLean's cover that was you and Naomi? How can I ever forget it? How to kill the NDP? Yes, it was so much fun. So for our listeners, what was it about the Leap Manifesto that made some NDPers so angry? I think it made the Alberta NDP uncomfortable that the resolution came to the floor at the Edmonton Convention, and it was just bad timing in that. The resolution that passed, passed without, I mean, it wasn't close. Like,

I was on the floor in Edmonton, and that resolution passed massively. And it simply said that the NDP recognizes and supports the Leap Manifesto as a high-level statement of principles that speaks to the aspirations, history, and values of the party. The opportunity to confront the twin crises of inequality and climate change with an inspiring and positive agenda to transform society as we transition to an economy beyond fossil fuels. That's what the resolution that passed in Edmonton says. The majority of NDP delegates, even there in Alberta, supported it. And I think that's an utterly uncontroversial statement. It was then and is now within the NDP. And I don't think it was ever the debate within the party that it was cast.

And I think today we've just moved on. It's like we have massive crises to address. Nobody wants to be back in 2015, 2016 for any reason. We've got work to do. But I suppose my question is, have you been able to completely move on? Because the LEAP manifesto called for the immediate move away from fossil fuels to stop any new and to stop any new energy projects like pipelines. Yeah. And that is today. No new fossil fuel infrastructure was the controversial demand in the leak manifesto one week ago the

international energy agency which is which has never been a friend to climate activists which is the uh mainstream establishment uh international organization for the oil and gas industry said no new fossil fuel infrastructure so i'm, I'd love to go back and like debate this again. But the debate is over. It's time to add. My question is actually about right now, because have you been able to speak to Rachel Notley about that, the Alberta NDP leader? I love that you think that a candidate in a distant British Columbia riding is immediately on the phone with the premier-in-waiting of Alberta.

No, I have not spoken to Rachel about this. Her position has been that pipelines, or the Trans Mountain Pipeline needs to be built in Alberta. And so if you become an MP, and I know you still have a ways to go, how are you going to manage that tension between what the Alberta NDP sees as a threat to their success? All of us are tired of fighting over pipelines. A transition, a vast transition of

our economy and our society cannot be accomplished on a dime. We need the federal government to lead with its massive resources. We need to create huge opportunities. There's so much work to be done in this country in low-carbon sectors of the economy, not just renewable energy, but in the care sector, which the pandemic has taught us is absolutely essential. The way schools don't have HEPA filters, and there's too many kids in every classroom. The infrastructure deficit of schools is going to require massive investments and huge number of construction jobs. We've already talked about housing. We need transit. Greyhound just went under. And we don't have a national, public, free at the point of ride transit service between and within communities. That's a huge amount of

work in electric batteries, in electric buses and vehicles, in mass transit, in high-speed rail. There is so much work to do in our society, and it's all urgent. We don't need to be dragged into debates of the past century's energy sources. We need to move rapidly with the federal government leading and creating opportunities. As long as they're not doing that, we're going to be pitted against each other. And that's exactly why we need a Green New Deal to leap forward. So are you just going to agree to disagree then? Hey, every party is a big tent and there are absolutely debates in every political party.

You know, the debates in our party are about implementing policies that are going to benefit the maximum number of working people in their daily lives. And as long as we're having those debates, I'm thrilled to be part of them. Well, okay, that's a good segue for me. Can we talk about maybe some of the other debates in your party on the federal level? So grassroots groups on the left, like the Courage Coalition and the NDP Socialist Caucus, have been pretty vocal about their frustrations with party leadership. They say the party isn't listening to grassroots members and that it needs to take bolder stances on issues like defunding the RCMP or universal dental care or abolishing billionaires. But many inside the party feel that to win enough votes to form government, the NDP needs to take less strident

stances and play a little more to the center. And where do you fit into the party's ideological spectrum? Well, that's a huge question and a great one. much bolder left-wing policies and getting strategically outmaneuvered a lot of time by others in the party who think that that is not the way to go for electoral success. And so I think the NDP, unlike other parties, has a deep sector of social movement activists in all kinds of issue areas. You've mentioned a couple of groups, and there are many more, who push. And there's an ideological spectrum within the NDP. I think the result is that I have seen the NDP moving to the left in recent years. I'm personally gratified by that. I think that this kind of transformative politics that we've seen in the States with Bernie Sanders, that we've seen in the UK, not so much with Jeremy Corbyn, who was kind of a figurehead, but with the momentum youth movement that put him in the

leadership and kept him there against relentless and vicious attacks from the right wing of his own party, and with politicians like AOC and other members of the squad, and politicians like Matthew Green and Leah Gazan and Paul Taylor, a phenomenal candidate in Parkdale High Park for the NDP who's going to win next time. We've seen a nexus between social movement organizing techniques and social movement, mass movement politics, and champions of that kind of politics entering the electoral sphere with tremendous support and energy and creativity. And I think that's really healthy. And I think the NDP is going in the direction that we've seen in other Anglophone countries with left-wing political parties. And I think that the path to power is that kind of transformative offer to the public. Jagmeet and the NDP caucus have extracted absolutely game-changing benefits for working

people in the pandemic,bling the CERB from $1,000 to $2,000, getting the wage subsidy from 10% to 75%, these are exactly the kinds of benefits for working people that speak to a mass movement-style politics, that show the NDP as that all-in people's movement, that it has the potential to be. And I think the NDP is in a fascinating moment right now. I think after the last federal convention, a lot of those young socialist organizers felt that they didn't get what they wanted to. But at the same time, they passed the Palestine resolution, which they've been trying for years to do. And Jagmeet Singh has been extremely strong on no arms sales to Israel until it complies with its international human rights obligations and international law. And that is that because of movement folks within the NDP pushing for years and succeeding in a vital policy change, which changes the image of the party in the mind of the electorate and brings it, I think, on that issue into sync with where the majority of Canadians are. So I'm part of a longstanding dynamic. The party and Jagmeet Singh have also been criticized, though, for essentially not being

left enough, right? A watered down dental care plan. The NDP hasn't taken a specific stance on police defunding. Singh talked about a mixed approach last summer. Singh wouldn't take a clear stance on the coastal gasoline pipeline expansion through Wet'suwet'en Territory in BC, although I will say he has come out strongly against the Keystone XL and Trans Mountain pipelines. And so do these positions put you at odds with the leader? I guess I'm trying to figure out where you stand here. Well, it's funny because my family, you know, I grew up in an NDP family and members of

my family have played different roles in this traditional dynamic. What you're naming is called democracy. It's called, you know, the difficult and necessary operation of democracy within a party. And I think the NDP could use even more democracy. It's a kind of delicious irony of my run that, you know, my grandpa and my dad executed an expulsion of the waffle in the early 1970s. And my aunt and uncle, Janet Solberg and Michael Lewis, have played this role on convention floors at various points that have really frustrated young socialist organizers in the party. But I'm much more aligned with those folks who have been pushing the NDP to the left over years. I mean, that's not going to surprise anyone. And I see the moment the party in this moment in, in, I think, a really healthy and dynamic place of change.

I do also want to get your thoughts on how you think the party is doing on the issue of climate right now. So Cameron Fenton, the Canada lead for the group 350.org, recently noted that since the 2019 election, Jagmeet Singh has talked about climate change a total of 12 times in the House of Commons, which he says is far from enough, and that he's never pushed any legislation around the issue. And Fenton says he believes the work of climate advocate MPs, some of whom you mentioned earlier, being, quote, overshadowed by a party apparatus and leader's office who seem ambivalent about the scale of the climate crisis. And do you agree with that? Do you think the party is going far enough on the climate crisis

issue right now? What would you like to see it do? The climate emergency is real and people all over this land are feeling it in their bones. And I think that in Ottawa, there is a distance from the urgency and from the urgency of a lot of crises. I think the NDP, unlike other parties, is more connected to working people's lives and that the climate emergency, as it becomes something in the skin and the bones of the people, has got to be the front burner, sorry, issue for all of us. And so, yeah, I'm impatient. I want more focus on the climate emergency as an opportunity to make people's lives better in the massive transition we have to make. Right. I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is that you don't think that the NDP is currently going far enough. I don't think anyone's going far enough. I think the entire political system needs to orient itself towards the climate emergency like we just did to the

pandemic, because the climate emergency may not be killing people in the numbers that the pandemic has done in heartbreaking ways, but it is existential and it speaks to the future of all species and living things. So yeah, I'm impatient. I want more climate emergency action. And that's why I'm going into politics. You've talked about how workers are sort of the bedrock of the NDP. And I want to talk to you about kind of the flip side of this. NDPers who are worried that the party's current and even their current environmental agenda is already causing it to stray too much from its base. So Marie Danielle Smith at McLean's last year spoke to former NDP staffers who said they felt the party was abandoning the rural union workers that traditionally have been a bedrock of support for, quote, urban environmentalists. And this, I think, was really underscored during the 2019 election when workers at the Regina United Steelworkers local, normally staunch NDP supporters, said they were voting conservative

and their mill makes pipe. And they felt that that Singh stance against the Trans Mountain Pipeline would put them out of work. And do you think it's possible for the NDP to get people like this back in their corner? And how? So we need to start taking care of workers and not corporations. And that is what we see over and over again, in these pipeline fights, workers are not being offered an alternative. And so when you face workers with the end of their industry or what, or some totally insufficient unemployment scheme or some vague notion of transition training, so they're supposed to

work as baristas or ecotourist operators. We need an industrial transformation in this country. And like I said before, there is a lot of work to do. The federal government has to lead in creating whole new industries and new avenues that will create massive employment. We can't be holding a gun to workers' heads and saying, this is over, now get on board. We have to create the next economy urgently now so that we're not in these life and death

decisions. And that's been the failure of the federal government, who is basically operating as an arm of the oil and gas industry, the same oil and gas industry that has thrown tens of thousands of workers out of work, thrown them under the bus since the price crash of 2014, not to mention the pandemic. The liberal government created a secret committee just for the oil and gas industry during the pandemic, revealed in an amazing scoop

by the new media outlet, The Breach. The oil and gas industry- You're a part of, right? You're one of your colleague partners. I'm supposed to be a contributor, yes. I'm not involved in the running of it, but I am a contributor, yeah. The oil and gas industry had four and a half lobbying contacts with the federal government every day through the pandemic. Last year, the Trudeau liberals announced at least $18 billion in

subsidies and support for the oil and gas industry, according to Environmental Defense. And now the big five in the oil patch are projecting $60 billion in profits in the next two years. Are they taking care of their workers? Are we looking to them to create the alternatives? No. The federal government has to actually regulate these industries to create the alternatives? No, the federal government has to actually regulate these industries and create the opportunities for those generations of workers. And just to pop in here one more time, I know you're going to say it's not enough, they're not moving fast enough, but the current government will absolutely come back and say, we have a plan, we are working on a just transition for workers.

A lot of these companies, I think they would say a lot of these companies are also leaders as well in their fields, and that they are working to get cars off the road with their current plan. But I think I know how you're going to respond to that. And Jean-Claude Trudeau is bringing us universal child care in 1993. Sure. Final question for you. You mentioned before these movements in the United States and in the UK and these kind of bold left politics you're wanting to build. They are. They're really closely aligned, like you said, with Senator Bernie Sanders, Congress primary campaign for a moment, it was really built on this idea, right, that rather than pandering to the middle or the right, you build your own new coalition and you energize it.

That if your policies are exciting and they speak to people from different walks of life, lots of people who may not have voted could be motivated to get to the polls. But Bernie lost by a lot. And he lost to really like the most establishment politician in the race. And I'm wondering what that says to you about the ability of these progressive movements to build enough critical mass to actually win, to actually form government. Yeah, I don't accept Bernie's loss as an indictment of his policies or political offer. I mean, that's not the only thing that's going on in a primary race. People in South Carolina wanted to get rid of Donald Trump and just weren't up for and just believe that Biden would give them the best chance. Bernie Sanders, both campaigns have transformed the political landscape of North America, whether or not he won. And the people who came up in his

movement, the politicians of the squad, not just AOC, but Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush, electrifying new politicians who really are embedded in the communities that they come for, are fighting for big change that will benefit working class people. They haven't had, working class people in America have not had champions in the Democratic Party like they do today for decades. And Bernie Sanders transformed and created a political movement that has spread around the world and has influenced politics in other countries. And I do believe there are amazing young NDP MPs and the tone and energy of the NDP nationally has been bolstered by the blast of progressive energy coming from the South. There are new organizing tactics. There's a new understanding that there is a left-wing populist offer, which prioritizes working class people. And, you know, look, what do we need? We need a

place to live. We need work. We need an efficient way to get back and forth. We need schools for our kids. These are the bread and butter issues that the CCF was fighting for in the 1940s and on, and that the NDP is fighting for today. I think they're completely in line with the democratic socialist emergence in the United States. And we are, I think we're actually in a kind of virtuous spiral of passing energy back and forth across the border. I'm proud to be connected to that political tradition and to the future that it offers. And I think it's brought in a huge number of young people. I mean, I had my campaign launch on Saturday. We had 17 Zoom screens full of people, like 450 people came, mostly from the riding, but from across the country. We harvested more than 100

volunteers from that one meeting of young people who are excited about this kind of politics. And I think we do have the potential to speak to people who don't usually vote, because we are talking about life and death issues, about legitimate rage against the 1% and the way they make off like bandits every time there's another crisis, legitimate rage against the way our elders were treated in the pandemic, legitimate rage against the inaction on the climate emergency and the unbearable impacts of the housing crisis on all of us, and big, bold, exciting solutions that are within our grasp.

And we know forever now that we can afford them because we just saw the government spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a year and the sky did fall. Imagine if we did that in a way that single-mindedly benefited working people. I think it's a phenomenally successful political formula and I'm eager to test it. Okay, well, I will just pop in one more time

before we say goodbye to say that there are certainly people, including Aaron O'Toole, who was on the show last week, who would say that even though the sky hasn't fallen quite yet, that it still could. And I hope maybe you can come back and we can talk about that more in the future. Avi Lewis, thank you so much for this. Great conversation. Thank you so much for this. Great conversation. Thank you so much. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks so much for listening to FriendBurner. Talk to you tomorrow.