The Paikin Podcast - Why Heather McPherson Thinks She Can Save the NDP

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Heather McPherson, NDP MP from Edmonton Strathcona, joins Steve to discuss her NDP leadership bid, why we still need the NDP even though 94% of Canadian voters rejected them in the last election, and how the party, in her view, has lost its way. They then discuss climate change, whether the NDP is a pro-pipeline or anti-pipeline party, Canada’s decision to recognize Palestine, Canada’s foreign policy in a new world order, her favorite prime minister, and her battle with cancer. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcastFollow The Paikin Podcast: APPLE: https://apple.co/4m81G7KSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznC...X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.socialEmail us at: [e-mail]

Hi, everybody, Steve Paken here. On the last Sunday in March, New Democrats from across Canada are going to gather in Winnipeg, Manitoba to choose a successor to former leader, Jugmeet Singh. There are five candidates in the race, but a lot of folks think that my guest today is the one to beat. Heather McPherson has been the member of parliament from Edmonton Strathcona since 2019. She tends to win her riding with the highest percentage of the total vote of any New Democrat MP in the whole country. What does she want to do with her party? And is there any room for a bigger voice for the NDP in a country that gave 85% of its votes to liberals and conservatives in last year's election?

Let's find out. Heather McPherson, coming right up, one-on-one on the Paken podcast. Happy to welcome the MP from Edmonton Strathcona and a candidate for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada. There's Heather McPherson who joins us today on the line from Ottawa. Heather, so nice to meet you. I don't think we've met before. So nice to meet you. I don't think we have either. This is it. This is our face to face. Nice to see you. Okay. Terrific. Happy to have you on. My first question normally would be, you know, why do you want to be the leader of the NDP? But given the results of

the last election, I'm going to ask you this question instead. Why would anyone want to be the leader of at the NDP at this moment in history? Listen, we all know what happened in April. We all know how devastating that was for new Democrats, but it's also why it is so important that we rebuild our party. You know, I have been sitting in the House of Commons. I have been watching just how far right. The liberals have gone. You know, I have been watching what has been happening in Canada and around the world. And right now, you know, for progressive Canadians, we need to give them a strong, viable choice in the next election. I honestly, as a new Democrat, I fundamentally believe that it is better for all Canadians, even if you're not a new Democrat, it is better for all Canadians.

That we have, you know, a strong progressive party. We're the party that holds the liberals accountable. We're the party that makes sure the government fulfills the promises they make to Canadians. You know, we're the party that did that work in the last parliament. And I think all Canadians benefit when there's more new Democrats in there. I appreciate that we may not want to spend a ton of time on what happened last spring, but we're going to spend a couple of minutes on it anyway because I was watching some of your videos on your website. And you did confess in one of those videos that your party had lost its way and become disconnected from the people you purport to represent.

And I guess I want to know, how do you think that happened? You know, I don't know. But for me, I grew up. My dad was a truck driver. I grew up in Alberta. My mom was a teacher. And, you know, my parents weren't necessarily new Democrats. They weren't terribly political.

And we didn't necessarily talk. about politics, but I do believe fundamentally that my parents, you know, worry about their neighbors. They want to live in a community that's safe. They want to make sure that our health care system works. And so for me, I think we need to start talking to people about that. We need to start saying, you know, if that's what you want, if that's what you believe and if those are the values you share, you share those with New Democrats. And I think there was a loss of that in the last election. I think we stopped talking to people about the things that mattered most of them. We know housing is a massive issue across this country.

We know healthcare is a massive issue. We know the cost of living. We've got to be the party that's putting forward progressive solutions to those problems and being really focused on that. You know, I love our party. I love how we want to fix all the things. But we've really got to meet people where they're at. It doesn't change who we are.

It doesn't change what we believe. It changes who we talk to and how we talk to them. We did have your interim leader, Don Davies, on this show. I guess a couple of months ago. And he said that the party had become too focused on things such as identity politics at the expense of jobs, the economy, what basic working people need to get ahead in life. Do you agree with that? Listen, I do think that for me, when I see Canadians, I mean, I've spent the entire year

crossing the country talking to Canadians. And when I think about what Canadians are worried about, when I think about Canadians in my own riding, what they're worried about is whether. or not they're going to be able to afford to put food on the table. They're worried about whether or not they're going to have a home or a job, whether young people in their lives are going to have a job. So I think that's how you have to connect with people. I think it's a, it's a conservative thing. They really like to do identity politics to divide, to split and divide. I think what we need to do as new Democrats is, is firmly and staunchly, you know, hold on to

the values that we have. But when we talk to Canadians, the proposition we're putting forward is, We see how hard things are for you. We have a solution to fix it. We can make life more affordable. It doesn't have to be this way. And you need to elect more new Democrats so that thing can happen. Okay, let me do a follow up on that. Because obviously in the last federal election,

six and a half percent of Canadians voted for the NDP. So it does prompt a question, at least in my head, there were a lot of Canadians who just thought, we don't even need this party anymore. So why do you think we still need the NDP out there in Canada? So I don't think that's what people were actually voting for. I think in this last election, what we saw is that, you know, we had a lot of people that were voting because they were very afraid of what Donald Trump meant to our economy and to our world. And, you know, the liberals have this thing that they love to do where they like to go to Canadians and say, we're the only ones that can stop conservatives.

You have to vote for us because we're the only ones that can stop, you know, this terrible, scary guy that is Pierre Pollyev. And I think Canadians very clearly said, this new Mark Carney guy's got a great resume. But I don't think that's actually true. And I think that's one of the cases that I'm going to make if I am the next leader of the NDP. I win my elections. As you said in the introduction, I have won three times in Edmonton, Strathcona. In Edmonton, in Alberta, the NDP seat that I hold is the strongest seat in our party.

And one of the things that I do every single time is beat conservatives. So when liberals say that they're the only ones that can beat conservatives and can stop the Pierre Poliav of the monster, it's not true. And we've got to make that case to Canadians. We've got to say, you know, in fact, because you voted liberal in some writings, you ended up with a conservative because the liberals weren't able to beat conservatives and the new Democrats were the only ones that could. The political nerd in me wants to ask you this next question,

which is, you know, when you first got elected, you were accustomed to walking into a caucus meeting. there'd be, you know, 20 plus other people there. And now you walk in and you're one of seven. And I'm just wondering how different or how odd are caucus meetings now compared to then. Well, listen, there's a lot more time to get your opinion out. We've got a great caucus. You know, we've got a very, very strong caucus of people that were able to win their seats despite a wave election.

You know, listen, this was a wave election where the liberals were able to come in and take seats from us. And so the people that won are very, very committed. They're very good politicians. They know how to win in their writings. So, yeah, it's different. I miss some of those great voices that we had in the last parliament. You know, I, I miss some of the people that made up our caucus, but I can't be more proud of the caucus that we have and all of the work that they are able to get done with just seven. And remember, we've also lost party status. So there is, it is seven, members of parliament without those resources that a political party recognized in the House would have. Can you imagine what it was like back in the day when Jack Layton was the leader and you had 100 people

in that caucus meeting? Can you imagine that? I am imagining that. I imagine that all the time. I'm not going to lie to you. All right. I want to pick up on something you said a while ago where you said your parents were interested in public affairs and issues, but not necessarily from a capital P point of you. So why are you a new Democrat and when did you realize that? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I got involved. I was a young person. I got involved in international development. I got involved in sustainable development when I was quite young as an activist. I traveled quite a bit. I taught in sub-Saharan Africa. I taught in a few different places around the world. And I think that that idea of justice is really what drove me. The

being able to see that people depending on where they were born, their human rights were either respected or not, their ability to thrive was impacted simply based on the lottery of where they were born. And frankly, I mean, I'm the middle child with an older and a younger brother. And so I think I have a very, very, very thick streak of what's fair in the world. So for me, of course, the New Democrats, that just resonated with me. So I started as a volunteer, the way that most New Democrats, do. You know, I put up signs during elections. I door knocked with our, with our campaign.

And then in 20, gosh, 2014 or 15, Linda Duncan, who was the member of Parliament in Edmonton, Strathcona, asked me to run. And I said no. And she asked me again. And I said no. And, you know, it wasn't until 2018, where I thought, you know, I think I'm going to give this a try. And I think that's normal. I think that's what a lot of, a lot of people, particularly women, they're in politics, do. You know, it's. I was just going to say that. It's a problem. You know that, hey, Heather, the first two times women get asked, typically, they say no, and they need to be asked more. Whereas men say, you know, which way's in? I'm ready. What is that? I don't know. And honestly, I do feel like there is, you walk into that House of Commons, and I'm going to be honest,

there are a lot of old white guys that have no necessarily, not a lot of qualifications except that they have strong self-confidence. Well, you do need that in politics, right? You do need that. It's true. Yeah. Now, by deciding to be a federal new Democrat, and I'm going to say this delicately, you did understand, obviously, that you were signing on to a mission

where you have never won in 158 years of Canadian history. You know, one victory in Alberta, Rachel Notley, one victory in Ontario, Bob Ray. Yes, the odd win in British Columbia. And yes, not in a long time in Saskatchewan, but it's happened. And yes, more often in Manitoba. You, in essence, ask for a mission where you know losing is going to be part of it a lot. So why do that? Well, listen, I'm going to push back a little bit on that.

I mean, the provincial NDP are wildly successful in this country right now. You know, they are the government in British Columbia. They are, the Wob Canoe is the most popular premier in the country. He's probably the most popular. Well, he is the most popular politician in the country. And remember, I grew up in Alberta. And, you know, 2015, I watched Rachel Notley become the premier of our province. I watched Rachel Notley cut child poverty in half, you know, get us off.

coal mining of coal electricity, power to electricity. You know, the things that we can do, the things that we can actually accomplish for Canadians when there are more new Democrats. I mean, that's why. That's why we all go into this. This is why everyone wants to make these changes. You know, we're official opposition in Ontario and Nova Scotia, huge official oppositions in Saskatchewan in Alberta. You know, if Carla Beck isn't the next premier of Saskatchewan, I'll be very surprised. So I think there is a lot of, there's a lot to being a new Democrat. But we don't do this because winning is the most important thing. We do this because we want to make sure that there are people that are fighting for everyday Canadians. And you don't see that,

you don't see that in the House of Commons with other parties. I want to find out more about what kind of a new Democrat you are because, to be sure, there are many new Democrats who think coal mining should end tomorrow, natural gas should end tomorrow, oil and gas should be over tomorrow. And yet, I think I'm right in saying you supported the project to expand the Trans Mountain Pipeline, yes? I did. Yeah. At the time, that was a project that I could get behind. And I think, yeah. So would your new Democratic Party be a pro or anti-pipeline party? I don't see the need for us to be building that infrastructure right now. And I mean, I think one of the things that's really important to me is looking at this MOU that Mark Carney just signed with Danielle Smith. And my biggest challenge with that MOU is that he is purporting to put a pipeline on unseated territory.

And you simply cannot run roughshod over land claim, over the holders of land title. That is unseated territory. You know, this is a pipeline that's not going to get built. And Mark Carney either knows that and he is being deceptive or he doesn't recognize that you can't jam projects through without. doing the hard work. To say nothing of the fact that he has made promises not to lift tank or ban. The people on the coast use that area for their food, for their livelihood. So for me, I don't see the need for us to be looking at that infrastructure right now.

There is no project that needs to be built for for heavy bitumen right now. You know, even the TMX pipeline still has capacity within it. Now, I of course, growing up in Alberta, I grew up with the boom and bust economy. I know exactly how rough that is on workers. And it is getting worse because these oil companies that are making, you know, billions of dollars of profit are learning how to make a barrel of oil with less workers. So there are less jobs. There is less opportunity for people within that sector. And at the same time, we have a climate crisis.

You know, the future is not going to be in burning fossil fuels. The future has to be with renewables. It has to be with a green economy. So we've got to come up with a way to protect those jobs, to protect those workers. There can't be some like nebulous just transition because every single worker in Alberta, every single worker in Saskatchewan knows that that just means there's no job for us. There's got to be a transition where we have good jobs, where we are investing in those good jobs, people can go to right now. And then, you know, that's, that's a future I can get behind.

Like Mark Carney talks about his build big projects. We all want to build big projects, especially now, especially with the threat of Donald Trump. We all want to make sure that we are building things with Canadian materials. We're building things with Canadian workers. All of that is so important. But when you try to jam it through, when you don't do the due process, when you don't do your job, it's like what happened with Stephen Harper. Nothing will get built. There will. will be no jobs. We will not get the infrastructure we need. And our economy will suffer as a result. But you're at Alberta member of parliament. And I'm wondering whether you and Avi Lewis can coexist in the same caucus given the somewhat different backgrounds you bring to your jobs.

So one of the problems I have is this idea that we shut it all down today. And my problem with that is that it takes us out of the conversation. You know, the conversation, we're not going to shut it all down today. We don't have the capacity to do that right now. We need a path. We need to be moving towards a future that is free of fossil fuels that needs to be accelerated. We need to be doing that faster. But to say shut it all down today, that's so unrealistic that it takes us out of the conversation. It takes us away from the ability to be part of the solution. Let me ask you about the biggest star in your movement at the moment. And that's the New York city mayor, Zoran Mamdani.

He really managed to galvanize social Democrats all over that city and come from absolutely nowhere to being the mayor. And I wonder what lessons you have taken from his campaign that you think are useful for yours. Yeah. Listen, I think that the way he was able to mobilize folks, the way he was able to tap into that that real desire for solutions, I think is something. that we all should be listening to. We should all be paying attention to. But it's, it's not the fancy

slogans. It's not, you know, what colors he used. It's not, you know, I would suggest even how good he was on social media. It was that he was talking to people about how he was going to make their life more affordable. He was going to fix the things that were making life difficult for people living in New York. And, and he did it in it. He talked to people in a way that was, that was accessible, that people understood what he was saying, that it was clear. and people believed him. That's the other piece. You know, the things he was proposing were things that he could do

that were going to help people, that we're going to make life better for people in his city. Do you like the idea of government-owned and operated grocery stores? I don't think it's a solution that's going to address the problem at the scale that we need to. You know, I think there are other things that we need to be doing first. And I think there's a number of different things. Like there are short-term solutions that we can,

can do that help a little. And then there are longer term solutions that we have to do. You know, the the busting up of the of the monopolies is really important, but that's going to take time. So we need to be capping grocery prices. We need to be making sure there's no GST on essentials. You know, those little things make a big difference for Canadians that are that are trying to stretch every single dollar right now. We should be investing in co-op grocery stores, making sure that that folks in every community in this country can actually access good, healthy food. That's, That's stuff that I think we need to do now. I look at what the government did with this voluntary grocery code of conduct.

And I think it's a bit silly. I mean, corporations don't voluntarily decide to make less money. They're not going to do it because Minister Champagne asked nicely. That's not how this is going to work. There needs to be a more robust action by the federal government. You know, let's put in a tax on excess profits. Let's make sure that we are actually dealing with this. I mean, I think a lot of times Canadians don't necessarily know.

But to be honest, the cost of our groceries in this country is way higher than in other countries that are similar to Canada. And I get it. Like we've got a bigger size. We've got some challenges in a northern climate. But it does not account for how much more our groceries cost and how much profit the grocery stores are making at this moment. Let's talk about the world because I think you're the foreign affairs critic and have been for five years for the New Democrats. So I want to start with this. How do you think the current government is handling Donald Trump?

So first of all, as soon as you become a leadership candidate, you stop being the foreign affairs critic. So I don't want to take anything away from my good friend, Alex Booleries. Okay. So I'm speaking to you as the leadership candidate. But listen, the dealing with Donald Trump is chaotic. It's difficult. It is, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't want to take anything away from, from Mr. Carney's challenges on doing this work.

It is hard. That said, in April, what he told Canadians was that he was the one that could do it. You know, he knew how difficult it was. He said he was the one that could do it. And I don't see the response from, from Mark Carney equaling what he promised Canadians early on in this year. So, so for example, you know, we still don't. have a trade agreement, which fine, it's better to not have a trade agreement than a bad trade

agreement. But I will say we have been giving things up. We have appeasing Mr. Trump. And I don't know that that's going to be to the benefit of us. You know, I think that we need to be stronger. I think we need to push back further. I think when things like Donald Trump invading Venezuela come forward, I think we need to be very, very clear in our position on that. You know, obviously I was personally appalled by Pierre Pollyev in his response, applauding, you know, the breaking of international law, the breaking of the international rules-based order. But even Mark Carney was a very tepid response. And I don't think he is getting what he thinks he is getting from Donald Trump. The, the unpredictability, the mayhem, the fact that Donald Trump can change his mind at any, at a any moment means that I don't think we're getting from him what he thinks he is by being, by appeasing him. You know, the massive increase in defense spending, all of those things aren't getting us where we need to go. And the building big projects. Like I was at a bus manufacturing

center in Winnipeg when I was there at New Flyer. They build the buses there, the entire thing. It's not just an assembly mine. They are the manufacturer of the parts. They build everything there. There are 700 good unionized jobs there. And those folks fought to keep that open and have that manufacturing in Canada. But we should be doing that all across this country. We should be building more here. We should be trading better between our provinces. We should have trade relationships with other parts of the world, aside from the U.S.

to counter what we're seeing from Donald Trump. And we should have a foreign policy that is not a pale shadow of Donald Trump's. We should have the bravery to be the Canada that I know we should be. to stand up for human rights, to stand up for international law. Those are the, that's the bare minimum I expect from my Canadian government. I know you have been to the Middle East, so I want to ask you a couple of questions about what's going on over there right now, starting with what you thought of the Prime Minister's decision

to support the creation of the Palestinian state provided that certain conditions were met. Yeah, so I brought forward a motion in the House of Commons this Parliament. It was M1. It was the very first motion, and it was to recognize the state of Palestine. that is something that we should have done years ago. You cannot have a federal policy of a two-state solution for peace in the Middle East that involves only one state, particularly at a moment in time where we know that Netanyahu and his government are committing genocide in Gaza. I mean, that is very clear.

I mean, I'm proud of the work I've done on that. I'm proud of the fact that we have been able to move this government and move the conversation in this country to. be more just, to be more rule-based, to be more based on international law and human rights legislation. I think that the lines he put are going to make it very, very difficult for any country to have achieved them. And I think he did that on purpose. I think he wasn't being terribly honest. But there should be a recognition of the state of Palestine. I want to be clear. I'm not trying to be argumentative when I asked this next question, but we did have Bob Ray, the former UN ambassador, on this show just a few weeks ago.

And I asked him, do you think genocide is being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza? And he said, that's really not for us to decide. That will be decided by the international criminal court. And he has been urging his superiors in the government of Canada to take the same position on that. You are quite categorical in saying that you think it's genocide. You think that's appropriate? Listen, it's not me that's saying that it is a genocide. Well, it is me.

But it is not just me. And I'm not saying it based on my own observation. This is a determination that has been made by experts, by genocide experts, by human rights experts, by legal experts around the world. But not the criminal court. Not the international criminal court. Yes. A underfunded and deeply, deeply persecuted the moment organization. You know, frankly, if we actually wanted the criminal court to do the job that we are asking them to do, they would have vastly more resources than they.

they have, they are starved so that they cannot do the work that they need to do. But remember, and I think this is also very important, the genocide convention of which Canada is a signatory states very clearly that even if there is only a risk of a genocide happening, we are obligated as a signatory to act. So even if the criminal court is not determined that yet, and we are only working off the testimony of genocide experts, you know, hundreds of genocide experts around the world, we do have an obligation as a signatory to the genocide convention. And the government is not living up to that.

The government is not living up to our own obligations on the arms trade treaty. That's Canadian law. You know, the government needs to do much better on this. For what it's worth, I've talked to some Jewish community leaders, mostly in the city of Toronto, and they are watching your candidacy with interest. And I don't think you'll be shocked when I tell you they're not fans of yours. So let me ask you, if somebody's a Jewish member of the New Democratic Party, given the positions you've just outlined, why would they vote for you? Well, listen, there are, I think it's really important to recognize that there are Jewish people across this country that are as appalled at what we are seeing happening in Gaza as any other group.

You know, I have received over a million emails to my office alone. There are people that, like, we all recognize that there is a need in this world to respect human rights, that there's a need to follow international law. It's not a one side or the other. It's very black and white international law. And you know what? There's lots of folks, I think, that recognize that. One of the things that hurts me deeply is when people are blamed in our country for what is happening in the Middle East. You know, I'm aware that there is huge increase in the amount of anti-Semitism across this country, the amount of Islamophobia anti-Palestinian racism.

All of that has risen and it is horrifying. You know, I speak to some of my very good friends who are deeply, deeply worried about the rise of anti-Semitism in our communities and what that means. So we've got to find ways to combat that. We've got to find ways to protect people in their communities. every single Canadian in this country, regardless of faith, needs to be able to practice their faith with safety, needs to be able to identify as as Christian or Jewish or atheist or Muslim or whatever and be safe within their community. And I have been very clear from the very beginning that that is always and always will be my position. Now, I get it. It's a very heart-wrenching

thing that we are seeing happening in the Middle East. You know, what happened on October 7th was a war crime and it is, it is horrific. For anyone who has seen any of that footage, it's horrific. So of course, we need to, we need to condemn that. We need to condemn it strongly. You know, what I'm seeing happening in Iran right now, like we, we have an obligation as a country to stand up for human rights. My challenge that I have with this administration with this government is this government picks and chooses. You know, you talk about the fact that I went to the Middle East. Well, I have also gone to Ukraine during this war. I took a train in from Poland by myself because I wanted to go to European.

I wanted to go to Buccia and see what was happening on the ground. And I have been a staunch supporter of the people of Ukraine, you know, to make sure that those human rights are also protected. It's just we don't protect some people and not others. We don't choose whose human rights matter. That's not what Canadians should be doing. So when we see things like, you know, even our immigration policy, when we hear things like unlimited Ukrainians can come to Canada, but only 90,000 Afghans, only 5,000 Palestinians and only 500 Sudanese, it sounds like a price day. It sounds horrendous to me. We need to do better than that. Understood. Let me bring you back home and ask you, I think, some offbeat questions here. For example, who is your favorite all-time Canadian politician? Well, I've got to say Tommy Douglas.

Is there any other answer there? Listen, I love Tommy Douglas. I love the idea of Medicare. I think that's one of the things that we need to protect, that we need to continue to be fighting for. I watch the attacks on our healthcare system right now that are happening in this country, and I think we need to be on guard for that.

But I'll tell you, it's pretty fun to go for a beer with Rachel Notley, too. Well, I anticipated that you might say Tommy Douglas or Jack Layton, and therefore I had a follow-up question already written down here, which says, how about a party, not the new Democrat party, of a politician in history that you really admired? Politician I admire that was not part of our party. Yes. Yeah, you know, there's lots. Of course, there's lots of people that have done really wonderful things for our party. And I also want to be clear. Like, I've been in the House of Commons. I have worked with members of all. parties. And I think, you know, I want our politics to be less divisive and less adversarial. I think, now, one of the things I'm probably one of my most proud moments is working with members of parliament

from all parties to bring Afghan women MPs to Canada to safety. But, you know, what I say, like, I really liked some of the environmental protections that Brian Mulroney put in place. I think that was, that was really strong. I liked some of the ways that he protected and stood up for against apartheid in South Africa. So maybe we'll go there. Okay. That maybe answers my next question, which is you've been alive for a little over half a century. Who's the best prime minister of Canada in your lifetime? I have so many problems with so many of them. Well, Jack Layton was the best prime minister we never got. Of course, that's clear. Best prime minister in my lifetime. know, let's go with Brian Mulroney. Let's say that one just because I do feel like,

I do feel like he did some things that I appreciate. Not enough. Not enough. Even Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, said he was the greenest prime minister of the last half century. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. Again, a little bit personal here. You've got a couple of kids, yes? I sure do. Are they interested in politics at all? It's interesting. My son used to come with me to the House of Commons and he used to go to question period, prep with me. And then he'd sit in the lobby in that little area behind the House of Commons. And I'd ask my question in the house. And then he'd correct me. He'd give me his leg, his, his, what I'd gotten wrong. Now he's 18, but when I was first elected, he was 12. And he was correcting you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he had lots of ideas.

You, you are supposed to do this this way. You were supposed to deliver it this way, mom. I would have done it this way. Yeah, no, he's. So I think he's actually the politician in our family. Big extrovert, loves being around people, loves coming to things with me. My daughter and my husband are introverts, so they're the other side of the equation. And so she's in the university right now. And probably politics is not in the future. Though she did speak at my launch, and she was, she was great. You want to give your son's name just so we can watch for his name on a ballot someday? When you see McLean on the ballot, that'll be the, that'll be the name to look for. Got it. Okay. I read in your bio that your home, growing up in Edmonton, was a somewhat chaotic place

and kind of made room for everybody. And I think the story was that doors were taken off their hinges and made into kind of makeshift tables so that there was lots of space for people around. How exactly did that work? So, I mean, yes. I mean, my family was wild. We had, my mom comes from a big Catholic family.

Her dad was one of 13 kids. And so there was a whole whack of us. And no one ever had tables. And it was, you know, when we were growing up, up, you didn't go to the table rental place and get a table. You just made do with what you had. And so we would put them out on the, on the stands. And then we would have a table going down the hallway. There'd be one in the living room. There'd be one in the kitchen. We did this just actually this Christmas for for my family. So I had 27 people come over for Christmas dinner and we had a

table in the living room. We had a table in the hallway and we had two tables in the kitchen. Like you you squeeze everyone in. You find space for folks. You hope you don't get the doorknop, to be perfectly honest. And yeah, of course, wine gets spilled because it's on, you know, things are on a tilt and, and it's, it's not always the most elegant dinner, but, but it's, it's pretty fun and it's pretty chaotic and there's a lot of noise and a lot of mayhem and wouldn't have it any other way. Heather, admittedly, this next question is very personal. And if you don't want to go there, that's fine with me, but you're a cancer survivor. And I wonder, do you mind talking about that? Not at all. Not at all. What did you have?

So I had colon cancer and I was diagnosed when I was in my 40s, early 40s and of course, terrifying. Anyone who's been diagnosed with cancer knows how terrifying that is, especially when you've got young kids. But I had a great family doctor and, you know, I'm a runner. And so she had said to me, I've gone in and I'd said like running is getting hard. This is feeling really, is this what old feels like? Is this what getting older feels like? And so she did some tests and we found it and we got it treated and I actually have a great prognosis. It was, it was an, and you know, they caught it soon enough.

They caught it early. So, so for me, it drives me in terms of our healthcare system as well. Like I think about, I think about if I was living in the United States, I probably, I probably wouldn't have had that be caught. And I would, I probably wouldn't have survived, you know, to be to be absolutely blunt. I think about the healthcare system under attack and how people aren't able to get the tests that they need. They're not able to get the treatment they need. They're not able to have a family doctor. We have millions of Canadians that don't have a family doctor right now.

And one of the best things you can do to prevent yourself from getting sick is make sure that you're having preventative medicine. So, yeah, it's pretty, it's something that changed my life. Absolutely. I actually credit it with part of the reason why. I finally decided to put my name for it in politics. You often feel like you have a lot more time in this world until you get a little bit of a wake-up call. You're cancer-free, how many years now? Gosh, I'm cancer-free for eight years now.

Excellent. That's great. Yeah. What do you think the single most important thing you learned about yourself was as you fought cancer? Yeah. I think, you know, it really, really gets to say. still down for you. You know, the things that are important, the things that you cherish, the things that you want to invest in. You know, there's nothing that makes you realize how much you love

being a mom, how much you love being a wife, how much you love your family, like feeling like there is this risk that you mainly lose those things. So for me, that was a big thing. But also, I can do a lot of stuff. You know, I'm pretty tough. I can get over cancer. and I can move on and I can find my way back from that. And so I think that was something I felt good about. You know, I feel like I grew and I was able to be a stronger person coming out on the other side. And I know that my case was, like I said, I had cancer that was caught really early. I got great treatment.

The health care system worked really well for me. That's not the case for everyone. So I also acknowledge that I was really, really lucky. Good. Is there a book in particular that has been instrumental in your political education or anything like that? What's a book you'd recommend about politics to somebody because it resonated so much with you? Well, I mean, honestly, I just read a book recently and it broke my heart a little bit, but it was called One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

And it was very moving to me. But I will say, I mean, honestly, my first degree is as an education as a teacher. And my master or my major was in English literature. So I used to read like all kinds of really, really good literature. And now because of my job and how busy I am, I often reach really fluffy stuff. So I have to be honest. And I will pull out Jane Austen at the drop of a hat almost any single time. If I need to calm myself down, there's nothing better than a little Jane Austen.

Last question. I'm not pretending this is the most profound question, but I am interested. You want to give us a prediction for your leadership vote? Well, it really does depend when you ask me during the day, because I can go through the, we've got this, we've got work to do, we've got this, we've got work to do multiple times through each day. I think, you know, honestly, I feel like we've got a really good shot at this. We've got a lot of, a lot of people that we've been, we've been connecting with that we've been meeting with. So I, I think I'm going to, I'm going to be super optimistic at the moment and say that we're,

I'm going to take it in the first vote. First ballot. First ballot. Who's your chief competition right now, do you think? Well, I think that I think it's pretty fair to say that there's, there's three folks in the race, um, that it's Rob Ashton and Abby Lewis and myself. Um, and I think for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, really important question for our party. You know, there is, there's the future of our party to

contend with. And I think if we get this wrong, if we, if we don't get this right, the, the new Democrats could be, could be deeply damaged for, for a decade. This race is very, very, very important. And like I said at the beginning, it's important for new Democrats, of course, but it's important for all Canadians. You know, it is better for our democracy when we have, you know, robust progressive parties that are pushing a progressive agenda, but that also know the game of politics and can win. You no doubt saw that one of your caucus colleagues has decided to, I guess the first one to publicly announce a preference has come out for Avi Lewis. You disappointed in that? No, you know, I think that that's part of a leadership race. You know, the same thing we saw

just yesterday when Charlie Angus decided that he was going to endorse me. You know, the fact is that people look through and they, they see what they, they look at the candidates and they see which one they'd like to support. And so, yeah, of course, we'd like to have everyone endorse me. Of course we would. But I think in this circumstance, it's not terribly unexpected. And, and, yeah, we've got our endorsements and the other camps have theirs and we're putting forward our proposals to the members. And hopefully people recognize that, that, you know, we have to be ready to hit the ground running on, on day one. And that's, that's a little bit, that's part of my pitch as well. I have a seat. I know how to win. I've won elections. I don't know. I don't know where those,

we're not like the conservatives. We don't have that, that safe seat in rural Alberta for Pierre Pauly have to run over to and run in. So we've got to, we've got to be smart about this. Gotcha. Stand by one second. Why I do a little housekeeping here before we sign off. I want to remind everybody that all of our programs are archived at steithpaken.com, the website. And we've just created a Patreon page. So please go to patreon.com slash the Paken podcast, and people can find out all sorts of new goodies there, some exclusive video that you don't otherwise get, and all that kind of stuff as we try to create a bit of a community here as well. Heather McPherson, we're really grateful for your time today. Wish you well on the hustings as you move towards your leadership vote. And we thank you

for spending some time with us tonight on the Pagan podcast. Well, thanks for having me. It's been really fun. It's been a really interesting conversation.