Rachel Gilmore: Hello, I’m Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person’s least favorite journalist. Welcome to Bubble Pop. Normally, this is the point when I tell you to subscribe to the show, but I am actually starting off today’s show with an announcement, but for the record, you can still subscribe to support my journalism. Now, uh, you might have already heard this announcement because I posted it in a video yesterday, but let me just quickly take you through this and then we’ll get to today’s show. See, when I went independent, I was really scared that it wasn’t going to work. So, I threw literally everything at the wall. I mean, I’ve been researching, scripting, filming, and editing short form news videos five days per week. I also do a weekly Tuesday night stream, and I’ve been scripting, booking, and recording this live podcast. And in the background of all of that, I also travel across Canada to talk to Canadians for various kind of speaking gigs, do freelance investigative work for The Tyee and the National Observer, and I run a media business with like it’s just me. Um, you know, so that comes with a bunch of financial and logistical work that someone with a journalism background doesn’t have a lot of training for. I’m going to be honest, it’s too much. It’s not sustainable and I am burning out which sucks. But I really want to make sure that I can give you guys the quality of reporting that you’ve come to expect from me. So in recent weeks I’ve been thinking about what I offer you guys that you seem to enjoy the most and what I get the most fulfillment from. And I keep coming back to my investigative pieces. you know, the moments where I’ve broken news, where I’ve unmasked neo-Nazis in Canada or laid out Canadian companies profiting from ICE. And when I actually have the time to do that work, I feel like it’s some of the most impactful stuff that I do. So, um, it’s also when most of you upgrade to paid subscriptions, which I do need to pay my rent, so I really appreciate that. So, um, yeah, I have decided that the thing that makes the most sense is to retire this podcast. But that doesn’t mean I’m going away. If anything, it means you’re going to get more Rachel, higher quality because I am uh going to be doing three videos per week instead of five. And that way, I can keep this work going. I can work ahead on the kind of high quality journalism that you guys have come to expect from me and stay on top of all of the other stuff that allows me to actually pay my rent while doing this work. You know, so freelance stuff, speaking gigs, and a book proposal that I am supposed to be working on eventually. My hope is that this means I can pump out more highquality investigative work. I could work ahead on that kind of high-quality journalism that you guys expect from me. um and uh do some deep dives into stuff like continuing to unmask neo-Nazis and uh exposing other things hurting our democracy. I really want to dig into the encroachment of for-profit healthcare and the corruption from some provincial governments. And because I still stream every Tuesday, I have a space where I can do the occasional interview when a guest pops up. So, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening and thank you for believing in my journalism. While this might feel sad for some of you, I can promise you that it’s going to help keep the quality of my work up and even make it better long term. So, I really appreciate you understanding and to go out with a bang. I have got a damn good last episode for you all. The NDP have a new leader and he’s already making waves in Canada and around the world. Avi Lewis isn’t afraid to take some big, unabashedly leftist swings. And in a world where the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us keep getting screwed, that’s pretty goddamn refreshing. But it’s not all smooth sailing. He’s got some big challenges ahead of him, including navigating some spats with the provincial arms of the NDP and bringing the federal party back from the brink. There’s a lot to cover and I am so excited to welcome Avi Lewis on the show. Abby, welcome back to Bubble Pop.
Avi Lewis: Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m the last guest on the podcast. I’m I’m so honored and and grateful, Rachel. And also, you know what? I just want to say I’m so grateful to you for the for the for your taking charge of your own output in uh in an economy in a digital economy where people who are bravely doing independent journalism like you are being asked to auto exploit and and just be you know endlessly feed the algorithm. Um and you’re finally after an incredible like what has been a year or so or more than
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah, like a year and four months about
Avi Lewis: Yeah. of just going all out and just doing everything to pull it back a little and focus on the depth of what you can do. As a former journalist, um I’m I’m thrilled. I’m proud of you for the all for Jack actually modeling what it looks like to say I’m going to do a little bit less in terms of wallto-wall and I’m going to go deeper because that’s what we need and that’s what you do at your best. And I’m you know I’ve I’ve said before without sucking up to the the host you do your journalism. I respect that. But I’m a huge fan of your work and I’m really looking forward to this new era for you. It’s such a smart decision.
Rachel Gilmore: Thank you so much. That’s so kind of you. I really appreciate it and thank you for making the time. I’m sure you know you’ve become a pretty hot commodity since the last time you were on. So I really appreciate you being my last guest.
Avi Lewis: Chasing the thicket of microphones and like a scrum. My big problem with these scrums, which I’ve done lots of interviews over the years, but like getting scrummed by a hu like a number of crews at the same time. I talk with my hands and I’m gonna constantly bang in the microphone.
Rachel Gilmore: Oh no, you’re gonna end up with a scandal because you accidentally punched some National Post reporter without meaning to. And you know how that’s going to be for Yeah. accidentally. Um, now Abby, I did want to um start off by giving you that huge congratulations for uh the victory because oh my god, that was what a night and it really seemed to invigorate a lot of people. Um, but I also, um, I did want to start off with an acknowledgement of how this has probably also been one of the hardest times of your life. Most people
Avi Lewis: when they lose a parent, they get time to grieve and you know, you I’m so sorry about the loss of your father and um, I can’t imagine the roller coaster of emotions you must have felt losing him right after you won the leadership. though, as I said before, you really gave him such a beautiful gift of hope that the dreams that he fought for his whole life might be realized through his son. Um,
Rachel Gilmore: I
Avi Lewis: Yeah, I know. I I grabbed a little clip actually from your speech. Um, I’ll just I’ll just
Rachel Gilmore: I thought it was going to be dad. I was like, “Oh, I can’t wait to see.”
Avi Lewis: Oh, no. I’m sorry. It’s your It’s you. It’s your own face instead. But but I mean there’s probably shades of your dad in it, right? So um
Rachel Gilmore: I think I Yes.
Avi Lewis: Yeah. You you acknowledged uh your dad’s dream in in this victory speech. So I’ll just quickly play this clip.
Rachel Gilmore: But he told me something kind of heartbreaking that David, his father, said to him once. David said, “Son, not in my lifetime, but maybe in yours.” And recently my dad told me the same thing. Not in my lifetime. Maybe in yours. Well, Dad, I refuse to tell that to my kid.
Avi Lewis: WE CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER GENERATION. WE’VE
Rachel Gilmore: SO, I just wanted to start off by asking you, how are you and your family doing?
Avi Lewis: Yeah, it’s been um it’s been such an incredible time. I mean, it’s it’s um it’s a little surreal.
Rachel Gilmore: It’s also very real, you know. Um my dad got this cancer like eight years ago and it was supposed to take him in three months, they told him. So, he was a person of immense willpower. Um I think as is evidenced by a lot of the work that he did and the way he stayed focused uh particularly um you know in the early 2000s he was the the UN envoy on HIV AIDS in Africa and he was um he sometimes described his job as watching people die that didn’t need to die because of the greed of big pharma refusing to give patents for generic uh medications in countries that couldn’t afford to pay you know industrial world prices and countries like Canada and the United States that refuse to ship generic anti-retrovirals. And so he spent years of his life watching people die, coming home and bearing witness to that unnecessary crime against humanity. He called it mass murder by complacency.
Avi Lewis: Um and he willed, you know, not as an individual because none of this change happens. It’s all about collective struggle. But he willed in some ways a movement into being um uh changes in policies in African and and European and North American countries. Um shifting uh even Republican presidents at times and their policies or defying their defense of drug company profits. And I believe he really did save countless lives um just in that fight alone. But his life was characterized by unrelenting commitment to democratic socialist principles that the world is filled with wealth and resources and there is just no defensible reason that people should suffer to the extent that they do. And I think he was his willpower was a huge part of it. you know, his clarity of purpose, his consistency. He had the same level of integrity, sometimes frustrating levels of integrity personally as he did politically. Like he always paid as much taxation as he possibly could on the personal tax returns because he has sometimes I’d be like, “Dad, these are deductions. It’s not cheating. These you follow the rules.” He’s like, “I refuse this. There’s, you know, there’s something wrong with this system when you don’t.” I’m like, “Okay, okay, great. you’re paying for our health care system personally. Terrific. Um, but you know, he had this incredible will and he stayed alive for years. Um, and uh, and yeah, I mean, I sometime in the last election when I was running here in Vancouver Center, I told him I was going to run for leader and and he said straight up, I’m going to stay alive to see you win. And I I literally had like a jinx moment where I was like, don’t say the W word. We’re just talking about running. we’re not talking about. But he was he was absolutely determined and you know since this experience where he just hung on, you know, to see the result um and then he let go. Um I’ve talked to so many people who have had this experience where people choose their time to go sometimes. Sometimes people are taken really quickly by disease, by by accident, by any number of things, by war, um by bombs. But there are times when the human will to live is so strong. Um you know, and I was reflecting on one of my great mentors, Libby Davies. Um you know, five-time city council in Vancouver, five-time MP. Um her first partner, Bruce, was a a fellow uh housing and anti-poverty activist in the downtown east side in Vancouver. And when she decided to make the jump to federal politics after years on city council, Bruce was very very sick and she sort of made the decision, but then she double she d she second guessed herself. She was like, I can’t do this. This is this is the the fight of your life. It’s the end of your life. And he was like, you are going to do this. And he hung on. And she won this contested nomination for the NDP nomination in in Vancouver East. And Bruce passed away 3 days after that. And so these stories, I mean, not just the political ones, but you know, stories of everyday heroism in a way. And for me, Rachel, you know, um, it was a gift that I was able to give him that. That was a gift to me, you know, like I think about his generation of leftists. And you know in the 60s and 70s I think that people on the democratic left in Canada really did feel like we might win and change the balance of forces in society and you know make life not just easier but actually fair in you know within cap capitalism beyond capitalism. People had different you know ideological theories but you know my dad won rent control. He and the 75 and Ontario NDP caucus, they won rent control from the Conservative government in a minority government in 1975 in Ontario. And for 20 years until Mike Harris started dismantling it in the ’90s, people in the province of Ontario had real rent control. That was a material benefit to countless people who lived in that time. And it seemed like life was getting better. But for most of his adult life since those early wins and they were all incremental too, right? Even healthcare was never fully every it wasn’t headto toe. It wasn’t Tommy’s dream. You know, we won part of it.
Rachel Gilmore: It’s been dismantled. It’s been in shitified. It’s been privatized. It’s been downgraded. And we have been living in in a nastier and more and more unfair world. And I think for my mom and dad’s generation, it was really hard to hang on to hope
Avi Lewis: as they watch their youthful dreams just get systematically trampled on decade after decade. And I don’t know what my level of hope is on any given day. You know, it depends sort of on what you decide in a way because I believe that hope is a is a choice sometimes and it’s something you fight for. It’s something you fight with. But I saw it slipping away from him and his generation. And the fact that he felt that I represented a renewal of the party, you know, a resurgence of of this kind of uh NDP that he was part of in the 70s. Uh what a gift to be able to give him and to let him have a taste of hope and and victory and transformation in the last waking moments of his life. is just like honestly I don’t know what to say. It just you know it happened and I feel in a way lucky to be part of it. Also as you said
Rachel Gilmore: and you did it you know
Avi Lewis: I mean we did it like I think about my campaign manager Savannah Wilson.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah. the most talented political organizer I’ve ever worked with and the the volunteers on our campaign like our Discord in the campaign with 1,200 people and just like this flourishing of creative conversations and stupid memes and and people being joyful and ridiculous and working their asses off for something that felt so needed. And I just feel like, you know, there there is a person that in this these systems that we work in that has to be the leader, right? And but in our in the way that we’ve done it, we’ve been really really clear that this is absolutely collective work. Um I feel the weight of that responsibility. I feel the trust that people have put in me and I feel that the struggle is utterly shared. And um we people across this country uh tens of thousands worked and struggled and voted and built momentum and created a campaign that I think was really historic. And he watched the whole thing with pride and he managed to see the results on that Sunday. And uh yeah, what a what a what a thing. Um and I I I guess at some point there’ll be time to decompress a little bit from this experience. Now I’m deep in the transition and obviously showing up in Ottawa and having a national role. It’s things aren’t slowing down.
Avi Lewis: It’s a lot. It’s a lot to deal with while grieving, but it it’s you know, I’m sure he was really proud of you.
Rachel Gilmore: I feel him. I feel him in me. And I think that’s just a a huge and beautiful gift. And you know, too often in the patriarchal story, my mom and my and my sisters and my mom’s mom, you know, get erased from from this story. They mustn’t be. My mom uh I think for my dad, like if you look at what shaped his life and struggle for his post-electoral career, my mom was an early feminist. She read Simone Devoir in the 1950s, The Second Sex, when she was at Earl Hagg High School in North Toronto. and she was the only girl in her high school wearing jeans, smoking sports, striking the match on her zipper and just being just such a rebel, you know, and she sort of discovered feminism before there was a word for it. Um, and it shaped her life and her politics and she brought that into an understanding that the fundamental gender injustice of human history. Um now we have a more complex and nuanced view of it thankfully. But in the second wave of feminism, you know, the the 52% of humanity um being oppressed for the benefit of the of the 48 uh is the fundamental injustice in our world. Gender injustice is the the injustice that underlies all the others. And that really became his politics for decades of his life. And to see a man of the old school really embrace feminism and the fight for gender equality um was my mom’s work in a big way. My dad’s openness for sure, but my mom’s work through him and with him. Um and so yeah, I I I feel like uh I’m I’m the luckiest guy in the world. You know, you know who my wife is. I am surrounded by by brilliant folks and uh I just struggle every day to make them proud of that. If I can do that, that’s that’s plenty. Well, one thing that must have uh been uh the the inter the uh reaction to your victory must have given them given them some giggles and definitely some pride. I actually you know uh people were really crashing out Abby like people were crashing out especially on the sort of the the political right commentator class. I
Avi Lewis: I wanted to ask you I mean like
Rachel Gilmore: all these people were declaring the death of the party when you won. Uh a lot of people who I don’t think I’ve ever voted NDP in their lives. Sorry my not a single one of them.
Avi Lewis: You made me blubber a little and now my makeup’s running but yeah yeah but the you know and and obviously they’ve been wrong. I mean, we saw in the recent bi-elections there in two of the writings, the vote share stayed roughly the same, but in University Rosedale, it pretty much doubled the NDP vote. So, that’s not exactly the sign of a dying party. But I’m wondering why you think your politics specifically within the NDP even inspired such a strong reaction from the political right. I mean there there was the week there after the convention after my dad passed away there was that sort of someone online commented on the whiplash right that there are people are venerating this great you know old socialist and demonizing his spawn or exactly the same politics like my dad’s favorite my dad loved to say that he was a socialist he said it at every opportunity he had he loved to talk about nothing more than the depradations of capitalism you know, this was his frame and uh and he was to be uh lionized in that moment and I was to be uh um the the source of terror. I think it’s I think that the we have a new political uh reality in Canada and we have the prime minister who is still very popular and still very trusted. Um, and we have a new, and I think part of it is a hungering for a new, more respectful, less bombastic and theatrical god, enough of Doug Ford and Polyv and name calling and Trump and stupid nicknames for people and just gross gross behavior celebrated. We have a I think a kind of a ground swell of rejection of that and a desire for our politicians to maybe be a little more boring or maybe be a little more like grown-ups or whatever. And I think Carney benefits a lot from that. And yet I think there are transformative changes taking place in the direction of our country. Um uh I am going to answer your question but I I want to like set it in this moment because I watched uh prime minister’s sort of fireside chat the direct video that he did this past week to Canadians with great interest and he immediately started talking about the economic responses that he uh you know is taking credit for in the financial crisis 2008 2009 and his frame is that we will reassure Canadians that we will act with overwhelming force against the threat threats arrayed against us. Now, he was talking as a banker about economics, but there’s this uh subtle, maybe not so subtle, very clear shift to warlike military framing, and that’s accompanied by his defense industrial strategy, which is a half a trillion dollars of new investment in weapons and war in the next decade. There are big changes of foot in this country. There are a number of bills that set aside consultation, indigenous rights, uh environmental assessment for these projects that are deemed in the national interest. These projects which are never about investing in child care in the national in interest. Projects that are never about investing in completing the dream of universal uh headtotoe healthcare as a national interest. They’re about extractive projects. They’re about shipping raw resources. They’re about investing in a big new defense export industry. They’re about oil and gas and new pipelines. These are these are consensus projects that benefits that benefit elites massively and corporations that are already war profitering excess profits from the skyrocking skyrocketing price of oil. Another inflation crisis which is going to drive food even further out of reach for for Canadians who actually work for a living. There are dramatic things happening that are changing in the basis of our economy and our direction as a country. And there are cons there consensus positions from the far right national post editorial board and and pretty you know out there columnists to the sober center right now what are we calling them red tory carne liberals of like whatever that political identity is. And so yes, these ideas that we take the wealth of this country and the role of government is to capture a fair portion of it and invest it in things that make life less cruel and unfair and extraordinarily difficult for the vast majority of us. That is a threat to the next big cash in that is being lined up right now in an era of global instability where corporations that are already making billions upon billions of dollars every single year while people struggle to put food on the table for their kids and their families. Those corporations are going to cash in at an exponentially higher level. And the political class and the elites in this country are lined up behind that. And when they get a sense that there’s a kind of populism of the left which is emerging, which is being granted the credibility of a national political party. Yes, we are still a caucus that can fit inside now, you know, like a minivan or
Rachel Gilmore: or a DND table,
Avi Lewis: a D&D table. We could have dinner, we could have a reservation without even needing like to push the tables together at a restaurant. We We are still small, but these ideas are big. they are catching fire and they pose a threat to the dominant powers in our in our society. So I think that the role of the extreme rightwing in the cultural space in the media space in Canada is to demonize and caricature our our version of left populism while the serious center right can dismiss us or ignore us. But we are going to build power at the base. And our strategy is not to win the air war. We will win the air war when we’re winning the ground game. We can pierce through with ideas and we can spread the message with big megaphones. And it’s incredibly important to do communications, which is something that I spend a lot of my time doing. But we have a focus on organizing, organizing, organizing, which is also a threat to power because it actually means one-on-one conversations in the neighborhood, in the grocery store, on the corner, and building power in neighborhoods, building bottom-up power, which is much more durable, which is much more less vulnerable to the vicissitudes of political swings because we’re talking about organizing, which is what the NDP uh was traditionally the best at, and bringing back that culture. It’s a longer built potentially although things can happen fast in politics these days but it is a very substantial power that we are trying to build and I think it’s a real threat.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah, definitely. But it’s it’s I think that part of why they’re thrashing so much is because socialism really is having a moment if you will globally. Like you know there’s the Green Party in the UK, there’s Zoron Mandani, there’s I mean Emily Lohen out in BC like there’s there’s all of these voices coming up and I think it’s because they really speak to the realities that people are living that we’ve been gas lit about. I mean, when you have governments looking at macroeconomic indicators like debt to GDP ratio, for example, and not actually looking at the wealth gap, that is the highest it has been according to Statistics Canada in recorded history in Canada. You know, you’re not actually capturing the day-to-day issues of everyday people. Um but you know I think that one of the things that you’re up against in that is the conservatives have been voicing those those issues with um you know arguably I would say in my you know I’m not not pretending to be fully uh you know neutral and not have opinions on these things anymore but but you know I would argue that the solutions they present don’t actually adequately address the problems that they are accurately identifying. But because they were accur accurately identifying the issues, they were able to really eat away at the NDP’s workingass flank. So, how do you make your message resonate with voters again, particularly when the right is working so hard to make the NDP look silly in some ways? I mean, they had that like those they grabbed whatever clips they could from the convention to make you guys look like look, you know, like unserious, but I mean, how do you tackle that online atmosphere and actually have a message that connects?
Avi Lewis: I really agree with your analysis and I I’m glad to hear you say it because I I think it’s really true. the conservative, not just polyv, not just the conservative party in Canada, the conservative movement, um the the the the mega politics um coming from the United States and our own convoy movement, uh all the way through to um to the manosphere and the funnel that brings young men into online spaces of misogyny and and and and the far It’s to the extreme right that that you’ve done such uh groundbreaking work documenting. They are harvesting the legitimate rage of people who are being ground to dust by the unfairness of this economy. People are right to be angry. And I think that the Democratic left in Canada has been reluctant to speak to that rage. Um because we’re so easily characterized by overwhelmingly, you know, unfair media environment, etc. You know, that we’re not serious and stuff like that. So we maybe we’ve shied away from really speaking to the rage, but the conservative movement has done it. Um and they have built a formidable extreme right and a coalition of people who are prepared to vote right-wing um and follow cultural uh the the culture online culture of of of of right-wing um views by speaking to the rage by saying you’re you’re angry you’re right to be angry and you should be angry at these people trans kids immigrants international students that’s an expert move of rising authoritarianism to redirect the rage at injustice and economic inequality towards the most vulnerable in society. And beyond that, they’re a hammer looking for a nail. Everything is a tax cut. The only solution they have is cut taxes. And you know, axe, they’ll find a new tax. As long as there’s one tax left in a country like Canada, they will be claiming that we could solve all of our problems by cutting that tax. And for whatever reason, I think, you know, there’d be a whole other show just to explain why that works or to to interrogate that together.
Rachel Gilmore: It does work enough of the time.
Avi Lewis: Yeah.
Rachel Gilmore: But I think now um you know, we have seen enough tax cutting, the digital services tax, the carbon tax is gone. This whole thing about the carbon tax, it was going to make every it was the reason everything was so expensive. We have one freaking moment of of memory in this country where it’s like they cut the carbon tax everywhere and everything got more expensive after like three days. It was it was It was an illusion. It was never the thing that was making life so expensive.
Avi Lewis: Yeah.
Rachel Gilmore: Even if it had been, which it wasn’t, it was price gouging. every excuse they get to gouge us more, they just gouge us more because nobody stops them because the government does not actually consider it its responsibility to to protect us from being extracted from by big tech, by big grocery, by big telecoms, by big everything. Right? So, the Conservatives have done a great job of that and I believe that we are offering solutions. And this is why, Rachel, when when I we launched the campaign in September uh of last year, we came out with a public option for groceries and a wealth tax and a green new deal and an electric bus revolution and ideas to put people to work under public ownership to solve to reduce people’s daily costs, slash emissions at the same time, create unionized jobs, use Canadian materials like steel with an east west electricity grid and battery storage to to have a renewable energy revolution, and create jobs and use our own materials instead of selling in the states and fight the tariffs and trump our economy and create Canadian economic independence. We have been advancing solutions, concrete solutions um that are really appealing to Canadians because people see I think that the biggest barrier to change is that we’ve lost the belief that change can happen. And so when we describe something clearly enough, a lot of people are like public grocery stores. Okay, I don’t have an immediate allergic reaction to that because I’m not extremely conservative and like I don’t the government runs healthcare. We got public auto insurance in British Columbia. Our rates are cheaper than uh Alberta or Ontario. We still have a public phone company in Saskatchewan. Yeah, public things are they could be okay. So tell me how this works. Okay, it’s 50 stores. You got regional distribution hubs. $300 million a year to subsidize. Okay, that sounds like money, but not a crazy amount of money in an economy our size. You say 30 to 45% cheaper groceries. I’d like to see someone try that, you know. So, now Toronto’s doing a pilot. Ottawa is doing a pilot. They’re talking about it in Montreal. A there’s in Quebec there’s a there’s a pro a provincewide pro like a a public procurement food procurement network that’s bringing together people in food justice and the food bank system but also you know co-ops and you know this could be a revival of the co-ops suddenly people are picturing a life which is less cruel and impossible and they’re like why couldn’t we give that a try
Avi Lewis: and so I think it’s the solutions it’s the actual proposals that will get back people and and simultaneously expand the political imagination so that not only do we think that this public grocery option is worth a try, but we actually start believing again that things do not have to suck this hard, that actually in a country as a wash in wealth as Canada, we could have a better life. We deserve good things. We can have good things and it’s possible. And once that spark is unleashed, look out because it can really catch fire. And I think that’s another part of the extreme reaction to us from the right-wing um and the attempt to brand us as communist, you know, like Soviet style empty store shelves, bread lineups, etc.
Rachel Gilmore: But Avy, what if Toby Luke can’t have another billion dollars? They need to consider that,
Avi Lewis: right?
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah.
Avi Lewis: The sky is falling. So, I really do think that that leftwing populism um has unlimited potential. I don’t know whether we’ll be smart enough and work hard enough and avoid enough mistakes and grow power fast enough to actually do it and and fulfill the promise of it. But I know it has immense potential and I see people getting lit up by it and I see our ideas cutting through already um from a party which is being simultaneously dismissed and listened to on things like surveillance pricing which is what we came out with on our first day in Ottawa. Um and and so we’re going to see where this goes. But I don’t think we can be naive and think that these ideas which are not revolutionary, which are actually kind of reasonable and maybe even somewhat moderate, but these ideas are deeply threatening to a status quo which has not been challenged in quite a long time. The mainstream narratives, this is how it has to be. There’s no way we can change this. All of it. What the hell are you talking about? An alternative to the way things go. Not possible. we we represent a threat to that ironclad narrative and when that starts to crack apart, change becomes right there. We can reach out and grab it.
Rachel Gilmore: I think that’s part of what was so smart with bringing uh the surveillance pricing uh as one of the first issues that you guys really like drove home in the House of Commons because I’ve seen so many motions, opposition motions die and it make no splash. But it’s just like it’s it’s a great issue for encapsulating corporate greed and everything that Canadians are dealing with. The way that big tech takes advantage of us, the ways in which if a grocery store is allowed to get even a few extra cents from you, if any capitalistic like company is able to get a few extra cents from you, they will find a way to do it. And it’s just kind of the epitome of that. So that was really clever. But you know, something that I keep coming up against, I see it in my comment sections. I see it in your comment sections is um a lot of the stuff that you have suggested does freak people out. Now we can have a conversation about why it freaks people out. The media ecosystem, the way that National Post seems to have like the strongest legion of columnists writing the most output relative to any other paper in this freaking country. Um but but I do think that when people say they’re scared, you have to listen, right? And you have to understand where that fear comes from. Um, you know, there’s the issue of moving off of oil and gas, for example. Um, I know I’ve heard you say that you have a promise to transition in a way that people aren’t going to be penalized workers. Like, they you want to transition so they have other job options because the transition is coming whether you want it or not. It’s just whether you’re prepared for it. But that still scares people because you’re asking them to trust a politician’s word that they’re not going to lose their job when that’s burned them so many times before. Right.
Avi Lewis: Exactly. When you tell people that you’re taking these huge swings and presenting changes, how do you get them to believe you that it’s not going to be this scary thing and that it’ll actually help them? How do you make them less afraid?
Rachel Gilmore: Well, that’s a really great example and I think that this is I mean right now we’re not in government, right? We are we are proposing um and we just have to keep we have to keep being honest and remind people that we’re not asking them to trust us. I I think like the the transition is the last word that workers hear before they get screwed.
Avi Lewis: Here in British Columbia, forestry workers, you know, they were supposed to transition and then, you know, mills close and um and the industry has been just downsliding for decades. And now with the tariffs, it’s another one of the top three industries I think that are affected by by the tariff wars. And when when workers in the forestry industry are told we’re going don’t worry they’re going to get retraining and stuff like that. It just never happened. like literally after Clackwood Sound, this the war in the woods in the in the early 90s here in British Columbia, this big the first big fight um over protecting old growth. Um part of the standoff was, you know, there was going to be alternatives developed, you know, um and it turned out that they were they were telling forestry workers like they should work in ecoourism and what serve cappuccinos to the environmental activists they’d been facing off with in the woods the year before? like it’s it was insulting
Rachel Gilmore: and and it never happened or or the or the fisheries workers when the cop collapsed. Um there’s no transition for workers. They’re thrown on the trash heap and I think oil and gas workers have every reason to be afraid because these transitions have never been done with a focus on workers. So since the beginning of the of the leadership campaign, we’ve been really clear we’re talking about public ownership because the government has an absolute moral responsibility to take care of workers first. Workers create the value in our economy and in resource economies. That’s especially true because we’re not doing a lot of processing whether it’s logs or oil or whatever. We’re mostly shipping relatively raw resources to to other countries and those workers must be protected. That means that we need new industries and a green industrial strategy to create the new jobs in a heat pump in every home in an electric bus revolution in the east west power grid in large industrial scale uh projects and development and manufacturing returning to our economy as an important uh element of making our economy more independent and building more unionized good family supporting jobs. Those jobs have to be in place in communities first. We have to get started, right? Because every time you start start talking about we need to get off a oil and gas roller coaster, the translation for people in resource economies is you’re shutting down everything tomorrow. We never said we’re shutting down anything tomorrow. We literally never said that. That is literally a an industry talking point to shut down the conversation so the transition never starts in a country like Canada. We have not even started when the rest of the world because of the invasion of Ukraine uh by Russia and the gas price explosion in Europe. Those company those countries in Europe double down on getting away from fossil fuels and and now they’re doing another round of it because of the illegal war uh against Iran. And so Canada’s being left behind. We’re still arguing about pipelines and we’re not getting started on getting off this resource curse roller coaster. because the industries are so powerful, because so much money is made, because governments are addicted to the revenue, and who’s going to get sacrificed every time there’s a market disruption? It’s workers who pay the price. And yet the industry and the political class has convinced workers to to to to resist change because they deny any start on any alternative. In Alberta, people have been talking about the need to diversify the economy away from oil and gas exclusively as the major source of revenue for the government, the major funer of social uh of social care in Alberta for decades and decades and decades. And every time anyone’s come up with the most modest proposal to diversify the economy, it’s like the sky is falling, you hate workers, you’re going to shut down our communities tomorrow, it’s going to be a ghost town. And then we get another pipeline. So if we really want change, we have to be committed to telling the truth. We have to be committed to centering workers in the story that we tell and coming up with proposals and out ofthe-box proposals where we say the private sector is not doing it. They make too much damn money from the status quo. They will keep pursuing the status quo until we all burn. And this summer is going to be another summer where we where where the planet is literally on fire underneath our feet and in our lungs. And we will keep doing this until somebody has the courage to say that government has to intervene and start this transition and guarantee employment for people so that we can just get started. We’re already so far behind. So part of it is just consistency, you know, and part of it is like watching my dad um for decades and decades maintain the same views patiently reexplain to people who didn’t want to listen that it’s just wrong that pharmaceutical companies that make tens of billions of dollars a year should deny life-saving medicines to a significant portion of humanity. It is wrong. and the role of government to step up and force corporations to do enough of the right thing that people don’t die unnecessarily. They can still make profits. We’re just not talking about cartoon profits.
Avi Lewis: We’re talking about reasonable profits, right? And I’ve watched I watched him do that for my whole life. And I feel like that is the work. We have to patiently keep explaining it and not dilute the truth that we understand to be true to the things that we know even if they don’t strike people as popular in a particular moment because we know we know who really suffers in in in these unfair arrangements our in our society. They’re the most vulnerable people. They’re trans kids in in provinces that invoke the notwithstanding clause to deny them care, to take away their fundamental rights. They’re resource workers who are being automated out of existence. Oil and gas industry has figured out how to make a barrel of oil with almost half as many employees as 10 years ago. The industry is throwing workers under the bus every single day. It’s not people calling for a transition who are throwing workers under the bus. It’s the greed of the industry itself. So, we just have to keep we have to stay true to these to these principles and build a movement uh and a political momentum that is based on clarity and honesty. And I believe it’s the way to do it. I can’t think of any other.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah. I uh I want to turn to audience questions for the last 10 minutes, but I quickly had one last thing I wanted to ask you before we pivot to those. I have like a million more things I could ask you, but I’m trying to communication with me. No, I that’s the the joy of the podcast kind of platform. That’s the one thing I’m going to miss is you can actually have like real substantive conversations. But um yeah, so you guys can go ahead and start putting some questions in the chat if you’d like. But I I did specifically want to ask you, you know, um obviously what you just spoke to kind of speaks to the the divide that we’re seeing between the federal NDP and the Alberta NDP, but another um provincial NDP that’s been in some uh some dicey been getting some dicey headlines lately is uh the BC NDP. David Eie uh was reportedly set to suspend key portions of the province’s declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples or DRIPA in the wake of a ruling that’s dropped down free entry mineral staking, one that is being appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Um but then on Sunday night, BC Premier David Eie came out and said they wouldn’t actually introduce legislation to suspend key portions of DRIPA this legislative session. People in BC are really concerned about BC’s uh about EB’s handling of this. There are people I just got a press release in my inbox calling on EB to resign. Um, as a federal NDP leader with ties to these provincial parties, do you have concerns about what the BC NDP premier is doing here? And uh, what do you have to say about that?
Avi Lewis: Well, I I think what what we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks is a really intense democratic debate within a party and a government and within a province. And I think see to me this is actually an example of how politics works. There are different interests in society. And when it comes to indigenous rights, indigenous rights have never had the power of extractive industries for two randomly chosen examples to influence government policy. But we build power from the ground up. And for me political like the political system is one venue for these kinds of struggles and social movements, civil society, um trade union movements are are really other important fields of battle, right, in terms of the ongoing struggle for for justice. And I think you’ve seen the line shift on this issue over time as different constituencies have made very forceful cases um within the BCNDP, within the BCNDP government, within the province of British Columbia. And I think that the shifting um approaches by the premier have reflected where power is brought to bear on the decision-making process. Um and I actually think that’s healthy. And I think too much of our politics is focused on the personalities involved as if you know if Dave Eie were just making all the decisions as one person that’s one kind of government. Dave Eie is responding to an array of pressures and powers in society and a contestation of powers in society. And right now um I think that that the the indigenous leadership in British Columbia asserted its power and the government is responding I think in a responsible way to that power that was brought to bear on a decision that has been you know that has that has shifted and I I think it’s encouraging like I think it’s good when governments listen. I think it’s good when governments, you know, when when Ford was going to develop the green belt and like Marth Styles and and and the NDP led uh, you know, there’s a whole coalition in society that really pushed back hard, there was obvious corruption at stake. There was like and the Ford government backed off, right? That’s there there are examples where governments changed course and generally it’s because of push back. Too often it’s because of pressure from corporations and banks and the wealthiest in society. So when we see pressure working in other ways, I think it’s great. I I don’t I don’t think that’s something, you know, to like pin on one person or their personal handling of something. I really see these things as as the as as the battle of forces in society. I’ll be subject to it, too, as a leader of a of a national party. Um, and this is democracy in action, folks. I I I think it’s a good thing.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah. All right. Um, we’ve got about eight minutes for audience questions. Okay. Um, okay. So, I’ve got some uh audience questions here. Uh, the first one, I’ll just grab a super chat one and then we’ll turn to the the freebies because, you know, we we like to support everyone. Yeah. So, Zorhal wants to know, “How can we stop Mark Carney’s reckless attempt to integrate Ontario teacher pension plan with the war bank’s potential host city in Toronto?” Um, I’m I’m not overly familiar with that. So, and I I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look into it, but uh what are your thoughts on that? Well, I there there is this move for Canada to host this this defense bank and you know I I see it as um as a negative development in general. uh like we talked about right at the beginning, um Carney is increasingly using the vocabulary of war um intertwined with the with economics and and is proposing huge investments in in military expenditures in Canada to create a defense export industry to you know increase our defense exports by 50% hosting a global uh financial mechanism for funding weapons and war like what do Do we think all these weapons are used for, folks? Like I know everybody feels scared and like the world is full of war and and and authoritarianism, but like do we really think that just having way more weapons is going to make things more peaceful? Like let’s just get down to basics now. The pension funds um are some of the biggest pools of capital in the global economy and Canada has a bunch of really big ones and I think that their investments um should reflect the values of their members and I don’t think that the Ontario teachers, retirees um and people who are contributing to that pension plan think that investing in in in war uh and weapons is what their pension plans should be doing. But the pension plans have been constructed by banks and and by big finance uh to reflect the a absolute you know imperative to get maximum profit and nothing else. And so yeah we have to challenge these things because pension funds are huge funders of of uh of private private capital sources of private capital in the global economy and in Canada’s economy. And I’ve always believed that they should be in line with the values of the workers that they whose futures they represent. And I believe it is possible to have values-based investing that is absolutely capable of securing uh uh a dignified future for retired workers. And so I think that this should be challenged on two fronts. The the the so-called war bank in itself I think is I I don’t see Canada’s benefit in in hosting that. And the notion of ethical investing by pension funds is something I’ve always been passionate about. I think teachers um um have a special role to play in this. Um like if the for the Canada pension uh plan investment board is up to its eyeballs in fracking and increasingly in military investments and other things and all Canadians who pay into it should have a voice in where those investments go or at least some guard rails on the investments so that they represent our values. Another super chat question that’s uh kind of a fun one so we’ll just keep it really quick on this but how much of a hockey fan are you Leafs Habs or Canucks? Who’s your team?
Avi Lewis: I played ball hockey a lot as a kid. I’ve never been I’ve never followed the NHL the way I followed Major League Baseball. I played soccer was my actual sport until I was 18 or so and then I fell off a hillside in Nepal as a 20-year-old and shattered my leg and haven’t been able to run since. Um, but all all of a way to avoid uh taking a position on hockey because I’m not a diehard hockey fan. I really enjoyed playing hockey. Um, and maybe I’m just not fast enough to follow the puck on on TV. Um,
Rachel Gilmore: guys, he’s a D and D guy. Okay, throw him the hockey question.
Avi Lewis: Give me a 20sider. Give me a 20sider. Don’t take my stick and ask me to shoot left or right. Come on.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah. So, Michael Oang, back to the more serious ones, wants to know, um, how can you, uh, they say, “I know you can govern to the left and still balance the budget. What type of tax system do you lean towards? What percentage do we tax top tier incomes?”
Avi Lewis: Yeah. Well, first of all, we don’t have a wealth tax right now, and we’ve been really clear. Most Canadians support it. and not just taxing top incomes. Uh because the wealthiest people can adjust their income um and manipulate it and create companies and shell companies and corporations and move things around to show a loss. Um that’s why taxing wealth is really important. It’s not the only thing. Um I believe the capital gains tax is something that we really need to be fighting for more fairness in. Rich people make a lot of their money in buying and selling things, yachts, artwork, properties, stocks, right? um and financial instruments and they pay taxes on like half the money they make on that. Uh um and you pay a hund you pay taxes on a 100% of what you earn, you know, busting your butt going to work every day. Why do rich people pay tax on less of the money they make when the rest of us have to pay tax on all of the money we make? So there are big things we can do within our taxation system to make it more progressive. But obviously I believe that um that there’s a lot of wealth in this country that is undertaxed. So a more aggressive progressive taxation system is long overdue in Canada. We’re never going to stop fighting for that.
Rachel Gilmore: Yeah. Do you think that uh Carney should have kept the capital gains rate increase?
Avi Lewis: Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I I really do believe that we should that capital gains are a form of of uh of income, unquestionably. And what it just there’s no rational explanation for why people don’t have to pay tax on all the income they make when if you work at a supermarket or you drive an Uber or you’re grinding it out as a streamer, by God, you’re paying tax on every dollar of income you make. So, why shouldn’t everybody?
Rachel Gilmore: Yep. Uh so, uh End Blink wants to know, uh the NDP recently lost three runoffs. Uh what’s the immediate plan to rebuild the party to get people in seats in the government?
Avi Lewis: Yeah. So you’re talking about the bi-elections here for sure. I mean they were yes they were called during the leadership race effectively or when the when the party was really focused on that. And we’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. Um I think bi-elections are not really a fair test of a party’s uh strength. They they they are called, you know, by the government in ways that the government, you know, like the Liberal Party, right, uh really wanted that Turbun seat in the bi-elections and they called the Liberal Liberal Party convention just happened to be the weekend before in Montreal and the whole country’s eyes were on the Liberal Party convention in Montreal. Oh, and there’s a bi-election right there like a couple days later. You know, not that bi-elections aren’t important and we’re going to try to win every single bi-election that comes up. Um, but the rebuild is is not going to be an overnight thing. Um, like I said before, the culture of organizing patiently building a base um to really have a ground game in the next election. It doesn’t happen overnight. So, we’re already started on that. And uh the the party um passed a resolution at the convention in Winnipeg that was a very significant one that called for a culture of perpetual organizing, a permanent organizing culture at the writing level. So not just for elections but really creating a culture of organizing 365 days a year and we are looking very closely at how to implement that um and how to actually build a different kind of organizing culture in the NDP. So that work is already underway. Stay tuned. It’s not sexy. It’s not going to make headlines. But if you are involved in the NDP in your writing, you’re going to notice changes in the way this party works and a new value on uh 365day organizing. And uh I’m super excited about it. It’s going to be incredible.
Rachel Gilmore: Great. Um guys, there’s so many questions and I want to take more of them, but unfortunately Aby’s already been super generous staying for a whole hour, which is like more than the usual POLITICAL LEADER.
Avi Lewis: YEAH, it’s the last one. So, I think we’re wrapping it up. I’m not saying it won’t come back someday. Maybe if I suddenly find the infrastructure that the right has for podcasting and can get some help, that would be a bit of a game changer. But as things say now, this is the tail end. So, thank you, Abby, for being here. Thank you for your time. And thank you for being my last podcast guest. I really appreciate it. We’re going out with a bang.
Rachel Gilmore: A very special thing. I’ll never forget it, Rachel. When the podcast returns, maybe I could be the first one so we have a little bit of continuity. You know, when we get you, how about we get Rachel Gilmore a couple of producers people? Let’s bump up those.
Avi Lewis: My problem is because I’m progressive, I know I can’t afford to pay them enough to feel right about it. So, that’s the problem. You will, you know, one day
Rachel Gilmore: you will. We just keep growing this audience and it’ll all come.
Avi Lewis: That’s the goal. All right. Well, thank you again, Avi. I know, right? We’ve got some rebuilding to do. All right. Okay. Thank you again and all the best. Um and you know, once again, send my love to your family for everything. And I hope you get some time to be together and really um have a moment to to feel everything. So, all right. Thanks, Abby. Bye. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Bubble Pop. I’m Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person’s least favorite journalist. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on YouTube, Patreon, Substack, or wherever you like to listen. You can also find me on Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitch, and Blue Sky. I’d like to give a special thank you to Hans Vivian Wel for making the incredibly groovy music for Bubble Pop. You can find more of his stuff on Spotify under the artist’s name Hans. That’s a lowercase H with an exclamation mark. Thank you again for spending this time with me. This is my dream job. I know I say that every week, but that’s cuz it’s true every week. And I couldn’t do it for one second without your support. So,