Being Pragmatic: Inside the NS NDP
The Nova Scotia NDP recently removed a candidate over their support for Palestine. This isn't the first time, not for the NS NDP or its counterparts across Canada. This episode provides insight into why so many members choose to stay and what the detriments of that are.
For an even deeper dive, check out our podcast playlist, INSIDE THE NDP.
_______________
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon
Resources:
Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you'll know I am no fan of the
Speaker:NDP. This hasn't always been the case. My position on and in the party shifted over time. But
Speaker:eventually I arrived at a place of complete contempt for the so-called Workers' Party.
Speaker:The stories you'll hear in this episode help explain that. And if anything, this last year
Speaker:has only solidified my position and left me more dismayed but wholly validated for where
Speaker:I'm at, thinking the NDP actively contributes to the erosion of the political left in Canada.
Speaker:Their centrist policies are shifting the spectrum, but they also have this suppressing, moderating
Speaker:effect on those who know the way forward isn't. with the systems oppressing us. A good majority
Speaker:of the members of the NDP would agree that capitalism is the problem, but the energy spent inside
Speaker:isn't engaging in anti-capitalist efforts. Instead, it's in ways where it can be maintained. The
Speaker:members knew before October 2023 that the occupation of Palestine was illegal and needed to be stopped.
Speaker:But all of that energy spent trying to get the party leaders to hold that line have produced
Speaker:next to nothing when it counts. Any sacrifices to be made to stop the genocide still rests
Speaker:on the grassroots members and massive mobilizations done without any assistance from the NDP. In
Speaker:fact, any elected officials or candidates who have dared push them on this have been sidelined
Speaker:and publicly attacked. Ontario MPP Sarah Jem is likely the most notable here, but she is
Speaker:by far from the only one. Our next guest Sean McGilvray will give you even more examples
Speaker:just from Nova Scotia. Not just candidates being removed for their support of Palestine, but
Speaker:of the countless ways in which the NDP has sold out its base. With few repercussions. This
Speaker:isn't to say that people haven't kicked up a storm or there hasn't been any bad press, but
Speaker:certainly not enough to elicit any genuine reflection or changes from leadership. Nova Scotia NDP
Speaker:is right now celebrating a three-seat gain, but their new position of official opposition
Speaker:isn't due to any vote gains from their last election in 2021. The Liberal Party there,
Speaker:as it has in other provinces, collapsed and the NDP couldn't secure any of that. The Conservatives
Speaker:have an even steeper majority now, and I can guarantee the people over there are not looking
Speaker:back and reflecting on the minor blip in the news that became of the removal of Eastern
Speaker:Passage candidate Tammy Jackman. I won't say more on that now because Sean will walk us
Speaker:through it, but Before we get into the interview, I want to speak to the NDP members still in
Speaker:the party. Still paying dues, still volunteering, maybe going door to door. What is your threshold?
Speaker:This is especially for folks angry. Sending angry emails, demanding backdoor meetings with
Speaker:their connections, attempting to hold the party accountable. Where is all that courage your
Speaker:Jack Layton spoke of? I can tell you from first-hand experience that the party has been purging
Speaker:our comrades for decades, and to a very particular end. The NDP now do nothing but serve to de-radicalize
Speaker:us, water us down, keep us cycling through the mechanisms provided to us by the ruling class.
Speaker:For all I know this was always their purpose. discouraging third ways and marginalizing the
Speaker:most radical amongst the Canadian political left. Traditionally socialists, but certainly
Speaker:not limited to. Now we use the poem. First they came for the socialists to explain what solidarity
Speaker:is, the importance of not waiting until it happens to you. But when it comes to writing wrongs
Speaker:within the party, most people just look away. You'll hear for a long time. Thousands of members
Speaker:are out there thinking they are being pragmatic by working the system, biding their time, building
Speaker:social and political capital, mostly just not knowing what else to do to secure better representation,
Speaker:better governance. And the result has been a completely unaccountable leadership, who operate
Speaker:in much the same way the Democrats do. on the fear folks have of the alternatives, and looking
Speaker:past their base towards the right. For a moment, I'd like you to imagine what we could have
Speaker:done with all that time and energy, all those donations. If the NDP had been committed to
Speaker:being an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist party, one determined to deliver indigenous sovereignty.
Speaker:We'll never know the impact of so many generations thinking the party was the only hope to obtain
Speaker:or even influence power. How many saw this as the only legitimate entry point to politics?
Speaker:We'll never know where we could have been if the people provided with such a platform had
Speaker:been as courageous as the people fighting for a free Palestine right now. So this episode
Speaker:and really this entire podcast is about Not just proving these institutions weren't built
Speaker:for us. We feel that. We want to provide alternative ways in which we can affect change, even inside
Speaker:the legislature, without legitimizing one of the players benefiting from that system, who
Speaker:has no interest in doing the hard work. But it seems to continue to be this canon event,
Speaker:an experience one has to go through personally to appreciate it. I just wish it wasn't that
Speaker:way. I wish the playlist we've compiled that has scores of testimonies from the inception
Speaker:of the party to its current form. I wish that was enough. And the other warnings people have
Speaker:provided were enough to spur people out of that institution and into something new. But I don't
Speaker:think we're there yet. This is the same with all the stories of struggle we've shared and
Speaker:examples of revolutions we learn about. The goal is to get our people to the point of resistance
Speaker:before they have to experience the oppression so personally and devastatingly while they
Speaker:still have the energy to fight. So for now let Sean and by proxy Tammy's experience get the
Speaker:air it deserves what they're putting their hope, love, and courage into. Welcome, Sean. Can
Speaker:you introduce yourself to the Blueprints audience? Hi, my name's Sean McGilvery. Up until very
Speaker:recently, I was a dedicated New Democrat of seven years, working on activities, both in
Speaker:my local EDA and with the Central Party, including doing audio for events, making large signs,
Speaker:even doing a little bit of Oppo. Um, and now I, as a result of some recent events and no
Speaker:longer member of the party, I'm also a volunteer with some other organizations like abortion
Speaker:support services, Atlantic, and the sort of local Palestine movement in Halifax, such as
Speaker:it is I provide audio for most of their demonstrations and some of the demonstrations too, including
Speaker:those with the indigenous community. I think a lot of ears perked up right away when you
Speaker:said you were formally a member of the NDP. Let that foreshadow what this episode is going
Speaker:to be about. Let's first share the event you just alluded to. My audience may or may not
Speaker:know why I am no longer in the NDP. I'm sure that will come up today. That's a teaser. But
Speaker:why are you no longer in the party? So I, as I mentioned, have been pretty close to the
Speaker:cause of Palestinian liberation, I think, as a lot of people in the party and without the
Speaker:party have also been doing. I have been involved, like I said, for about the last year. in regular
Speaker:demonstrations to that effect. And was also pretty dedicated to working with the NDP and
Speaker:sort of not, I don't think, out of a sense of total naivety or necessarily even believing
Speaker:in the system. I feel like I tried to go about it from a very pragmatic approach. And I feel
Speaker:like even my departure had its pragmatic aspects. But all of which is to say, a candidate named
Speaker:Tammy Jakeman. who is someone I had worked with for quite a long time. I was her writing association
Speaker:president in Eastern Passage for five years. And I've been through an election with her
Speaker:and you get all the trauma bonding that goes with working on an election together. I didn't
Speaker:know you were in Eastern Passage as well. That's personal. I moved to Cole Harbor, actually
Speaker:in between the back-to-back provincial and federal elections in 2021. But I had worked with Tammy
Speaker:for most of my most formative years with the NEP. I got involved first in Eastern Passage.
Speaker:I had just moved out there and I was looking to get involved. I was even considering running
Speaker:myself because I didn't know what the level of activity was out there. And so I started
Speaker:going to NDP events and pestering people and trying to find out how to get involved. And
Speaker:eventually I ended up going to this candidate nomination meeting, which was already an acclaimed
Speaker:nomination and got involved with that candidate's campaign. And from there remained active with
Speaker:the party in Eastern passage as it's riding association president as so frequently happens
Speaker:once you get involved. I'm trying to count on my hands like how many people I don't have
Speaker:that many fingers have given that entry point, you know It's not to say that your story isn't
Speaker:special. I'm sorry Sean, but yeah, it's just um, that is very reminiscent of most people's
Speaker:experience I think you know you tiptoe in and then you You quickly get involved. I keep finding
Speaker:this way and I'm gonna date myself this way But I keep finding ways to invoke this slogan
Speaker:from a TV show called candid camera And it had this sort of theme song jingle sort of thing.
Speaker:And the tagline was sort of like, when you least expect it, you're elected. And once that's
Speaker:the thing is like, it's very difficult and opaque as to how to get involved with the party initially,
Speaker:but once you do, God help you. Like once, once you're in, you'll be, it'll be turning down
Speaker:the reader, calling me to join the executive and calling me to do this and that. And, but
Speaker:anyway, so I worked with Tammy Jacob for a long time. And I also have been working with someone
Speaker:named Rana Zaman for a while too, on these rallies. And Rana was a federal candidate and she was
Speaker:booted from her federal candidacy after handily winning a contested nomination, which she clearly
Speaker:brought out tons of her community. She won the contest and then the party capitulated to Cija
Speaker:as they've done so many times and Cija of course has its local affiliate here at the Atlantic
Speaker:Jewish council and they're affiliated with many such councils across the country. And so they
Speaker:objected to specifically a post of Rana's. which criticized Israel's actions during the Great
Speaker:March of Return, criticizing them for, you know, having their snipers, murder medics and maim
Speaker:children and doing, you know, all the sorts of things that they documented we did. And
Speaker:Seja, of course, objected to that and the party ended Rana's candidacy rather quickly after
Speaker:that. And she, I felt this was one of the most embarrassing things. And Jess, I know that
Speaker:you've had lots of opportunity for embarrassment at the hands of the NDP. But I, this was still
Speaker:I think in more ways, you know, being at the subsequent nomination meeting where the losing
Speaker:candidate was acclaimed anyway, votes were taken and discarded, but then their membership money
Speaker:was taken and kept. And there are Muslims out front of our nomination meeting protesting.
Speaker:Truly not just much. Justifiably. Having worked with Rana made me familiar with the regularity
Speaker:with which the NDP ends candidacies over those candidates' support for Palestine. You know,
Speaker:you think of Paul Manley. who won the second Green Party seat ever after the Fed Party ended
Speaker:his candidacy again on thin allegations of anti-Semitism. And so they demonstrate not knowing that they're
Speaker:willing to bow down. They're willing to lose seats over it and have lost at least one seat
Speaker:over it. But this isn't what caused you to leave the party, is it? This is leading up to it
Speaker:because I had a great sensitivity to this exact issue. Like this was, and that's why I want
Speaker:to underscore, like when the NSNDP sort of on behalf of Sija bullied Tammy into ending her
Speaker:candidacy. This was the one line the party couldn't cross with the one person that couldn't cross
Speaker:it with me. And especially with me having this enhanced knowledge of like, you know, the party
Speaker:has this history of chucking people because of their support for Palestine. This was the
Speaker:reason pretty much that I stopped considering offering for the NDP that I stopped considering
Speaker:running is that like, they have demonstrated their cowards on this issue. And I don't think
Speaker:that like my greatest risk in running for the NDP is the NDP. That's the threat. And after
Speaker:a year of all the things we're seeing on our phones, the absolute stuff that only first
Speaker:responders see, like some horrifying things, after seeing a year of that and after having
Speaker:to call the leader of the party to account in provincial council, after having done all those
Speaker:things, they did just the worst possible thing they could have done. And this is one of the
Speaker:reasons why my decision to leave was nearly instant once I read the party's message and
Speaker:their sort of throwing of Tammy under the bus. To run you through the events of it briefly,
Speaker:from my perspective, I guess, I got a call on like the Saturday of the second weekend of
Speaker:the election. It was from the chief of staff of the party, James Pratt, with which you might
Speaker:have some familiarity because you knew he was involved the second I mentioned it happened.
Speaker:I have many little birdies. I'll just tell you that many little birdies. You immediately responded,
Speaker:James Pratt. I was like, I didn't say anything about James Pratt. Neither did the article
Speaker:I just said. Like whenever the party fucks up, my DMs are just absolutely full with what happened.
Speaker:Totally. I bet they are. So this is what happened. They called me and they said, and what they
Speaker:said to me is basically what they did. They sort of told her that CJ was going to make
Speaker:her life miserable, that her candidacy would only get worse. And it was kind of like, we'll
Speaker:allow you to continue, but you're doomed if you do. They called me to tell me that she
Speaker:had elected to end her candidacy. And I think the reason they did this is that they knew
Speaker:that I would walk. Damage control or attempted. Yeah, they were, he was like, this is the thing
Speaker:like this, this James guy really think like they're what the way he put it to me was that,
Speaker:you know, there's no local regional legacy media on politics in Nova Scotia on a long weekend.
Speaker:So we're going to do it now. We're going to try and wait out the weekend, keep our heads
Speaker:down and hope it goes away. These don't take the weekend off cell phones and social media
Speaker:accounts. Don't take the weekend off, unfortunately. And, and so that's something they didn't consider
Speaker:in their strategy. And I think it might have come back to bite them a little bit. And I
Speaker:think I was. part of that. They called me to like, and to try and feign concern for Tammy
Speaker:too, which is one of the really galling things about this is they're, they're faint, they're
Speaker:making it as if they're protecting her. When people write to them, the party has been responding
Speaker:first by, you know, feigning concern for Tammy and then validating the smear against her that
Speaker:CJ has made, which is that it's a conflation to talk about. And this was the week everyone
Speaker:learned the word conflation apparently, because I keep hearing it all of a sudden that it's
Speaker:a conflation to say that what's happening in Gaza is a genocide. Effectively, you can't
Speaker:because Tammy quote tweeted the Auschwitz Memorial and said something about the Israel, the genocide
Speaker:happening in Gaza right now. And that's what the party is saying is a conflation and quote
Speaker:unquote. And it's not, but in addition to capitulating to what they have told me is a bunch of bullying
Speaker:because, you know, James is on his phone call to me, told me, oh, you know, we see just so
Speaker:awful and their tactics are just a bullying and it's, and it's, it's such a shame. Oh,
Speaker:it's, you know, it's, I think, I think that is part of it for sure. I do, I do think that
Speaker:You know, people have talked about Zionists have infiltrated the party and like there is
Speaker:the odd Zionist in that party like I've met them and had like discussions about their annoying
Speaker:centrist political beliefs in the comment sections of my tech talks but. But ultimately, this
Speaker:is tactical cowardice and incompetence to an extent, and I think that is going to be born
Speaker:out I think it's going to be born out that it did them more damage to capitulate than to
Speaker:stand up to. What is effectively a third party lobby group in the in acting in the interest
Speaker:of a foreign country. This is a thing like the whole like you might want to say and provincial
Speaker:politicians might want to say, you know, Palestine is not a provincial political issue. But what
Speaker:is of issue, I think, to Canadians right now nationally is foreign interference in our electoral
Speaker:process. And that's what we're seeing right now we're seeing an organization with another
Speaker:nation's name in its name. bullying our politicians into pulling candidates. And I think that we
Speaker:should be seeing this at least partially through a lens of foreign interference in our electoral
Speaker:politics, because that's exactly what's happening. I don't even care where it comes from. It's
Speaker:based on upholding a genocide and an illegal occupation. Canadian politicians, I mean, some
Speaker:of the NDP might be an exception, but this is the Canadian project as well, right? We are
Speaker:colonial occupation. We... we operated much in the same way we committed a genocide that
Speaker:we don't want people talking about and we sure as hell don't want them attributing it to the
Speaker:Canadian state. We like to pass that on to the English as though we had nothing to do with
Speaker:it. But yeah, I think like one of the
Speaker:Folks can see the polls and they can see the liberal slipping and they can see a couple
Speaker:of good ads they might like by the NDP. But all in all, this kind of behavior that you've
Speaker:seen, that Sean has described in just Nova Scotia, we have seen in Ontario, we have seen in British
Speaker:Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, we have testaments from all of those places of them behaving like
Speaker:this, and the repercussions. Now sure, most of the public doesn't give a shit about the
Speaker:Eastern Passage candidate for NDP. Like, let's be honest, we love Tammy, you know her, we
Speaker:don't think it's right and as part of the progressive family we care, but the NDP sees it won't carry
Speaker:any political damage from this. But they completely rely on the labour of people who are sold.
Speaker:on them as a mechanism for change. The people that do labour for them believe their voice
Speaker:should matter within the party and for the most part have immovable values. And they're just
Speaker:breaking all of these pressure points, like for you it was someone close to you, for other
Speaker:people it's a certain issue they won't hit on. Their failure to get behind disabled people
Speaker:and you know there's tons of examples. of them being vindictive against autistic members and
Speaker:candidates trying to remove them for their advocacy against ABA. Like that's a shout out to Joel
Speaker:Harden who many people admire and think he is a form of positive change but even he admittedly
Speaker:behaved in this very way, you know, didn't like what people had to say and thought to remove
Speaker:them from the party. You're losing all of this labor. Even if you're just talking about like
Speaker:the signs and all the work Sean does alone for the very small province of Nova Scotia, whose
Speaker:resources within that party are so depleted, some would describe as the party doesn't really
Speaker:exist there. I mean, from other provinces, if you looked at the activity that, you know,
Speaker:Ontario and some other provinces have, it's shocking when you talk to how many people are
Speaker:actually active within the East Coast provinces for the NDP. So the labor, it's not normal
Speaker:for someone to do signs for 10 writings. My point is that once they go into this federal
Speaker:election or any even a provincial election, they need the same people they've burned to
Speaker:do a lot of the legwork. You know, young people come in finding their way in politics. I just
Speaker:talked to a new patron of ours who's just again finding their way in politics and thinking
Speaker:perhaps their first step would be to contact their local NDP writing association. You can
Speaker:only imagine what my advice was, however, you know, I do say people sometimes have to go
Speaker:into this system, see it, so they can fully understand how electoral politics actually
Speaker:works, so that when you need to apply pressure, you know, you don't waste your time in certain
Speaker:positions. But the damage that they're doing through, through acts like this, that they
Speaker:don't really sit and think about, you know, like they're just concerned of like, will this
Speaker:Nova Scotia media pick this up and blow What will that mean? And they try to do calculations
Speaker:and really none of them seem to involve. Like, what will this do to our base? Like there's
Speaker:the whole like don't attribute to malfeasance. What can be explained by incompetence sort
Speaker:of argument where like, yeah, I know they've grossly over like miscalculated. This is the
Speaker:thing is like not only are these people venal and amoral, they're bad at their jobs. So James
Speaker:Pratt and you can, you're probably better qualified to offer a background on James Pratt than I
Speaker:am. But my understanding is that he was. Jack Layton's campaign manager or something to that
Speaker:effect. He's also the person who gave Matthew Wieldon, who was a federal candidate elsewhere
Speaker:in Nova Scotia, a few elections back, gave him half an hour to rescind his candidacy or it
Speaker:was going to be rescinded for him for the same reasons. There are young folks coming into
Speaker:the party. Like there's that joke about I've seen this meme go around of, you know, there's
Speaker:a like an E-girl and like a really old man asleep. sitting in his seat like next to each other
Speaker:on the bus and it's described as like this is what every NDP EDA meeting looks like. Very
Speaker:very young people and then very old people. A lot of whom want the same things actually
Speaker:I think people sometimes think that like oh there's too many old people in the party and
Speaker:that's the problem it's like if anything there's too many of my generation in the party there's
Speaker:too many Gen Xers like Gen X centrists where you have like the old folks who joined the
Speaker:party 20 years ago who joined an explicitly socialist party and absolutely want those policies
Speaker:and the young people who want socialist policies now and think that's the party they've joined,
Speaker:not realizing that Thomas Mulcair has gotten in and mucked with the Constitution and all
Speaker:these things and it's been watered down and it's nearly ideologically, you know, identical
Speaker:to the liberals, federally and I think in Nova Scotia too. I'm hearing from candidates that
Speaker:say our campaign lost all momentum after that happened. I'm hearing people saying that like
Speaker:supporters are ripping their signs out of their lawns, they're retracting their offers to donate,
Speaker:they're retracting their offers to volunteer now saying, I don't know who to vote for. So
Speaker:it's an election issue now. Yeah, let's hit on why it bothered so many people this time.
Speaker:Because I mean, surely over in Nova Scotia, you folks aren't in some sort of bubble. You've
Speaker:seen what the Ontario NDP has done to Sarah Jama, and how they just generally behaved with
Speaker:the Israeli lobby. I don't know if you folks are all over there satisfied that Heather McPherson
Speaker:is wearing a pin and standing up and hollering once in a while in the legislature, but they
Speaker:have been far from champions for Palestine and have kicked countless people out of the party.
Speaker:I mean, I'm included in that. We can't remove ourselves from the fact that we're in a different
Speaker:time now. Like when we're talking about Palestine, you talked about Canada getting removed in
Speaker:2018. Right? return was in 2018, early 2019. So, you know, people's knee-jerk reaction to
Speaker:seeing someone removed over Palestine would not hit the same as it does now, right? Absolutely.
Speaker:Because it's hard to imagine anybody who's seen what we've seen for the last year and still
Speaker:not doing everything possible, including defending candidates who are being demonized by Sijah,
Speaker:even as they acknowledge how awful Sijah is. Right. So to not have that courage in this
Speaker:moment is unquestionable. You know, like you just we don't understand it and we are finding
Speaker:courage where we maybe never had it before. And, you know, I think that the Heather McPherson
Speaker:thing and the like Matthew Green in the in the House of Commons with their, you know, the
Speaker:kofi is or watermelon pins or whatever. I hearing the leader recite Sija talking points when
Speaker:he's asked about Palestine and he starts talking about scared Jews in Montreal. when he's not
Speaker:been asked about that and he's pivoting to all the same talking points he's been fed by this
Speaker:organization. It really just makes Matthew Green's efforts look like Nancy Pelosi and Kenton.
Speaker:Yes, people need to understand Heather and Matthew were just tokens to make sure that they capture
Speaker:folks so that anybody that is on the fence that just needs something, anything to hold on to
Speaker:an electoral politics can say, well, oh, the NDP at least are standing up and saying X,
Speaker:Y and Z. They are starting petitions where nobody else is doing anything. I mean, I talked to
Speaker:somebody who was really thrilled about their bear in Mississauga and how awesome they were.
Speaker:And I was like, we're ready to throw a fucking parade because somebody's trying to uphold
Speaker:the charter. Like someone's doing the bear fucking minimum. And we're like, oh, thank you so much.
Speaker:Like I will forget all the other things that you've ever done because there's just like
Speaker:one little glimmer of hope there. So I want to ask folks, like I want to ask you, but like
Speaker:I think there's a lot of people out there listening that are in the same boat. And I was, I saw
Speaker:them do horrible things, you know, prop up John Horgan while he sicked the RCMP on land offenders
Speaker:and was just clearing old growth and brought him into federal convention at that very year
Speaker:when there was a petition against him, like no distancing of that awfulness. And so many
Speaker:people walked from the party then. I stayed. I stayed because I thought I could change the
Speaker:party, right? And I stayed with a lot of other comrades who thought the same thing. But then,
Speaker:you know, like it was, I mean, eventually they kicked me out for trying to change the party,
Speaker:but many, many people dropped out. There were trigger points for everyone. Sarah Jama was
Speaker:a big trigger point again. And then Nova Scotia now has had its own trigger point. But from
Speaker:your perspective, why did you stay after they gave you so many reasons to leave? I ultimately
Speaker:thought I did think that I could at least exert some leverage. I don't know if I thought that
Speaker:I could fundamentally change the party. There was an inflection point after again, after
Speaker:having been involved for a long time and involved especially in a lot of like central activities
Speaker:and around the governance. You were probably out by the time the 2021 federal convention
Speaker:happened, but it was a technical debacle in addition to being a procedural and no, I think
Speaker:I ran as federal president there. Oh, really? Was that the one? I'm pretty sure that's the
Speaker:year I ran for party president. First name starts with a D. Last name was Koli, K-O-H. Yeah,
Speaker:DJ. Yeah, that was my opponent. We got 30% of the vote with the two-week campaign. And was
Speaker:that the one where they very, very obviously filibustered the Palestine bill? Yes. Like,
Speaker:nakedly so. In fact, I would argue they did it in a way that made it clear that someone
Speaker:had their finger on the scale procedurally, because. The chair has an earpiece the entire
Speaker:time, and whenever there's conflict. sits and waits and listens for instructions. Folks who
Speaker:missed that, this was the filibuster of all time, but just very quickly, it was so bad
Speaker:that they'd stretched the discussion prior to that. It was something to do with a situation
Speaker:in India. I'm not even going to pretend to have all the details for whatever that was. And
Speaker:it got to the point where people rebutting revisions... What do you call the amendments? Sorry, people
Speaker:who were rebutting amendments had written talking points. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they had anticipated
Speaker:the suggested amendment and they had written already three minutes of talking points to
Speaker:refute that. And this went back and forth and back and forth. Whereas any other issue, you
Speaker:would have had somebody be able to get to the mic and call the question saying, we've talked
Speaker:about this enough. Let's call the question. We don't have all day to spend on this. That
Speaker:never. really happened with that particular motion and it left like two minutes for the
Speaker:Palestinian question. So they really just didn't want any back and forth. They would allow people
Speaker:to read like the first statement and then they sent it to a vote. The reason I kind of went
Speaker:out on this, even though it's not really what we're talking about, because when we talk,
Speaker:when people talk about reforming the NDP, we have like so many episodes dedicated to like
Speaker:the different mechanisms within the party and how they work and convention. is one of the
Speaker:most controlled spaces in the party, yet it holds the only key to accessing the levers
Speaker:of power within the party. The alleged levers of power, the democratic positions, right,
Speaker:so they elect an executive council that is supposed to run the party and then there's another episode
Speaker:that explains that it doesn't actually run the party anyway. So winning those elections doesn't
Speaker:really do much anyway, but they've done whatever possible to just completely control those spaces,
Speaker:which in the end controls the dialogue within the party, because that is the only space that
Speaker:members actually get to get into a same room with like all their counterparts and MPs and
Speaker:party brass and unions and discuss what it means to be an NDP'er. Like where are we going to
Speaker:stand on these very important issues? And it's only the most popular issues that get talked
Speaker:about. So even with the in its legitimate design, the design that everyone smiles and nods and
Speaker:says, this sounds really democratic, everyone just votes on what we're even going to talk
Speaker:about. So only the most popular and agreed upon points even end up on the agenda in the first
Speaker:place. So, you know, part of this episode isn't just hear Sean's story. It's also for me to
Speaker:kind of get out. the many, many ways in which the NDP serves as like a very moderating force
Speaker:for us as a space where we spin our wheels and de-radicalize, not as individuals, but as effectiveness
Speaker:because you have real radicals still in there thinking, you know, they're fighting for the
Speaker:abolishment of police and prisons and free transit, things that shouldn't be radical, but you know
Speaker:what I'm talking about. They're there, but... they are not getting anywhere within that party.
Speaker:And if you look at the Palestinian cause, as an example of this, decades were spent trying
Speaker:to get the party to take a half decent position on this. And not only were they like just unpopular
Speaker:at the time, like you just couldn't get members to come along and that work had to be done
Speaker:and it took a long time. And maybe it took exposing of the Israeli state a little bit more, a little
Speaker:bit more on masking to get people along. But in the end, we found out that wasn't the case.
Speaker:We know that it was just thwarting by party brass for years and years since the years of
Speaker:Jack Layton, and they've only gotten better at it suppressing the Palestinian question,
Speaker:so to speak, all across in every way imaginable. And that is just one issue that even once you
Speaker:thought there was a glimmer of hope, even when people started to celebrate the fact that they
Speaker:finally took a decent position on where they stood with Israel. I don't remember the language
Speaker:that was finally adopted. But in practice, it meant nothing but a watermelon pen, the calling
Speaker:for a ceasefire without the celebration of Palestinian resistance whatsoever. This touches on nearly
Speaker:every organization, every institution, I think, nearly in existence in our society, is that
Speaker:there is this divide between the ostensible democratic governance of that institution and-
Speaker:the staff layer of that institution and the relationship between those two things and the
Speaker:way that we seek to check the power of one over the other. And I think that conventions are
Speaker:great example, you know, we labor over these policy positions and we research them and we
Speaker:debate them and we pass them. They go into a policy book and that policy book goes on a
Speaker:shelf. It might as well go in the shredder. And what people think that they're doing when
Speaker:they do that is that they think that they're instructing caucus what to do. But they're
Speaker:not. They're instructing the party, which is a separate entity, to ask caucus to do something.
Speaker:And that's the most leverage you'll ever get over caucus. And it doesn't really mean anything.
Speaker:And there was a motion that was passed after convention at one of our provincial councils
Speaker:in Nova Scotia asking that the party provide regular reports as to how each of the policy
Speaker:positions in our policy book that is now constituted of all these resolutions people have made.
Speaker:They asked them for regular reporting as to progress on each of those. And all of the caucus
Speaker:people and staff people all objected to it. They're going to do their like whatever Pric
Speaker:campaign they delivered this time, whatever platform is what's going to come out. And they
Speaker:did a big platform consultation to manufacture consent, but none of it means anything. I was
Speaker:at those consultations. I heard the things that people were asking for and none of them are
Speaker:in the platform. No one's asking for a gas tax holiday during a climate crisis. No one's asking
Speaker:for you to lock in a 2.5% rent increase for landlords who rapaciously increased their rents
Speaker:as much as they possibly could when people were at their most desperate. All kinds of awesome
Speaker:things that people in the party wanted and the mechanism that is put in front of them to ostensibly
Speaker:provide that is a sham. Yeah. I'll link folks to another episode that where we walk through
Speaker:the many mechanisms and actually the very deliberate choices made under Jack Layton. to remove the
Speaker:power of the policy book from the platform or private members bills or any possibility of
Speaker:like tangible work on those issues. I am going to be devil's advocate for just a second. Well,
Speaker:I've had many people, you know, come back at me for, you know, all the things that we're
Speaker:saying right now, obviously. I'm sure you have too. And one of the things that I have learned
Speaker:to hate most, and you use this word, so this is just, this is also a mini attack on you.
Speaker:So just come at me is they would argue that by behaving the way that they are doing in
Speaker:the current political climate, whatever that means, they're being pragmatic. They are going
Speaker:after maybe low hanging fruit, whatever they can get. Be realistic, Sean. We're not going
Speaker:to get dad in Nova Scotia. So they are doing what they think is possible within the systems
Speaker:available to them. And surely you can relate, right? And we've all been there. Like I am
Speaker:not, I have been completely open into my many years of trying to use the mechanisms within
Speaker:the party and, and elsewhere. That's one of my points there on how they moderate us is
Speaker:by forcing that pragmatic approach or. selling that as the most reasonable way forward. There
Speaker:was a speech I heard just today, it was about pragmatism. And so when you said that word,
Speaker:I wrote it down and underlined it. And I was like, I've got to go back to that speech. So
Speaker:I'm going to play it here. And then we'll react together, because it's a struggle that everyone
Speaker:has, right? When we're talking about electoral politics being the kind of pragmat approach,
Speaker:we can't abandon it. And anyway.
Speaker:gathered here on the streets instead of in that room up there look at the hundreds of people
Speaker:Vancouver, in Halifax, in Fredericton, and know that we are reading these same words, that
Speaker:we are orienting to the same horizon of Palestinian liberation, and know that another kind of literary
Speaker:world, one that doesn't traffic in blood money and self-interest, but in solidarity and collective
Speaker:power, already exists because we the people have made it so. This year, the Giller closed
Speaker:its gala doors on everyone but literary and corporate elites. So we brought our counter
Speaker:gala to their door and to the streets. We fielded a lot of critiques in bad faith from people
Speaker:like the ones who are who are in that room across the street at the Giller gala since this campaign
Speaker:started. Literary elites who have said we're criticized us for expanding our targets to
Speaker:include indigo books and the Israeli foundation. for not trying to make slow institutional change
Speaker:from the inside of the sector, for not trying to find a third way, a more quote unquote pragmatic
Speaker:way. And to that, I wanna share the words of the political theorist, Joy James, who writes,
Speaker:"'If you're gonna use the word pragmatic "'to discipline radicals, "'my preference is that
Speaker:you say nothing at all.'" If you want to discipline rebels, then pony up something tangible. Raise
Speaker:bail funds, pay for their attorneys, feed their kids while they're inside, or try to get them
Speaker:out. You cannot lecture risk-taking people about being politically infantile out of your own
Speaker:accumulations. There's nobody we admire who is pragmatic. Everybody could have been pragmatic,
Speaker:but if they were, we would not have any ancestors. So I want to do away with this false binary
Speaker:between writers and organizers. Culture alone, the work we do on the page will not be enough.
Speaker:Reasoning with, trying to reform the cultural institutions that prop up this state will not
Speaker:be enough. We have to be willing, at the very least, to take risks for each other, to relinquish
Speaker:the false accolades, the fancy galas, all of them the oppressor's incentives to keep us
Speaker:from actively building solidarity with each other. rated E for everything. I'll leave that
Speaker:in, but that definitely is rated for everyone. OK, let me just talk about that for a second,
Speaker:and then I'm going to go to you. OK, Sean, because I'm sure you heard it, but I'm going to draw
Speaker:the parallels to the NDP there. What you heard there was a member of the Writers Against the
Speaker:War on Gaza. We had them on to talk about their resistance to the Giller Prize that is funded
Speaker:by Scotiabank. And as you've heard, they've expanded. their horizons, they've also included
Speaker:tactics that would definitely not be described as pragmatic. And when she speaks of, you know,
Speaker:another world, she's encouraging authors to see beyond the structures created by Scotiabank
Speaker:and the Giller Prize, because it's not just a gala, right? It's readings and it's an economy
Speaker:of its own within that particular sector. And that's what keeps people scared of put- butting
Speaker:up against it because they feel like that would eat into their bottom line or the possibility
Speaker:of exposure or getting their word out, being heard, right? The writers having their voice
Speaker:silenced and she's encouraging them, there is already other systems there. We are demonstrating
Speaker:this to you. You don't have to be in those gallows. You don't have to be in those rooms to effect
Speaker:change. And this wasn't to say, you know, you hear her scolding perhaps people who would
Speaker:lecture. radicals, right? That's not to say that's what Sean was doing. But we definitely
Speaker:do get lectured on being pragmatic within the NDP. That is something as soon as you try to
Speaker:reform it from within, you will have long time members come to you and maybe they'll say there's
Speaker:no point. You're not the first person to do this. Use what's there. This is what's possible
Speaker:within this realm. I I've got an inside line with Merit. I'm going to sit down and talk
Speaker:to Merit about the wrongdoings her party is doing. And I will come back to you folks and
Speaker:tell you what she said. Backdoor solutions, right, that remain open to just a few. So the
Speaker:NDP parallel there to the speech you just heard is also the maintaining of legitimacy through
Speaker:using use elites. And that doesn't mean financial elites within the party, but I mean insiders,
Speaker:people with friends in the party, with connections, with the ability to maybe be heard once in
Speaker:a while, and they really close out to everybody else. They're still unable to maintain, but
Speaker:they lean heavily on those insiders and that kind of exclusivity. So after hearing that,
Speaker:you know, and talking about trying to remain in the party and be... as pragmatic as possible
Speaker:and there are still mechanisms in there, you know, surely influence can be wielded. Like,
Speaker:how do you feel about all that now? Well, it's funny. And one thing I really had to acknowledge
Speaker:from that speech is, is the use of the term third way, because this is obviously a term
Speaker:that we've certainly heard before in the NDP. And you know, where we're talking about the
Speaker:latent era, you know, I don't know if, if a lot of people share this view of mine, but
Speaker:In my view, Leighton was the beginning of the end of a meaningful left in the NDP. I think
Speaker:that was in the same way that like when I'm door knocking and the people who hate poor
Speaker:people and drug addicts the most are the people who got just a little taste, they just get,
Speaker:they've got me like a side by side in their driveway or they got like a nice, like a little,
Speaker:little boat or like a skidoo or maybe a nice truck and like when I was going to the door,
Speaker:uh, with, uh, free ambulance rides on the platform. last time provincially we offered. We're gonna
Speaker:wave ambulance fees. So radical. Right, and people were furious. That junkies are gonna
Speaker:be using that as a taxi service. And our hospital's in an industrial park in Dartmouth. And when
Speaker:the NDP got a little taste of proximity to power with the electoral result they got from the
Speaker:Jack Laitin campaign, that was it. And they were all in on orange liberalism and getting
Speaker:outflanked by the liberals on the left, you know, campaign after campaign. Hearing the
Speaker:Third Way invoked with the word pragmatism in the same sentence, it really causes you to
Speaker:think of like, you know, this is like, you can easily see like, this is how we got here in
Speaker:a lot of ways. And you can definitely, there's definitely an argument to be made for that.
Speaker:I think that in terms of what I did in the party, I feel relatively good. Like I was the only
Speaker:person to speak up at a number of junctures, the only person to try and hold power to account
Speaker:when no one else really did, in front of like an audience of their peers, like in provincial
Speaker:council, like having the... Rules and Privileges Committee hauled in front of provincial council
Speaker:to explain a decision they had made, a disciplinary decision where they protected someone who was
Speaker:transphobic. I remember. When the leader got up in the legislature and said, I condemn Hamas,
Speaker:bad things are bad, blah, said nothing about Israel when Israel's already well into its
Speaker:carpet bombing campaign. Because she had said, you know, targeted attacks on civilians and
Speaker:children are never acceptable. And so the question I put to her after a brief intro was... Will
Speaker:you now condemn the state of Israel for their targeted attacks on women and children? And
Speaker:what happened, her answer was almost immaterial, because what happened immediately then was
Speaker:the entire room erupted in applause. And that's not really a thing that happens at provincial
Speaker:council meetings. You know what I mean? Like, it's a business meeting. You go through every
Speaker:line of the budget. It's just rubber stamping things. It's procedural stuff, right? So it's
Speaker:not a rah-rah thing for the most part. And so in establishing that and in building the social
Speaker:capital it took to get that to happen, to get people to listen to me. Because they eventually,
Speaker:over time, after I've been involved for seven years, people in the party will hear me out.
Speaker:When I get on that microphone, which is not very often, but when I do, they listen. And
Speaker:for me to have the opportunity to be in the room and to demonstrate to the leadership that
Speaker:they're out of step with the membership on this issue and they need to change course. I wouldn't
Speaker:have been in that position if I hadn't stayed as long as I did. So like, what did it accomplish?
Speaker:I don't know. You knew that would be my question, Ayesha. You can't argue in favor of pragmatism
Speaker:and not have any results to show for it. Right? This is the thing. You can't, if you're going
Speaker:to lay claim to pragmatism, you have to produce some results and I don't know if it did with
Speaker:the leadership, but leaders can be replaced. If we finally get a leadership race anywhere,
Speaker:I mean, that thing seems to be on by the wayside for the party, too. Well, yeah, because the
Speaker:knives don't come out, I don't think, quickly enough in this party when leaders lose. We
Speaker:just expect to lose. And this is the thing about this sort of third-way centrist approach the
Speaker:party is taking is that the proposition used to be adhere to your values and you'll probably
Speaker:lose. But now the proposition is surrender your values and lose anyway. And it's a fundamentally
Speaker:unattractive proposition. And that's what kind of like, you know, there's just like, if that's
Speaker:the proposition, like, why am I even doing this? Like, you know, like publicly sell out my values
Speaker:and then pick up like five seats. You know, there's just like the cost benefit doesn't
Speaker:work. But in terms of like what I did in the party and what I did with my time in the party
Speaker:and the way that I left the party even, I didn't just like, okay, well, I'm done. Like I tried
Speaker:to make it count. I tried to, because I felt like I had an opportunity. in leaving and in
Speaker:doing so publicly and in naming names, I felt that I had an opportunity, hopefully, to shift
Speaker:the perception of this sort of like standard operating procedure just capitulating to CJ.
Speaker:They're making the calculus that it will be easier to capitulate and we need to change
Speaker:that. And I thought I had an opportunity to change that and I took it. I don't, I don't
Speaker:know that anyone else really did anything of that level. I don't think anyone else necessarily
Speaker:like walked away. So like, I don't know, like, that's kind of how I feel about my time. I
Speaker:can't tell you that it's worth For everything I put in, I don't think I can sit here and
Speaker:tell you that it was, that it, like, that's something that I think everyone should do.
Speaker:I think you should go and invest a bunch of years in a party that, like, is probably doomed
Speaker:and then throw a big flip when you quit. And that wasn't my end goal. I really did aspire
Speaker:to exert internal influence on the party, and it's whether we like it or not, electoralism
Speaker:is how power is decided in our society. For now. the most part. Like, we talk about people
Speaker:party a lot and we have a lot of demonstrations and we do some direct actions and whatever,
Speaker:but like, that's how power by and large is decided in our society. And I don't feel like as a
Speaker:person of relative privilege, I don't feel like I can just kind of, like, walk away from that.
Speaker:I feel like I feel obliged to engage with it somehow in some way that hopefully has some
Speaker:kind of positive objectives. Okay, I'm going to push back on that. Definitely it's how we
Speaker:select representation, but I would argue it's not how power is decided. you've just explained
Speaker:very much so that, you know, Sija wielded a lot more power than the entire provincial council
Speaker:or, you know, generally if you polled people living here, people living in Nova Scotia on
Speaker:how they felt about the genocide in Israel, that's not what's influencing them. So powerful
Speaker:decisions are being made by capital interest, it seems. We can say foreign, but again, we've
Speaker:a million times over boiled this down to imperialism and the interests of US interests and capital
Speaker:interests, and that's really what the genocide in Gaza is about in the end. So I wouldn't
Speaker:say we are abandoning electoralism. We're definitely abandoning partisanship because that's really
Speaker:got us nowhere because we're not abandoning electoralism because... In essence, we already
Speaker:have. If you look at the NDP even as like the most progressive option, we elect landlords,
Speaker:lawyers, we put advisors in charge, corporate advisors, you know, lobbyists that also work
Speaker:for Metro, groceries, Airbnb, big oil and gas. In essence, by propping up... a party like
Speaker:the NDP, you are abandoning it to the capitalist class still. It's our behavior within this
Speaker:electoral system, in this representative democracy, in the way that we view the best of us, right,
Speaker:who should go represent the best of us. And we have seem to seemingly collectively decided
Speaker:that it's the richest amongst us. I mean, the system also requires money, but even when we
Speaker:do a lot to mitigate that, we still are looking to elites to lead us. We are still selecting
Speaker:them from amongst other choices and for the most part and so in the end although we've
Speaker:done all these contests we've sent the same class off to make decisions against our best
Speaker:interest. Part of it goes back to the professionalization of the party that began or related it's one
Speaker:of the reasons I say that he's sort of the beginning of the ending like I see it I see it through
Speaker:the lens a lot of businessy language. Like what we're doing is moving forward on a go-forward
Speaker:basis with best practices. Like that's what they're doing. Even the way they refer to members,
Speaker:you're like paying units now. Oh yeah, no, it's a business. Like this, and that's, I think,
Speaker:how some of the staffers see it because that's their, it's their job to an extent. Like I
Speaker:think that, and there is an extent to which I think that we see the class interests of
Speaker:the consultant class represented in platform, because that's who it's actually coming from.
Speaker:I don't think it's not meaningfully coming from the membership. I think they tried to obtain...
Speaker:consent from the membership to do something when they did platform consultations this time
Speaker:which were new but I don't think it I don't see a line between what was said in those meetings
Speaker:and what made it its way into the platform I think it was all you know Pricewaterhouse Cooper
Speaker:didn't delight it to death if I had realized like who they had gotten themselves in bed
Speaker:with because he's a new hire right he's he was only hired I think in the last year when somebody
Speaker:went on mat leave he goes around he works his way around yeah so I mean I once I once I started
Speaker:finding out about him I was like oh here we go it's we've got we caught Fed party disease
Speaker:we caught We got the contagion of the federal party with. Well we passed our awful provincial
Speaker:director onto the federal party. So it's just, it's all polluted. Right. Like this is the
Speaker:Anne McGrath thing or Lucy Watson, one of those Lucy Watson, Lucy Watson became the federal
Speaker:director, like the notorious like, and yeah, and watching, you know, I've been basically
Speaker:checked out of the federal party since 2021 when Jim Ead Singh had a big like everyone
Speaker:here's John Horgan. He's really great and awesome. And then the next day he announced that he
Speaker:was going to go ahead with the site. See damn. And that was when I called the federal party
Speaker:and had them cancel my PAC. But yeah, I at the time was like based on the way the membership
Speaker:felt in the meetings and based on some conversations I'd had in private with some of the caucus,
Speaker:I had hoped that there was the some runway for them to take a more really appropriate position
Speaker:on this and that they would show some leadership and they just didn't. And it's like, I feel
Speaker:I feel let down. And again, because I, you know, we talk about resources and who's provided
Speaker:resources when I agreed to do the science for the party, they agreed to provide me a number
Speaker:of things they did not provide. And so, because I needed those things, namely volunteers. I
Speaker:had to very publicly on my Instagram just basically become like Captain NDP and I've got my hat
Speaker:on and I'm showing all the tools that I use and I'm showing all the signs and I'm putting
Speaker:up and I'm like, come join the NDP sign army and I've recruited 20 of my own volunteers.
Speaker:I had to so publicly advocate for the party to get the resources that I needed that when
Speaker:they publicly did this, they left me no choice. And that's one thing that they probably was
Speaker:probably lost on them is like, well, I've very publicly been like the like the only two things
Speaker:on my Instagram page are Palestine and the NDP basically. And like, you've put me in the position
Speaker:where one of them has to go. Because they're mutually exclusive at this point because of
Speaker:the cowardice they've shown and because of the way that they continue to smear this candidate.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, at that point. For me, the pragmatic thing to do, I guess, was to, yeah, OK, I need
Speaker:to create political accountability for what's happening. There needs to be something scarier
Speaker:than CJA. I keep thinking back to the discussion I had with Dimitri Lascaris, the most recent
Speaker:one, and I wanted to ask him about how he felt about international law now, because, I mean,
Speaker:even months into the genocide and various ICJ, ICC rulings, nothing had moved. Canadian-wise,
Speaker:globally is another discussion as well. But even after more rulings and more findings,
Speaker:we've revisited the discussion. And at first, he really thought there was a certain amount
Speaker:of pressure that the international community would be able to provide to Canadian politicians
Speaker:that would essentially force their hands. Like how long could you act in contravention of
Speaker:all of these statutes you've signed onto? And, you know. your obligations to the international
Speaker:community. And even if they didn't want to come along, they would have to. You could be successful
Speaker:in that realm. And although obviously we've seen arrest warrants now issued for Benjamin
Speaker:Netanyahu and others, and Trudeau promising he would arrest Netanyahu should he set foot
Speaker:on Canadian soil, Demetri kind of when he revisited it, he looked back and what he said was that
Speaker:he had underestimated I believe he used the word callousness of our politicians. They're,
Speaker:even here, you know, we espouse the theory of change that, you know, enough public pressure
Speaker:in various forms, all together, will make politicians move. They have to, right? They want to get
Speaker:reelected. But this has bucked that trend completely. We have to reevaluate our electoral systems
Speaker:when... No amount of street protests, petitions, inner disagreements within parties, bad press,
Speaker:international rulings, deaths, evidence. None of that has moved even the most progressive
Speaker:politicians in Canada. I think we have underestimated our ability to influence people within that
Speaker:electoral system. I think they have set themselves up for... So closely now, even our working
Speaker:class party, this professionalism Sean talks about includes the ability to people who work
Speaker:within the party to get hired after, to be appealing to capital after. Right? And so they're not
Speaker:listening to us at all anymore. At all. They are only listening to capital. And so when
Speaker:we, I'm scratching my head to think of something scarier than Cija. And I don't think people
Speaker:like my answer because it's not even just people in the streets. Like if you just took as many
Speaker:people into the streets as possible, just directed at the NDP saying, fuck you, hold the line,
Speaker:hold the goddamn ideological line, and you got every NDP member to call, email. I don't know
Speaker:if you'd move them. We don't know anymore. This threshold is unimaginable at this point because
Speaker:I would have thought turning on your Instagram account for like five minutes would be enough.
Speaker:to get you to refuse to participate in the next fucking house meeting unless Canada stops sending
Speaker:arms to Israel. When you do that, Sean, Sean quit because his friend got removed from a
Speaker:candidacy, but our politicians in there are sitting on their asses talking about a GST
Speaker:holiday for two months, bragging about it, and haven't done sweet fuck off for Palestine for
Speaker:a litany of other issues that people will cry about at convention. that are like so deeply
Speaker:personal and systemic and need addressing. And they've just ignored it because it's just not
Speaker:in their interest. And the NDP base is some of the worst. You want to know why? Not because
Speaker:they're bad people at all. These are my comrades. I love probably most of them. The ones that
Speaker:I don't they know who they are. But these are good people. But these are good people between
Speaker:a rock and a hard place. These are people who don't have, like if you're conservative and
Speaker:you just think, you know, Pierre Poliev is just a piece of shit and he's just not for you,
Speaker:you could probably hold your breath and vote liberal, not see, you know, materially you
Speaker:won't really see much of a difference, especially if you're in the majority here. Especially
Speaker:if you're in Nova Scotia, because this is one problem we have in Nova Scotia, is that there
Speaker:is so little daylight between the three political parties. For example, the ostensible conservative
Speaker:government right now just burned through two consecutive billion budget surpluses in 22
Speaker:and 23, and then in 24 posted a deficit budget. What's conservative about that? There's not
Speaker:like this isn't like the thing is the conservatives aren't meaningfully conservative. The the ostensibly
Speaker:leftist NDP aren't left. Like they're all offering some kind of tax breaks when we're running
Speaker:a deficit. Like it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't there's no like this is the thing like
Speaker:when we like I've been on the doorstep a bunch now. I try to stay away from it because there's
Speaker:other places I can be more useful. And what people say over and over again is when the
Speaker:NDP were in power here because they were there was an NDP government under Darryl Dexter here
Speaker:in Nova Scotia. More than a decade ago, he is we're just like the rest of them and they're
Speaker:not wrong. And this is the thing is that people don't come to the NDP when they want the status
Speaker:quo. They come to the NDP when they want change. So it's not good enough and it'll never be
Speaker:good enough for the Democrats to try and be a better research liberal part which is sort
Speaker:of what they are. It's a liberal party that wants to have an abortion clinic in Cape Breton
Speaker:now. We're in a liberal party that proclaims an endometriosis awareness day. You know what
Speaker:I mean? Those little incremental improvements are not going to be. And it's part of this,
Speaker:again, it's the whole business as usual thing. Like when you tell electoralists who are not
Speaker:voting, you just disappear in a pop of smoke to them. You know what I mean? So there's 50%
Speaker:of this province, because that's roughly what our election turnout rates are at right now
Speaker:is about 50%. In my own writing, it was 38% in the last provincial election that bothered
Speaker:voting. There's a whole political party, there's a whole super majority of people out there,
Speaker:like a majority of the potential electoral vote who want nothing to do with anything on offer,
Speaker:who don't want politics as usual. I'm with them. I'm one of those people. That's where I'm at
Speaker:now too. Like I don't like business as usual isn't going to cut it. And not even from, dare
Speaker:I say it, a pragmatic standpoint. This is the thing is like there's, you can, you can lay
Speaker:claim to pragmatism as I have done, but you have to show results or it's a hollow claim.
Speaker:You know what I mean? You have to show that you've done something that couldn't have been
Speaker:done otherwise. It's also sometimes to legitimize your work too. Like the system forces you,
Speaker:did you check those boxes? Did you try everything legitimate first? Cause then I'll authorize
Speaker:you to step it up. then you can look to a third way when you've proven. But here, we try to
Speaker:advocate for people to just try those third ways first. Because in the end, they end up,
Speaker:you have to apply, like Sean says, you have NDP in power, you got liberals, conservatives,
Speaker:whoever they are, you still have to go at them from the same way once they're in power, right?
Speaker:You still have to approach them from whatever kind of way, whether it be pragmatic or radical,
Speaker:and to get stuff done. But before we wrap up, I just I do want to make one more point about
Speaker:the NDP base again, who like I'm not trying to demonize this. The point of this is to demonstrate
Speaker:just how they do moderate us, like how they pull us in with these promises and their theories
Speaker:of change that they pretend to advocate for. And they sometimes use the language we need
Speaker:to hear. But when it really counts, when they're talking outward. when they're talking to the
Speaker:public, they actually use the language of capital in the right wing quite a lot. Means testing
Speaker:and everything except a GST. My point is the base there becomes the most ineffective base
Speaker:also because they often refuse to hold the powerful to account. For the same reason they don't
Speaker:leave the party is because they're afraid of the alternatives. They aren't going to go to
Speaker:the Liberal Party or the Conservatives, so they don't want to burn down the NDP. Even most
Speaker:people who leave don't leave like Sean. They just quietly take their memberships away so
Speaker:that they can balance internally with their morals. They know that they're not actually
Speaker:financially contributing to this. They might get their vote. They might hold their nose
Speaker:and vote because, again, they don't want to vote Liberal and they don't want to vote Conservative
Speaker:and there's no good independence on the ballot, perhaps. Whatever. But they are so... Empowered
Speaker:Lee within the system for the most part and I have been in there I don't care how many
Speaker:examples of people you can give me like Sean or myself There are many that were very vocal
Speaker:all the time I mean, there's some of us that enter spaces like that and there's nothing
Speaker:we can't do but rail against it I'm talking mostly to my neurodivergent comrades, you know,
Speaker:like you will smell it right away the authoritarianism It'll just you'll get the tingles right away
Speaker:and you will you will fight back I know you will but you will be alone for the most part
Speaker:Sean was not followed by a flood of people saying they had also ripped up their membership or
Speaker:Made a stitch video saying me too The other writings in candidates they may have lost momentum,
Speaker:but they did an issue statements. They also did not stand behind her Tammy is probably
Speaker:feeling very alone right now All these people that talked about a big progressive family
Speaker:are now trying to distance themselves from her as much as possible, even though privately
Speaker:they will express dismay and disappointment. Publicly, they won't say shit. Even in provincial
Speaker:council, it's very rare someone stands up and sticks their necks out and worries about whether
Speaker:or not they'll be asked to be a candidate or asked to work on this campaign or be a favourite,
Speaker:because it will come with a lot of slack. Because every time you talk shit about the NDP online,
Speaker:in person, the response is, what do you want the conservatives to win? What do you want?
Speaker:You think the liberals are better? It's like this really black and white dichotomy. If you
Speaker:follow American politics, it's a familiar refrain, right? Like the, what, you know, if you criticize
Speaker:Kamala Harris, you're a Trump supporter, right? And it's the same way. But in the same way
Speaker:that like, this is the thing about these electoralists and their ostensibly expertise is that I don't
Speaker:think they were paying attention to this most recent American election. Or they're listening
Speaker:to the pundits who are ignoring the elephant in the room, because none of these pundits
Speaker:will talk about the fact that 14 million people who voted for Joe Biden declined to vote for
Speaker:Kamala Harris. Like there was no big shift of support from the Democrats to the Republicans.
Speaker:Both of them lost net voters, just the Republicans lost fewer. They lost three million, whereas
Speaker:the Democrats lost 14 million. And so this is the thing, like I... And it's one of the things
Speaker:that worries me about trying to have, you know, in doing what I did in making it loud and messy
Speaker:and making it clear what happened to me and clear with the membership and with people in
Speaker:my life who trust me and who trusted my trust of the party. Cause like I said, the pundits
Speaker:aren't getting it right. The people who are, you know, you're looking to on the news, all
Speaker:the, all the former party hacks who became public relations, you know, the heads of public relation
Speaker:firms or whatever. I mean, and that's nearly all that describes basically every pundit that
Speaker:you'll see on CBC or CTV. They're all, I used to be in the party and now I'm like a. Now
Speaker:I'm with Navigator or something. You know what I mean? That's the career path. And you're
Speaker:right to acknowledge that in terms of that's what some people are thinking about is, where
Speaker:do I land from here? And that applies to politicians, too. There's all kinds of politicians that
Speaker:are thinking about what kind of cushy private sector job am I going to land in once my term
Speaker:is over and once I've got my pension nailed down. But yeah, it does give me pause to think
Speaker:about if they don't understand that Palestine just cost them that election. That's the thing.
Speaker:Does it matter? to that Palestine cost them of the election if they don't realize it and
Speaker:no one acknowledges it. I don't know. I don't know if they if it that's what worries me.
Speaker:But this is like, yes, like I see a ton of people like withdrawing their support. It's not just
Speaker:the party faithful. Its voters are infuriated like they've been they've been close to this
Speaker:issue. They were hoping for leadership on it from their party and they're being really disappointed
Speaker:and don't know who to vote for. So I do think that people are reacting. I think there are
Speaker:a lot of people on the base who are really mad and who are pushing back. But I just, that's
Speaker:what concerns me is the sort of, it can be very difficult to convince somebody of something
Speaker:if their profession depends on them not understanding it, as has been said. So. I mean, I think you
Speaker:wouldn't have to use the word, I think people are really pushing back because. My perception
Speaker:is they're pushing back because that's what I'm seeing on my, like in the just voluminous
Speaker:comments on my, because like a 30,000 view TikTok, like Nova Scotia provincial TikTok is not a
Speaker:thing. Like that's not a thing that happens. Like so. Watching and resonating and understanding
Speaker:is one thing, but then taking the initiative to actually hold them accountable is another.
Speaker:So I think that yeah, a lot what you're going to see is this quiet withdrawal, this quiet
Speaker:withdrawal of labor and volunteerism, this quiet withdrawal of people maybe thinking about being
Speaker:a candidate for them the next time. I know this has happened so many times over. I cannot believe
Speaker:people still sign up to be candidates. When my friends do it still. I try not to pass judgment,
Speaker:but obviously I am right now, but it's like, why are you expecting anything different? Because
Speaker:it's you? Because you know more people? Because they wouldn't do that to you? My friends, they
Speaker:did it to Sarah Jama, and you need to see the numbers she won in Hamilton and the strength
Speaker:of support that the Ontario NDP gets in Hamilton and relies on in Hamilton, and they did not
Speaker:give a fuck. Not two shits. They did not relent at all. Many, many people resigned from the
Speaker:Ontario NDP. Many people are volunteering now for Sarah Jemma that would have put their labor
Speaker:into the NDP and refused to. But they still go online and brag about how their donations
Speaker:are up. And they did not issue any apology. They did not bring her back into the caucus.
Speaker:They didn't even humor the idea. They keep humiliating her by not standing next to her when she wore
Speaker:the kaffir or anything like that. And so it really goes- Just to my point here that it's
Speaker:like you can do these things and I'm happy you resigned and I hope more people are pushing
Speaker:back. But if you're still going to give them donations and you're still going to just give
Speaker:them a vote and not try to hold them accountable in any way, they're going to keep repeating
Speaker:this behavior because it's working for them. I mean if you're still funding headquarters
Speaker:then what prerogative do they have for change because their values aren't it?
Speaker:Yeah, and So I know that there's a there's a cost. I know that there is a political and
Speaker:logistic cost to what happened that would probably not have existed if I hadn't done what I did.
Speaker:So like, I don't know, I think there's all kinds of ways to have an effect inside and outside
Speaker:politics. I think that you are more powerful in the Nova Scotia NDP as a disaffected liberal
Speaker:voter than you are as a loyal Democrat. Yeah, there's all kinds of ways to engage with the
Speaker:system. I think, I feel a certain obligation. I think I've said this previously. Like I feel
Speaker:obliged to do something with the political system that I ostensibly, by virtue of demographics,
Speaker:have some kind of enhanced access to the levers of. That is a fair assessment. I mean, you
Speaker:said it, I didn't. But I mean, when you spoke about being heard and felt like you were listened
Speaker:to, your time in the party is one thing, but surely your demographics also help as being
Speaker:a white male inside the party. But in the end, if you push back hard enough, your persona
Speaker:non grata, essentially, or you leave on your own accord. That was sort of the only morally
Speaker:and morally tenable position for me was to do what I did. Like I made an honest try. I tried
Speaker:to push the needle. I think I got some people in the party thinking differently and I got
Speaker:people in the party coming up and thinking differently to me. But in the end, can I make the leadership
Speaker:do things? No, it's true. And no, I tried to put all the information in front of them. I
Speaker:tried to even give the leader some runway because I didn't name the leader when I made my videos.
Speaker:Were you being pragmatic? I was. I was absolutely being pragmatic. I was trying, okay, well,
Speaker:let's give the leader a little bit of runway to get in front of this and like you can reverse
Speaker:course and Halifax knows this is the thing is that this is a very, like there, there's like
Speaker:South Shore for ceasefire and there was like an antagonist for Gaza organization, but by
Speaker:and large, when you're talking about people who are organized on the issue of Palestine,
Speaker:you're talking about HRM, which is the base of power for the Nova Scotia NDP. Very, very
Speaker:urban party as it is in so many other places. So this strikes right at the heart of their
Speaker:power. How I don't know if it's if it's changed their outcome, but I want them to come away
Speaker:from this realizing that they miss or like thinking that they miscalculated and or knowing they
Speaker:miscalculated and that they That people want more about you know from them their supporters
Speaker:want more from them on this issue. Maybe the conservatives and liberal supporters don't
Speaker:But, but that's what that's what the base wants and there's going to be a lot of hardship if
Speaker:you if you show cowardice and capitulate to see Joe Well, let's hope Jagmeet is watching.
Speaker:Surely Kamala learned this lesson the hard way, or maybe she didn't, who knows? But thank you,
Speaker:Sean. Thanks, Jess, I appreciate it. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of
Speaker:Disruption. Thank you for joining us. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status
Speaker:quo, please share our content. And if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. So until
Speaker:next time, keep disrupting.
