We have issues that can create some wedges. This ended some time in the early 2000s, but we used to actually have regular meetings between the federal NDP and provincial NDPs on a variety of topics, and when we could foresee a problem, we were talking about it behind closed doors, we were trying to find a common solution, a common direction, and that hasn’t been done for Kinder Morgan, for example. It’s creating divisions and the wedges we’ve seen. There’s nothing that prevents us from doing it, we have to go back to talk among ourselves. We’re the same party, provincially and federally, but we act in silos. It’s obvious we’ll have those type of differences, because our regions are so different.

Let’s put those issues on the table and let’s talk about it and let’s try to find a common solution. Kinder Morgan was predictable, we knew four years before this year that it might become a point of contention. We haven’t done anything about it, and that was a failure.

But if you are the leader of the federal party, people will see you as the figurehead. So on pipelines, for example, what would be the Guy Caron NDP position on pipelines?

At the current moment, it’s clear that Kinder Morgan cannot go ahead. The only ones who can make the decision is the Cabinet. So assuming that we form government, the priority will be to reform the National Energy Board. Why? Because it’s a captured regulator, it does the bidding of the industry, it is not neutral. We’ve seen that time and time again in the past, and we need to make sure that we are reframing the institution, we are reframing the consultation process, which currently excludes over 90% of the people who want to appear during hearings. We need to ensure that there is a separate consultation process for Indigenous people to ensure that they will be consulted, yes, but we will also be seeking consent. The consent is crucial.

I think most people realize that the NEB has had problems.

That’s an understatement.

What is your pitch to younger voters?

Precarious work is a reality that has been brought forth by all the changes we experienced since the '80s, with privatization, deregulation.

The key expression that was sold to us back in the '80s with this great liberalization of the economy was flexibility of labour. Before that we had some kind of a relationship between the employer and the employee, not always the most peaceful one, but at least there was some sense of loyalty. You work in a place, you have a job, and there was that relationship. Today, that’s not the case any more, and that was brought forth by the flexibility of labour giving employers the “flexibility” of basically shutting down jobs or creating jobs the way that they wanted with no regard to the impact it would have on the individual, the employee, and also in the communities.

So what we need to is not necessarily to recreate the world that we had before, but try to create a world in the future that will eliminate the precariousness, the insecurity that we are experiencing. It won’t be done overnight. If somebody’s out there trying to tell you that you elect an NDP government and four years after it will be heaven on earth, I’ve got news for you: it will not happen. It will not happen because the changes we have experienced leading us to where we are now have taken place over 30 years. It will take a long time to restructure the economy.

We have to try to find a way to minimize insecurity, to increase security and the possibility of improving yourselves. This is why I propose basic income, for example. Basic income is a transformative idea. It aims at eliminating poverty, but it also provides a way to ensure that those workers who were in the old economy, that they will not get poor immediately even if they can’t get a job.

So I’m proposing it like this: if you’re a young person and you want to try to find your way but you can’t yet, or you’re in a job that you feel is a dead-end job for a variety of reasons, or it’s a precarious job, it will allow you the opportunity to leave your job and go back to school, to go back and basically help improve who you are. You have this opportunity.

So specifically on basic income: this is an exciting idea to a lot of people across the political spectrum, but usually it’s talked about in terms of being a universal basic income, a paycheque for everyone. But the way you have it is targeted at reducing poverty. So I have two questions. First, is it not a more socialist, social democratic idea to have it be universal? And second, because you mentioned it earlier, what’s to stop the next Conservative or Liberal government from coming in and clawing it back because it was only ever benefiting “poor people.”

The first question is easy. I would have liked universal, but I crunched the numbers in every way possible. Even if you’re creating, say, a universal basic income at $15,000 — $1,200 a month — to everyone, taking into account, even if you slash all [existing] social programs targeting poverty, all tax credits targeting poverty, if you take into account the clawback through taxes, because those higher up would actually get taxed more, if you’re taking into account the economies of scale that will come ... still it would cost $175 billion. The current Canadian budget is $290 billion. So I find it a hard sell to propose that we’ll increase taxes in Canada by 60% to implement the universal system. No. This is why I’m proposing basic income to eliminate poverty, to ensure that everyone will get raised to the Low Income Cut-Off.

Talking about Liberals and Conservatives, I do think that the impact of this is not only on the individual, it’s on the community as well. The experiment we had in Manitoba demonstrated that mincome, or basic income, reduces crime rates, reduces hospitalization rates, reduces divorce rates, and there is a bunch of positive impacts for the community. You will not see that many homeless people in the streets. People will see the community around them being improved by this measure, in those communities which are depressed economically, that’s an infusion of money. First Nations and Indigenous people will have access to this. We’re not going to tell them how to spend that money, but they will have this option to achieve better in their community. In the end, I think this has the potential of being so popular, so successful, that people will have sense of ownership the same way as we have a sense of ownership for medicare.

But medicare was universal, and so everybody automatically had buy-in.

That’s true, but we’re talking about a service versus basically a sum of money, a transfer. That transfer is still to ensure that we will not have poverty any more. You want to remove the money to poor people? Why? You know what Conservatives will do? They will start bringing the argument, "Why do we give money to people who don’t deserve it?" Well you want to start an argument on deserving versus undeserving poor? Let’s have the debate. Let’s show how you screwed people over the last 30 years thinking this way. It’s not a matter of the individual getting the money, it’s the matter of the society ensuring that no one will be poor in a wealthy country.

We’ve heard a lot about reconciliation in the last couple years. To many Indigenous communities, activists, and leaders, though, the Liberal government has fallen short on some of the promises that were made. How would you treat reconciliation differently?

I think the Liberals have been paying lip service to this. They are keen to say constantly that this relationship is the most important one we have in Canada, the one we have with Indigenous people. And that we need a true nation-to-nation relationship. But the actions are not following what they’re saying. Look at the child support services case that’s before the Human Rights Tribunal and that was ruled in favour of the children. We’re still appealing it. We promised not to do it, they’re still appealing it. Why? They promised to get rid of the 2% ceiling on investments for education and healthcare. It’s still there. They promised to invest massively and to solve the housing and water problems in communities. There’s been some investment, but nowhere near enough to make a dent in the problem that there was.

Obviously, it’s still better, the communication aspect is still better than it was under the Conservatives. Is it enough? It’s not. The trust that we hope was being established between the federal government and First Nations, it’s been broken. There is a breach, which will make things harder for us, because if Liberals have not been fulfilling their commitments, their promises, what makes them think we will? So we need to be more forceful. What we’ll need to do is not only to grow in that direction and make the solid investments, and we’re talking about investments totalling in the first step about $20 billion for what needs to be done.

We’ll do what needs to be done, but not only are we going to do it, but we’ll tell First Nations, Indigenous people, and Canadians how it will be done, and when. “So here’s what will be done the first year, after the second year, third year, fourth year.” We’ll be accountable and people will be able to evaluate your performance after a certain time.

Liberals don’t have that problem right now. Because they are saying, “You know, we’ve just been here for two years. Wait until next year. Wait until the following year, which is election year.”

If that’s what you’ve seen from the Liberals, how do you see people holding an NDP government to account on its promises?

I’ve been very cautious in my platform, in my leadership campaign, to ensure that I will not be making a promise I cannot keep. I could make promises about everything. I’d like to have universal dental care. $12 billion, let’s see where we can find it. I need to find money for that. I found money, and I proposed a tax refund that will cover the $30-35 billion proposed for basic income. But then for First Nations I need to find $20 more billion. On dental, I will need to find $12 more billion. Just with investing in the current health care system to ensure that we are providing for the challenges of the aging population, we find $10 to $15 more billion. I want to make sure that everything I promised, I can do it. That means being responsible in the way I’m proposing it. Everything that I said so far in the leadership is something I know I can do because I haven’t overpromised.

A lot of people think the NDP’s heart is in the right place but that the party just doesn’t have the numbers figured out. You’re the numbers guy though, right? How do you get people to trust that and change the impression more generally about the party, that you guys know what you’re doing?

We’re seen as a tax-and-spend party, we’re seen as the party who can’t manage — we didn’t say that about ourselves. The Liberals and Conservatives said that about us and we didn’t fight back.

Liberals and Conservatives, look at the kind of situation we have with debt in this country, with almost $700 billion. Not a single cent of this debt is owed by an NDP government. We’ve haven’t been in government! They have raised that debt for us over many, many years, and we’re the bad managers? Look at procurement for the military, for the replacement of the CF-18, or for the navy. It’s been bungled for 10 years. And we’re the ones who don’t know how to manage?