A lot of people lost their seats in 2015, including some of your friends. As a starting point, what do you think went wrong in the last election?

We made a number of tactical errors along the way but I think the two fundamental errors that we made is we became very safe and risk averse of trying things, and we assumed that it was "our time." And as a social democratic party you can never assume you are entitled to form government. You work for it, and I think we lost the hunger that had sustained us as we were steadily moving up toward 2011.

Is the NDP the "conscience of Parliament" or are you trying to win government?

Well, I would like to think that every single member of Parliament regardless of their party is there to be a conscience of Parliament. Otherwise, what the hell are they doing there?

To me, to sit up in the cheap seats and say I told you so, I'm not there to do that. I'm there to make change. How do we make change? The best way we can make change is actually have the tools of government, so that's my focus. The one thing I learned from Jack Layton is we're there to make life better for Canadians. So my focus is winning government, but my focus will be working in this Parliament with the government that has the mandate and I'm there to make change until we can get the levers of government to do what we need to do.

One of the things you're best known for is your advocacy for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. You have said that "reconciliation is not a hashtag." How would you describe the current relationship between settlers and Indigenous peoples, and where do you want to take that relationship?

The fundamental relationship in our country is the relationship between the Indigenous people of this land and the people who came here. And for the last 200 and some years it has been a toxic, abusive relationship. We can't change the past, we can only change today and change the future. I believe this young generation is moving well down the road to understanding that relationship in a better way but we need fundamental systemic change in Ottawa — now. It can't wait, it can't be incremental, and it can't be through words alone because kids are dying. We have to — Canada has to — it is the moral obligation in Canada at this time to step up and we're still not stepping up.

So what steps would you take? Say you win government. How would you change that relationship?

Number one, we have to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs [currently known as Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada]. This is an institution that was set up to do a job, and it has done a damn good job. That job was to destroy the ability of Indigenous people to have a voice, to have an identity. And 150 years later it's still doing that job. The idea that we have a prime minister in federal court trying to quash an order by the Human Rights Tribunal to end systemic discrimination, to me, I can't even find words for that. If I'm prime minister, number one is we will make sure that every single child in this country in Indigenous communities who are being left out will have what is needed. We will start a full-on open audit inquiry, a public investigation into Indian Affairs. Because we don't even know, nobody knows, how money goes through that department. Nobody knows where the money ends up. I've talked to the auditors generals of past and present, I've talked with the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Indian Affairs is a black hole. Once we have a sense of that department, then we can have a sense about how best to start to move those powers out into the regions [so] that they're actually serving people and not serving the interests of Ottawa.

You've said the conversation on the environment often gets bogged down in pipeline politics, and you've bristled at the idea that you're "pro-pipeline." Can you clear up the confusion about your position on pipelines, and what you think more generally about the climate change conversation?

We are approaching climate catastrophe. And Canada makes these happy promises on the international stage and walks away from them time and time again. We have to legislate the hard limits for the production of greenhouse gases. That cannot be negotiable. In terms of the present pipeline discussion, we've had a prime minister who's approved three pipelines — he's now pushing Keystone XL — with no commitments at all to meet our Paris accord [targets].

I do not support the Kinder Morgan pipeline. It was a broken EA [environmental assessment] process. The risk to the BC coastline from a potential bitumen blowout is too great. But having said that, we also as a nation have to recognize that the economic crisis in Alberta is no longer just Alberta's problem, it is Canada's problem because our nation has invested all the chips on the roulette wheel on Fort Mac. To create an alternative economy is going to take a national commitment and for that, I'm the one MP in the leadership race who's actually gone to Alberta to meet with the energy workers because the number one location in the world to create a renewable economy right now is south-central Alberta. And why the hell are we not there working at the federal government level to create a diversified energy economy?

Your platform calls for a new Crown corporation to do that. What would that look like?

Well, again, there's a number of steps. I come from mining country. Nobody ever cleaned up Inco by asking them to clean up. Inco cleaned up Sudbury, which was an environmental disaster for a hundred years, because of legislation. So we have to legislate the hard limits, we have to establish a national carbon budget council like they have in the UK that has a mandate to identify where the problems are and how we fix it. We'd have a Crown corporation because a Crown corporation can make the investments with the provinces, with the municipalities, with the big cities, to put green investments in. If we have a Crown corporation, we can start to say, let's kickstart local manufacturing, so we do what Germany's done. We actually create a renewable economy that's not just energy but is on the manufacturing side.

And this Crown corporation would replace the Liberals' Infrastructure Bank?

Well the Infrastructure Bank, I would shut that down tomorrow. That's a private club for Bill Morneau's friends. The idea that you have an infrastructure bank that benefits hedge fund operators and financiers without public input — the potential for corruption is so evident I don't think I even need to go down that road.

We've seen during this campaign that there are some divisions in the NDP, between BC and Alberta on energy projects, for example. More recently, some members in Quebec seem to have a different view of secularism and religious freedoms that doesn't necessarily mesh with English Canada. If you're leading this party, how do you keep that family together under one roof?

In terms of the role of Quebec, it's certainly clear for me from the Sherbrooke Declaration — I was there when Jack [Layton] was starting to craft that with the progressive movement. It was to make Canada a model to the world for diversity, for integration, for issues of bilingualism. And how to find that balance is part of the ongoing story of Confederation. It's not just a story of the NDP. Quebec's unique place in Canada has to be respected. It's the push and pull of a progressive movement.

Let's just underline that. For a progressive movement, it seems to me that certain things can not be negotiable, one being religious freedom, for example, or racial justice. And not to say those have been violated, but on issues like that, where do you draw the line?

The line is that Quebec, because of what went down in the Quiet Revolution, has certainly been very sensitive to the issue of a secular society. I mean, I like to point out I was the one MP threatened with excommunication by the Catholic Church probably in the last 50 years. My desire to keep religion out of politics is a gut instinct. But what we're talking about is a bill about the delivery of Quebec services within the Quebec jurisdiction to Quebec citizens. That bill will have to be compliant with two major bulwarks for individual freedom: the Quebec bill of rights, which is really strong, and the Canadian Charter. So to me it's very much a discussion within Quebec, not something that a federal NDP MP from outside of Quebec is going to tell Quebec what to do, because if there's a problem with that bill, if it is not compliant with the Quebec bill of rights or the Charter, it will be challenged by a Quebec citizen. That's how our system works.

I understand, but on the previous Charter of Values, I assume you took a stance on that. People would look to you as a federal leader for leadership on this issue. So if something is widely perceived as being Islamophobic, for example, is that not something where you as a federal leader—

Well, we have to see how this bill plays out. I certainly followed the Bouchard-Taylor commission [on reasonable accommodation] and there were some very extreme positions brought forward that were very Islamophobic. There were other positions that were much more I think mainstream about showing your face in court. You know, these are all potential hypotheticals. So what I want to see is what does the bill look like, because I think it's dangerous for someone to assume that a bill about the delivery of Quebec services is going to be a deliberate attack on a minority group when we haven't seen how that bill comes out. And if it is, it will be challenged under the Charter.

You've talked a lot about the "new working class." What does that look like to you, and what do you see as the challenges for this new working class?

I think the issue of class is fundamental to the New Democratic Party, and we've walked away from class. We couched the language we used — working families, working Canadians, happy Canadians — I don't know. I remember being told, "Don't use the word 'working class' at the party." Because it's not aspirational.

Here's the fact: in 2009, 29% of Canadians identified as working class or poor, working poor. Last year it was 44%. That's an enormous jump.