Welcome to Blueprints of Disruption. I'm your host, Jessa McLean. Very rarely does a day

go by that I'm not faced with the question of what we should do about the NDP. Or rather,

what does the left do about electoral politics since the NDP has become an institution run

by consultants and hostile to reformists? This discussion started long before the recent

downgrading of the party. It's a discussion that frankly has been going on for generations.

If you listened to last week's re-upping of an episode with my dad, you would have heard

about attempts by the Waffle Party to pull the NDP left and the work the Lewis family did

to prevent that. I myself have been part of attempts at reform, or maybe you could call

them revolt. Either way, You're not going to find me encouraging people to spend energies

there. In fact, quite the opposite. So then the question becomes, if not the NDP, then

what? Surely we don't support the liberals or conservatives here. I don't want to get started

about the Green Party, but clearly folks are looking for alternatives. And that's exactly

what drove our next guest to do what they did. Start their own party. We'll get their origin

story. the hurdles they're facing and what they think distinguishes them from the NDP.

Their platform, they've kept it pretty focused. It boils down to three main points. Food and

shelter as a human right, tax the rich and electoral reform. But the discussion goes well

beyond policy points. The three candidates that have joined us from the revolution party are

quite candid about the high chaos that comes from starting a political party from scratch.

Lots of layers to figure out beyond enlisting volunteers and more candidates. They need to

figure out how they're going to prevent things like leadership cults or ensure the elected

are held accountable. What about registering with Elections Canada? Hearing the struggles

of these infancy stages, but also the determination of the folks navigating it together, provides

lessons for all of us. If you're a regular listener, you know this isn't an endorsement of a political

party. I can hardly endorse electoral politics at all. But I know the audience includes people

like our guests who are equally disappointed with the NDP but don't want to give up on that

realm of influence. And I support getting where we're going through many routes. This is why

we do what we do here. share stories from people on the ground doing the work, whether that's

intervening in elections or building blockades. Our library is full of blueprints of disruption.

If you'd like to support our work, there are links in the show notes to become a patron,

but sharing our content is also a huge boost. We're also looking to expand our team over

here, so If you'd like to contribute to our mission of amplifying and equipping the grassroots,

reach out to us on any of our platforms. And now, as promised, the Revolution Party of

Canada. All right, we're here. Welcome, everybody. We've got three comrades in the studio with

us today. I am Kira Loughlin. I am a candidate for the Revolution Party of Canada in the Parkland

Riding of Alberta. I don't look at currently because I just got back from an appointment,

but I am usually a hardcore goth girl and I am 100 % proud about that. But yeah, this

is my first foray into anything political. I haven't even done city level stuff. So big

P political, because like everything we do is political. Yeah, yeah. Big P political. I'm

one of those people that gets really annoyed at somebody that says I don't like to talk

politics because I'm like, everything is politics. Yeah, I can't see someone who's like never

been political joining the Revolution Party. So there had to have been a bit of a kernel

there, but I get where you're coming from. definitely was. My name is Mathieu Labeltasse. I'm from

the writing of Saint-Michel and Saint-Laurent in Montreal. I started in politics as being

a pretty hard right winger. And then after that, by reading and going to university, I

became a full on leftist. I tried to join Québec solidaire into a provincial writing,

but I decided to move on to the entire federal level now. Interesting. Interesting. You saw

my mouth open there when you mentioned you were a hard right winger, but the pipeline of education

is real, thankfully. Troy, welcome. Hello, my name is Troy Roberts. I'm the presumptive

candidate for the Niagara South Riding in Ontario. I'm a longtime socialist, and I've been searching

for a political home for almost as long as I have been one. I haven't really managed to

find anything that fits. As soon as I heard about the Revolution Party, I went straight

to the website, checked it out, and I was a member minutes later. This place is exactly

what I've always been searching for, and I decided to represent it because of that. You guys are

real rainbow collection of political background from seemingly none, Kira, let's stop, but

you know, none, the right wing to, you know, Solidaire kind of worked her way through the

system and Troy, a lot of people can resonate with your not having a political home. I mean,

now we'll talk about where you're at now and why that excites you so much, but You know,

from a leftist perspective, you folks even say it in the press conference you gave during

the federal election. I will link that to the episode. Folks need to watch that as they really

go into detail. But you mentioned kind of being the alternative to the NDP for leftists. So

everyone's seen the implosion. I mean, we saw it coming before the election, but now it's

official. So the discussion naturally goes to what do we do now? And I see some comrades

trying to reform the NDP. So maybe they want to save this episode for later. I don't know.

But then there's a lot of people who are just done. They don't want to give up electoral

politics, though. And they want to know, you know, more about the Revolution Party, but

also, you know, what it took to create something from scratch. That's a big jump to just People

seem to be stuck in that reform stage. Some people just leave altogether. I'm kind of

drifted away from electoral politics altogether. But then there's you folks, and you've done

something about it. So how did the Revolution Party come about? I asked you for your origin

story. It was about three years ago when Jamie, he was the bald fellow with a beard in both

of the press conferences. Yeah, it was three years ago when he started, he just kind of

got the name, he bought the domain and his mom was like, you're crazy. And he was like,

whatever. And I think it was only within the last year or so that like they actually started

looking for members and they really got people going. I think the origin story of the Revolution

Party of Canada is it started in Jamie's room. They all got to start somewhere. Right. They

got to start somewhere. least it was in the garage. sounds like so cliche, you do have

to start somewhere. But that is what stops people from doing something. I mean, a lot of things

do the lack of electoral reform and the struggle of a small upstart party trying to make impact

electorally. just the daunting process of rather than stepping into an institution, no matter

how marred it is, seems a lot easier than starting from the basement and trying to build

from there. But you've grown quite a lot since just Jamie. So quickly. Yeah. I think we're

up to about 50 candidates confirmed right now. So these are folks that are just like ready

to run in a federal election. Well, whether it be five months from now or four years from

now. Yes, they're all ready. Yeah, basically. Really as a party. The stuff that we're working

on currently is we're getting our inaugural caucus sorted out. Right now it is high chaos

in the party, right? It's very disorganized. It's hard to tell what's going on, but with

all of the planning that's going on, we're getting meetings together for the various regions,

for various candidates, instead of just all one meeting like we were doing before. Yeah,

the inaugural caucus is currently our primary focus and we're... three to six months on that,

although I would add another three months on top of that. People tend to underestimate how

long a project takes. Indeed. So it's your goal to kind of create a shadow cabinet of sorts?

Essentially. So what we're going to be doing is the inaugural caucus is going to be what's

responsible for voting on literally everything that we're going to do as a party. Might add

some red tape, but we're also making it so that our manifesto and our platform is the absolute,

right? It can be changed, obviously, but it will require a majority vote. We're going to

be introducing pretty tight term limits for leaders of the party, and we're going to have

a triumvirate. What's that? That is when three people are in the lead and they work within

or they work with one another to lead the party or entity or of some sort. So we're trying

our absolute best to make sure that this is not going to become a one person party. All

right. I'm down with like abolishing leadership cult. Have you ever, has anybody here ever

experienced this structure before? You know, with three... No, can't say I ...shared leaders?

What did you call it again? A triumvirate. I did, but it wasn't three. It was two party.

It's a... Three in the green party? No. The Quebec, Quebec Solidaire, they have the male

candidates and the female candidates. They support something that's called the parité, which I

do not know the word in English. Gender parity. Yeah, gender parity. Yeah. And they want to

try to have like equal amount of women candidates as equal amount of male candidates. And they

want to have that amount of people inside as candidates. And they want to win that that

way. Do folks approach equity that way? Not to that same one to one level, I don't think

we are trying to get as much representation for as many different communities as we can,

like actively so. But we're not breaking it down to the math. just trying to attract as

much diversity as we can. Yeah, I will say I'm a lesbian. I haven't faced any issues within

the party. I've not had any of those people that go up to you and say, you're only a lesbian

because you haven't been with the right guy. That's a low bar, Kira. It is a low bar, but

unfortunately, that is the bar of reality, right? This is just kind of the situation that

we're in as people who are part of the 2SLGBTQIA. Oh, and there's also quite a few trans people

who have joined as well. And it's been amazing to see that there's been a lot of support for

the trans folk in the community. We've seen a lot of women join, honestly. Like, it hasn't

really been something that's crossed my mind because it hasn't seemed like we needed it,

right? We're a very, very diverse bunch, it feels like. Did you experience the most growth

during the federal election or were you a robust team going into it? The most growth we got

was right after our initial press conference and Steve Boots made a video on us. We owe

a lot to Steve Boots. I joined because of Steve as well. So. Right. There's so many people

who have joined because of Steve. Yeah. And both of the videos he's made, we've had a huge

influx of people from them. Did all of you run as candidates, like a campaign? We only

ran the five, but next time it's going to be quite a lot more than Yeah, but they weren't

they weren't seen as the revolutionary party. They were seen as independence. Yeah, the party

itself and get registered in time. That is what folks are daunted by though, too, right? So

how do I start a new party with Elections Canada? How do I start taking in donations? How do

we become an official party down the road? I mean, there are parts of starting a new

party that folks are just... It's a very esoteric thing. Yeah, because it's like chicken and

the egg as well, right? You really need somebody who can do... put a lot of hours into doing

a lot of aspects about partisan politics to, you know, get into an election and be effective.

But at the same time, that requires funds and you have to grow before you can even start

taking in funds. you know, participating in the election definitely isn't limited to any

kind of... party status and we definitely know it's not limited to official party status.

I get it. mean, just look at the longest ballot initiative. Yeah. I mean, you still went through

the process and probably learned so many lessons from the federal election as a new party.

What, what really threw you for a loop if anything? For me, it's how ignored by media

we are. Yeah. Yeah. Like in both of our press conferences, we didn't get a single question

from the media that was present there. we haven't gotten any other media attention besides independent,

right? Like on YouTube or on here. It's a hidden card, you know, like it's a hidden card. Like

I know that the media will not want to talk to us unless we do something major or unless

we grab their attention or unless we grab the attention of everybody. Like when I mean everybody,

I mean like everybody. One of the things I was impressed by was by how well some of our

candidates did. had one of our candidates get triple digit votes from a party that got,

think 111, I believe you said something like that. Uh, but a fair few for somebody that

nobody's ever heard of. One of the things that I believe is that when people hear our message

and the things we have to say and the reasons that we're saying them and they hear it clearly,

I think it's going to be really, really popular. And I feel like that initial result sort of

bolsters my opinion there. you have you sat Greg down and have him completely dissect

his campaign for you folks to replicate? I remember correctly, Greg didn't really run

much of a campaign. think he was mostly grassroots within the Edmonton area. And yeah, he still

managed to get triple digits out of that. And yeah, as far as I'm aware, it was fully grassroots

on his part. Just door knocking. Yeah, well, I mean, ask him what he was saying to people

at the door and how he managed to even have like that many, especially as an independent.

So it wasn't even, you know, the word revolution that drew people to check that box, right?

They seem to have gone in there with his name in mind to vote an independent. So we have

a communist. Well, there's communists all over the place running, but, you know, in Barry.

They max out at 100 votes and they have an entire established party. People understand

what the name means, even if they don't have any idea who the candidate is. So, you know,

there might be secrets there in Gregory's campaign that I would do a postmortem, you know, from

as well as the other candidates. But what's going to make the next one different for you

folks? You think you'll be registered as a party and be able to run under a banner? Yeah, that's

the plan. Right now, what we're telling candidates who are just antsy for things to do is get

out there, do the grassroots stuff. We have people participating in the Alberta protests

against the separatism referendums. have candidates just meeting together in general, getting to

know one another, trying to operate on the same ground. At least that's what's happening

here in Edmonton. Generally speaking, we're just encouraging every candidate to be as grassroots

as possible. Get the name out there, do anything you can just to first make people less scared

of Revolution Party of Canada because it's a name that we have gotten a lot of pushback

on so far of a lot of people being like, that's a scary name. You guys are crazy. But I love

it. It triggers the lips. I mean. It does. It gets a lot of people a little riled up.

that's kind of, there's some of us in the party who really like that. And some of us who are

like, oh, we probably shouldn't do that. I'm a big proponent of the name, specifically because

of the idea of the scary bit. We have more and more people that are, I mean, look what happened

to the NDP, right? More and more people are, they don't want the status quo. They know things

are going wrong. They know things are going poorly. They want some kind of change. And

a lot of people just don't really know what kind of change to go for. So when we talk about

revolution, we're talking about a massive change from the status quo. And again, we've got all

these policies and opinions that I think people are really going to like. And I think a lot

of people are going to decide that our kind of revolution is what they want. Well, let's

test your theory, Troy. You folks ran on a kind of a nice, simple three point. I mean, it's

not as cut and dry as three points. They go a little deeper than that. But your platform,

your platform was three. major points. You folks each want to run through one. I'm sure you've

done the spiel and you know what makes you revolutionary. mean food and water as a human

right. That's a big one. There I think a lot of food deserts. I think of small towns that

have been gutted by companies moving away and they can't afford food. It's difficult to get

food in. I think of up north communities Nunavut, Yukon where you see prices from there, it's

like 40 bucks for a watermelon, just because there's no profit to be made from doing it

any other way. The idea that food and water should be available to everybody at all times

seems very, very basic to me because of the whole staying alive thing. Yeah, an important

thing to note as well is that we want to get this codified in the Canadian Charter of Rights

so that it cannot be revoked by whatever next party comes after us. Into the Charter? Yeah,

the right to specifically to food and water? Yeah, food, water and shelter. You one of the

biggest problems with the charter is that it doesn't secure any economic rights, right?

Like everything can be trumped or kind of whisked away based on public safety and the

lack of funds. We know there isn't a lack of funds, but the governments are allowed to

just simply say there are. So. The charter is perhaps not always the tool people wished

it could be. But surely I think folks will agree with you on food, shelter, water being

secured. One of the ideas I drew from your website that I think folks will find interesting is

the idea of nationalizing food banks. Yeah. So that would just be, I think, the start

of it because that's not a long-term solution, but the beginning with nationalizing food banks,

think is a great idea because so many food banks are so wildly underfunded. lot of folks would

suggest perhaps nationalizing grocery chains and the food supply. Yeah. These are kind

of baby steps to get us there. Yeah. So the the babyest of baby steps is pretty much

if we can get electoral reform through, if we can help push that through with the agreement

between liberals and the NDP or whatever ends up happening. Then our next goal is to introduce

a wealth flight tax of some kind. in the wild scenario that we all got, we got elected as

a majority party, wealth flight tax would be the first thing that we did, followed by taxing

the wealthy, which is the other, or one of our other three priorities, which is making

them pay their fair share. introducing new tax brackets like a 51 % income tax on people

who make over a million dollars a year. That's often the answer there to people like, oh,

if you tax the rich, they'll just leave, right? So that's your solution. And then it would

also give us the ability to issue warrants for their arrest on Interpol because then

they would be evading Canadian taxes and such like that. Where are you focused on policing?

So you start with defund the police at a minimum, right? Move a lot of the police budgets into

other areas that are better able to handle some of the jobs that the police do now that they're

not good at. You don't need a guy with a gun showing up at a medical emergency, for example.

Or somebody having a mental crisis and having like five policemen coming to your place because

the person is mentally unstable instead of bringing somebody that can, you know, bring a freaking

social worker. When like policemen all they have is a hammer and they treat everything

like if it's a nail. Well, you won't get any revolution with a well trained or well funded

police force, my friends. Well, they need to be trained differently. With the budget they

already have. Yeah, because a lot of progress like the NDP and a lot of progressives will

do this. They will. say that it's just kind of different training, that it's not a systemic

issue. Like they weren't here to create, like just to protect capital and further marginalize

people. Yeah, it's a systemic issue. Troy, you got to start with the first point. There's

two more. Save electoral reform for last. We have tax the rich. That's right. How can I

forget that one? Yeah. So as I brought up, there was the the wealth flight tax and then introducing

a larger income tax. But that's for just the rich, not the super wealthy, right? That's

not for Galen Weston Jr. The wealth flight tax is for Galen Weston Jr. So he can't just fuck

off to one of his Scottish castles. But in those cases, we want to have a scaling annual

wealth tax on billionaires. have on our website, we have a button called Eat the Rich, and

it is just a list of every Canadian billionaire. Oh, yeah, the wall of shame. Yeah, the wall

of shame. It starts with Elon Musk at the top, Galen Weston Jr. and everybody else. Because

Canadian billionaires are incredibly good at being quiet about how rich they are. Right.

They're very sneaky little bastards. Yeah, we don't celebrate them in the same way. No, we

don't. Right. Like they lay low. I dragons den we have. right or one of those shows has sharks

or something I don't know but they've got a show of their own but otherwise yes they have

a pretty Gaylen Weston just takes the hits for all of them Elon no one even remembers

he's Canadian so I thought that was funny he's kind of the first face just to remind people

we can't disown him like I'm like oh those crazy South Africans or Yankees it's like yeah

I'm own a little bit of this one because he's got the most money yeah and then We want to

also introduce a surtaxes on businesses where CEOs make more than 10 times their lowest paid

employee that can scale up to 100%. And that will just hopefully make a big difference in

the wealth or the income gap between minimum wage and well, Galen West and fucking junior.

Yeah. Matthew, do you want to talk about the last point there? Electoral reform is something

you folks talk a lot about. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, because one of the big problems that

we have in this country is something that's called strategic voting. I've never heard of

that. Oh my God. You never heard of that? Tell me, what is it? It forces Canada in picking

two parties that they literally hate. You have literally a bowl of shit and another bowl of

shit. Um, and basically it forces people only to choose for two parties because if you don't

choose for, uh, one party, you're going to help the other one win. And you get shamed for it

too. Yeah. And get shamed as well for it. Like if you say like, yeah, I decide to vote for

NDP because I believe in what they stand for. Oh no, you're helping the conservative to win

your writing or. Oh I'm going to vote for the Bloc because I'm a French person and I

don't like how my government is running in Ottawa and they never attend the needs of Quebec.

Oh, you're helping the conservatives win in Quebec. All of that. Look, any type of electoral

reform would be good. But apparently the one that we have is proportional voting. So that

way anybody can have a Anybody can have a voice. Most of the time, happens is that whoever's

in power, let's just say like if it's the liberals, the western part of the the country starts

being unhappy or start saying like, they're marginalizing us or they're not listening to

us. And if some of the conservative women then Quebec and the Maritimes starts yelling and

bickering, saying like, oh, nobody listens to us. Can I just say? Let's normalize not calling

Alberta the West. We are not the West. As a lifetime Albertan, we are Midwest at best.

Okay. That's too many categories for us. God, the separatism going on in Alberta right now.

can't handle it. It's like, can we all just be Turtle Island? Everyone I think can understand,

especially, there's already proponents for electoral reform. on the left. think that's a big sticking

point for a lot of people. Even liberals wanted it. I mean, it was what Trudeau promised and

originally brought him to power. want to know why Trudeau won his first election in Quebec?

Like why he was so why Quebec was so red when he when he started running? Why? Because one,

he's from a dynasty that was loved by the boomers in Quebec. And secondly, he introduced electoral

reform. He said that it was going to be the last election with electoral reform. He won,

he had 10 years to do it, he didn't do it. He sat on it and he said like, oh, it's too

hard, or the Senate. Look, he was in power and he knew that if he would have done electoral

reform, he would have hurt his own party, hurt the conservative, hurt Quebec, hurt all the

parties that... had like this big proportional group and help all the other smaller parties.

So no matter who's going to be to power, they don't want to kill. They don't want to shoot

themselves in the foot. They just don't want to do that. See, I would argue, yes, all that.

Yes. But the NDP for the same reason you folks understand how badly you need electoral reform

to make a greater impact. Like that must be just so friggin obvious, especially going

through a federal election, right? And seeing how hard it is to eat out space there. But

the NDP is threatened by parties like you. I mean, you've openly declared yourself as

a threat to the NDP, right? So your growth or your ability to get a foothold into the

electoral system with electoral reform is a threat. to the NDP, I'm not sure if they had

maintained themselves as the only leftist party in an actual leftist party, then yes, like

that would help the smaller parties. But the way that they've done it, there's so many

people ready to take up this position that you have where you're like, fine, we'll do it

ourselves. And under electoral reform, that becomes a lot more promising. So it's why

the NDP had never really fully put their shoulders into getting that done. Jagmeet even admitted

it was like he tried to get it as part of the supply agreement and you know, but it was

like half-hearted. It definitely wasn't a priority. And like this is coming from a party that

had already promised it. So you think it would have been an easy sell, but no, nobody ever

intended on really doing it. So I understand why that's like a cornerstone. of what you

folks are demanding because I mean, it'll help make all this work a little more worthwhile,

right? Maybe brighten the prospects. And it's just a more democratic way of doing things

as well. Like First Past the Post is inherently anti-democratic and we are very pro-democracy.

It's funny. Jamie says the same thing over and over and it's that he wishes the NDP would

steal our entire platform. I run on that, right? It's not that we as the revolution party of

Canada want to win. It's that we want our policies to win. want what we stand for to be what

gets put through what makes lives of Canadians better. Right. And if the fucking financier

ghouls behind the NDP have to fall for that, then yeah, absolutely. You know, maybe they

shouldn't be so set in their ways and thinking that, we have to keep moving towards the center

instead of further left like everybody wants. Well, I mean, if you can demonstrate success

or any other leftist institutions start to demonstrate success with a different strategy,

perhaps. I think a lot of them are just so wealthy in the institution that they've created

and the mechanisms now there are so anti-democratic that it's almost impossible for them to reform

themselves so that even if they did say you guys have great ideas and you're right it's

selling right like look at that look you're gaining traction i'll do this marketing plan

too right like because they don't actually believe like i'll it just it sells it keeps us relevant

that that's enough for us they're so poisoned in the way that they operate now that it's

really not healthy so how do you folks internally differ I don't know if any of you have been

inside the NDP to know how it might be different, but Troy says, you know, we believe in democracy

or, know, that is what we're about. How else does that manifest inside your party? Well,

we don't charge a membership fee. That's the biggest one. We do not charge a membership

fee for either regular members or candidates. There is no fees. Another big one is that we

will not be accepting donations at the federal limit. which I believe is $1,100 per person.

I mean, the talks that we've been having, we're thinking about like maybe $100 per person.

And even that is like, everybody's a little, ooh, that's a little high. We're trying to

get money out of the equation as much as possible. We understand that we're going to need money

to run. We fully understand that, but we don't want it to be the reason that we run, right?

We want the reason that we run to be making Canada better, making the lives of fellow Canadians

better. And, you know, hopefully being a bastion that the rest of the world looks to and goes,

hey, they did socialism and it's working. The other thing that I think of is you see in the

news, I'm seeing articles right now about how the NDP leadership is trying to like fix it

their way to get the candidate that they want to be leader as opposed to actually going to

the party. Everything we do is going to the party. There is no upper echelon of control.

Everything comes down to a vote like. all the policies, all the candidates are going to be

primaries. If there's more than one candidate, the leadership is going to be voted on just

right down at membership level. There isn't going to be any sort of centralized from the

top control. We're from the bottom up every time. Well, that is surely different than the

NDP who are highly centralized. Yeah. And also the NDP, you know, like they're doing their,

their, little leadership race right now. And I saw what you had to do and like the amount

of money. I don't think I have that amount of money. You're supposed to raise that amount

of money. It's a test of... It's to keep poor folks out. It's to keep grassroots candidates

out. But they'll tell you it's to test your prowess as a leader and part of politics to

them. most of the major, like all the major parties, is your ability to raise funds. So

surely these points set you apart in that regard. You talk about, you know, being happy, or at

least That's what Jamie said, but you folks nodded along there that if the NDP would just

take or, you know, help the ruling liberals took your platform. All right. Like let's just

take our fucking platform. Sure. Sure. How do you help folks get there? So what I mean

is where will your energy go between elections to make space or progress on things like the

three key points that you folks drove home there. You know, can start with electoral reform

or any of them. Like some of them are really kind of, radical ideas, they're revolutionary

ideas. They're not like things we haven't heard, but really right now there's no space for it

and you're not gonna be a majority party, right? And like that was one of the flaws I think

of the NDP's campaign at the beginning. They kind of shifted, but you know, we knew the

NDP wouldn't rule. and he kept speaking like that and I'll be honest your website reads

like that I would change it. The way you say we will do this we will do that like that's

so far off for you to be able to you know implement these policies. You need to explain to people

how you're going to get there without majority power. Right we needed to hear from the NDP

like here's how I'll behave with 24 seats. Unfortunately, in reality, he should have been

like, hey, even if you give us a dozen seats, here's what we can do with it. Here's what

we're going to do with your donations and your energy to make sure that the liberals don't

do X, Y, and Z. A lot of it is defense too at this point. And they don't mobilize people

to this end. So they don't get, we don't get any closer to electoral reform because They

don't do anything beyond say it on the floor. So what can you folks do even if you're not

on the floor, but you are taking the energy of folks, right? They still want to get to

that spot. How are you going to do that? I would think that especially at the beginning when

we're small, keeping the message out there, you talk about talking about it on the floor.

That's one thing, but talking about it in the community as well. The more that message gets

spread and the more people are talking about it, the more pressure that puts on even a majority

government and the more people are. protesting against things that they understand because

they've heard what we said or they're in the streets because they're fired up about something

that we said. There needs to be a bunch of us talking that all the time everywhere we can,

even if we don't have any power. Yeah, and in fewer words, we want to shift the Overton window

over towards the left where it's okay and expected to talk about these things where, the government

empowered the minority or majority will feel the pressure from people just talking about,

actually, I really do want a universal basic income. Why the hell does Galen Weston Jr.

have more money than anyone could ever spend in their single lifetime or even generations

of their family, right? I'm struggling to buy bread in the morning. I need a universal basic

income. But right now, that's not what people are talking about. The Overton window has shifted

further to the right than we really want it to be. The ideas are also out there, right?

So I imagine all of you, well, we've got Alberta, Niagara region here in Ontario, Montreal. So,

you know, fair vote Canada. not, I don't want to shade anyone working for them. I mean,

they're there, they're doing their thing. They're going for electoral reform. That's an example.

But I mean, some of the other issues that you folks talk about, and that you support. they're

being championed by people too already, right? Probably somewhere in your community. Are

you planning on working with them or amplifying their work or is there ways, you know, when

you say, I didn't kind of press you on it earlier, you used the term like be as grassroots as

possible. You're talking to a whole lot of like activists and organizers who know exactly

what it means to kind of work in their communities. What exactly is that going to kind of look

like from a party perspective? Right? So again, we'll kind of hate to compare you constantly,

but the parties generally operate with writing associations. Traditionally, those writing

associations just prepare for the next election. They might have some fundraisers here and there,

maybe a town hall to push the party messaging, right? Like if they're pushing on education.

They'll have education town halls and do what you're saying, kind of pull people in, have

them hear what they have to say, and hopefully that will draw them into the fold even further.

Do you have plans to kind of replicate that or, you know, the flip side I think is working

with organizations that are already doing the work that these ideas will naturally percolate

from? Yeah, so we are very intent on working with organizations. With everything that Jamie

has been doing as interim leader, he has been wildly busy and hard to get a hold of recently,

but I think he's been working with a lot of local communities across Ontario to just

get things going to show that, hey, we support this, we're a political party, we're going

to be an official political party, we support you and we want to see you go forward. In

my case, like I'm in a very deep blue riding. The moment it existed, became blue and it

has never been anything else. And I'm in Alberta, which itself is incredibly deep blue. I don't

think I'm going to win a seat from the Parkland riding, but at the very least I can talk to

people in my little city of Spruce Grove and say, hey, things can be better. We don't have

to just vote blue because they're the team that you play for, right? It's not a hockey game

anymore. Politics has never been a hockey game. Let's stop treating it like it is. We need

these things and we need them now, or we need them to be fought for. So in my case, my work

as a candidate between elections is very much going to be getting my name out there. Even

if it's potentially dangerous to me in some aspect or another, it feels like I have a moral

obligation to stand up for the revolution party where nobody else would. I'll say too with

the coalition building with all the other groups out there that are doing this work, we've already

reached out to a bunch of them. We're planning to reach out to as many as we can. And one

of the things that we have as well is we're seeking power to actually influence change

from within the government. Whereas they're more just about getting the message out. I

know I just talked about the importance of getting the message out, especially when we're new,

if we have any power, but it's a good mix. I belong to other organizations that were just

about like trying to spread awareness and trying to endorse candidates, things like that. And

I got frustrated because it didn't feel like there was any attempt to actually gain power

to effect change. And that's one of the things we're trying to do here eventually. you think

great change will come through the ballot box? I don't think it's impossible. I talked about

an upwards loop not that long ago. I think that could be the way it goes. I'm not a wizard

or anything, but it's possible. If people really feel like they're getting behind what we're

trying to push for, we could see success in the ballot box, right? But before then we have

to put, we really have to put the heat under the pants of the NDP before they are completely

dissolved, for example, or we have to talk to Bloch-Quebec-Oise because, you know, they're

the next highest seats. We have to do everything that we can to affect change. in the ways

that we are able to, which currently is not federally. And I think that is something that

we have to accept is that we don't currently have the power to make federal change, but

we can run municipal candidates or we can run provincial candidates. That's mainly down to

individuals more than the party right now. Until after our inaugural caucus, we're not

planning on anything relating to like organizations or any provincial party organizations. Sorry.

We're primarily focused on the federal party right now, but once the inaugural caucus is

set up and we're off to the races with the federal, we might start thinking about provincial presences.

Don't stretch yourselves too thin, folks. I do that too often. Where could you use the

most help? I want to say getting yourself registered as a party. Like there's probably bureaucratic.

items that y'all need to take care of, but are there, are you doing a good job of drawing

resources from all these folks that have found you, whether through boots or because of the

campaigns that were run during this last federal election? Where are you putting these people

and where do you still need help? I'm going to say that as of yet, we're not doing it well.

We need to have 90 % of the the country covered. So we need more candidates. We're doing good.

Like we have 50, around 50, we're getting close to 50. The volunteers are also going to be

a big help because they're going to help those candidates knock on doors, getting those

grassroots, getting that word out, getting that message out. I think those are the two

most impactful help that we can get. Matthew kind of gave like a kind of broad overview

of like the the things you need most is candidates and volunteers. But there are a lot of things

to do, right? Social media to run meetings, you're building a caucus, so there's administrative

things that have happened. Do you have a lot of these positions filled or are you still

looking to grow that core? I know you're not centralized, but you need people to take responsibility

to organize folks across the country like that, right? So we're, we're looking, we're looking

for people for doing that. We're looking for the people on the back end. We're looking for

that, for, for that core, uh, somebody for social media. We have candidates that have

position like that, but candidates also have to run their campaigns. They also have to get

their message out there. So They can't always do that job. Like I think even one of our candidates

is the one that's going to put our website in French eventually when that gets done. Yeah.

And he's a candidate by the way, like my one is a candidate. Um, even I'm helping him with

the French version and, and, and, and yeah, like we, we need volunteers to be in that

backend and to fill out those roles. So the candidate can actually just. think on running,

getting the message out there and knocking on doors and getting those grassroots support.

Yeah, like in my case, I'm a member of both our marketing and social media teams where

we're currently waiting for the messaging team to kind of get themselves together because

we're very intrinsically connected with the messaging of the party. We don't want to be

releasing videos where one of us is just like. You know what? I actually don't like universal

basic income all that much, but here's why the party likes it. We have to make sure that we're

very consistent in that. And right now, to be a hundred percent honest, we are a chaotic

mess. Like right after the election happened, we kind of, we saw a huge influx of people

that we just were not ready to take on at that time. And since then we have been a hundred

percent focused on organization because we are so disorganized. is kind of wild. So we have

teams coming together for a party organization. We have teams coming together for the shadow

cabinet. We have teams coming together for the inaugural caucus, for social media, stuff like

that. We're getting there, but it's a slow process, right? We're trying to make sure that everybody

is okay with what we're doing because we're not a one person party. We're not built from

the top down. We're built from the bottom up. So we got to make sure everybody standing at

the bottom or sitting at the bottom is okay holding everybody else up. We've all been

there as organizers, right? Where there's been these moments where everything that we've done

is doing what it's supposed to do, but we still weren't ready for it. You like you peek, you

get a lot of engagement, you stir a lot of people's interest, and then how you capture and hold

that interest, it's hard to onboard people effectively. So that was part of my question.

like all these skill sets that you need to run a party in whatever way that you're gonna

do, they're gonna come from all of these people that saw you through a boots video or saw one

of your candidates and they're gonna have this secret superpower that you didn't even know

you needed. But you do, you know, like someone who knows how to get signs and frozen ground,

you know, it's just like a silly example, but. You know, in your core group, there'll be

so many skill sets, video editing and all these things. So yeah, get your shit together people

because yeah, you've got a lot of excited people that, you know, want to put their energy here

and you could do really great things as long as you kind of are able to multiply that

power, right? Like a volunteer isn't a volunteer until they have a task, right? Yeah. As a

D &D DM, the way that I'm looking at it is currently we're building the paddock that we're

going to herd all the cats into. We're in this political time where the liberals are going

to do everything the conservatives wanted to do anyway, except for maybe attack trans health

care and a few other social items. So I think we're far off from another election, federal

election. So you folks have breathing space to create your caucus. the paddock, all the

infrastructure you're going to need. May I suggest you talk to people who have been in

the thick of it, like Matthew, Matthew with the Solidair, Quebec Solidair, and folks who've

gone through the wringer with the NDP and find out where the pitfalls are as you start to

really solidify that core. Yeah, there's, there's quite a few of us who are like really hoping.

that with the NDP currently imploding, we're going to start seeing some NDP candidates just

kind of, you know, quietly shuffle over. So, oh, some candidates, yeah. You know, you got

some MPs who lost their seat. I think a lot of them are hanging out in the wings to see

how this leadership thing takes place. you do, what you do have out there are people who

have run these little mini infrastructures, even though they're kind of colonial structures

and they're not all that healthy. That are just done like entire writing associations

have walked away, know the people in that run them I've just walked away from the NDP entirely.

They've been treasurer. They've been social media managers They've run campaigns. They

you know me clipboards I have you know, like I have all kind I have everything you need

over in that little corner to run a fucking political campaign including a bunch of buttons

with my name on it, know what I thought I never want to see again, so you These people will

come and help you build but they need to know you are different from the NDP So yeah, like

I love you named a few things democratically that make you stand out Policy wise I think

it was kind of obvious to folks I mean deep down the NDP would advocate for some of these

things It is deep in the policy book and and and members hearts But to get somebody to say

it on camera is another thing. mean, before we started recording, we were talking about

their refusal to say like sex work is work when someone tries to shame them for having an OnlyFans

model on their bus and doing promos for them. So they're a long way away and you folks

are definitely distinguishing yourself. You know, like throwing somebody under the bus

with the NDP did that was horrible. And our party is never going to do that. Yeah. Well,

you might, but you got to have mechanisms in place to be able to hold people accountable.

It's like just like our politics where, you know, it's like four years, cross your fingers,

maybe sign a petition or two or whatnot, but otherwise no recourse. That is another problem

within the NDP that no one is answerable to the members. really to make those decisions.

someone does make a bad decision, a bad call on the campaign. You can't go to the party

for everything on the fly, right? There, some people will make bad decisions as leaders,

as people in key positions. It's how you folks deal with those mistakes that is going to set

you apart as well. Because even the Communist Party of Canada had issues. It's probably why,

you know, Kira even had this kind of disclaimer on her experience as a lesbian within the

group, right? Because there's there's been institutions where shit happens that is a

microcosm of the greater society. And the circle that exists around partisan politics

closes ranks and don't deal with it. And these aren't healthy places for people like us. We're

already considering a system in which the members can in adequate circumstances, just remove

a candidate from the party. Not necessarily as a member, just get them out. Get them off

of the spotlight, get them out of candidacy and put somebody else in who will do a better

job of it. It's so necessary. You said it yourself, things are going to happen. The big question

that I've always asked is when things happen, what do you do about it? It's a zero tolerance

thing where if somebody is openly against one of our policies or policies that members have

voted on because we've also been completely open to members introducing policies. We didn't

actually have anything relating to disability until somebody came in and was like, hey, you

guys really need to focus a lot on disability. And everybody was like, oh, yeah, actually

we do. I'm the one that pushed that. And like people have been individually coming in. have

a channel on our server where people can suggest policy. We've gotten so many really good policy

suggestions that we're going to be looking at during the inaugural caucus. There's all these

things that we can do. There are ideas that people have already, right? That I'm never

going to have, that Troy is never going to have, that Mathieu is never going to have, but we're

always trying to be open to those ideas. Yeah. Like, like, like if I ever do a town hall,

I'm going to ask two people, so what are your grievance right now? Like, Where's your pain?

How can I help you? Because even if I win my writing, I'm still going to have those down

holes and I'm still going to see like, I'm still going to want to see my candidates. Not my

candidate, but the constituents. I'm not going to do like, oh, I won this writing and I know

that I'm safe into it. I'm just going to disappear and not appear into any debate or anything

like that. I'm just going to disappear and... at Ottawa and say goodbye, say or no. I cannot

imagine willingly doing that while also getting paid $180,000 a year. Right. When you become

an MP and you have an income like that, you should be doing everything in your power to

talk to your constituents, right? Because they voted you in. You have to keep up to date on

what they want from you. Right. You can't just be like, hey, my assistant is handling all

of my emails. I occasionally see one or two. I'm mostly disconnected because I work in Ottawa.

What are the things that I got from the Atlantic regional communists who are on a similar path

as you folks, but less interested in electoral victories or even electoral work at the moment?

But one of the things that I admired about how they were going to build, you know, the

antithesis of what they had experienced so far. was like what you say, you know, should I

become an MP to be held accountable to be in constant contact? That's how they structured

their party within to write. anyone holding the treasurer position or all these other kind

of key roles, I know you don't want to be centralized, but again, there's going to be key roles that

need to be filled. They'll have to make decisions sometimes without the party, but creating

mechanisms where they were constantly constantly having to answer to the larger mass, right?

The larger, the membership. So volunteers, candidates, all on equal footing at that point and being

able to ask hard questions of the decisions that had been made, right? But it's one thing

to have it as a mantra, you say out loud, you know, this is how we're going to be and we're

not or not going to be, but it's finding what the actual mechanisms are, what that structure

looks like, what those meetings end up unfolding like to make sure that it remains democratic,

that it remains linear or decentralized even, right? So it'd be interesting. I would like

to check in with you folks perhaps a year from now. Uh, and see the hiccups that you'll

end up having to go through, how you manage them and you know, what, how much closer

you folks are to realizing, you know, ideal outcomes there. By then we'll have had our,

con our initial, um, uh, inaugural, inaugural caucus. Caucus. We'll have a lot of things

more sorted out by then. We'll have a lot more of the organization in place. Touching in again.

great. we will have a real group of leaders, not just interns. Well, you know, you talk

about term limits too. So rotation, rotation. Remember, the Greeks used to pull lots, right?

So it's like, Troy, you are the treasurer this year. And, you know, like it's there's all

sorts of ways you can structure yourself to make it fair and equitable and whatnot. It's

quite the adventure to start from scratch. Right. And you're going to be wrong. You're going

to do something you wish you hadn't. and you'll learn from it but what a roller coaster it's

going to be building a party like this I hope you know the audience here is your target audience

so in terms of getting your word out I may not have the reach of boots right because he's

done a lot for you folks that that is great to hear I hope you've kind of told him that

I'm sure you have but Yeah, we'll get you some a little bit of reach too. And in the show

notes, folks can see how they can get in touch with the party and volunteer or just start

to find out more about them. Any parting words, folks? We'll just we'll start with Kira. God,

I hope we get something. You know, I hope that something comes of this, because as Troy

said much earlier on in the show, there have been so many examples of somebody or a party

trying to be left and just not doing well enough, right? We need something. That's why I want

people to steal the damn platform. Just give us something. Give me anything. Yeah. I'll

do my best, friend. I'll do my best, comrade. Matthew. Me? Join the revolution. Come and

speak to us. We're not a close party. We take criticism from everybody. Even if it hurts

us. We even took criticism from a Steve Boots video, like in the comments, basically. And

I also heard also some right wingers actually criticizing us. And some of them were valid.

no, mean, like, seriously, sometimes just hearing how what people have to say actually helps

and we're going to take criticism where it is. And we're going to adjust. Gotta figure it

out somehow. We're new at this. Thank you, folks, for joining us and sharing that brutal honesty

too I love from from Kira that it was just like it's High chaos. I wrote it down on my

notes there and I know that feeling. I absolutely know that feeling. It is. I'm getting a buzz

from it over here. I can, I know what you guys are going through. I wish you a world of luck.

I will be checking in with you. I find this very intriguing and I'm sure the audience did

as well. So thank you very much. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption.

Thank you for joining us. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively.

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