TODAY: Paul Dewar answers your questions on his candidacy for NDP leader

Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me to Babble tonight.

As you know, I'm the MP for Ottawa Centre and I'm running to lead our party. I'm offering our members the combination of my experiences at the grassroots of our party, on the national stage and the international stage. Before politics, I was a teacher, my union's vice president and a volunteer aid worker. I've always been close to people and that's what motivates my politics.

I'm a proud New Democrat. I'm a proud social democrat. These are the values that guide my work and will guide my leadership as we stand up to Stephen Harper's agenda. I have the experience, the energy and the passion to mobilize our grassroots and form Canada's first social democratic government.

I look forward to our discussion tonight.

Thank you Howard.

You raise an important question. Canadian military should be defending Canadians and Canadian interest. That's why I believe we should strengthen our search and rescue capacity - not waste money on fighter jets that won't work in Canada's north.

There's also a peacekeeping/peace-building role that our military can play. I've been on the ground in places like the Congo where the UN peacekeeping operations lack the kind of leadership that Canada could bring to the field to ensure rights are protected.

One of the people who has supported my foreign policy announcement in this race is Carolyn McAskie. She was the first UN commissioner for Peacebuilding. I think we need to listen to people like her about the important role that Canada must play in mitigating rather than militarizing conflicts.

A concrete proposal I've put forward is to create a Centre for Peacebuilding and Human Security with a dedicated team of experts to deliver practical and interdisciplinary responses to human security threats like conflict, humanitarian disasters, large-scale human rights violations, and environmental degradation. I'd like to see Ottawa as the centre of diplomatic activities that save lives and create a better, more peaceful and more sustainable world.

Thank you Murray.

Yes, I've been clear and consistent on this issue: I will restore Canada's corporate income tax rate to 19.5%. That would be a saving of almost $10 billion per year to invest in a better place, like fighting poverty, building affordable housing, delivering better health care and protecting people's retirement.

Under my government, Canadians would get value for their money. I'll end the wasteful culture of this government: no more Tony Clement showering his backyard with our money, no more mega-prison projects, no more helicopter joy rides for Peter MacKay!

I've also said that by creating more jobs, we will have more revenue for government. Today there are more than 1.3 million unemployed Canadians - that's 300,000 more than when Stephen Harper first took office. At the average industrial wage those additional Canadians without work represent more than $10 billion per year in lost wages for families and lost spending in the economy.

As for ensuring that wealthier individuals pay their fair share, I will crack down on tax havens. Billions have been stashed away in these offshore accounts. We don't have tax justice when ordinary Canadians are paying their fair share and some of the richest individuals and corporations get to hide their money in offshore accounts. So cracking down on tax havens is a priority for me. Obviously it's not a priority for Harper - he cut Revenue Canada resources to do this job. I think we all know whose side he's on.

I will end subsidies to fossil fuel sector and introduce a cap and trade mechanism for green house gas emissions. We will reinvest these funds in greening the economy.

I've also made a commitment to work with other countries in establishing an international FTT (Financial Transactions Tax) to raise funds for some of the global challenges we have to address collectively and also reduce the kind of speculative activities in the market that undermine the real economy. This is something I worked on long before our leadership race. I believe we need to take international leadership in addressing global poverty, climate change, and global health.

Good point Lara.

I've always said that as feminist allies, we should not talk about "saving" or "protecting" women, we should be genuinely working on empowering women. You're right in Afghanistan that women's empowerment was used for rhetorical arguments as opposed to a meaningful engagement.

My position on Iran is clear: no to war, yes to diplomatic engagement. As New Democrats we're opposed to nuclear proliferation - everywhere. And we stand in solidarity with people who are fighting for their rights and freedoms. But we will not allow these values to be abused for rhetorical arguments in favour of a war.

[Thanks for the reply, Paul!]

Follow-up on Iran? I believe you've supported sanctions against Iran (correct me if I'm wrong). How do we justfiy sanctions against a country that does not have nuclear weapons, while we exert no pressure against one in the region which does (Israel)?

Merci!

Thanks for the question dacckon.

Keynesian - I also have a lot of respect for the analysis of Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, for instance, on the issue of FTT.

The 2008 financial crisis has really shown us that governments need to take leadership on behalf of their people to secure the public good. It's interesting that the bankers and financiers who had a central role in creating the financial crisis were perfectly happy with governments taking action to bail them out. But now that they've secured their own jobs, they want to go back to business as usual.

Your question touches on another important point too. Everything we do these days is in a global context. That's why we need leadership that understands the world and has the knowledge and experience to project and protect our social democratic values on the global stage. When we talk about FTT, when we talk about cracking down on tax havens, when we talk about responsible trade - these are all issues that require a leader who can work with others on the world stage.

Thank you Murray.

We need public leadership in order to kickstart the job creation. We have great untapped potentials in the green energy economy in our country. But Harper's policies are locking us into an unsustainable future. Not only we lack public sector jobs in the green energy sector, Harper is killing incentives for private sector growth in this area as well. Just look at his decision to kill the retrofit program - again!

I announced my ideas for promoting a green energy future in Alberta. I chose Alberta because over the course of the campaign and prior to that, I've talked to so many Albertans who are thinking about the future in much longer-term perspective than Harper. They don't want an economy locked into a fossil fuel future. They don't want our raw resources sold out. They don't want long-term environmental damage. They want to see leadership that invests in our future.

We can retrofit our buildings, create jobs and improve energy efficiency. We can make targeted investments in greening the grid. We can be on fully renewable electricity within the next couple of decades if we made the right decisions now.  Again, that would create jobs and would mean public investments at federal and provincial levels. We can make breakthroughs in technologies for producing renewable energy if we had the right research and development policies in place - not the current policies which get abused by some companies as a tax loophole.

To take these steps we need public leadership, we need a social democratic government that takes action. I'm convinced when we put the right policies in place, create the incentives and direct our economy in a more sustainable direction, the private sector will follow.

Hi KKinVan,

Both of these experience keep me connected to the realities of everyday people. I was a stay-home dad for a year and it was really an amazing experience. I also learned a lot about the importance of having support for families and for children.

As a teacher, I learned firsthand the challenges that new Canadian families face and the impact of poverty on children. I also learned the art of teaching and convincing people - you can lose the control over your classroom very quickly if you're not engaging the students in a meaningful way. And young people demand clarity and honesty. These experiences have shaped my approach to politics.

terra1st:

It's shameful that Conservatives are engaged in these kinds of tactics to suppress voter participation. My whole campaign is about engaging people and turning them onto politics.

When I first got elected, Jack appointed me as the critic for democratic reform. I was on the committee that worked on the Accountability Act and the Elections Canada Act. I moved motion and motion to amend and ensure we can have better accountability. But the Conservatives and the Liberals voted them down. We must end this culture of centralization of power which leads to abuse of power and undermines our democracy.

I'm all about empowering the grassroots - in our party and in our democratic process.

Thanks, Paul. "Your Canada Year" is definitely some food for thought. I do worry about dropping young people in countries and communities with compromised economic and social situations, but I'm sure with a strong ethical, anti-colonial backbone and proper training it could show some promise. Thanks!

A shame! I got here so late. Thanks for joining us, Paul. Much apreciated.

Thanks so much for dropping by Paul! Much appreciated!

I read your comments just now.  Thanks, Paul.

I would have preferred an answer to my question:

Quote:

Are you prepared to demand that all the documents be released to Parliament now - failing which, that you will publish them immediately when the NDP forms the government?

I didn't follow up by simply repeating the question, because after reading his lengthy non-reply, my feeling was that it wouldn't make a difference, and I didn't want to sour the tone of the conversation.

And in fairness, I'm skeptical that any of the candidates will say: "Yeah, this is about war crimes, it's not going away, Harper was found in contempt of Parliament for not releasing the documents, they [b]must[/b] be released immediately."