Other news
Young Communist Seeks Esquimalt Seat
Volume 29 Issue 7, 8 & 9 | Posted: September 26, 2015
As a student of history and a youth organizer for the Communist Party of Canada, Tyson Strandlund feels Canada is ready for fundamental change. I met with him in a coffee shop in Chinatown on a day when the Globe and Mail headlines expressed the misgivings Canadians are having about how the federal Conservative government is handling the economy.
“The Tories cannot balance the budget so they are pushing the security and anti-immigration buttons,” he said.
Of Metis descent, and a descendent of Louis Riel, Mr. Strandlund said Canada’s original sin and injustice is the way the First Nations people have been denied fundamental rights. “How can we have a strong foundation for other rights such as gay rights and animal rights when we haven’t dealt with the most fundamental issue of Indigenous rights,” he asked.
As a student of history and a youth organizer for the Communist Party of Canada, Tyson Strandlund feels Canada is ready for fundamental change. I met with him in a coffee shop in Chinatown on a day when the Globe and Mail headlines expressed the misgivings Canadians are having about how the federal Conservative government is handling the economy.
“The Tories cannot balance the budget so they are pushing the security and anti-immigration buttons,” he said.
Of Metis descent, and a descendent of Louis Riel, Mr. Strandlund said Canada’s original sin and injustice is the way the First Nations people have been denied fundamental rights. “How can we have a strong foundation for other rights such as gay rights and animal rights when we haven’t dealt with the most fundamental issue of Indigenous rights,” he asked.
The Communist Party platform calls for a voluntary partnership between Canada and the First Nations peoples which features the right up to and including succession.
He feels that environmental issues, the economic crisis and First Nations rights are all tied together in an integral manner.
Speaking of his personal political journey, he said that while he always had a burning in his belly over injustice, as a student of history he came too see the comprehensive pattern that capitalism is hampering overall human progress.
Tyson grew up in the region, he now lives with his mother in Esquimalt, next door to its industrial park. He intends to become a lawyer and has engaged in the student struggles but finds that it is an elitist system that leaves students saddled with nothing but debt.
“It is no wonder that students are politically apathetic and don’t feel they have the time for the question of fundamental change in society,” he said during the taped interview.
It hasn’t left him apathetic, of course, as he works collectively as a member of the local Communist club and has taken on the addition responsibility as the local organizer of the Young Communist League.
He describes himself “as not the best public speaker”, as more of a theorist but he felt he should welcome the experience of running for federal office. “It is about building a broader base and moving the debate to the left. It is not only about defeating the Harper government but the Harper agenda.”
He said the Communist Party rejects the idea of strategic voting because all four mainstream parties rely upon a market solution thinking to issues, and such thinking is the very source of the fundamental injustices which are the key issues.
He feels that dissent from this position is critical to real change.
“With the capitalist hegemony in the media, one can hardly argue that we live in a democracy when everyone in Parliament is on the same side of the ledger. There is so little difference, with even the New Democratic Party consistently capitulating to the right in the hope of gaining power.”
There have been communist Members of Parliament in Canada’s history, most noteworthy Fred Rose of Montreal during the 1930s. If there is an NDP government, Mr. Strandlund argues that a few Communist MPs to their left would keep them from forgetting their roots.
Basically he favours a proportional representation approach which would encourage people to vote with their convictions and add communist representation of the House of Commons.
In terms of platform, Mr. Strandlund said his main goal is the creation of more jobs, with the ideal of universal employment at a minimum wage level of $20 per hour. “Over the past forty years studies have shown that workers have been producing more and more but taking home less and less.”
“Disparity of wealth causes the disparity of democracy. Obscene levels of wealth distorts the very possibility or likelihood of democracy. They key to change in this election is to increase the voting numbers.”
“Last federal election just less than 60 per cent voted,” he added, “the governing Conservatives know this helps them as their base of 20-25 per cent is enhanced when the turnout is low.”
He is hoping that young people can get beyond their apathy, turn out in record numbers and vote for the real change they talk about which he hopes to convince them he represents.