NDP leadership candidate Charlie Angus to spearhead campaign with priority on First Nation issues
TIMMINS—Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus is making First Nation issues a priority in his campaign to be elected leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP).
“My concern is that the government is still not responding in a proactive manner when emergencies happen in communities, whether it is a suicide crisis or whether it is a housing crisis or whether it is the needless number of fires,” says Angus, who registered as a leadership candidate on Feb. 20 and officially launched his leadership bid on Feb. 26. “We need to start changing how Ottawa relates with First Nation communities. And that is what I want to make a major issue in my leadership campaign.”
Angus recalls the 2011 Attawapiskat housing crisis when he travelled to the James Bay community with a video camera to capture the community’s housing conditions.
“Nobody from the federal government or the provincial government went in to respond,” Angus says. “I brought the video camera because I knew nobody would believe that these conditions exist in Canada.”
The campaign website lists three values — Environment, Reconciliation and Our Economy — that Angus plans to focus on when he lays out his vision for the NDP and the country.
“I’ve learned to work for the communities and with the communities with respect and to listen when there are issues in the communities,” Angus says. “If government was proactive and working with the communities, these problems could be solved. Instead these problems end up festering and problems become bigger and bigger because of government indifference.”
Angus says there needs to be a change in the relationship between government and First Nations.
“It has to stop being run out of Ottawa,” Angus says. “We need to build a proactive 21st century relationship that is truly nation to nation.”
Angus wants to start dealing with the First Nations infrastructure crisis across the north.
“We need to get communities off diesel generators and expensive hydro and get renewables so communities are able to be more environmentally sustainable and it is more reasonable for the cost,” Angus says. “We need to look at how we put infrastructure in to get communities out of third-world conditions, to build the roads so that the price of food will drop, the ability to go and get an education and bring resources in will increase. We have to start moving towards a proactive relationship and how to improve life because the [fastest] growing population is Indigenous, so let’s be working in partnership, let’s build this together.”
Angus also wants to provide more education, health and child care resources for First Nation communities.
“On my watch, we will make sure that every child in this country has the resources they need for education, for health care,” Angus says. “There is not going to be the suicide crisis where there is not going to be any support on the ground. We have to meet our legal obligations as laid out by the [Canadian] Human Rights Tribunal, but it’s also our moral obligation to make sure that Indigenous children get the support they need.”
Angus was first elected to Parliament in 2004. He was appointed as NDP critic for Indigenous and Northern Affairs after the 2015 election and as NDP caucus chair in 2016. He resigned from both roles last November to prepare for the leadership race. Three other NDP MPs have also launched leadership campaigns as of March 7, and participated in the first NDP leadership candidate debate on Sunday, March 12.