Centretown News sits down with Paul Dewar
Centretown News sat down with the NDP’s foreign affairs critic and Ottawa-Centre MP, Paul Dewar to discuss the election, his priorities with Ottawa-Centre and how he responds to criticism about hot-button issues, such as Phase 1 of LeBreton Flats.
Now that the NDP is lead opposition, how does your role change, specifically focusing on Ottawa-Centre?
What it means for Ottawa-Centre is when we’re looking at, for instance, the public service, we will be seen as not only the official opposition in terms of holding the government to account, but the party and obviously the members of parliament who people will be looking to come up with solutions with concerns people have around government policies. For instance, now we’re hearing about lay-offs from the government in light of the budget concerns that they have. Well, during the election, before the election, we were promised there would be no lay-offs and it would be dealt with through attrition. It is the official opposition’s role to hold the government to account on issues like that and say “look there was a promise by this government to say that there wouldn’t be any lay-offs and that it would all be dealt with by attrition and savings would be realized in other ways.” Why is that? How can we do things better? And it will be our job to work with other interested parties to show leadership.
As the official opposition we will be providing leadership that I think is strengthened by our numbers, but also by our role. Not to say that when we were the fourth party we weren’t doing that, obviously we were. Hopefully that’s why people have entrusted us with the support they have given us. As the official opposition it is the structural role that you play and I think people will be looking to us for that kind of leadership. As it relates to everyday people in Ottawa, it is that they can look to us with a bigger megaphone to get our points across, to hold the government to account but also put forward the propositions that, by the way of our presence as the official opposition, will listen and respond to.
I think final point on it is just think about when the Liberals were in the majority government and they had the Reform party nipping at their heels, they felt the need to respond to the Reform agenda. Well, we’re the official opposition now and what that means, hopefully, is that the government will have to respond to a more progressive vision for the country and for this city.
For Ottawa-Centre, I know at your election party you listed a few issues as to what this victory means to you, including affordable housing and seniors. What are your priorities for Ottawa-Centre?
Well affordable housing is huge. I was just at the meeting for the Hintonburg Hub, we’re trying to pull together a model where you can integrate service provision but have embedded in that affordable housing. We have the opportunity here to deal with the challenges for people who are finding it very difficult to get by and one of the biggest challenges for people is affordable housing. So that is going to be a focus of mine. You mentioned seniors and pensions, those things go together, and they’re not just for people who are presently seniors, they’re also for people who presently do not have any idea of where their pension of retirement income is going to come from. They’re going to be looking to us to strengthen the public pension system so that if you’re a person who is just starting a career, mid-career, you’re going to have some confidence that there will be some form retirement income for you down the road and that you’re not going to have to pay for someone else’s retirement disproportionally, so there’s some equity.
Centretown News and Paul Dewar
And healthcare . . . We have way too many people who are in our hospitals who do not want to be there and shouldn’t be there. We have to push out resources in our healthcare system so that people are going to be getting the care they need in an appropriate fashion. It’s not just a provincial issue; I know it’s delivered provincially, but it’s actually cogent right now because of the coming negotiations between the federal and provincial governments in 2014. We need to be laying out what that looks like now. So that’s going to be very important.
Essentially, you look at housing, seniors, pensions and healthcare. Those are going to be focuses of mine here.
It’s interesting you brought up healthcare, because at the Chinese Canadian Heritage debate, I know you were talking about foreign-trained doctors.
Yes! In Ottawa there’s 450-500 foreign trained doctors. Some of those have just left, but we have a doctor shortage in this country. We’ve got to figure out not only how to train more in the traditional fashion, but also get those who are already trained from other countries into this system. Absolutely that’s been a focus and will continue to be one.
Back to the affordable housing issue, over the past year there have been at least 6 high-rise condominiums in Ottawa-Centre approved by the City (of Ottawa), are there plans on your end to maybe try to work with the City to encourage them to have more subsidized units in those buildings or perhaps rent-to-income?
Yes, but the “yes” is absolutely to try and get the City to use the resources leverage it has to provide more affordable housing in areas . . . and this has worked by the way. There was a building built a couple years ago on Laurier Avenue where within the condos that were sold were affordable units. We’ve done this before, it can be done and we need to see that done. The other thing I’d like to see is where we have the capacity to build, you know, kind of like the Beaver Barracks or the CCOC building by the Museum of Nature. That’s the kind of vision I have to build more of that kind of housing. Obviously private development, not-for-profit housing co-op perhaps and that would be the kind of thing that would put an actual dent in the waiting list and the need for affordable housing.
Back to the election, Ottawa-Centre has typically been a very heavily NDP supported area. We thought this year your key opposition would be Liberal candidate Scott Bradley, but then Damian Konstantinakos came in second. How do you explain the surge of Conservative support?
If you look at 2008, the difference was only about a 1,000 between Penny Collenette and Brian McGarry. I saw that trend happening back then and it just continued. I think Scott did a good job of trying to make himself be seen as the opposition to me. I think there was a misread on how he campaigned because it was entirely dismissive of the Conservatives in some ways and focused a lot on me. I think that either they weren’t aware of the fact that the Conservatives had done that well, but I certainly had seen the strength of the Conservatives in 2008. I think we also saw nationally that the Liberal message wasn’t really getting through to people and that obviously affected people on the ground here in Ottawa. I think what Damian did was steadfastly stuck to the Conservative message and didn’t deviate and that brought in extra support.
At the Ottawa-Centre debates, one of the one’s that stood out to me was the one held at St. Paul’s University. You mentioned how Scott Bradley was very focused on you. He made reference to criticism about the LeBreton Flats Phase 1. How do you respond to that criticism that he accused you of missing the boat on Phase 1?
I just thought it was not the kind of politics that people really respond to well in Ottawa-Centre. It was pretty strategic in the way he brought it up. It was a question where I didn’t have an opportunity to respond and it was also factually inaccurate. We’re trying to change politics and certainly the way the Conservatives have been doing politics with his leader and he’s kind of doing the same thing.
Paul Dewar
He asserted that I was responsible or unresponsive to Phase 1 on LeBreton Flats. Well I wasn’t even elected when it was conceived. It was actually a Liberal government in place. He put out these comments, if you believed it, that sound like I sat back and watched the world go by as a really ill-conceived idea was put forward. During the break I went over and talked to him and said, “Common, this isn’t even true. Why are you engaging this? This isn’t even helpful to politics period.” I had no problem dealing with the issue – I knew the facts.
It was evident to me because he did a lot of stuff on YouTube, he did a negative ad on Victoria Bridge about the consultation I had about renaming it to Mandela Bridge. On the other hand he was trying to say he was a community guy and wanted to bring forward some good ideas. I think people were confused from that campaign because he was coming out hot on certain issues; accusing me of being too focused on human rights and foreign affairs that I wasn’t doing enough for the public service. That didn’t resonate with public servants because I have in fact been engaged with the public service from the beginning.
How do you strike that balance then between representing your constituency and getting involved with them, plus foreign affairs?
It’s a constant balance. You have to be able to represent your constituents and not forget it. There are numerous people who have forgot that and they’re no longer members of parliament. At the end of the day, you have to realize you’re there to represent your constituents. The way I balance it is making sure I have really good communication with my constituency office and this office, we meet on a regular basis and we focus on what our plan is going to be for the next number of months. I’ve done this since the beginning, so you don’t lose that reference point, which is constituency here.
That said, a number of people in Ottawa-Centre care deeply for foreign affairs. In some ways, I have the advantage of being representing a riding where there’s a lot of interest in foreign affairs. That’s also helpful because I know when I’m engaged in foreign affairs it’s also in an area that matters deeply to a number of constituents. You have to constantly be monitoring that and make sure that you’re always on top of things. If you don’t you will find yourself very quickly losing the support of the people who sent you to parliament. You have to be vigilant.
In the event that a possible vacancy in a leadership role within the NDP, such as replacing Mr. Layton were to come around, would that be something that would interest you?
I’ve had people ask me that a number of times. I would have to look at that very carefully because it sounds great. First of all the obvious, Jack (Layton) has done so well . We’ve never done this well and it’s really because of Jack, not because of this past election. He built the party up when he became the leader because he went out and didn’t just focus on parliament hill; he focused out in the country to build up the party. I don’t see him going anywhere anytime soon because why would he? I hope he doesn’t.
If that were the case where we’re looking at a leadership convention, I’d look at it very carefully. I’d have to look at whether I could contribute something. Is it going to be the kind of position where I can contribute the most? Obviously, have a discussion with Julia, my wife, and see if that’s the best thing. It might be, but then again there’s a lot of other people around who are terrific. It’s certainly something that has been raised and I’ve been touched by that. It’s always nice when people say those things, but it’s not something people should focus on in politics. I think that’s part of what we see as problematic is that the ambition that has been injected in politics, very much so in the (United) States, and here as well. I never had a plan to become an MP, I kind of went where things were going and the same goes for any notion of leadership.