Skip to content

Guy Caron brings NDP bid to Battlefords

On Wednesday, it was Guy Caron’s turn to make his pitch to New Democrat supporters in North Battleford. Caron was in the city for a meet-and-greet with party members as part of his campaign for the leadership of the federal NDP.
guy caron
NDP leadership hopeful Guy Caron took his campaign to North Battleford Wednesday where he met with party supporters. He is one of four people in the race for the federal NDP leadership which will be decided in October.

On Wednesday, it was Guy Caron’s turn to make his pitch to New Democrat supporters in North Battleford.

Caron was in the city for a meet-and-greet with party members as part of his campaign for the leadership of the federal NDP.

The location was the same venue on 96th Street where candidate Niki Ashton held her campaign event a few days before.

That has meant the Battlefords has been a focus of attention for the national NDP leadership campaigns this week. In speaking to the News-Optimist, Caron made clear he thought it was important to go to North Battleford to hear from those who lived outside the major population centres.

“I want to meet members, I want to meet sympathizers, I want to meet people who want a voice in the leadership race of the NDP,” said Caron.

“I’m from Rimouski, and I understand the importance of candidates and politics being conducted elsewhere than the larger cities.”

This past week was an active one for Caron and other leadership hopefuls in Saskatchewan.

Earlier in the week, Caron was campaigning in Prince Albert, and then on Tuesday joined the other candidates on the debate stage in Saskatoon at TCU Place. That night, there was plenty of acknowledgment from candidates about the province’s role in the formation of the party, with references to Tommy Douglas and the Regina Manifesto.

“They know their history, that’s for sure,” Caron said of NDP members in Saskatchewan. “I always have a large, very large, amount of respect for prairie populism, which has given birth to the NDP.”

Caron, MP for Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques since 2011, was one of the MPs elected during the “orange wave” in Quebec under former leader Jack Layton.

In 2015, he was re-elected in what was an otherwise disappointing election for the NDP against Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.

The NDP saw a large number of seats turn over to the Liberals in that vote. While Caron believes the NDP platform did have progressive policies, he believes it opened the door for the Liberals to win votes away from them.

“We had elements that made it possible for the Liberals to be perceived to be on our left,” said Caron.

“Yes, they were perceived to be on our left but they raised expectations. They created those expectations, they raised the bar, and they are not meeting those expectations.”

He pointed to promises on Bill C-51, electoral reform, and commitments to indigenous people and veterans that were not met.

Caron believes the NDP now has an opportunity to win those votes back. However, he also believes dissatisfaction with the Liberals is not showing up yet because it is still too close to the last election and people are still comparing the Trudeau government to that of Stephen Harper.

The closer to the next election, “the more people will start having to think about the record the Liberals are leaving behind,” said Caron.

As for his own leadership campaign, he has been pushing forward some major policy proposals –  ones he hopes will get noticed during the race.  

The policy that has perhaps gotten the most attention so far has been his proposal for a basic income to address poverty in the country.

Caron challenges those who say those who are in poverty are somehow to blame for the situation, pointing to statistics that 70 per cent of those in poverty already hold jobs.

“There is a covenant that exists in Canada that if you work, you’re supposed to be able to provide for yourself and your family, and that’s no longer true. So we need to take that into account and to change maybe our way of thinking towards this.”

His proposal is to use the tax system, the way it’s used for the child benefit or guaranteed income supplement, to top up incomes to reach the low-income level.

“By reaching this we are ensuring people won’t worry about their basic needs: shelter, food and clothing.”

Then, Caron says, people can start to think about improving their skills, or perhaps go back to school. He points to other societal benefits, such as reductions in crime rates. 

His plan attracted attention at the Saskatoon debate from Jagmeet Singh, member for Bramalea-Gore-Malton in the Ontario legislature. Singh has put forward his own proposal of redistribution to address poverty in his leadership campaign, and he took aim at Caron’s ideas during the Tuesday debate.

“Both you and I know that your basic income proposal is income-tested,” said Singh, who added “you seem a little inconsistent on your position. I strongly believe in universal public social programs, I also believe in fighting poverty with redistribution.”

"I think you're confusing two things here," Caron responded. On old age security, "you’re taking a program that’s near-universal and you want to make it means-tested. I’m proposing to create a new program …  it’s not income-tested, as you are saying, it is income-based to ensure that the objective to eliminate poverty is addressed through the tax system."

In speaking to the News-Optimist, Caron made clear once more that he isn’t a fan of means-testing old age security. “We’ve always been fighting for universality of this program.”

Caron is the only candidate in the race supporting a basic income approach, he said. He acknowledges there has been a debate “within the NDP and progressive circles” about it.

He explained some progressives believe it's a right wing idea and think conservatives and liberals will use a basic income to “slash the state, to reduce the bureaucracy,” so instead of the state providing social programs, people will use the money they receive to purchase those instead.

“That’s the Conservative case. That is not what I’m proposing; I’m proposing to eliminate poverty,” Caron said.

Caron has also pitched some other ideas such as modernizing the tax system, which he says has gotten too complex, as well as implementing tax policies to reduce income inequality, cracking down on tax havens, and limiting the cap on RRSP contributions to $20,000 a year which he says would save the government $1 billion.  

Another key plank for him is electoral reform. Caron has advocated a mixed proportional-representation system with regional lists, plus a referendum after two federal elections on whether voters want to keep the system.   

“It doesn’t make sense that 39 per cent of the people can give a party 100 per cent of the power,” Caron says about the first-past-the-post system.

Caron admitsthat his main challenge early on in the race has been to get himself known in a field full of other well-established candidates.

To do that, he said, he’s gone across the country meeting people and sought to get noticed in the debates, and by putting forward policies.

Now, he believes he is being seen as a contender and someone who can win. He believes he has a lot of support and also a lot of second-choice votes, “which is in this type of race a real advantage,” he says. 

After this week Caron plans to keep on with his campaign efforts; he also plans to roll out some more policy ideas later this summer including his platform for indigenous people.

There are five more leadership debates planned across the country, and party members begin voting for a new leader this fall with the ballots being counted in October.