Sitting in Ottawa’s Rainbow Bistro, preparing for his band to play a gig, former MP Charlie Angus was reflecting on the past year. His plan to quietly retire and write a book turned into creating viral videos viewed around the world and a cross-Canada tour to fight Donald Trump.
A few months ago, Angus was preparing to wrap up a run of nearly 21 years as NDP MP for the northern Ontario riding of Timmins-James Bay and had begun researching the 1930’s era in towns like Timmins, Kirkland Lake and Rouyn-Noranda for a book. He had just gotten to the end of 1938 and the rise of fascism when U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected.
“I think I was one of the first people to come out and start using terms like the fascist threat,” Angus recalled. “I’ve been living this in my research and suddenly it was there before me.”
Angus knew that his time in Parliament was coming to an end so he decided to use his final speeches to talk about the threat he saw to democracy.
“I decided very quickly that I wasn’t going to spend any more time in Parliament. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I wasn’t going to spend another minute asking dumb questions about bills that nobody was paying attention to. I was going to start to try and put on the record what was happening because I felt the threat was very, very serious, given what was happening with Putin, given what was happening in Europe, and then Trump.”
Have you ever lived in any of the Northern Ontario ridings (or any other part of northern Canada, for that matter)? I have, and do, although I haven’t lived in Kap-Timmins-Mushkegowuk specifically since the 1990s. Still, I doubt it’s changed much.
To put it bluntly, it’s an area that’s used to being ignored if not outright mistreated by government at both the provincial and federal levels. Small and shrinking population with a high percentage of Indigenous and Francophone individuals, large tracts of land with limited transport options, little industry, few jobs, and no influence. Our MPs normally have no influence either, unless they somehow make it into Cabinet. It almost doesn’t matter what party they belong to.
Charlie, according to everything I’ve seen, heard, and read, tried. Dude worked his balls off for his constituents, and for Canada in general, with little in the way of result or recompense. I don’t know if he’s doing more for Canadians right now than he did when he was in Parliament, but his seat didn’t give him much more scope to accomplish anything than he has as a private citizen.
I think you’re confused about what municipal, provincial and federal governments should be advocating for their constituents. I’m from BC which is 4th by GDP and I believe we crack the top 3 in Income tax paid. For that the only recollection of federal involvement lately was them criticizing our infrastructure spending(buying ferries from China) and how we’ll get to take on most of the risk from a pipeline with little of the reward and even less input.
This isn’t a criticism of Charlie or even what he’s doing, it’s completely fair he wants to do things on his own accord. It’s about the general ideology that exists on what needs to be done to truly make changes.
To put it another way many Liberal supporters(I’m not one) want Pierre to stay on like some hardcore Conservatives do. Pierre staying is bad for Canada but good for the Liberals, in the same light Conservatives would love for all progressives to operate outside of the actual political system. It just pushes Canada towards the American system where real progressive politics exist almost entirely outside of the system with influence.