CHARLIE ANGUS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES NDP LEADERSHIP BID.
With an appeal to the economically and politically disaffected, Charlie Angus officially launched his NDP leadership campaign Sunday at the bar where he attended his first punk show at the age of 15.
At a concert- cum- campaign- launch in front of a few hundred packed into the Horseshoe Tavern, an institution in Toronto’s music scene since the 1940s, the Northern Ontario MP unveiled his long- rumoured bid with an appeal to voters behind the slogan “Got your back.”
Known as a passionate advocate for First Nations communities and the rights of indigenous children, Angus has served since 2004 as MP f or t he riding of Timmins- James Bay, which includes Attawapiskat First Nation.
Before t hat he was a founding member of the band L’étranger, and remains the lead singer for the band Grievous Angels.
“I learned the lessons of organizing and community development on the road in a van full of band gear, posters and merchandise,” Angus said in a speech that alternated between English and French and made an appeal to middle- class voters disenchanted with the governing Liberals, while playing up his punk- rock roots. ( Angus’s first meeting with former NDP leader Jack Layton, he told the assembled crowd, was at a punk club shortly after Layton had first been elected to Toronto city council, when Layton was trying to get youth involved with politics.)
The speech also emphasi zed Angus’s economic background, positioning him as a populist challenger to the Liberal and Conservative status quo.
“When Justin Trudeau talks about the middle class we’re going to talk about the new working class. Because the new working class is white collar, it is blue collar, it’s the professor I just met the other day who can’t afford to feed her family because she’s on a perpet- ual cycle of temp work. She did everything right, in investing in an education to make herself better — and our economy is failing her.” Angus said.
He blasted Justin Trudeau’s Liberals f or their agreement to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, and for attending “exclusive fundraisers with billionaires.”
Angus also argued for action on indigenous affairs, both from the government and the Canadian people. He had decided two months ago to launch his campaign Sunday, he said, because it was the fifth anniversary of MPs voting to support Shannen’s Dream, a movement to improve First Nations education named for Shannen Koostachin, a young Attawapiskat activist.
“And I’m sad to say five years later we’re still waiti ng,” Angus s ai d. “And every day we lose children to systemic negligence and underfunding. And it has to stop, and it’s going to stop — and that’s my promise. Reconciliation is not a hashtag.”
As NDP l eader, Angus said, he would “bring a little bit of class back to politics” and “stand up in Parliament and fight for the people who have been written off the political and economic map of Canada” — and would do so in a different way from “Donald Trump and his mini-me wannabes,” a reference to some of the candidates for leader of the Conservative Party.
Angus f ormally registered with Elections Canada last week, a step required to begin collecting donations to his campaign. He becomes the second candidate to enter the race, after B.C. MP Peter Julian threw his hat in two Sundays ago.
Quebec MP Guy Caron is expected to become the third contestant when he announces his decision on a leadership bid in Gatineau Monday morning.
Three other potential candidates have publicly said they are thinking about running, including Manitoba MP Niki Ashton, union leader Sid Ryan and the Ontario NDP’s deputy leader Jagmeet Singh.
New Democrats will pick a new federal leader in October.