Isaac Phan Nay
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Tyee
Tanille Johnston wants to help the NDP get back in touch with the working class.
She says she’s been fundraising hard to launch a grassroots campaign for NDP leadership — a campaign that promises to build the party’s relationship with unions, Indigenous leaders and working-class Canadians.
“Our work needs to start by going back to the people, and as soon as possible,” Johnston said. “We weren’t showing up in the way that they needed us to, and so we need to return, own the criticisms that are going to come at us and say, ‘Let’s do it differently.’”
Johnston has a lot on the go: she works full time as the Vancouver Island regional manager of primary care for the First Nations Health Authority and is also a Campbell River city councillor. She’s the mother of two daughters and is part of a caregiving program for teenagers. She ran as an NDP candidate in the North Island-Powell River riding during the last federal election — a seat she narrowly lost to Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn.
Now, she’s taking on her next challenge: running for the NDP leadership.
Johnston, a Liǧʷiłdax̌ʷ woman from the We Wai Kai Nation, says she will be the first Indigenous woman to run for the position. She’s up against dockworker and labour leader Rob Ashton; activist filmmaker Avi Lewis; eight-time Huron-Bruce NDP candidate Tony McQuail; and the only candidate currently sitting as an MP, Heather McPherson.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s doable,” Johnston said. “I have a great village around me that supports myself and my husband and our girls, and it’s a privilege to even have the opportunity to join this race.”
The Tyee sat down with Johnston for a conversation about her campaign. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
The Tyee: One of the slogans on your website is that you’re hoping for a renaissance of the working class. I’m curious what that means.
Tanille Johnston: We need new energy that is super brave and super bold and in your face. We need to support the working class and the labour movement. They’re champions, and I think our party has fallen short when it comes to meeting them where they’re at and elevating their voices.
We need to be back on the shop floors. We need to be back in classrooms. We need to be back in hospitals and meeting our working class in every nook and cranny of our country where they exist and where they’re looking for us to be their champion again.
That is going to be done through honesty and trust and mutual respect and transparency. We have to be very intentional about that work. We cannot just say that we’re the labour party and then expect that to translate into support and votes. That’s not how relationships work.
How do you plan to do that?
It’s bigger than policies, to be honest. We can make all the big, beautiful policy promises that we want, but that is just lip service unless there’s action behind it.
In order for us to make some action happen, we have to win the next election, and we can’t win elections without the labour movement. We need to create space for more labour leaders at our governing tables.
I have heard from a few smaller-to-mid-sized unions across the country that don’t feel the Canadian Labour Congress is an effective representative on the NDP executive for what their regional needs have been.
I’m hoping to see more leadership engagement from the NDP with various unions across the country, on a more grassroots level instead of always relying on high-level representatives from the big federations.
Making those structural changes within our party, making sure that we’re showing up and listening to what the union needs are and then representing those needs through action — that’s the first step. Then the labour movement will have policies that they want us to champion right out the gate.
For example, I’m big into health care. And we have lots of great examples of things we’re doing in B.C., like nurse-to-patient ratios. I think nurse-to-patient ratios are something that should be across Canada. Nurses shouldn’t only be supported in that way in one province.
We need to look at these pieces of policy, in partnership with our labour movements, and then bring them to a federal level.
I’m curious about something else you said, which is that you’ve got a vision that the NDP can ally with the Greens. Tell me more.
We need to find partnerships and friendships that are going to help us win the next election. If we can sign a supply and confidence agreement to get better health care for Canada with the Liberal party, I think it would be fair game for some mutual understanding with the Green Party.
I think we need to be very mindful and strategic about how we’re positioning ourselves to win. We can’t just continue to kind of run the same old campaign election after election and expect a different outcome.
We need to differentiate from our past election campaigns. Our membership is looking for something new. They’re looking for something different. They’re looking for something that’s brave and bold, and I believe that that involves a conversation with the Green Party.
SUBHEADLINE: What are some other parts of your platform?
I would love to see us have some better rail transportation that links our rural and urban folks across the country, that enables folks to access the programs and services that they need. Not being able to move yourself about your community impacts your health and wellness.
When we’re looking at criticism of our health-care system, saying it’s too expensive, we can invest in health a million different ways. We can invest in health care by funding it directly, and we can invest in health by supporting people moving about their communities in a good way. We can invest in health by protecting jobs.
We really need to stand up against the man, the tsunami that is AI and automation and relentless corporate cuts. We need to stop corporate handouts that are stringless. We need to take the money that’s going to fossil fuel companies and reinvest that in creating union jobs, investing in clean energy projects built by union hands and legislating stronger protections so that we don’t see workers replaced by automation.
In a news article last week, your campaign mentioned it was uncertain whether you’d be able to raise enough money to meet one of the four $25,000 payments needed to stay in the NDP leadership race. Has fundraising been a hurdle?
I’m a pretty transparent person — getting the fundraising money is challenging. It’s also morally challenging in the economic state that we’re in.
We are asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars from our supporters right after an insanely challenging federal election. It’s super challenging. We’re going to be down to the wire again for sure, and then everyone’s really excited to have four weeks to fundraise again to meet the next deadline.
Our team is 100 per cent volunteer-based and I would say 90 per cent of our folks are from rural ridings. Everyone’s doing the best they can to donate their time and energy and their thoughtfulness to this campaign, which is super inspiring.
But it’s disheartening to watch folks take on the added time to do this, when I know we could be doing it differently. The NDP could still get rock star candidates, and we can still have that leadership opportunity if we had a different financial setup.
Candidates are allowed to contribute up to $25,000 of their own money, which I also thought was kind of cute. I don’t have a spare $25,000.
Neither do I.
For those who do, I guess that’s great, but I laughed when one of the other candidates told me that.
But the leadership race is about picking your best person for right now. Who is the person that’s going to lead this party into growth and inclusion and inspiration in a way where we’re just going to rock the next election?
I knew what the price tag was. I knew it was going to be hard.
But would it be better off to see an NDP with — and no offence to my colleagues — a bunch of white people and no representation of equity at all in our leadership? That just kills me, because I also need to know that the leader of the NDP is going to have to inspire me.
I’m going to need to be inspiring, because I’m going to be responsible for driving up memberships. I’m going to be responsible for championing the NDP and saying, “This is your party.”
