Interview with Matthew Rowlinson, NDP candidate for London West

In our third and final interview for the 2015 Federal Election – part of a series of interviews Think Forward has conducted with MPs and candidates heading into Election Day – Think Forward Managing Editor Michael Hurley recently spoke to Matthew Rowlinson, the NDP candidate for London West.

Michael asked Mr. Rowlinson about a number of challenges facing young voters today, the race in London West, and some of the key issues that have emerged in the final days of the election campaign.  

The following is a transcript of the phone interview that Michael conducted with Mr. Rowlinson on October 14th.

Michael Hurley: A major goal of Think Forward is to generate interest in politics among youth by engaging young people on social and political issues that matter to them.

With the federal election just days away, I want to talk about the challenges that students, recent graduates, and young professionals are facing right now, and explore whether and how your party plans to address these issues if it forms government.

Matthew Rowlinson: Absolutely, I'm delighted to engage on this topic. It's really important to get young people more engaged in politics than they have been in the past. As you probably know, young people in Canada have historically voted at lower rates than the rest of the population.

I teach at Western (University) and I will say that I'm encouraged to see that Elections Canada has set up satellite polls on campus in this election, and this has allowed students at Western to not only vote on campus but also register their votes in their home riding.

There were lineups with hundreds of students ready to vote, so I'm very optimistic about young voter turnout in this election, I have to say.

Hurley: Yes, and I do want to ask you more about that in just a few minutes, but first I'd like to talk about rising tuition fees and growing student in Canada. 

Two major concerns for today's students are the skyrocketing tuition fees that they have to pay when working their way through school, and the crushing debt that they face once they graduate.

Simply put, many young Canadians are struggling to get ahead because they can’t afford the rising cost of education.

Average tuition fees are increasing at three times the rate of inflation, and as a result, the typical graduate now has more than $26,000 in student debt. 

How will the NDP make college and university more affordable for students, and what is your party’s plan for reducing student debt in Canada?

Rowlinson: Well my short answer, and let me give that first, is that the NDP is committed to making student loans interest-free going forward. That will be a big help for students.

It doesn't address the underlying problems with our post-secondary education system, which are first, that tuition is too high, and second, that too much student aid is loan-based rather than grant-based.

I've been involved in higher education for most of my adult life, and the shift toward these two trends are two major things that I have seen happen around me. And honestly, they have changed the character of Canadian universities, and I think that the promise of access to education for anybody who can do the work – which was a legitimate promise when I was in school – is not as true as it used to be.

It's a real tragedy that Canada is losing out on very talented people who would benefit from a university education, so we need to address these problems. But it's a long-term project, and it will involve cooperation from the provinces – who, after all, have primary responsibility for universities and post-secondary education these days.

One of the basic drivers of rising tuition is that there isn't enough funding going to colleges and universities from governments. The portion of university budgets that comes from government grants has gone way down, and the portion that comes from tuition fees has risen enormously over the last 25 years.  

So that's the underlying problem, and all levels of government are at fault. But the thing is, major cuts to university transfers came under the Liberals, there was a massive cut in federal funding of colleges and universities. And that's the situation that we're living with now, to this day.

Hurley: So does the NDP plan to restore a larger role for the federal government in funding post-secondary education?

Rowlinson: We do, but I'll be frank with you, it's going to be pretty targeted. At this point the NDP has not budgeted for a massive federal government investment in post-secondary education.

We are going to increase funding for research in post-secondary institutions, and some of that money will go to graduate students, but direct grant funding to colleges and universities is not slated to increase.

So what we will do is offer interest-free student loans to Canadian students, and we also want to work with the provinces to improve programs like OSAP, which used to be primarily grant-based but are now primarily loan-based.

Hurley: Let's talk about the issue of unpaid internships replacing paid employment in Canada.

In addition to being saddled with enormous student debt, today’s graduates are finding it difficult to secure paid employment once they finish school.

More and more companies are replacing entry-level paid positions with unpaid internships, and the Canada Labour Code does not protect interns from being exploited at work.  

Would an NDP government regulate unpaid internships, and ensure that interns who perform the work of employees are paid for their work?

Rowlinson: Yes, the NDP is committed to ending this. It's an outrage. Companies can hire unpaid interns who are not covered by workplace protections, and can therefore exploit them in ways that they can't exploit regular employees. That's unacceptable, and an NDP government is committed to ending that.

My colleague, Peggy Sattler, in the Ontario provincial legislature, has also been very active in addressing the massive ongoing problem of unpaid internships.

Big companies like Bell, they're hiring unpaid interns as you say, instead of hiring entry level workers. And in many cases those interns are not being trained. They are basically doing secretarial work, and they're doing it for free. This has to end. And the NDP is committed to addressing this, not just as something that affects youth, but as a matter of fairness in the workplace. That's a core value - preventing the exploitation of workers, whatever their age, is a core issue for the NDP.

Hurley: Right, and just to clarify, does your party plan to regulate unpaid internships through the Canada Labour Code?

Rowlinson: My understanding is that unpaid internships will fall under the Canada Labour Code the same way as any other job will.

Hurley: As you likely know, Canada’s youth unemployment rate is almost double the rate of the general population, and there are 60,000 fewer jobs for youth today than there were when the Conservatives first came to power.    

As well, one-quarter of university graduates between the ages of 25 and 29 are underemployed.

What types of policies will the NDP pursue to address high youth unemployment and underemployment in Canada?

Rowlinson: I absolutely see this at the door – I've been knocking on doors in London West since March, and a lot of the people who come to the door are young people who are either unemployed or underemployed. They're home at two o'clock in the afternoon. And it's great for me to talk to them, but they're not really happy to be there. And so this is a huge problem today.

We have a very high youth unemployment rate in London and one of the consequences is that young people are leaving the city. As a faculty member at Western, I have great students – most of them graduate from Western and move to the Greater Toronto Area or move out West. They don't stay here, and I hope that's not the future of London. It's a pressing national problem, but it's also a big problem for me, for us, right here in my riding of London West.

Fundamentally, we need to build a sustainable economy that's going to generate decent jobs here in London, and that's the long-term solution. It's not simply a youth problem. People want jobs, and they want real jobs.

And I'm optimistic about this. There are really exciting companies that are starting up here in London – a whole range of fields like digital technology, gaming, and composite construction. These are the high-tech fields of the future, and they have not been getting support from governments, going back to the (federal) Liberals.

Government attempts to build jobs in this country, for as long as I've been following politics, have all been about trying to attract multinational corporations to invest here. And that's the economy that existed in London for a long time – the GM, Ford, Kellogg's, and 3M economy, and the electro-diesel economy, with the Caterpillar plant that closed down a few years ago.

These companies leave when global economic conditions change, or when they find an anti-union jurisdiction to move to, they'll leave. That's exactly what happened with Caterpillar. They got a five million dollarcheque from Stephen Harper during the last election campaign, and two years later, they tried to impose a union-busting contract on their workers. The workers courageously said no, then there was a lockout, and a few months later they closed the plant and moved the jobs to Indiana, where they're having big trouble building locomotives because those were really great workers at the (London) Caterpillar plant.

Hurley: Along those lines, I wanted to ask you about the NDP's recently announced plan to create 40,000 youth jobs, paid internships, and co-op placements over four years. Is that policy resonating with voters in your riding, or not?

Rowlinson: I really think it is, yes. As I say, there's a real problem with youth unemployment and underemployment here. But there's also a problem that everybody in London sees, with the lack of opportunity for youth here, and that's really affecting the character of the city as a vibrant, exciting place to live.

And London's a great city. We have terrific, creative infrastructure, a beautiful downtown with lots of unspoiled Victorian architecture, but there aren't enough jobs to keep young people here, and it's a very tough place to live if you don't have a car. So we need transit infrastructure, and we need to build jobs in exciting and emerging fields that are going to keep people here.

So the NDP is offering paid internships and training for youth – that's the way to go.

Hurley: Over 70,000 students have already voted at campus polling stations across the country, thanks to an Elections Canada pilot project aimed at making it easier for students to vote.

Do you think the youth vote will be a significant factor in the outcome of this election?

Rowlinson: I think so, and I hope so. I hope so not just because I've noticed that, in canvassing, young people seem to skew New Democratic, but also because youth have been underrepresented in our politics for a long time now.

Whether under Stephen Harper, under Paul Martin, under Jean Chretien, I can't remember when youth issues have formed an important part of our politics.

And I think that's why young people seem to take a longer view on politics. I'm a teacher, and so I spend a lot of time interacting with people between the ages of 17 and 25. And I learn as much as I teach.

And youth take a long view on politics, which is one of the reasons why climate change is a huge issue for young people, and it's an issue that's been virtually absent from our politics. This is mind-boggling, and when I talk to youth, they're furious about it, and I think that may be one of the reasons why they're going to vote in this election. People are thinking about climate change, and when I talk to them about the NDP's cap-and-trade plan – the idea that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by putting a cost on them – that's not hard to understand, people get that.

And young people in particular think 10, 20, 50 years ahead and they see the predictions. The IPCC talks about how a rise in global temperatures of two degrees Celsius will threaten our civilization, and that's something that could very well happen 50 years from now. So young people are very concerned about that issue, in ways that most people who I talk to on the doorstep who are my age, unfortunately are not.

Young Canadians are also concerned about their civil liberties. I think that's partly because they live more of their lives online (than older Canadians), and so they're more attuned to issues of surveillance, government snooping, and information sharing – for instance, the ways in which your tax filings can leak into other areas of your life – and they know that's what happens when you put things online.

Hurley: Speaking of which, are you encountering a lot of opposition to Bill C-51 in your riding?

Rowlinson: Yes, it's huge, and the activists around this issue are largely young people. I was involved in some rallies against Bill C-51 well before the election campaign started, and those rallies were primarily organized by youth, and some of the stalwarts of the Occupy movement, and they were great. And theirs are the voices that we need to be listening to on this issue.

Hurley: Well, that's encouraging to hear. Moving on, this election campaign is the longest in Canadian history, and the parties have now been campaigning for almost eleven weeks.

Based on your discussions with voters over the last two and a half months, what are voters in London West most concerned about in this election? 

Rowlinson: That's an easy one, and every politician who gets asked this question – whether national or local – gives the same answer, and it's jobs. Because it's true.

Here in London, the issue of jobs is particularly acute. The unemployment numbers came out a couple days ago, and overall they weren't great, but in London we lost 2,700 jobs in the last month.

And the economy here is sort of bumping along, but we're not back to where we were before 2008 in terms of total employment. The global economic crash cost us an enormous number of jobs, and in terms of the total number of people at work, we're still not back to where we were before the crash.

In terms of good manufacturing jobs, we've been hemorrhaging jobs for a decade or more, but most of the damage has been done since about 2005, and Southwestern Ontario has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs since then.

So there are a lot of people here who are hurting. Plenty of people have jobs, but the jobs that have been created since 2008 are mostly minimum wage, and a lot of people are working contract jobs, or working two contracts without benefits. It's very tough to support your family and pay your mortgage with a job like that.

Hurley: So it's fair to say, then, that the number one election issue for voters in London West is the economy?

Rowlinson: Yes, for sure. When you ask people what matters to them, they say jobs. They want more jobs, and they want better jobs. And what that says to me is that London and Southwestern Ontario have really been hurt by the structural changes in our economy over the last 20 to 25 years.

And lots of people will tell you this is the result of global changes, and there's nothing that we can do about it. At least up to a point, I disagree. The decision to make the oil industry the main growth sector of the Canadian economy was a decision that was taken by governments. And I think that, for a number of reasons, that was a bad idea.

Hurley: Do you think Canadians would benefit from a more diversified economy?

Rowlinson: We would undeniably benefit from having a more diversified and balanced economy. Canada is always going to be a resource producer. But Ontario has some of the best farmland in the world, and yet we are a net importer of food. We no longer have a food policy in this country.

What the Conservatives have instead is an agricultural policy, and that policy has led them to invest a million dollars in an ethanol plant around Chatham, on amazing farmland, to raise commodity corn to produce ethanol. That's nuts!

We need to support local farming, we need to support resource extraction industries, we need to support all kinds of high tech fields, we need to support digital technology and the high tech construction fields, and we have to build an economy for the future.

Making a big bet on the oil industry basket was environmentally irresponsible, and we're the high cost producer in a global economy where the market price is set by someone else. And we're just getting rip sawed by fluctuating commodity prices. It's terrible for people who are employed in the oil industry, and it's been terrible for us here (in London West).

We have an unbalanced economy and we really need to rethink the way it's organized. And the NDP is committed to doing that in fundamental ways.

The global expansion of free trade, and the global expansion of the rights of large corporations, didn't begin with NAFTA but it was kind of the turning point. Now we have the TPP, and the NDP is committed to giving real scrutiny to this deal. Because I think it takes our economy further down the road that we've already gone down. And it's not a road that's working for us.

Hurley: From terrorism to the niqab to a slew of negative attack ads, the Conservatives have been using fear to rally support for their party in this campaign.

Instead of fighting this election over "big ideas" on the economy and the environment, the Harper team seems to be pandering to voters' worst instincts. 

Why do you think the Conservatives have chosen this approach?

Rowlinson: They have no record to run on. When Mr. Harper isn't talking about the niqab and how we have to defend ourselves against ISIL, and his local candidate here – Ed Holder – is just as bad as he is in banging away at those two issues, he's claiming that we have to vote Conservative because they're good stewards of the economy.

Well, as I've said, 400,000 manufacturing jobs (have been) lost on Mr. Harper's watch. There's been at least six straight budget deficits, maybe even seven since I don't believe the numbers we're hearing this year. What good stewards? They don't have a solid economic record to run on.

They have no rational defence of the use of Canadian forces in Syria and Iraq. There's no strategy or known outcome there; they're just sending forces there as part of a symbolic gesture to show how bad ISIL is.

So there's no strategic view of foreign policy, and there's no effective economic policy. Tax cuts for big corporations and tax cuts for the rich, which has been their economic policy, have demonstrably failed.

So they don't have anything left, except to say that there's an Arab person under your bed and you should be really frightened. And it is shocking. It's a campaign of division that I've never seen in Canadian politics before; it's more the kind of thing that you get in U.S. politics.

This is an almost uniquely multicultural country, and there are a number of Muslim Canadians in my riding, and they're scared. The government is targeting them, and it is running a campaign of fear directly against Muslim Canadians.

Hurley: Unfortunately we're seeing a number of incidents involving the harassment of Muslims during this election, and you have to wonder whether these incidents have been fueled by the government's fear mongering.  

Rowlinson: Well, causality and correlation are hard to establish in this case, but yes, there has been a rise in the harassment of Muslims during this campaign, at the same time that Mr. Harper is running this campaign against people with so-called "un-Canadian values." And I want to say, Muslim Canadians' values are just as Canadian as anyone else's values.

Hurley: How are voters in your riding reacting to this use of fear? Are they buying it, or are they saying "no, we reject this type of campaigning"? 

Rowlinson: Well, I'm an optimist, and I believe Canadians are going to reject this type of politics.

I also believe that this election is going to be very bad for the Conservatives. The polling shows a close race, but I've spoken to lots of people who say they're lifelong conservatives, they voted for Brian Mulroney, they voted for Joe Clark, but they don't like where the (Conservative) party's gone.

So I am optimistic. That being said, I do get phone calls from folks who say they won't vote for the NDP because Mr. Harper opposes the wearing of the niqab during the citizenship oath. And I have to say to them at that point, I'm sorry, but it is not government's job to choose one set of cultural practices over another. And it is not the government's job to tell people what to wear.

Hurley: I wanted to change gears now and talk about the issue of strategic voting, particularly in your riding.

Based on polling conducted by Environics Research and The National Observer earlier this month, Leadnow's strategic voting campaign, Vote Together, has identified London West as a riding where the Conservative MP can be defeated if people "vote together for change."

The campaign says that the race in London West is between the Liberal and Conservative parties, with the NDP polling in third.

What is your message to voters in your riding who may want to vote NDP, but are considering voting Liberal to defeat the Conservative MP?

Rowlinson: My message is that we don't have the information to make that type of decision. The polls have been wrong before – they were wrong about the Alberta election last spring, the Ontario election last year, and they were wrong about the last federal election.

The NDP has won this riding provincially by good margins, both in the last provincial election in 2014, and in a by-election in 2013.

Hurley: I believe it's Peggy Sattler who represents the riding provincially?

Rowlinson: Yes, Peggy Sattler is our MPP. She's been elected twice, and she's won by large margins. In the by-election, we were hearing the exact same thing as we're hearing now, from the London Free Press and other media. They were saying the by-election was a two-way race between the Liberal and Conservative candidates, and that the NDP weren't in it. We won.

And there is a real crisis in the polling industry right now. Even people who generally believe in polls are telling us that there is a crisis because they've been wrong about so many elections. Not just here in Canada – they've had the same problem in the United Kingdom.

And there are lots of reasons why polling has become less accurate, but one of the reasons is they mostly rely on telephone landlines and fewer and fewer people have landlines. Plus the demographics of people who use landlines skew older, which tends to distort the results of the polls.

And then there's the fact that polling takes a lot of time. People are busy, and not all of them have time to press buttons and answer the pollster's questions. Those people tend to skew younger, and they're more working class.

So again, polling has been wrong a lot lately, and no one should use it to direct their vote.

Hurley: So in your view, the only poll that matters is on election day, correct?

Rowlinson: Well that's the cliché, but it's often true. But I think that the outcome of the Ontario election last year also matters. Peggy Sattler is a good friend and colleague of mine, she's a terrific MPP, and she's been out there canvassing with me, to get the vote out, and together we get a great reception.

My observation on the doorstep is that this is a three-way race. As I've already said, the Conservatives seem to be in trouble here, and we (the NDP) are definitely in this.

I don't believe the Environics poll, and it was a strange poll. The first question you want to ask about any poll is "who paid for it?" Leadnow has been doing its polling through Environics, but as far as I know, the Environics poll of London West last week was not a Leadnow poll.

Hurley: The poll that I'm referring to was conducted by Environics between October 2nd and 4th, so about ten days ago.

Rowlinson: Yes, but who paid for it? I really don't know the answer to that question. And that matters, because polls tend to produce favourable results for the people who paid for them. That is empirically true, as there are Liberal polling companies and Conservative polling companies and so forth.

So we don't know where (the funding for) this poll came from, I don't believe it, and the bottom line is that a poll is supposed to represent voter intentions, it's not supposed to shape them.

I think the use of polling to drive or change how people vote is a terrible idea. I don't really like it when Leadnow does it and I really don't like it when the Liberal Party does it. And the Liberal Party has been promoting this poll as well. The Liberals have been putting this poll front and centre on Kate Young's Facebook page. So they're telling you to vote for them because the polls say that they can win. Well, what does that tell you about their confidence in their program?

Voters in London West should vote for the NDP if they like our program, and they should vote for me if they think I'm the best candidate.

Hurley: Directly related to the issue of strategic voting is the call among many citizens for electoral reform in Canada. 

Most public opinion polls show that over two-thirds of voters plan to vote for the NDP, Liberals, Greens, or Bloc Quebecois on October 19th, but thanks to our broken electoral system, the Conservatives might still win the election and form a government.  

Is the NDP committed to making our voting system fairer and more representative of voters' wishes? And if so, how will your party achieve this?  

Rowlinson: The NDP is, of the three national parties, the only party that has committed to electoral reform in our platform. And I really want to underscore that. For people who are concerned about this issue, the Conservatives pay no attention to it, and the Liberal position is that they will consult – they'll set up a Royal Commission. Well there have already been Royal Commissions on this issue.

The NDP has, for as long as I've been a member, been committed to proportional representation. And that would mean a Parliament in which a party's representation is proportional to the number of votes that they receive (in an election). That's the basic standard of democracy.

And Canada is a huge outlier in not having a proportional representation legislature. It's essentially us, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which has a much different history. Our democracies date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and countries with more modern electoral systems have democracies that more accurately reflect the way the public actually feels.

We should not have majority governments elected with a little over thirty percent of the vote, as Stephen Harper's was. That shouldn't happen.

So yes, we are committed to proportional representation in Parliament, and we are therefore committed to a Parliament that actually reflects the votes that Canadians cast. We are committed to a Canada in which there is no longer such a thing as a "wasted vote." That's a phrase that should horrify everyone.

Hurley: We noticed that your party was recently recognized by Fair Vote Canada for including proportional representation as official party policy in your platform.

Rowlinson: Yes, Fair Vote Canada has been very supportive of our plan for electoral reform, and properly so. I've worked with Fair Vote Canada, some of the local activists in Fair Vote Canada are supporters of mine, they're great people, and they're right on this issue.

Canada is living in a 21st century world with a 19th century electoral system. And we have to change it. And all it takes is the will.

Hurley: Ed Holder, the Conservative MP who you are running against, has been criticized for skipping several all-candidates debates and events in this election. Similarly, Stephen Harper recently cancelled a high-profile interview with The West Block, and refused to participate in the broadcast consortium debates.

We have also seen reports of other Conservative candidates skipping local debates and events.

Why do you think the Harper Conservatives are avoiding the media and important campaign events in this election?

Rowlinson: Two reasons, but before I say why, let me just say, that a government that won't face the electorate, is a bad government, and we need to replace it.

We joke about it, and I have a supporter who calls Mr. Holder "the place holder," because he's always represented by a (campaign) sign, but it's a bad situation when the government won't face the electorate.

The reasons I believe are two-fold. The one is that the Conservative record is really hard to defend. I wouldn't want to face the voters either if I had that record of job loss, of failure in foreign policy, of fueling unnecessary cultural divisions at home. It's a bad record and I wouldn't want to defend it.

And the other reason is the kind of politics that Stephen Harper has practiced, which is that he's never been about speaking to all Canadians. He's always been about dividing the electorate, targeting his message to a small number of highly motivated voters, turning those voters out, and forming a government with a minority of votes.

Hurley: Which our electoral system allows for.

Rowlinson: Yes, our electoral system enables the Conservatives to do that. And to that extent, Stephen Harper's politics are a product of our electoral system. And they're also part of his personality, which is a very defensive one, he's not open to listening to people, and you have to pass a screening process in order to get into his rallies.

He doesn't to talk to anybody who hasn't already been vetted. And that's the kind of government he's formed – he's surrounded himself with people who repeat the party line, instead of showing any kind of independent personality or thought.

Hurley: So I assume your party's rallies are open to the public? In other words, there's no screening process? 

Rowlinson: Absolutely. We want big crowds at these events, and we welcome everyone to attend.

Hurley: Mr. Rowlinson, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak to me today, and I wish you luck on the campaign trail.

Rowlinson: It's been a pleasure.