Charlie Angus may be retiring from federal politics, but there’s nothing retiring about the veteran New Democrat MP for Timmins-James Bay who showed up in Edmonton Sunday afternoon on the latest stop on what is being billed as his national Resistance tour.
Mr. Angus, who is 62, is pretty much an NDP rock star – literally, actually – and an exuberant crowd packed St. Basil’s Cultural Centre to hear him rip into U.S. President Donald Trump, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, Preston Manning, and the whole Maple MAGA crowd. He didn’t mince words.
The Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral hall south of Whyte Avenue can seat about 700 people. It was packed, with folks without tickets being turned away at the door – so if the NDP had been using Conservative math, I suppose, the rally would go down in history as a crowd of thousands, maybe more!
Be that as it may, after being introduced by Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson, Mr. Angus tore with evangelical fervor into those well-known Conservative politicians who badmouth our country, try to divide its citizens, and cozy up to the Trump Administration.
How, Mr. Angus asked rhetorically, did Canadian resistance begin to Mr. Trump’s insults and economic depredations, not to mention the support, passive and active, the U.S. President gets from certain Conservative politicians with ties to Alberta?
“It started with you waking up and saying, ‘I am not going to let my country be taken away from me,’” he said, to cheers. “When you saw that Quisling traitor go down to Mar-a-Lago to hang out with Kevin O’Leary, and you said, ‘She doesn’t represent us. She doesn’t!’ And you knew you had to do something. That’s how the resistance began!”
“Have I mentioned I went to see the Legislature this morning? I was hoping to meet Danielle Smith,” Mr. Angus continued. “I’m just glad she hasn’t put up the Stars and Bars and the Confederate rebel flag on the Legislature yet!”
(I confess, Dear Readers, I’m giggling as I transcribe this, imagining the faux outrage of Premier Smith’s supporters, including the ones with Confederate Battle Flag plates on the front of their trucks, if they were to read this. Well, there appeared to be no mainstream media there, so most of them will be spared the agony.)
On the topic of Premier Smith’s version of diplomacy with the Trump Administration, Mr. Angus wondered: “What’s with that? With MAGA? Meeting with a guy who planned the tariff war that’s out to destroy our jobs, and our economy, and our families? And she was hanging out with him?
“She should have been here, defending the people of Alberta who are being hammered by the tariffs!” Well, to be fair, we have all heard Ms. Smith dispute that interpretation of her conduct, and no doubt we will again.
Speaking of flags, Mr. Angus had some thoughts on the use and abuse of Canada’s Maple Leaf Flag, which was in plentiful supply at the Palm Sunday event attended by most Alberta NDP candidates.
“For a long time, we’ve been sleepwalking as a nation,” he said. “We’ve been disconnected from each other. We’ve been allowing the voices of disinformation and rage, and the Danielle Smiths and the Pierre Poilievres, to pick apart our nation. Our flag was stolen from us by conspiracy haters who hung our flag upside down and paraded it through the streets.”
Well, he said, “we’re taking our flag, and taking it back, and flying it right side up!” (More cheers.)
“But there’s a difference about why we can raise the flag,” he added. “We are on a journey of understanding that there can be no resistance without reconciliation. The crimes committed in the residential schools have to be atoned for. And we cannot change what happened before, but we can change where we’re going.”
On the topic of President Trump, Mr. Angus was scathing: “I don’t fear Donald Trump. He’s just a decrepit, creepy predator. He might have fooled some people there, but he doesn’t fool us. He’s now come against Canada. And what do we have? We have the Juno Beach gene in us! Once the fight starts, we don’t stop that fight till the job is done.” He had uncles, he added, who “kicked Nazi asses all over Europe.”
As for the federal Conservative leader, Mr. Angus said, “We cannot let Pierre Poilievre and the politics of disinformation, and rage, and Canada-is-broken, ever get in.”
In 21 years as an MP, he noted, “there are many Conservatives that I know, that I may not agree with … but I respect.” But of Mr. Poilievre, he continued, “I do not respect what I see with the hate slogans, and the disinformation, and the refusal to even disassociate himself from the likes of Alex Jones. You know? That’s who he is.
“I never actually heard him say that he had a problem with Danielle Smith threatening to break up our country. He’s never said that either.”
“Do not let us be divided from each other,” Mr. Angus implored the crowd. “That’s what Danielle Smith and the Premier Moe have been doing. That’s what Preston Manning is doing.”
“Who,” he asked, “in the moment when a nation is under threat from a foreign fascist power, starts talking about breaking up the country? Shame! Them and their straw army!”
“So don’t let us get divided from each other. Quebec is strong. The Maritimes is strong. The North is strong. The West is strong. We are strong together. And we are strong from respecting that we are on Indigenous lands.”
It’s impossible, of course, to say if things would be different for the federal NDP this year if Mr. Angus had won the NDP leadership back in 2017, but he certainly seems to be generating more energy nowadays than the winner of that contest, party Leader Jagmeet Singh.
It may not mean anything, but it’s an alternative history that’s interesting to ponder.
It would have been something like a Jack Layton outcome for the NDP, if Charlie Angus was their leader.
Don’t blame me, I voted for Charlie in 2017 … I thought Singh was the “shiny new trend” without the kind of deep roots in the NDP that I felt were a prerequisite to the leadership. In the light of recent history, he has not been able to channel the legitimate concerns of ordinary Canadians facing the deep economic challenges of our times, and the party is now in deep trouble.
I also voted for Charlie in 2017 (well, maybe second choice behind Guy Caron ?- details are foggy). I have nothing personal against Singh, but he seemed to me to be too much like Trudeau – form over substance. That he won so easily indicates a problem with the way parties elect leaders – signing up new members who (who knows) may have never donated to the NDP again or even voted for them appears to have been a feature of how this worked. Andrew Coyne has recently gone on record for saying that the Caucus of a party should elect the leader, but that has problems too. It excludes candidates who were unsuccessful in their ridings due to being in provinces that vote certain ways, and it excludes party members completely. A compromise could be a weighted vote, with the caucus counting more than approved candidates who count more than members. Perhaps only people who were already members when the leadership vote was called should be allowed a voice. Or at least the time frame for signing up new members should be really short.
Charlie may not have had crowds as big here on the island, but he definitely helped the cause of people against Skippy’s little pet urchin Aaron Gunn; who ironically had signs @his rally for >>Freedom of speech << No matter how much of a gag order Skippy has imposed on his caucus and new "CON" candidates or how much they are suddenly trying to rebrand themselves as supposed 'Tories'.
As far as Charlie's supporters, I love the inspiration behind the signs.
{We stand with penguins is imo a gem…LOL …2 thumbs up, or I guess flippers}
And I suppose Marlaina will have her knickers in a knot, again: that's the third time in a week she's been called out by fellow politicians. Maybe she will be saying extra prayers at the "Provincial Prayer Breakfast, alongside Jordan Peterson's wife at the convention centre on April 17th.
'Gathering Albertans in prayer for our province and it's leaders'.
Hosted by the Provincial Christian Prayer Breakfast Society .
So since taxpayers were on the hook for the Washington group (?) are taxpayers also footing the bill for the 'guest' speakers, or is the Provincial part going to be another case of 'mis-spoke'??
I've totally lost track of the number of times in the last week that both Skippy & Marlaina have d'rumped. I wonder which one of them is going to use his latest bravissimo –"they're calling to kiss my 'donkey'.
Yessire` Bob, dat dur be the world's best negotiator.
Make america groan again!!
# I stand with the Penguins- elbows and flippers up
Charlie Angus, an NDP rock star? If anything, he’s a symbol of how the NDP has mellowed, becoming a branch office of the U.S. Democratic Party. Hardly any difference between them and the Republicans except the Democrats have run the flag of progressive identity politics up their flagpole. But they are the same old ruthless imperialist that have sown chaos and destruction throughout much of the world since ww2.
Now he claims he’s on a national “Resistance” tour. That branding stems from 2016 when many Democrat operatives and like-minded Republicans banded together and called themselves “the Resistance” in opposition to Trump. He should have called it the “elbows up” tour.
It’s always amusing to see the Neoliberal Deception Program posing as some kind of counterforce to the total dominance of US imperialism and it’s speculative finance handmaiden. There is literally no intellectual underpinning of NDP policy of any kind other than the ridiculous wokism, now combined with tv fast-food ad-style nationalist pandering, which happily accdommodates late-stage capitalism. As if racism and sexism were the problems and not divisions of power rooted entirely in control of property. We’re not ruled by the people we are because they’re white, straight and male, we’re ruled by them because they’re rich and aggressive. 60 000+ killed in Gaza by the Canadian ally Tommy Douglas called “a light set upon a hill – the light of democracy in a night of darkness”, 50% more dead than the Canadian military suffered “kicking Nazi asses” all over Europe. Douglas made his profound statemtent in 1975, twenty-seven years after the ethnic-cleansing Nakba. Roger Waters, Noam Chomsky and Linda McQuaig all called for the NDP to withdraw from the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (wat dat is?), and they were firmly rejected. Progs gettin’ what they deserve with Skippy and Marlaina.
My first comment, from a retired magazine publisher, would be to hire a proof reader. Ie. 5th paragraph second line, “did Canadian resistance begin to
Mr Trump’s insults”
6th paragraph, open and closed quotation marks are, either in the wrong place or not where they should be.
I found more examples, these examples should suffice.
While I agree with everything Mr. Angus has said, I am disappointed that the NDP ran a star candidate, Trisha Estabrooks, in Edmonton Centre, a Liberal riding. I am really concerned she will split the progressive vote in that riding and let the CPC candidate slip up the middle. I really wish she had chosen a different riding.
Don’t worry the Liberals are Red Tories now so Trisha is the only progressive voice in the riding.
I remember encouraging Charlie to run but he had serious concerns because his French is not very functional.
He is one of the few NDPers that sounds like an *actual* NDPer since Broadbent. While Jack was personable he wasn’t particularly clever nor was he a torch-bearer but he was exceptional at being the opposition.
This is the role Charlie was born to play. Brings out the best in him. All the fire, all the passion and without any constraints. If you haven’t seen Charlie excoriate the opposition for the housing debacle in Attawapisskat–it will give anyone who watches it a real show of what moral outrage lies beneath his affable exterior.
I like Singh as a person. But the NDP has been liberal-lite for decades now and he’s kept the trend and that’s not where the NDP needs to be to be effective or useful.
We need actual Lunchbox Lefties fighting for the working class. The Liberal land is already taken and someone needs to balance the teeter-totter on the opposing side to the corporate cons.
Charlie Angus is a straight shooter. This is his time. Canada needs him. He says what needs to be said. He does not fear weasels.
I never understood why Charlie Angus never became leader of the NDP. He is a courageous and strong leader.
I subscribe to Charlie on Substack. His posts are like a double espresso in the morning. After this election and the NDP lose official party status, Mr. Singh will be gone and maybe, just maybe, Mr. Angus will lead the rebuilding of the once great movement.
So while Danielle Smith wastes $7 million on trying to get her pal Pierre Poilievre elected lawyers warn about their game plan, she is planning for Poilievre to help her steal our Canada Pension Plan, kick out our RCMP , and get the rest of Canada to pay Albertans Equalization Payments to help her replace some of the billions they are cheating Albertans out of by slashing Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate taxes.
They also warn that if she gets control of our pension plan there would be nothing stopping her from canceling pensions to seniors, like us, who have received far more than we ever put into the plan in the first place, so why would you support these Reformers and let that happen?
Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to choose Angus as NDP leader, he seemed to resonate with a lot of traditional supporters and apparently still does. Oddly, the so called populist right wingers target a lot of the same voters.
Although it is always confused me how, the son of former Alberta Premier who was in politics for decades and the current CPC leader who is the poster child for a career politician can convince people they are populists. I suppose slick marketing and American style attack campaigns, but really they are creatures of the system more so than some other party leaders. Maple MAGA is a good description, as these people are elite, they just represent a different flavour of the elite.
Poilievre made a big show of not publicly meeting with business leaders, but his platform grants them what they want, more so than other parties and in turn a number of them have just recently endorsed him. Are people fooled really by this charade? I suppose we will see soon.
Dave: I think the answer to your conundrum is to define “populist,” as a strategy, or even merely as a suite of tactics, as opposed to a philosophy. DJC
I just spent a very interesting 2 hours talking with another retired gentlemen while we waited for our wives to come out of heart surgery. He was from a rural riding west of Red Deer, actually switched his vote pattern from longtime conservative (federal & provincial) to, get this, Liberal/NDP.
Colour me very surprised. If he is in any way representative, Skippy, and especially Marlaina, are going to get very unhappy news at the polls.
Gerald from being a once proud conservative whose family members spent countless hours volunteering for Lougheed and Getty and from living in rural Alberta for 24 years in ten locations I have been shocked by some the surveys country newspapers have been conducting he isn’t a lone in every case the Liberals were winning I certainly hope this continues. Lawyer friends and relatives think if Poilievre gets elected we will be in serious trouble and it’s seniors who will be their target because they know how ignorant many of them are.
Alan Spiller: The CPC made people lose their life savings to the tune of $35 billion, to to the income trust fund fiasco. The UCP are wanting a provincial pension plan, and have made Stephen Harper run AIMCo. Can people see how foolish this is?
I’m afraid identity politics sectarianism sunk Charlie’s campaign last time, that and the theory that slick and glitzy media slogans are more important than substance. Plus, Charlie doesn’t talk down to people. He doesn’t wag his finger at them for their ignorance and “bad taste”. I will vote ND again because of the courage of truth-teller Heather M. and to stop Skippy, but right now they are just another “liberal” party, imho.
Charlie brought his Resistance to our town and was greeted with enthusiastic response. Should readers wish to contribute, click on the Resistance link at the top of the column. As usual, David captures the tenor and spirit of the fun.
Check out the 11 UCP MLAs who want to secede or leave Canada. Know who and what you are voting for. Do your elected MLAs really represent their constituents, or, their own political partisanship interests.
https://albertarepublicans.com/actionhub/mla-independence-scorecard/
Carol: I think there are two or three people on this list who don’t belong there – although they need to clarify that. I also thi nk there are two or three UCP MLAs who are not on the list, but do belong there. DJC
Like many I continue to puzzle — “where have you been Charlie, for so long away?” Doesn’t matter, but I’m really grateful that you’ve taken up and provided a kind of leadership we lack. I’ll call it for now — honesty and genuine proud Canadian patriotism. And selfless courage. Coast to coast to coast and onward/upwards. I’ve watched and engage national politics as a progressive conservative for fifty plus years. Usually, voted liberal — but not always. Bob Rae and his like do linger. So did Bill Davis here in Ontario.
So Charlie — thanks for coming back and I still look forward to your influence on our politics. Clearly, you are very much needed. In overdrive
I don’t have a website.
I’m bemused by those ideological purists here demanding the federal — and, in fact, provincial — New Democratic Party come out more firmly on the left wing of the political spectrum than it has in recent years. The suggestion that there are enough truly leftist voters to restore the NDP to electoral contention is not supported by any evidence I’ve seen.
I’m a believer in the “Willy Sutton rule” of Canadian politics. For those who don’t know who Willy Sutton was, he was a famous bank robber — American, if memory serves — whose answer to the question “why do you rob banks” was the rather obvious “because that’s where the money is”.
In politics, this means meeting the voters where they’re at, not trying to convince them of the error of their ways by advocating policies they wouldn’t support.
Canadians, by and large, are generally centrist, and not in favour of truly left policies like nationalizing banks, railways and oil companies, or de-arming our country. They support a strong social safety net, but are still largely economic liberals — in the classic sense — rather than socialists. They also support a strong military, at least with their hearts if not their wallets.
No, I think Canadians’ loss of enthusiasm with the NDP is related to a constellation of factors, not least of which is the extreme right-wing bias of our mainstream media.
New Democrats have also done a poor job of connecting social equity with economic equity as we have put forward the dreaded DEI agenda — even though addressing social inequities and discrimination are also an economic necessity to help raise everyone up. If this were not true, why would unions be among those in our society most dedicated to DEI work? We wouldn’t be seeing such backlash against these policies if that connection had been more sharply drawn.
I’ve also been troubled by a kind of timid incrementalism. Why don’t we see an NDP proposal to put an end to the need for food banks within a decade? Or cut homelessness by 80% within a four-year mandate? I think voters might be attracted to such goals.