Her party has the ability to unite people on the issue of democratic reform, said Anne Jamieson, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada candidate in the West Vancouver Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky riding.
"I believe the Marxist-Leninist Party is capable and has the motivation to unite large, large numbers of people and organizations, and people in other small parties as well," Jamieson said.
The focus on democratic renewal means supporting people to become the decision-makers. "Right now we are not the decision-makers. Governments' and large parties' policy are dictated by monopoly right. We say we must oppose monopoly right and push for people's rights."
A registered nurse who now lives in Powell River, Jamieson ran in the 2004 federal election and received 123 votes, or 0.2 per cent. In 1997 and 2000 Jamieson ran in Vancouver Quadra, also as a Marxist-Leninist candidate, the electoral name of the Communist Party of Canada.
Jamieson is originally from Bowen Island, where her family goes back five generations, as farmers and workers in the logging industry.
The Marxist-Leninist Party started as a discussion group called The Internationalists at the University of British Columbia in 1963, Jamieson explained, and became involved in 1964. "It was a way of students overcoming the oppression they faced at that time of a consumer culture."
The group came up with a number of slogans, some that caught on, including "Understanding Requires Conscious Participation and Active Finding Out," a principle that Jamieson said is still present. "We went from a discussion group to a youth and student movement, then realizing we had to become a party, we had to unite with the working class. We came up with a slogan, 'We Need to Vest Sovereignty in the People.' The majority of members now in the Marxist-Leninist Party are working people."
Jamieson is attracted to the comprehensiveness of the party's platform, the political program, she said. "It touches on everything that is of real concern to Canadian people."
The main issue in the riding, according to her, is the destruction of the productive base of coastal communities with the consolidation and takeovers of companies in the forest and pulp and paper industries. "Increasingly forest companies are taken over by huge conglomerates, like Brascan and Brookfield, that are just asset management companies and are less and less responsive and responsible to people living in the communities," she said.
"Ultimately, decisions about the forest industry have to be in the hands of people. They have to be making these decisions in order to put about both measures that would make coastal communities stable, give them more stable futures, and make the working conditions in them more amenable."
Funding for social programs needs to be increased, Jamieson said, including in health and education. Funding for drug and alcohol treatment centres is extremely important, she added.
Other policies include having an anti-war government. "We should not be putting all this money into war preparations and taking part in wars of aggression."
