Conversation with Peter Deslauriers

Kristine Berey

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Lachine NDP candidate Peter Deslauriers says there are good reasons to vote NDP but fear is not one of them. 

“One thing that makes me very angry is the way [other parties] play on the fears of elderly people in particular,” Deslauriers says. “It’s not hard to whip up fears. It borders on the unconscionable.” He cites Harper’s “get tough on crime” policy as one example of fear mongering: “Violent crime is in fact going down.”

The current American economic upheaval doesn’t change the NDP’s vision fiscal vision. Deslauriers suggests that though there are implications for the Canadian economy, voters keep things in perspective. “Certainly none of what I said [about NDP plans] is meant short term.”

The “big-picture” issues like climate change preoccupy Deslauriers, a retired history and economics professor. He sees the NDP Cap and Trade proposal as the most efficient way to combat fossil fuel emissions. “The environment has been neglected for 20 years. We need rigorous legislation in place,” he says, describing the NDP plan that requires multinational companies to trade a limited and gradually shrinking number of carbon credits, in effect paying for the permission to pollute and being penalized if they exceed their quota. The revenue collected would promote green alternatives over time. Deslauriers rejects critics who say the plan takes too long, saying it’s a matter of months, not years. “A lot of the infrastructure to implement a Cap and Trade system already exists. There is a carbon trading centre in Montreal at Place Victoria in the old stock exchange tower.”

He criticizes Stephane Dion’s Carbon Tax. “The Liberals are relying entirely on market forces and taxing individuals regardless of their income.” Targeting “big polluters” makes sense, Deslauriers says, since 55% of emissions come from corporations, 10% from cars and 9% from home heating. There is no danger of oil prices increasing, as these are determined by world market prices in which oil companies must remain competitive. 

Provided incentives to use greener technology, these companies may discover other savings, Deslauriers says, adding that oil companies now make $20 billion a year while polluting. “The Tar Sands in Alberta need a lot of energy to extract oil, which must be heated in order to remove it from the solid material it’s embedded in.”

Deslauriers dismisses as “nonsense” Dion’s warning that NDP intentions of rest­oring previous tax levels to large corporations —“we’re talking 22%” — would be a job killer. “Since taxes were cut, has there been a benefit?” he asks rhetorically, adding that banks made $20 billion last year. 

Deslauriers says corporations benefit from the presence of government and gave as one example the hiring of skilled people trained in the public education system. He said the $50 billion in re­venues generated by restoring taxes would enable the government to better assist people.

“It’s important to recognize we know exactly where money would come from,” Deslauriers says, citing the pulling of Canadian troops from Afghanistan as another significant source, up to a billion a year.

He says the NDP supports the military but questions the nature of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, originally supposed to end by February 2007. “The presence of NATO troops makes things worse because we are essentially taking sides in a civil war — because that’s what’s going on there, like the Americans did in Vietnam. We know that when Americans withdrew, the total level of violence dropped and once [the Vietnamese] were left to resolve their own problems, they did.”