‘Holding them accountable’: MP McPherson says NDP still has major role to play in Parliament

NDP MP Heather McPherson speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the future of the party as they get set to hold a leadership race

NDP MP for Edmonton Strathcona, Heather McPherson, speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the future of the party as they get set to hold a leadership race.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length

Michael Higgins: The premier’s meeting in Huntsville, Ontario. What do you take away from the degree of unity around the premiers’ table? Even the degree of patience the premiers appear to have with the prime minister where reaching a deal is concerned.

Heather McPherson: I think all Canadians are happy to see folks working together on this. This threat that Donald Trump poses to Canadians is fundamental. The chaos that he’s putting into our economy is significant. It’s going to affect workers across the country. So I think all Canadians want to see our leaders working together on this.

From my perspective, I look at Donald Trump and I think the goal here is to disrupt our economy. It is to break the Canadian economy. We absolutely have to be working for a deal but we have to be doing the things to protect Canadian workers here.

Making sure that we’re that we’re doing what we can to diversify our relationships, doing what we can to make sure that we’re building things in Canada, all those things are important.

MH: So much of the focus has been, or of late, has been around an August 1 deadline. Can Canadians afford to be patient? Can we look past that deadline?

HM: This is going to be absolutely devastating for the economy. Let’s put those things in place in case we aren’t able to get that deal. We’ve seen Mark Carney try to try to make this deal with a very unpredictable president, but don’t forget, we had a deal. We have a trade deal with the United States that was signed by this current president, and he has ripped it up. So putting all of our eggs in a new deal that he could then subsequently rip up is problematic as well.

MH: Among the items that Premier Smith brought up was hope for resurrecting Northern Gateway, the twin pipeline project in Kitimat, B.C. How do you see that going over?

HM: I think all Canadians are looking at big projects that we can build. We talked about an electrical grid, talked about all of these different projects that we can be building together. My concern is that if we try to force these big projects through, they won’t get done.

Canadian workers won’t get those jobs. We won’t get the big nation building projects through. So C-5, for me, was problematic. I want to see big projects built with Canadian workers and Canadian materials. But I feel like if we ignore Indigenous consultation, if we ignore the environmental obligations that we have, those projects don’t get built.

We saw that with Stephen Harper. They ended up in the court. Nothing gets built.

MH: Let’s shift focus now to your party. We had interim leader Don Davies on earlier this month discussing efforts on your party’s part to find answers, to find a way forward in the wake of an election that left you with a caucus of only seven MPs.

That means listening to party members, appealing for feedback. I know you’ve been on the road, so what are you hearing?

HM: It’s been great. I just got back from visiting folks in Toronto and listening to some of the people that have a lot of things to tell us about what went wrong, that this election absolutely was unique, and there were things that were out of our control in this election.

There were a lot of folks that voted out of a sense of fear that they didn’t want a Trump or Pierre Poilievre Conservative Party. They didn’t want another Liberal Party. There was a lot of that that happened, but I will say people want New Democrats to be the party for workers. To strongly stand for those things that Canadians need a progressive party to be standing for. We’ve seen Mark Carney move so far to the right in how he’s choosing to govern this country, there needs to be a progressive voice that’s holding the government, whichever government that is, whether that’s the Liberals or the Conservatives, but holding them accountable to the promises.

We all know that often in this country, governments promise things that are much more on a progressive side during an election, and they don’t always deliver those things without New Democrats pushing them to make sure that they do.

MH: You recently posted a video online where, where you indicate that the party members told you the NDP lost its way. What does a course correction look like?

HM: What we need to start doing is having conversations with people across Canada. That’s what I’m going to spend the rest of the summer doing, chatting to people, talking about what that message is.

The message for me is, ‘What are Canadians struggling with? What do they need a Progressive Party fighting for?’ It is making sure that we are protecting Canadian jobs, that when these tariffs have impacts, that we have an EI system that actually will work for Canadian workers.

Right now, so many workers aren’t eligible. I have a 17-year-old son. I know exactly how much groceries cost because of how much my 17-year-old son eats. We need to be talking about things like the price of living, how much folks are struggling right now to put food on the table, to pay for their rent.

We need to be tying strings to housing dollars. I want to see Danielle Smith implement rent control in this province. We’re one of the only places that doesn’t have rent control. That’s a big problem.

MH: You’re obviously traveling the country, you’re hearing from lots of folks. In your home city, there is a website that is pushing for you to run for leadership of the party.

Where does Heather McPherson stand on that? Is there a prospective bid in the works?

HM: There is no race yet. The race starts in September. I’ve been really humbled by how many people have asked me to put my name forward and I am seriously considering it right now.

I’m focusing on hearing from people and hearing about how we rebuild trust in the New Democratic Party, how we bring folks that didn’t see themselves in the party in April, how we bring those folks back.

But yeah, I’m seriously considering it, and we’ve got folks that are trying to convince me, so we will stay tuned.

MH: What will the decision hinge on, do you think?

HM: The race is going to start in September and I’m going to continue to talk to folks about what we want to see in a New Democratic Party. If I think that the things that the membership wants to see, and wants the party to do, aligns with the values that I have and the things that I want to fight for, then we’ll seriously consider it.