CALEB NICKERSON
PONTIAC Oct. 2, 2019
The seventh candidate vying for the federal riding of Pontiac is an experienced campaigner with a revolutionary agenda. Louis Lang will represent . . .
the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada in the region, having ran previously in both provincial and federal races.
The retired postal worker is a union veteran, having served in many different positions, including the president of the local. He said his decision to run for office was a natural one.
“When you’re a postal worker and you get legislated back to work on a regular basis, getting involved in politics isn’t really a choice, it’s a necessity to defend the rights of the workers,” he said. “I’ve run several times, participated in provincial as well as national elections, to put forth the views of our party, that the people need to empower themselves.”
He said that these issues are common in both federal and provincial politics, pointing to the Ford government in Ontario freezing public sector wages.
“The campaigns provincially and federally are quite similar, in that we try to point out that as long as people don’t have a say in what affects their lives, these kinds of things will continue,” he said. “It’s not enough to say we should try to influence the political parties. Lobbying is not the answer, the answer is, who makes the decisions and right now the people are blocked from making decisions.”
He pointed to the issue of communications infrastructure in the Pontiac as a prime example of average citizens being left out of the decision-making process.
“The issue of communications, where I think people in the Pontiac have expressed a lot of times that they don’t have proper internet service,” he said. “There are all kinds of promises that they’re going to do various things. As long as there’s no regulation to force the four or five main companies to provide these services at a reasonable rate, there’s not going to be any change. These issues come up every election and there’s no one dealing with them.”
He said that his party’s objectives are revolutionary, in that they seek to disrupt the current balance of power in favour of the working class. When asked what his ideal revolution looked like, he pointed to the actions of the Global Climate Strike which took place last week.
“The youth are out in the streets today, going on strike,” he said. “That’s part of a revolution, that’s part of demanding change. I think revolution means the people getting involved and solving the problems and putting forward solutions; providing a voice for themselves to put forward their views.”
