CALEB NICKERSON
PONTIAC Sept. 5, 2018
With the provincial election fully underway, yet another candidate has announced their entry into the race for Pontiac.
Louis Lang is representing the Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec (PLMQ) and has been living in Aylmer since 1969. He was also the PLMQ candidate in the Pontiac riding during the 1989, 1994 and 2003 elections.
Lang was employed for many years at the Canada Post depot in Ottawa, eventually working his way up the union hierarchy.
“I was elected to various positions over the years, including president of the Ottawa local,” he explained.
Currently retired, Lang said that his experience fighting for the rights of workers would translate well to becoming the advocate for the area if he is elected.
“I’m running, because I believe there’s more to democracy than giving people a vote every once in a while,” he said. “The people should have the right to choose their candidates and have those candidates accountable to them, not these big political parties.”
He said that the way to create meaningful change would be to radically reorganize the economy and democratic system to give more power to the average worker.
When asked if he was concerned about being compared to other Marxist movements in the 20th century, like the murderous regimes of Pol Pot or Mao, he said that their application of Marxist principles would be different.
“There’s all kinds of discussion about what happened in the past, there’s a lot of Cold War hysteria that is related to Marxism, Leninism and Communism,” he said. “What I would explain to people, is that the way these principles have been applied by others, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be the way it’s applied here.”
“The question is, the integrity of the people that are applying this, and the way that it’s applied,” he added.
Lang said by increasing domestic manufacturing and agriculture, the province and the country could become less reliant on the United States and other countries. He said that he would offer subsidies to encourage small farming operations.
“The agriculture sector is not well-enough supported for a family farm to survive,” he said.
