Emilie Taman is the NDP candidate for Ottawa-Centre. This is her first time running for political office. Taman is a former crown prosecutor managing tax evasion cases, former law professor and community activist.
Taman spoke with the Charlatan about climate change, affordable housing, and combating rising living costs.
Climate change
In a press release on her website, Taman said Justin Trudeau has “no credibility on climate change.”
According to her, unkept promises and buying a pipeline show the Liberal government is not appropriately committed to combating climate change.
“Elected officials have to realize all their other priorities are meaningless if we don’t deal with the climate crisis because we won’t have a planet,” Taman said.
For Taman, immediately ceasing to provide subsidies to the fossil fuel industry is a priority.
Taman and the NDP’s platform has made addressing the impacts of climate change a priority. Their plan includes a focus on combining Indigenous knowledge with scientific research to combat climate change.
The party also plans on investing in the expansion of environmental infrastructure such as greener public transit.
Affordability
While planning to invest in transit, Taman said the NDP would also move towards making public transit free for all. This is doable even while investing in expansions of transit, according to Taman.
“It’s just a question of priorities,” Taman said.
“We don’t ask people to pay money to drive on our roads—we fund roads 100 per cent. There’s no reason we couldn’t do the same thing with transit.”
According to Taman, while Ottawa is making progress with new openings such as the LRT line, the city has a long way to go before it can claim to have a “world class” transit system.
Allied with that, Taman said another priority for her party is creating affordable housing in cities across the country. The NDP plan says they will build 500,000 affordable homes across Canada. The focus will be on working with non-profits to create mixed income housing and expand cooperative housing, and pushing for inclusionary zoning–a practice which mandates a certain number of units in a building must have fixed lower prices.
As for Ottawa, Taman said the city has a very low vacancy rate, and the types of housing being built are not actually meeting the housing needs of the city, which is why building new properties on federal land such as Tunney’s Pasture and Lebreton Flats will help create more affordable options.
Students
The NDP platform calls for waiving interest on federal student loans, expanding grants and banning unpaid internships. The party also posits moving towards a future where post-secondary tuition is fully publicly funded.
Taman said she doesn’t know how far away free post-secondary tuition is, but pointed to examples of countries like Germany to show the economic benefits of investing in post-secondary education.
“We know that it’s doable, and in doing that because other Western democracies have done it,” she said.
“We really see investments in education as investments in the economy.”
Feature image from file.
