Burnett Tells OSG She Wants to Make a Better National Marriage Through Communism

Juanita Burnett is running for the third time to represent Guelph, and the first time for the Federal seat. She’s been the steadfast Communist candidate since 2014, in a town that literally helped found the Canadian wing of the Communist Party in 1921. Burnett was the first guest on this elections round of candidate interviews on Open Sources Guelph.

So what was all discussed during the interview? A few excerpts…

Running for MP versus MPP:

“Part of the reason I got excited federally is that we have a lot of the same things we’re fighting for: better jobs, better work, life, balance, all those things, butt we’re also looking at a new deal for all of the people that make up the country that we live in. That includes some sort of a new agreement with all of the peoples in this country, talking to all the Indigenous peoples, talking to Quebec, and we’ve been talking about it in the party as a ‘better marriage.’ So we’re not separatists, we’re not Federalists, we need to have some sort of a marriage, if you will, that’s equal and voluntary, and recognizes everybody.”

On being a communist:

“It means trying to find a way to a) get rid of capitalism, and b) to make this country, this town, this world better for more people, and I don’t think capitalism is going to do it, and I think using the name communist makes that as clear as we can.”

The priorities?

“This time, we have three main priorities. The first is jobs, wages and living standards, so a lot of the usual things that I’ve been fighting for as a communist and a lot of us work together to try and get.

Another one is peace and disarmament, which somebody made a comment when we were talking about the platform said that the danger of war is increasing, but it’s even less likely to be talked about this election.

“And the third thing is is climate change and climate injustice, and another reason why I’m proudly a communist is that it was not always on our radar, and we’ve been working hard to get better around that.”

You can listen to the full interview yourself on this week’s podcast version of Open Sources, which you can download on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.