As federal election day approaches on April 28, candidates across the country are sharing their visions for Canada’s future. In Manitoba, residents will vote in the 14 electoral districts for their next Members of Parliament.
U Multicultural contacted all parties running in Winnipeg in this year’s election.
In Winnipeg South Centre, Cam Scott is running under the banner of the Communist Party of Canada. Scott envisions working collaboratively with other left-leaning MPs in Parliament, with his primary goal of shaking up the status quo on housing.
“We need to see millions of units of publicly owned housing created, from coast to coast. Certainly, in Canada, there’s an acute housing crisis. Everywhere in Winnipeg, the numbers are staggering. You know, the conservative estimates are several thousand. It’s often an invisible problem because precarious housing doesn’t always manifest at street level, but there are many people who are couch surfing and being evicted from very, very short-term rentals.”
He says a potential solution is federally subsidized rent geared to income public housing. “It’s been a long time since the federal government invested in high-quality public housing.”
Scott emphasizes that housing ties into a larger conversation of economic issues, linking the cost-of-living crisis to broader systemic problems intensified by the ongoing threats of tariffs.
“The present recessionary crisis is going to be brought about by these tariffs. And you know, they’re changing by the day. It’s so erratic, it’s very hard to track, this, this cudgel that the tariffs have become is only the sequel to years and years and years of acute, acute crises of grocery prices, rents, you know, people can’t afford food and fuel,” he says. “Our vision for Canadian economic and political independence will be based in public ownership and, you know, good value-added jobs in the public sector in Canada, investment in this area that we haven’t seen for decades, decades of rollback and austerity and privatization. We know that the government has the power to take food, fuel, and rents these prices in hand. They’ve done it before.”
Despite the party’s small size, Scott explains it has long contributed to Canadian Politics. As the second oldest party in the country, Scott says the party played a role in building the trade union movement and initiating employment insurance and projects that “are as yet unfinished today and need to be extended still.”
Climate policy is another cornerstone of Scott’s campaign. He calls for a “just transition” away from fossil fuels by nationalizing the energy sector, creating light rail transit, and investing in renewable energy.
“We are on the precipice of catastrophic climate change, and we don’t believe that a serious climate plan which would involve pivots to solar energy and many other sorts of more innovative practices could be possible without nationalization.”
While recognizing strategic voting pressures, Scott encourages voters to consider alternatives and vote their convictions.
Canadians will vote in the 45th General Election on Monday, April 28, 2025. According to estimates, 7.3 million electors voted at advance polls.
U Multicultural contacted all parties running in Winnipeg. As of this article, the only other candidate to respond was Gary Gervais, running for the Green Party in Winnipeg Centre.
– Ryan Funk, U Multicultural
