Get to know your NDP candidate for the Courtenay-Alberni riding: Gord Johns.
Tell us about yourself
I was born and raised on Vancouver Island. I’ve got a deep attachment to the riding of Courtney-Alberni, my great grandparents got married in Cumberland.
My mom went to school in Parksville Qualicum and Port Alberni and all three of my kids were born in Tofino.
I’ve lived on the central island myself for 31 years and previous to being the Member of Parliament for Courtney-Alberni for the last nine years, I served on Tofino Council and was also the Executive director of the Tofino Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, where we were runner up for Chamber of the year out of 130 Chambers of Commerce in British Columbia.
Prior to that, I was self-employed for 15 years and served on many nonprofits, including helping create the Tofino Housing Corporation, which is a non-market nonprofit housing corporation, and I also helped create the Tofino public market and organized and coordinated Tofino Earth Day for a decade. Prior to that, I worked in hospitality and many different types of jobs as a young person.
What are you hearing when door-knocking?
What I’m hearing from people on the doorstep the most is the fact that inequality is skyrocketing. The corporate controlled parties are standing steadfast in support of the big corporations that are having record profits.
We’ve got the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7, and big corporations, big grocery, big banks, big oil and gas and big telecommunication companies are all posting record profits and the housing corporations are gobbling up residential housing.
Over 30% of residential housing is now owned by Mega Housing Development Corporations and people are sick of it.
We need real action on climate change. It’s costing people in their house insurance, their business insurance, and we need a tax system that’s fair and equitable.
We’re seeing the rich getting richer and they’re finding tax loopholes tax havens that everyday Canadians don’t have the luxury of accessing and our tax system needs to be fair.
They want to see protection of our universal healthcare system that defines us as Canadians and hiring of more doctors and nurses and recruitment.
Protecting our coast is critical. And you know, new Democrats have proven time and time again that it’s us that stand up for our coast.
So cost of living, healthcare, climate action and protection of our environment are critical and standing up to Donald Trump.
What is your position on tariffs and the trade war?
Within 72 hours of Donald Trump announcing the tariffs, I had pulled together a meeting with all the mayors in our riding, local elected chiefs, economic development officers, Chambers of Commerce and labor, and we were already in discussion of how we are going to defend our region in particular and again those connections aren’t developed overnight. Those are developed over years.
I’ve got the experience of being front and center in COVID-19, where new Democrats were able to deliver support for people, and we’re going to need to make sure people and small businesses are the center of how we respond to the tariffs.
But also, certain sectors that are being unfairly hit, like our forest sector. Those are sectors that we need to make sure that we have a comprehensive response to, but we need to make sure that we’re part of that discussion.
It can’t just be Ontario and Quebec, it has to be British Columbia and Vancouver Island and our communities have to be part of that response and we need to make sure we’ve got experienced people in Ottawa that are going to stand up for our communities and make sure that we’re getting supported workers, small businesses with counter tariffs to make sure that that money goes directly to supporting the businesses most impacted, but also we’re diversifying our economy and building resiliency.
Eliminating trade barriers within provinces and territories is a no brainer and that’s on. In the works right now, but also building and establishing new markets around the world is critical.
So, investments in expanding our relationships and making sure our tentacles are getting out there and that we’re marketing what we have in in Canada to offer the world, and of course you know building infrastructure projects across Canada that are going to make us stronger.
What are potential solutions to housing affordability and homelessness?
We know that the province of British Columbia is building half of the non-market housing in Canada, but they need a federal partner.
And in the absence of the Liberals and the Conservatives federally who pulled out of the National Housing strategy 34 years ago, we need the federal government to get back into the building of non-market housing.
So building housing that is Co-op housing, seniors housing, non-market housing so that people have safe secure housing, making sure that we end homelessness as rapidly as possible, using models like tiny homes, various models to eliminate homelessness in an affordable way.
We know it’s much more costly for people to be homeless on the taxpayer than it is to ensure that people have housing.
We’re seeing models in our riding, like the tiny home project in Port Alberni, like second stage housing that we’re seeing throughout our riding being built and developed and people are moving into those areas and it’s making a huge impact already on their lives and on those communities.
Housing for workers also is good for the local economy and making sure that we stop the corporate takeover of our neighborhoods by banning the corporate entities from purchasing more affordable housing.
Building tenant protections, rent control across the country and tenant protection measures is critical, but it’s important we build non-market housing.
What would you do about cost of living pressures in your riding?
We need to make sure that we have a fair tax system that works for people, not one that creates tax advantages for CEO’s, wealthy Canadians, big corporations, closing the tax loopholes, charging an excess profit tax on the out of control excessive greed and profits of big grocery, big banks, big oil and the big telecommunication companies that is driving inflation in this country right now and having a huge impact on people’s lives, especially seniors and people living on disabilities and people on fixed incomes.
So better support for seniors using those tax revenues to improve the lives of everyday Canadians and expanding dental care, pharmacare and building non-market housing is critical.
So, lowering taxes for everyday people but increasing taxes on those that have done well.
We’re saying this, but people who’ve taken risks that have done well, they can afford to pay a little bit more. And the big corporations that are gouging Canadians and having record profits they need to be also paying more in taxes and we have the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7 and it’s not working for people.
Right now we need balance and we’re out of balance.
What do you think is the most important issue for the area and why?
Right now, the threat of Donald Trump is the most important issue to all Canadians.
Canadians want to see that they have an elected representative, that’s going to stand up for them. That they’re not going to be left behind.
That our response needs to be one in solidarity. One where we support buying Canadian and building an economy that is diversified and will strengthen our communities and make us stronger and leveraging this terrible situation that we’re in with our best friends and turning it into one of opportunities.
What we’re hearing from people across the board is that the threat to climate action, the threat to an economy that works for everybody, is all being threatened by Donald Trump.
Are there any final thoughts on any topic that you would like to share?
This isn’t an entry level job.
I got into municipal politics after serving on multiple organizations serving in service to my communities and proved myself at the local government level, and without that experience, I would not be even close to as effective as I’ve been at the federal level, so to see people stepping up and putting their name forward without even serving in local communities, or contributing to making their communities stronger, it’s disappointing.
We need people with experience at a time right now and it’s a very complicated system and it is hard to get things done and it requires people who have some sort of knowledge on how to maneuver in a in the political system that we have right now.
People need to present their ideas and defend them and not showing up for debates, for example, it’s a job interview making sure that you can show up and defend questions in a public forum, or to be able to take questions from media that are difficult, those are just standard requirements of any candidate.
