Laverne Lewycky, NDP Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa

Why do you want this job?

I've been a member of Parliament before. I was able to help people and represent the riding at that time, it was called Dauphin-Swan River represent them in Parliament and in committee, and make a difference.

I see now that we're stuck in a situation because of the tight control of the PM over his MPs.

Messages are unilaterally sent from Ottawa to the riding, but messages from the riding do not really get heard at the cabinet or other tables like that. It's the idea of making a difference.

What's the biggest issue for the country and in your riding?

For us, because this is an agricultural riding, the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board and the potential loss of the supply management for the dairy people. I tell people that if they eat, they should be interested in agriculture.

The loss of agriculture opportunities and sales is a phenomenal loss, because the money that these international corporations are garnering from the sale of grain out of the West here means that if the farmer gets $4 a bushel and they sell it for $10 a bushel in Vancouver, the other $6 goes to shareholders who have no interest at all in the economy of this Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa area.

What would you do with the Senate?

The plan is to abolish the Senate. Now, whatever it would require, I'm sure that if there's enough will, there's a way to do it.

I think that some senators have said they're going to co-operate and work with us. When I was an MP, I could get senators to work with me.

I think that the Senate could work together with the provinces. I think they'd be on board.

We wouldn't have to really worry about any constitutional mayhem because everybody sees what's been happening to the Senate is scandalous. If we abolish the Senate, we could just work with elected people.

Winnipeg was described as the most racist city in Canada. What would you do to combat racism?

If you take a look at the history books and history profs and political sciences profs, they'll often commend Canada for being a tolerant country. I've tried to tell people the tolerance is not necessarily a virtue.

"I tolerate you" is not the most welcoming approach to people that I could give, so instead, what I'm saying is we have to have total acceptance. We have to have welcoming people as our neighbours and fostering that sense of community.

What role should the federal government play in dealing with climate change?

For some reason, Canada dropped out of the Kyoto well, I know why. It's because they're not concerned about climate change. So they dropped out of the Kyoto accord and didn't fulfilit.

But climate change has to be one of the main issues we want to address and make sure it's a priority for Canada. Everybody is concerned about what's been happening to Canada with regards to the fact that we're the only nation that is probably going to go to [the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Paris without anything that we can offer.

If there was one government policy you think is done better in another country, what is it?

There are many policies in Scandinavian countries that I really like, including other countries that have free tuition for people who are going on to university if they want to, or trades or whatever. There's no reason why we can't afford that.

Under what circumstances is deficit spending a good choice?

If you have to invest in terms of kick-starting the economy, then that could be a good choice. But the thing is, having been a consultant and having worked in government, I think I would have enough advice to give Mulcair that he could come up with his balanced budget.

What do you believe is the single most effective way to fight crime?

Well, certainly it isn't fear-mongering like what they're doing right now, starting to strip people of citizenship.

I think they would need, in some cases, more reinforcements for personnel and staff for RCMP to be able to do their work.

I think that if we had a thriving economy and progressive taxation, people would be prospering and they would not be systemically disqualified from unemployment or whatever. Then we would see crime dropping even further.

From my studies of criminology and so forth, the crime rate has been going down. I think that the current government has been presenting a lot of bogeymen and strawmen about terrorists and finding a terrorist under every tree.

What should be done about homegrown terrorism?

Proper education if we taught courses so that people would know, for example, what has been done to the First Nations.

If courses were taught about other countries and working to educate people to have a multicultural society, I think we would find that we'd be making much progress as a society.

If there was a gay pride parade in your riding, would you go? Why or why not?

We really haven't had any parades like that, so that's kind of a moot question.

We've got so many other human rights inequities with First Nations and so forth, and that's where I would be spending my attention. Always have to choose priorities;I would be choosing inequalities that we're experiencing here.

Have either your or your family had a frustrating experience with the health-care system, and what would you do to fix the problem?

I can't say that we've had a frustrating health-care experience, but what we really need is more regional centres. We need doctors and others who are willing to work in rural areas, and what that means is if they had the equipment here, doctors would be attracted to come here.

There are many who are interested. If they had adequate resources and coverage, then people would come here.

What would you do to get more people to vote?

What we would do is some of the things I have been doing.

With other parliamentarians, we've been going into the schools and talking to them about the importance of voting.

With my experience, what I've been doing is making sure that Canadian society courses were taught at a university level.

I've sponsored scholarships for Canadian students to go study in Oxford, studying there and getting it on their transcript notation that they'd also have the opportunity to go to the mother of parliaments at Westminster. That way, they heighten their knowledge and awareness of that. As a result, a number of my students ended up working in government.

What's a better use of federal dollars: fixing roads or building rapid transit infrastructure?

I think depending on the area, the needs might be prioritized in a different way, but all across Canada, I don't think of any place that has their roads in place. Even Quebec right now, they're recognizing they need infrastructure funding.But because it's been neglected for the past 10 years with Liberal and Conservative governments, the roads are in such bad shape that they really require massive funding.

And the roads that farmers need for their equipment now, there isn't an adequate supply or structure to them to accommodate all of the new equipment for agricultural services.

Would you support legalizing a small amount of marijuana? And have you ever tried it?

I've never tried marijuana or that sort of thing.

I think those are the kinds of debates and discussions we'd have to have in caucus to discuss what are the pros and cons. Some of the issues are maybe more complex than people would like to believe, and I think this is where you want to have informed caucus debate.

Some of the urban solutions that people are trying to apply to rural areas just don't work. They don't make sense. I haven't had one representation about that in all the meetings I've had so far in this campaign. It may be an issue that you're trying to raise, but if it hasn't been raised with me, I'd rather be spending my time with issues that are being raised with me, like the infrastructure, education for youth, health care for adults. Those are the meat-and-potatoes issues that we have to deal with.