Seven Oaks Magazine.

In one of his first public appearances since he became a Liberal candidate for Parliament, former British Columbia premier Ujjal Dosanjh addressed and fielded questions from a small group of university students last Thursday.

Prime Minister Paul Martin announced the appointment of Dosanjh, who led the New Democratic Party to near-extinction in the last provincial election, as the Liberal Party's nominee for the riding of Vancouver South on April 1. Since then, critics of the move have called Dosanjh a "turncoat" and complained that he was "parachuted" in by Martin.

At Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, the former premier told almost 20 students he switched political parties because "there is a right wing coalescing of the forces," and he wants to "make sure that we have a continuing progressive government in Canada."

The roundtable discussion was organised by the Liberals' youth wing. Bill Cunningham, provincial president of the federal party and a candidate for its nomination in the NDP-held Burnaby-Douglas riding, also attended.

Seven Oaks kicked off the question period by following up on Dosanjh's comments about his new political affiliation: "What do you say to your former NDP colleagues who say you sold them out and maybe sold out your own background of political activism?"

"I think that it's a matter of principles and following your principles; it's not a matter of political labels," Dosanjh answered, restating previous comments he's made to the press. "I looked at the federal politics, and I looked at the fact that while the NDP advocated some positions, the federal Liberals adopted most of those positions over the years and actually implemented them in government. And, I think that I'd rather be in - implementing progressive policies - than be out shouting at the government."

He added: "Under the circumstances today - when you have a coalescing of the forces on the Right - any vote for the NDP is a vote for Harper. And, I just think that's wrong. Not to criticise my former colleagues."

Dosanjh had much to say on other issues, but had little to offer in the way of plans or commitments. Here's a sampling of his views on several issues:

I would really like to see the day in Canada when you have at least the good, solid beginnings of a national childcare program. I know there was some money given to early childhood education in the last budget. One of the things that you may have noticed is there are no tax cuts in the new budget, which is important because I think that we need to try and make some more investments in our social safety net.

That would be the most important thing, in my mind, because that then fits in with having the best education system in the world. Early childcare is sort of an equaliser, in many respects. As we generally say, education is an equaliser in society. Early childhood development is part of that equalisation, and that's very important.

I believe in British Columbia, in particular, the most important need - in addition to the urban issues - is the need for treaties. Because as long as there are no treaties, there is not much economic development. I think what you need is economic development amongst the First Nations people. It's not going to happen without the treaties. That would be the big push in British Columbia, and the federal government recognises that.

In terms of the other issues, we have to have a national Aboriginal strategy that deals with the Aboriginal people in urban centres, the poverty in urban centres in places like Vancouver. . . .

When I was the premier, I brought Ed John into government - unelected, not in the legislature - and I made him a full cabinet minister dealing with the ministry of children and families. You know how difficult that ministry is. We did that because a disproportionately large number of children in care are Aboriginal children. I think the inclusion of First Nations people across the country in government is very, very important. Paul Martin - the way he's focused on this issue - I'm hoping that if we can elect some Aboriginal people from across the country, I'd like to see them around the cabinet table. Big change.

I know there's been anti-French language sentiment in some parts of the West, and I just think that's so unproductive, so counterproductive. We talk about multiculturalism, and as a minority, I'm quite sensitive to that. We talk about different traditions and different cultures coming together to make this one big Canadian culture unique. Similarly, French language is part of the Canadian identity. We need to feel proud of that and say, "You should learn it," and provide resources for it.

I think what you really need to do is do a total reform of the system. If doing a total reform of the system, as Prime Minister Martin wants to do - providing a strong role for the committees and members of Parliament, more free votes - in the context of all of that, if you think proportional representation is a good thing, I think you should seriously think about that. I believe that it's a very popular thing to say nowadays, "We should have proportional representation."

But I just want you to look at the Italian experience and unstable governments - governments changing every six months for a number of years. I believe Canada has a system of government that provides it with a very stable form of government. Yes, it needs to have some reforms; it needs to have some changes. I do not know at this point whether or not it needs a kind of fundamental change that proportional representation means.

I'm also very much interested in making sure Canada plays a lot more significant role internationally. In the last six or seven years, our role has diminished. Part of the reason obviously is that we don't have the military that we used to have. We need to have a stronger military, so that we can actually play a more significant peacekeeping or peacemaking role. I only think of the military in that sense. But even for that, as you know, we're already stretched with respect to Afghanistan. So, I think we need to have a stronger military base to ensure that with all the progressive policies that Canada has had from the days of Pearson and others, that we can actually then back that up with our military presence for peacekeeping.

If you're going to have the United States of America engage in missile defence, you want to be at the table, and you want to make sure you have input - particularly when you're being invited. I think you should continue to maintain your position, which is that we don't want weaponisation of space. There is an argument as to whether or not this is weaponisation of space. I happen to believe it's not. . . .

To say that you shouldn't be at the table when you might have missiles flying around over our airspace, in terms of defending either us or the U.S. itself, that is absolutely an irresponsible position. I think we should be at the table, and I think we should be ensuring that there is no weaponisation of space. But if you don't have the financial backbone and the financial resources, you only have so much influence in the world. Whatever influence we do have, we should try and exert that influence.

Our defence strategy is so integrated with the U.S. Whether it's Norad or NATO or others, we're part of all of those organisations, and it's not true to continue to say that somehow that by being at the table you lose sovereignty. Canadian sovereignty is well in place. We aren't in Iraq; our soldiers aren't dying.

Injustice is wrong, and terrorism is wrong; both of them are wrong. One might argue injustice breeds terrorism. It's a chicken and egg proposition, and we'll be here all day talking about that. But I have always said violence is absolutely unacceptable, and I believe that. I had to fight against violence within the ethnic community which I belong in the '80s, and I stood up to that. I believe that violence is not going to resolve the problems across the world; it will simply continue to spiral into more violence, and we're seeing that. There's no question about that. . . .

When we use words and phrases, such as, "This is a war that the civilised war has to fight, the free world has to fight" - when you use that kind of language you begin to demonise the 'other.' I think that's absolutely unproductive, counterproductive, and it does nothing but demonise the 'other.' When you demonise the 'other,' which is a significant group in the world - no matter what group it is - you're not going to have peace. I was speaking in Surrey a couple of weeks ago to a diversity awards dinner, and I said exactly that publicly.