Guelph Politicast #3.4 - Juanita Burnett, Communist Party

Both the national and provincial Communist Party have made their presence known in Guelph the last several years, and why not? It's only fitting because the party, the second oldest registered political party in the country, was started right here in Guelph in 1921. For the last several years, Drew Garvie has carried the Communist flag - as it were - in the Royal City, but with Garvie moving on to Toronto, the local Communist Party has turned to Junita Burnett to speak for the working class in the 2014 Provincial Election.

Burnett is an employee of the University of Guelph, working as a library technician, and she credits education and its treatment under the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government as the reason she got into politics. Although she's not as practiced with campaigning as Garvie, and who wouldn't be after four elections, she's no less passionate about issues concerning workers, the poor, and the disenfranchised. When we talked last week, Burnett was fresh off her first two debates and was still getting her feet wet, so to speak, as far as campaign's concerned, which was refreshing if only because sometimes, even interviewing local candidates, they know exactly what they want to say and how to say it.

Over the course of our interview, Burnett talked about the Communist Party axum "people's needs before corporate greed" and how the party intends to level that playing field. She also talked about how Tim Hudak's plan to cut 100,000 public service workers will affect people like her who are employed as frontline public sector employees, and more personally she talks about her initial experience as a candidate and why she may need to run a second time to get out the kinks.

You can stream the episode here, or download it from the source here.

The theme music for Guelph Politicast is "Volksing Ferretismico" by Goto80 and the Uwe Schenk Band from Silent Movie Pianos 1 - Action and Marches.

And as with previous podcasts featuring provincial election candidates, there's a video segment. Find out what representing Guelph at Queen's Park means to Juanita Burnett here.

The music used in the "What does it mean to you to represent the people of Guelph at Queen's Park?" video segment is "Good to Go" by Josh Woodward from The Simple Life Pt 2 available on freemusicarchive.org.

For more information on Guelph candidates, go to Elections Ontario's website wemakevotingeasy.ca.