"We'll be the Majority, We'll Form Government"; Advice from Janis Irwin

We sat down with Janis Irwin, both of us awestruck and eager, in Borden Park this August. It was an exciting day in both of our households with each of our parents probably more thrilled than we were. For those of you who don’t know,  Janis Irwin (she/her) is the MLA for Edmonton Highlands-Norwood, and the Critic for Women’s and LGBTQ2+ Issues; she’s also a self-described bike rider, proud mask wearer and MLGay. Basically, we think she’s pretty neat, so we sat down to ask her a few questions about who she is and what she does. 

What do you do? How long have you been doing it?

I’ll start with the easy question first, I was just elected last year in April of 2019. I’ve only been elected as an MLA since then but I’ve been in politics for a few years including running federally in the past in 2015 in this same area. Of course, I was unsuccessful in that journey but it was really a good fight and we did really well and it kept me engaged in politics. 

So what do I do as an MLA, well, lots of things. Right now we’re actually not in the legislature [since] session has ended. That’s a big part of my job; being our [Edmonton Highlands-Norwood’s] representative in the legislature; fighting for issues that matter to folks in our communities and that’s a number of things; education, health care, issues that a lot of people in our communities care about and are concerned by the direction the UCP are taking us with those issues. Another big part of my job is doing things like this; getting out and meeting community members. When somebody asks for a meeting like you did I want to do that, I want to engage with folks and I want to be there so that they know that if they do have an issue that they can come to me and that I will be their voice. Those are the two big parts of my job.

What inspires you to keep going?

I truly think the people side of things is the most powerful because everyday I’m meeting with people who share their stories. In our area [Edmonton Highlands-Norwood] alone we have folks from all different backgrounds, just a range of life experiences. I come with one perspective but it’s a privileged one, I’m a white cis-gendered woman with a lot of privlege so it’s really important to me to listen to the stories of folks who don’t come with the same experiences I do; folks who are marginalized by our systems including our political systems. So that’s how I continue to keep going is I’m energized by a lot of folks that I meet and the stories they share and the 

things that they ask of me. 

How did you initially get into politics? What can you suggest for young people like you who are interested in getting into politics?

I’d always been interested in politics, I was a high school social studies teacher and even as a kid, I was interested in politics; I didn’t know I’d be running for office, that’s for sure. So, I had been teaching in rural Alberta, obviously not too politically active out there but when I moved to Edmonton, in fact when I was living in the Highlands area a couple of things happened. First thing, I was car-free so I was running to and from work everyday and my journey would take me along 112 Avenue and then over by the Stadium LRT line. One of the things that really opened my eyes was the amount of people struggling with housing-- folks experiencing homelessness-- I couldn't understand why so many people were on the streets in our community when we are, really, a wealthy province. Long story short that led me to asking a lot of questions about housing  to our MP at the time, a Conservative guy, who I found I just wasn’t getting answers from. So that led me to get involved in federal politics and I started to think ‘we need to address some of the big issues in our areas’ that included housing. I got involved in the NDP and, like I said, I ended up running for the NDP federally in this area. And then I stayed involved with the NDP. 

So, that’s one of the things I tell folks if they’re thinking of getting involved in politics; to start getting involved with a political party. If they’re progressive and your values align with ours [the NDP]. That doesn’t mean you have to run as a candidate but you could start by volunteering on a campaign just to understand how it works. Or even on a municipal level where they don’t have a party system per se, just reaching out to a candidate asking them about their values, if your values align, and offer to help them. I know it can be daunting but I would tell anyone reading this interview to reach out. Reach out to politicians, they want to hear from you.

What can you suggest for young people who are trying to get more politically active/ into activism?

Okay, yeah, I can understand that for some young people politics (I’m using air-quotes) isn’t maybe appealing but activism takes all sorts of forms. We’re at a time right now where we need to be amplifying voices that haven’t been amplified. Black Lives Matter is a great example, that whole movement that we can be supporting. People who aren’t in the Black community, we have a really important role in showing up at those protests and supporting the movement. Or Indigenous issues, for example, getting involved in some of those causes and showing up and being there and speaking out. 

Partisan politics are only one way to be active, there are many ways to be active for sure. For me, I want to bring change at the provincial level and the best way I saw to do that was running as an MLA and hopefully getting elected, right? That time before I was an elected official it was so important to me to get behind a political party, one that aligned with my values and that was NDP. So, I like to say that there are a lot of ways to be active and to be involved and how that looks for everybody will differ. People have a lot of questions about how it looks to be active or to be an activist and there are so many ways to do that; there’s so many ways to be involved and we have to be creative.

How can young folks get more involved in their community (not necessarily relating to politics)?

Yeah, yeah, I’ve always been involved in my community and for years I lived in Highlands and I was active; that was kinda one of the first things I did. I joined the Highlands community league, I checked out the Highlands historical society. I’d been living in rural Alberta, I didn’t know a lot of people so I really put myself out there. Now, I have such a big social media platform and I know that if I amplify a local business, that’s going to have an impact, people are going to see that. You don’t have to have a platform like I do to be involved and to be active. I know how hard it can be to get yourself out there and meet new people but there’s a lot of ways to do it. Like, here, we’re in Borden Park, there was a community clean up here a couple of weeks ago; there were people who came out to that that had never been to community events before. People are really looking for that sense of community right now, especially now. This is something that I’ve talked about in the Legislature that this pandemic should really be compelling us to question the systems we have right now and how communities are supporting each other. I’m hopeful that, even though we aren’t seeing it from our current provincial government but from Grassroots members of the community, we address the issues in housing and how we can better the healthcare system; a lot of that comes from a community level and has to now. We have a provincial government that’s attacking some of these essential services that we value. 

At this point in the interview- after mentioning other interviews we’d worked on- the three of us paused to collectively praise Bashir Mohamed.

What can you say to speak to young queer people in Alberta?

I have to preface my response with saying, again, that I’m very fortunate. I had a relatively smooth experience in my own coming out, in my own journey with my own sexuality. So, I’m coming at this through this lens, and my position is a very privileged one. I do get hate, of course I do so when I get comments like “why do we need a pride?” or “why are you raising a flag?” I mean, this is why, because we still have a lot of work to do. Especially when it comes to the trans community or racialized queer people, there’s a lot of work to be done. So folks who say “oh, you don’t face discrimination, you’re fine, things have progressed,” yeah, yeah, maybe for a cis [gendered], white man things are fine right now if you’re queer, maybe but not the same if you’re 2-spirit or racialized or trans or any combination of those things. I’d tell young queer folks to not stop fighting. At any time, all that progress we’ve been making (again, there’s still more work to be done), but that progress we’ve made could be rolled back. We’ve seen that already with this UCP government, right? We saw this last year with the GSA bill. I was fortunate enough to come to Vic and see the student leaders there walking out and leading the protest. We’ve seen that a government can roll back rights, we’ve seen it happen already and I think if we’re not vigilant, they could do more of that. My message for young queer folks is to keep speaking out, keep fighting, keeping supporting folks in the community who might have different experiences than you. Amplifying voices of racialized queeer folks, of trans folks; just, really being inclusive in your queer activism.

I know a lot of people our age are interested in leaving Alberta, so why do you stay? What do you love about Alberta?

Oh what a good question. That’s so disheartening to hear that young people in particular want to leave but I’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are in that same boat. We’ve heard lots of stories, for instance, of doctors leaving this province, because this is a government that has continued to attack doctors. I’ve had artists, young artists reach out to me. I had a young queer artist reach out to me recently and just say that this is the province that he used to love and he’s choosing to leave. That’s very worrisome, I mean, we don’t want to lose doctors that’s sad and it’s terrifying, but we also don’t want to lose artists; we don’t want to lose young people;  we don’t want to lose people who are entrepreneurial and starting up businesses; we don’t want to lose teachers. I’ve had so many teachers say they’re looking for jobs elsewhere, it’s really disheartening. So, I get it if you need to leave, that you need to be somewhere where you feel safer but, for those who can stay I urge them to. We need all of these voices here to fight and to push back against this government. So in 2023-- the next election--  we’ll be the majority, we’ll form government and we get back to a province that is truly open, welcoming and inclusive.