If we could get proportional representation and open up roles for smaller parties in coalition governments, we could start intentionally breaking down the cult of personality that is one of the most distorting things about our electoral system in Canada. We had a constellation of social actors behind the Leap Manifesto. And we created something bigger than ourselves.

I personally feel very strongly that what it will take is not more disasters, it's that what it will take is a vision of the future that is better than our present.

I've always kind of hated films about climate change.

The book and the film [This Changes Everything] fed into each other in ways that were compounding and very exciting. The pain was shared.

The United States had eight years of Barack Obama. He made it incredibly clear that he was a right-wing Democrat. He cited Ronald Reagan lovingly in every stump speech for the last six months of the presidential 2008 campaign. And he made it clear that he was going to be a business-friendly Democratic president, and that he was not going to rock the neoliberal boat. And he didn't.

One of the things that could be exciting about this next phase of Canadian politics is if we could maybe have co-leaders.

If you spend a lot of time with activists, as I have, they're just ordinary people who instead of Netflix are getting together in church basements and making posters or making phone calls doing organizing work. It really is about finding a community of other people.