Introduction 

Nayantara: Hello Everyone, we would like to welcome you to our podcast “The Equalizer”. My name is Nayantara and I have beside me here, Yvette. [Hello, hello]. Yvette and I are Master’s in Public Policy Candidates at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. We would like to thank Max Bell for supporting us in creating and producing this podcast.  

Yvette: During our time at Max Bell we have learned that although policies are meant to empower people they are often ineffective in getting to the root of society’s problems. So, In the Equalizer, Nayantara and I aim to provide new perspectives, explore innovative policy-making techniques that are equitable, diverse, and inclusive, as well as the best ways to implement them.  

Nayantara: Today, we have Balarama Holness with us. A native of Montreal, Balarama Holness is a social entrepreneur and former professional football player for the Montreal Alouettes, with whom he won the Gray Cup in 2010. Balarama earned five degrees, including a Masters in Education from the University of New Brunswick, a JD, and a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University. In 2018, Balarama gained political notoriety for getting the support of 22,000 Montrealers to force Montreal's municipal government to launch a public inquiry into systemic racism and discrimination in the city. Most recently Balarama has founded Movement Montreal a political party and has decided to run for the Mayor of Montreal.   

Questions 

1. Nayantara: Welcome Balarama. To start off our conversation, could you please briefly talk to us about your life journey, the value you’ve found in your unconventional upbringing, and what led you to go into law after your time as an educator? 

Balarama: First of all, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on the equalizer. Just right off the bat, I would like to say the term “equalizer” means a lot to me. I view education as an equalizer. 

Speaking of my childhood, I grew up in an ashram,  in a very very spiritual environment where I was connected to nature. I was connected to spirituality and in many ways that is the basis for my moral compass. It is something that's based on compassion, justice, and fairness.   

So over time, as I came into the material world, and then when I encountered the way that minorities, in particular, are treated in society, the way that my father was treated by the state,  the way that I experienced education, all of those things culminated into this huge and massive concern about how I can empower myself and people that look like me.  Education became the great equalizer. So, I ended up getting an undergraduate degree in health science and geography and then I went off to do a bachelor’s of education, followed by a master’s of education. During my master’s of education, I found out that the definition of politics was very simple: who gets what. What I did is that I decided I was going to impose my intellectual signature on society. I was going to go into law to say I am going to now decide who gets what and I'm going to be the architect of society in my own right for people who are marginalized. So, I went into law and when you go into law you open the floodgates of change if you will. This is because the law is really the way that things change in society.  The combination of all that is going into politics, my educational experiences, and my travel, is now all at the forefront. This is mixed with my policies of inclusion, diversity, compassion, justice, and equity.  Now,  I am opening myself up to the world and running for Mayor of Montreal. 

2. Yvette: For a while, you worked as a teacher. Did you feel limited as an educator? By moving into politics, were you hoping to better influence policies? 

Balarama: I'm very surprised that you know that. I never really said it publicly, but one of the reasons why I went into politics and left the education system is because as an educator you are tremendously limited.  For example, the sports infrastructure in and around your schools is limited, the support for teachers is limited, and the pay is limited. Students also don't have the overall social, psychological, spiritual, and generally, holistic support needed to actually become productive members of society and to get to know themselves. 

So, I had to leave the education system in order to ensure that I govern and then support the education system, which is really the next generation. So absolutely, my influence in policy as a teacher is extremely limiting. That's why now when I'm in politics, I'm not really a politician, I am really an educator in the political sphere working to raise awareness on the issues and to tackle the issues concretely. 

3. Yvette: Before you jumped into the political sphere, you were well known for your efforts in identifying a provision in the charter that would lead to a forced public inquiry on systemic discrimination in Montreal. Could you tell us what led you to pursue this fight? 

Balarama: Well, I think what differentiates me from many politicians is that I didn't wake up one morning and say I'm going to fight systemic discrimination. Food insecurity was a reality growing up. I did not have dinner every night at 6:00 o'clock. I was part of a high school with no sports infrastructure. I was part of a high school that had poor resources when it came to academic resources. Being anglophone, yet francophone, I never felt at home in Quebec, despite the fact that I am a Quebecer. Many Quebecers, whether they have different names, skin tones, or cultures, do not feel at home. So, when I ran for office in 2017 and I was in Montreal North, those issues became magnified. This is because it wasn't just my life, it was the lives of thousands of people in the low-income borough where urban planning, unemployment, and policing were issues. 

So, like any good law student, I was actually reading the Montreal Charter, which was one of the first cities, if not the first city in North America, to have a charter. The charter said that any citizen who collects 15,000 signatures can trigger a public consultation. At the time, the provincial government had watered down their public consultation and commission on systemic racism. Despite the fact that I'm called a minority, I don't feel like a minority. I don't feel powerless. That's because I have spiritual power, a little bit of physical power (you know I played professional football),  and I have intellectual power based on my passion for education. So, when I saw this I said this is a lever and a tool that I can use to exercise the power of mobilizing people and expressing my passion for justice.  

So, I called out to the public saying, “I am going to collect 15,000 signatures to force a public consultation on systemic racism.” But, what I really meant was “to ensure that Montreal is home for everybody.” This public inquiry was to help people get a job and not be limited because of their name, skin tone, where you're from, or to feel like your culture is misrepresented. The public inquiry was also aimed to help individuals have access to a public park, and your area might not have a public park, or to be able to not have food insecurity where you don't have access to fruits and vegetables close to your home.  We launched a public consultation, where we are on the right side of history. It was a tremendous success.  

But, I'll add this in closing, you would be shocked who was against the public consultation at the beginning. Many people from minority communities, and you use the word incentivized, saw this as “he's doing this for an incentive, for his own benefit”. But, over time, and this is the message to everyone listening, never listen to the naysayers. If you know you are on the right side of history and you're authentically advancing these issues in which you do not care about activists on the left or the right and you keep going straight, you will see tremendous success. Tremendous success in the sense of we're always connected to morality and authenticity, so we're always connected to justice. That's why we have a tremendous amount of support from Montrealers because they know we are real. 

4. Nayantara: You are right. We do get the impression that people see you as real. Given the struggles you have been through in life, a lot of people see you as relatable, and they're going to hopefully vote for you to be the next person in power for Montreal. If you do get this position, how are you going to ensure that racialized individuals are going to live a life that has been different than how they've been living where they've been oppressed and marginalized? What are some policies you are hoping to support or enact once you do come in power that really reintegrates these marginalized individuals and racialized individuals? 

Balarama: I'll give you a macro answer first. There are three Rs. First, you need representation. If you're not represented at City Hall, your concerns will not be recognized. For example, there is one sports center for 300,000 people on the North East of the island. Low and behold, that's where the violence is, that's where we've had a few gunshots ring out post-pandemic or during the pandemic. That's a clarion call that social services are lacking.  

But, when you have no representation at City Hall, no one is thinking “hey they're missing sports centers. They're missing leisure and recreation infrastructure. They're missing parks. They are missing employment opportunities.” So, in other words, your issues are not “recognized” and if your issues are not recognized you don't get the third “r” which is “redistribution”. 

Montreal has a $6 billion budget and if you are not represented the issues are not recognized, and if you are not recognized you do not get redistribution. So, as mayor of Montreal, I am going to ensure that the public funds, which are really the funds of all Montrealers, go back into their pockets and go equitably into their neighborhoods. Right now there are city councilors in minority burrows with large percentages of minorities that voted against the last budget because it still marginalized these communities. We put a lot of money into entertainment and into centralized burrows.  

So, as mayor of Montreal, I would ensure that we get funding to the appropriate sources and the poor pit areas where we need actual infrastructure. This includes a range of issues including urban planning. Urban planning is a massive one and I kept coming back to the idea of green spaces of parks and access to transportation.  These are important elements in regards to the life of your borough and you need to ensure that you inject funds in. 

I'll give another concrete example of something I introduced a few days ago. We introduced free public transportation for every Montrealer under the age of 25 years old. Many cities across the world have free public transportation through and through. But you need to start somewhere, such as starting at 25, and over time you provide free public transportation for the population. Now, what does that do? You ensure that individuals on the periphery of the island are connected to the economic arteries or cultural arteries, have access to cultural spheres to employment spheres, and promote social inclusion. So that's the kind of policy that we want to advance to put money from the taxpayers back in their pockets. 

The final point on that is: what do you think everyone is going to say? How are you going to pay for it? Anytime you talk about a service that puts money back into the pockets of everyday people they always say, “how are you going to pay for it?”. They rarely say that if you say, “I'm going to create a party for the 375th anniversary for Montreal and it's going to cost a billion dollars.” That is never raised. So what we want to do is put money back in the pockets of Montrealers. The way we pay for it is through the fond vert called the economic and climate change fund. There are funds at all levels of government that with facilitation fund something like this. It cost $270 million, but we have the capacity to pay for something like this and for us, it's going to be a priority. 

5. Nayantara: It was officially announced last month that you will be in the running to become the mayor of Montreal. Previously, you ran to become the mayor of Montreal Nord. What motivated you to run again and create a political party? Was it the success behind the public inquiry and seeing the change you can make in the city? Or was politics always a place where you eventually saw yourself? 

Balarama: Yeah so that's a great point and I'm happy I’m here at this podcast to explain to you. Media will always take different angles in different things.  

I ran in Montreal North knowing I was going to not win and I was offered winning burrows. I went there because that's where inequity lies. After the election, I was very happy. I had no qualms with anything. We knew that we didn't have a lot of funding in the borough but I was still very very happy. The issue of what happened was that after the election was won, I was celebrating like I won the Grey Cup, ecstatic. I met the mayor the following day and give her a big hug. It's that they didn't say thank you. They didn't take us for a cup of coffee. We understood we were tokenized after the fact because they didn't even say, “thank you for running, we really appreciate it.” I'm so happy they didn't thank me. They could have given me a Tim Horton's double-double a small coffee sat down with me said thank you and we would have never had the public consultation. It wasn't about the fact that they didn't support us it was about the fact that they disrespected hundreds of people that actually ran and took it seriously. They saw us just as a few candidates that kind of dabble in politics. They had no clue we were serious about justice. For me, the door was closed as soon as I said I'm launching the public consultation. They were left behind in my rear-view mirror. There were way bigger issues than them not supporting our candidacy.  

Imagine the tension and negativity if I was launching a party because someone didn't support me. Oh hell no. This is long gone. You didn't say thank you and you didn't appreciate the people that actually got you into power. You know like Beyoncé would say “to the left”. We moved on and starting a political party is a source of empowerment not because we don't care about them but because we created a democratic arena for people to engage themselves and to advance quality policy. I was offered a winning seat again with another party with funding and support. I didn't take it because we want to create a party that represents Montrealers and that reflects our values. Everything I do is connect to morality it's not connected to this idea of we've been spited four years ago so we're creating something out of bitterness. No, this is out of love, compassion, and growth. Four years later we are the governors in many ways because the city has implemented multiple recommendations from the consultation that we launched. So, we are advancing this in a way of justice, power, morality, and of compassion, and that's why we have so much energy. And you hear the passion in my voice because this is love and compassion and not the fact that someone didn't support us. That's old news.  

6. Yvette: You’ve insisted that your movement is an alternative to the status quo. You’re running under the slogan “People before politics”. How do you see Mouvement Montreal protecting the interests of people, especially those who are most marginalized?  

Balarama: Because we're not here for votes. We are not vote-seeking or office-seeking necessarily. People are first. On June 15th we are going to come out and speak about systemic racism. This is not something that political parties talk about to get into office. But we are a hybrid of a community organization and political party. On paper, we are a political party but we really are a community organization. And because we are a community organization connected to the community, we have political support. So, for us, it is intuitive and second nature to reflect the interests of Montrealers, particularly those who are left unheard because we're on the ground and we know what people want. We have a party that is reflective of the people. Inclusion is not a party policy, it's who we are. 

7. Nayantara: To play devil's advocate, a lot of people go into politics thinking they're going to change the world. They think they have their priorities right and they're thinking about people before politics, but somewhere along the journey between starting off and power, they lose themselves. So what advice do you have to yourself and policymakers, so we can hold you accountable, to really stay true to people’s wishes instead of getting swayed by the politics and trying to please the people who are in power? 

Balarama: I have no advice for those people because we don't worry about that. It goes back to why we have success. If someone says you're doing this for power, or you're doing this to go to the federal government, or you're doing this because you have an incentive, or you're doing this for notoriety. OK, child bye. It's not my problem. We're focused. It's: how are we going to get green spaces in low-income boroughs? How am I going to get the Minister of Environment to endorse our 25 and under plan?  

So I like that. I'm a football player at heart also and I love when people challenge us. The devil's advocate and the challenge are great, but that's not something that we care or worry about. As I mentioned when I launched the public consultation there are people from minority communities that were against me, there were people from City Hall that thought we were going to get the signatures. I slept like a baby. I sleep really good. I sleep a solid 8 hours and I wake up sometimes so tired and I take another nap and I sleep 9 hours. So, when you're on the right side of history, you know the famous saying, Martin Luther King says it, “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.” If you're on that ark it doesn’t matter what the pundits say, it doesn't mean anything. I have some lime in my drink right now and this is more valuable to me because it's adding some acidic and some flavor to my water. That to me is more significant than someone who would give us a comment about the direction of our moral compass. It doesn't mean anything to us. We have nothing to say, “like please believe me I'm not gonna sell out if I get the power.” No, we don't have to do that. It’s not part of our conscious awareness. It’s not productive, it doesn't mean anything to us, and it's not part of the equation.  

It's funny, during the launch of the whole campaign and my announcing the day before, I wasn't nervous. I was like this is really weird shouldn’t I have butterflies in my stomach? Shouldn't I be a little bit nervous the day before I'm announcing I am running for mayor? This big deal. I wake up in the morning, I'm still not nervous. I’m saying, “what the hell, shouldn’t I be a little bit excited I am running for mayor?”. I'm walking down to City Hall, still have nothing, no butterflies,  and then I say to myself let me get a coffee before I announce maybe that will rev me up a little bit. Still no butterflies, nothing. I go, we have a press conference which lasts an hour with positive and productive energy. Then, the press conference is done and I bring my baby to the water park. Because we're there for the right reasons there is no anxiety, there is no tension. When you do that you are empowered and that's really who we are and the energy that we're going to bring.  

8. Yvette: You talk about the fact that Mouvement Montreal is, at its core, a community organization. So tell us a little bit about what it is that you hear the community saying. I'd be interested to know what you're hearing from the younger generation, people who are more likely to be disengaged from politics.  

Balarama: We have received so much positive feedback. People who grew up with me have been calling to say, “I'm so proud of you” and they can't stop saying it. Other people have also been calling me saying, “I see what you're doing and I feel like I need to level up.” So, in many ways, we feel like we already won the election. Remember when I said before we're not vote-seeking, well this is beyond politics. My father always says you go above their heads. So, if this is about morality, justice, fairness, equality, then we've won the election in so many different ways. This is coming from the people that we've already touched and the people that I encounter on the street.  

Now, this is the thing, my two opponents, also get pats on the back. So when it comes to the election and getting the vote out, that doesn't really mean much. We are getting a huge amount of support and we are getting a huge amount of people that want to see us win. But, the reality is minority votes and people who are impoverished don't vote vis-a-vis their more homogeneous and wealthier counterparts. We have a huge role to play in getting the vote out but I'm not concerned about that. What we do is advance our policies that are inclusive, equitable, just, and fair and the vote will be the nature of the vote. We let the cookie crumble as it crumbles.  

9. Nayantara: I understand where you are coming from with regards to minority individuals not voting to the same degree as their White counterparts. I think a lot of this has to do with minorities not feeling included and underconfident about their voice mattering, so why should they do it? What efforts has your campaign made to reach out to these individuals? 

Balarama: By reaching out to Montrealers, increasing the awareness of Montrealers to know that there is a third-party candidate significantly increases our chance of winning. I am of the view that if 100% of Montrealers knew who all three candidates were, we would have a real shot at winning. We have received hundreds of volunteer applications in the last two weeks, we've received about 40 applications to become candidates, and it's only been two weeks and we have a calendar of events from now up until November 7. We have done everything from walks in different boroughs, team building activities on Mount Royal, Zoom volunteer sessions, every Tuesday at 7:00 o'clock we have town halls, on Wednesday we have Instagram lives, Friday clubhouse, Saturdays we have events where we go into the different boroughs on a regular basis. For example, today, I was in Mile End. We are always doing our reach-out campaign to let Montrealers know that this is happening. We really are a ground game team. In my view the best ground game of any political party. We are already leveraging social media to the utmost of our capacity to reach out and that’s what we are going to do to ensure that we go get those new voters. Even though we know that some communities don't vote, we will do everything in our power to reach out to them to ensure that they do vote. Because our vision is long-term, we understand that this can take years. I've been doing this political grassroots movement for four years, so over time we're going to build a culture of people who do vote, who do engage themselves, and over time we are going to bend towards justice. The goal is if we get the vote out, we will win the election. It is as simple as that. 

10. Yvette: You have talked about modernizing City Hall, infusing new blood into politics, with new people and new ideas. But, how do you strike a balance between learning from the past but also bringing about innovative change? 

Balarama: It’s hard to learn from the past in Montreal because we have a past of significant corruption. There is learning from the past in regards to the civil rights movement that has yet to turn into a democratic movement. But for modernizing City Hall, I'll give you a great example. Right now if you're a small business you have to go to two or three different locations and different offices to get a business license, a permit for a terrace, a permit to change or do renovations. Modernizing City Hall is very simple in this scenario because it would require just one location for any small business to go to to get any license. That's an extremely simple solution but what happens is that because the city is stuck in its bureaucratic ways, we're stuck.  

Modernizing City Hall also means ways in which people can attend City Council. Young people do not attend City Council and for this, you need an app which you can just press play on the day that there is City Council. Also, public consultations, or the way you engage direct democracy, that's another way that you could modernize City Hall.  

There are all these kinds of ways that we could use technology, that we could use various elements of AI to understand which boroughs are most likely to not have green spaces or access to clean water. By the way, Montreal still has issues with clean water. Saint Laurent has lead pipes that don’t allow you to drink water. There are all kinds of ways we can use data and direct democracy to engage young people in City Hall. Right now you still have to go to City Hall and it's very slow-moving and it’s archaic. I've been getting the young people engaged, getting data scientists engaged, getting technological companies engaged trying to connect City Hall with Montrealers and get young people to actually pay attention to what's going on. 

11. Nayantara: Well, Balarama, we have taken up a significant portion of your day. We hope you've been having fun.  

Balarama: I always like the devil's advocate questions.  Jokes aside I really appreciate it and you both are doing phenomenal work. I hope that I was able to articulate the culture of the party today and what we're trying to do. I hope people see this is very real. When I say real, we’re not referring to other people as fake, what we're referring to when we say real is an essence of authenticity. We are not necessarily politicians. I am a father, I am a twin, I am a teacher, I am a community organizer, I am a hockey player. I want to just share the intersectional identity of what I represent. I am like any other person and I encourage people to embrace their intersectional identities, the fact that we live in a democracy, and embrace becoming not just a changemaker but an equalizer. This means that right now if the tables are unbalanced and there are certain individuals at the basement of society, being an equalizer will ultimately ensure that you are changing and turning the tables and ensuring that the balance of power becomes a little bit more equitable and the status quo changes.  I hope you all become equalizers in your own right, just like you both, and I hope that people like, share, and comment on Mouvement Montreal and that if you're in Montreal you can become a candidate, you can volunteer, you can donate, and most of all you can vote.  

12. Nayantara: Our target audience for this podcast is this new generation of young policymakers, like ourselves. What is a piece of advice that you could offer this group of policymakers, looking to disrupt the status quo and bring about innovative and creative approaches to policymaking and problem-solving?  

Balarama: Very simple, get out of your ivory tower, get off your computer, stop doing reviews of literature, and go meet people. Anybody could do reviews of literature. Anybody can write essays. Anybody can write op-eds. What you need to do is to meet people on the ground, start volunteering, go to soup kitchens, go to prisons, go to community organizations, go meet people, go engage the world, and go travel. I've lived in Egypt for a year, lived in the UAE for a year, did Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Oman, Morocco, China for three months. I speak some Mandarin, I could order some food and ask for the waiter, where I also understood what it meant to live in a communist country. I also lived in Costa Rica for a bit, a country that abandoned an army and invested in help and students. There all kinds of things to learn from traveling and experience. This all boils down to one simple thing: differentiate schooling from experience.  

Policymakers cannot just be school-driven minds. Education is the things we learn around the dinner table, at coffee shops, souks in Egypt, or whether you are walking down the street in a back alley in Montreal meeting your neighbors. This will give you the pulse of what needs to be changed and if you don't understand the pulse of the community you cannot have a differentiated policy to actually tackle those issues. So that is what I would recommend to all policymakers.  

In other words, join a community organization or Mouvement Montreal. Or,  start your own and be a social intrapreneur. Don’t go work for a big NGO or the federal government you're just going to run into the machine. Become a social entrepreneur, start an organization with a few friends, start a podcast called “The Equalizer”, get to know people, and then you're going to be able to actually advance quality policy. 

I'll give you one final thought on that, if you actually meet people who live in poverty and who are stuck in poverty, you are going to be pushing for, for example, a universal basic income. If you go work for the government and you're part of a party that does not believe in UBI then you're just exacerbating existing inequality and using a quality degree for the wrong reasons. So by connecting to people, understanding poverty, understanding the issues that are pressing in this time,  you need to be understanding what's happening on the ground. By connecting to people, by connecting to frontline workers, by connecting to people who are meat factory workers, by connecting to temporary foreign workers, whatever it may be, that is when you can implement quality policy.  

Wrap-Up 

Nayantara: Thank you Balarama. Thank you so much for those insights and we look forward to seeing you up high and mighty and making changes that we all really do appreciate.  

Balarama: Or down on the ground as humble as a blade of grass. I am not a special person I am just another person who is engaging Montreal and trying to make a difference in my own way and I think everyone has the power to do so. You got to just take the leap because you have the power within you. There's nothing special about me. I am just another person trying to advance society in the way that I can.  

Yvette: Amazing, we appreciate your authenticity, your relatability, your mundaneness. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with us and we hope we will one day get the chance to meet you in person. 

Balarama: Thank you so much! Thank you for having me.  

Nayantara: That is all we have for you today. I hope Yvette and I have highlighted some of the innovative, equitable and inclusive policymaking ideas for the City of Montreal and inspired you to think about how you can get on the ground and put people before politics.