Iveson student article raises red flag

Edmonton's mayoral race was tinted by an old-fashioned red scare on Monday.

An article written by mayoral candidate Don Iveson and published in the University of Alberta student newspaper in 1999 resurfaced Monday.

The article, which is titled "Workers of the world: repose!" (a twist on the Marxist slogan "Workers of the world unite.") appears to call for a socialist revolution through slacking off, and says workers should deny capitalists their labour through laziness.

“We must, therefore, work within the system to undermine and minimize,” Iveson wrote.

Speaking at a mayoral forum Monday night, Iveson called the article a joke.

“I wrote a lot of ridiculous things in the campus paper when I was twenty,” he said. “That's what you do in student journalism ... you provoke with over the top arguments. I don’t believe the things I said, clearly it was a joke.”

“We've reached the point in this election where I have to say I'm not now nor have I ever been a member of the communist party,” said Iveson.

Mayoral candidate Karen Leibovici seemed willing to chalk the article up to youth, saying “I think that's unfortunate – because the reality is we should be debating the issues today – not something that was written 14, 15 years ago.”

Kerry Diotte, however, appeared to take the publication more seriously.

“My competitors got to do a bit of explaining there. I know that he's talking about being pro-business and so forth, but from that column certainly it would lead people to question if that's an intrinsic value or not.”

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