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Kelly McParland: Avi Lewis lights NDP's flame of revolution

He's not just left-wing, but way off in a universe of his own

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Perhaps it’s a good thing that New Democrats selected Avi Lewis as their new leader on Sunday.

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Good for who I can’t say for sure. It’s certainly a win for those voters convinced all could be righted if only Canada’s greedy one per cent could be skinned of their assets. Perhaps less so for NDP sympathizers who believe a moderate and pragmatic left stands a better chance of achieving influence.

Kelly McParland: Avi Lewis lights NDP's flame of revolution Back to video

It definitely provides some clarity, though. During the 2025 election, the now-departed Jagmeet Singh kept claiming he was “running to be prime minister” when it was uncomfortably obvious that wasn’t going to happen. He had 24 seats at the time, out of 343 in the House, outnumbered even by the separatists. His party was an afterthought in a race between the Liberals and Conservatives. He’d been leaking support since becoming leader eight years earlier.

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By nonetheless continuing the claim he mainly created the impression he was one of two things: Either delusional, or kidding no one but himself. After two weeks on the road he finally conceded to reality, allowing that while “I would be honoured to serve as prime minister … I don’t want to presuppose the outcome of the election.”

Maybe Lewis should start straight off with that line, since choosing him as leader saves the party from pretending it expects to find itself in power. “The return of the NDP starts today!” Lewis declared in his victory speech, but as the most out-there ideologue of the candidates he defeated he’ll have a harder time convincing ordinary Canadians than he did winning over his fourth-place party. A film-maker and activist, he’s not just left-wing, but way off in a universe of his own.

His ambitions are dazzling: a Canada powered entirely by renewable energy in which everyone gets a guaranteed income, vast infrastructure projects are built to sustain the environment, farmers produce healthier, affordable, cleaner food while homebuilders concentrate on energy-efficient homes for lower income groups. All this paid for by an economy that somehow remains vibrant while its vital energy industry is crippled, jobs are lost, taxes are raised, royalties are increased, government spending balloons, the carbon tax is re-introduced and “the rich” are somehow found to have plenty of excess revenue to cover the costs.

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Voters who continue to back the NDP will now know exactly what they’re casting their ballots for. That wasn’t always clear under previous leaders. Thomas Mulcair didn’t hate trade deals or pipelines enough to satisfy party stalwarts deeply hostile to both. To the unyielding, Singh did a deal with the devil when he agreed to prop up Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, even if the decision succeeded in squeezing out some policy victories.

Small victories aren’t in Lewis’s lexicon. He wants a revolution. “This is more than a rigged economy, it is a war on working people,” he declared on Sunday. “It is immoral, it is unCanadian and we cannot let it stand.”

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Amy Hamm: Avi Lewis claims NDP leadership in front of waving Palestinian flag NP Comment

Amy Hamm: Avi Lewis claims NDP leadership in front of waving Palestinian flag

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Lewis draws much of his rhetoric and inspiration from the United States, where the infighting among Democrats has been a gift to Republicans. The Canadian left’s current heroes reside in and around New York, Boston and Vermont. They watch the excitement around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they invite Bernie Sanders to address their conventions, they share Elizabeth Warren’s call for a tax raid on “ultra-millionaires” and thrill at the success of New York’s new leftist mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Lewis claims he was championing national rent control, publicly-owned grocery stores and a tax-the-rich plan even before Mamdani. He greeted the 34-year-old’s “historic win” as “a beacon of hope and possibility — proof that a people-powered, solutions-focused, democratic socialist campaign can defeat entrenched power.”

He has also made clear that a Lewis-led NDP will offer more full-throated support for the Palestinian cause and less for Israel, demanding “no more arms sales to Israel, no more diplomatic and economic support, no more complicity with occupation and genocide.”

There is undoubtedly a community of support for his views. What’s open to question is the size of it. If anything’s been troubling the NDP since the untimely death of former leader Jack Layton, it’s been precisely the extent of that divide. Should the party go whole-hog into ideological purity, or continue wandering the desert of principle versus pragmatism in search of the magic sticky tape able to connect its idealistic ambitions with the country’s sense of the reasonable?

For better or worse, Lewis’s elevation should temper that for a while, as he tests out Canadians’ appetite for socialist axioms.

To demonstrate progress he’ll have to win some seats, starting with one for himself. Beyond that, even a return to official party status would represent headway. Outside of collapsing to Green party levels it can’t get much worse than the six seats and legislative irrelevance the party boasts at the moment. Thomas Mulcair, who Lewis claims “started the process of our undoing as a party,” won 44 seats in 2015; Lewis would be hailed as a wunderkind were he ever to match that total.

In the meantime there’s a good chance New Democrats will be more interesting, outspoken and demanding, setting up booths far from the muddled middle ground battled over by the Liberals and Conservatives. If a harder edge costs it support among less uncompromising members, it should also make it tougher for Liberals needing votes to co-opt NDP policies and claim them as their own.

It might also prompt a rethink in relations between the federal party and its far more successful provincial cousins. Conservative strategist Fred DeLorey, writing before Sunday’s vote, suggested provincial leaders “should be terrified” at a Lewis leadership. Unlike other parties, he notes, there’s no structural divide between federal and provincial parties, meaning that “every time he attacks the resource sector or champions a fringe socialist policy in Ottawa, Conservative and Liberal premiers are going to gleefully hang those quotes around the necks of every provincial NDP leader in the country.”

That won’t make it easier for B.C. Premier David Eby, already facing sliding support for his embattled government, or for Naheed Nenshi, who needs to convince Albertans New Democrats won’t arbitrarily turn off the oil taps, or for Manitoba’s Wab Kinew to defend his pledge to balance the budget as something less than heresy.

That’s for them to worry about. For committed revolutionaries Lewis’s victory represents a clear decision, a decided path for the future, and a firm manifesto. Federal New Democrats have decided what they believe, at least for now. It will be interesting to see how many elections it lasts for.

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