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Tasha Kheiriddin: Avi Lewis could spoil the Liberals' chances next election

The NDP could provide a new home for left-wing voters disgruntled by Carney

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It’s back to the future for the NDP — and then some. Last weekend the party elected 58-year-old filmmaker Avi Lewis as party leader. During his campaign, Lewis pledged to impose a wealth tax, stop oil and gas exploration, implement national rent control, and set up public grocery stores. Ed Broadbent, the NDP leader who wanted to nationalize banks back in the 1970’s, would be proud.

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As would Lewi’s grandfather and his late father, who died Tuesday morning, who respectively led the federal party and its Ontario wing in years past. And Lewis’ late mother, Michelle Landsberg, an outspoken feminist activist and writer. Lewis has socialism in the blood.

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I know this personally, having worked with Lewis 25 years ago, when he was hosting the CBC debate program, counterSpin. Lewis was a nice guy, hardworking, charismatic and dedicated to his craft. He was as left-wing as it gets, but respected those with different views. He was a natural politician, even then.  It’s not hard to see why he managed to win 56 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, despite being an outside candidate twice defeated in previous runs for office.

But not everyone’s a fan. Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi immediately took his distance. “It is clear that the direction of the federal party under this new leader, someone who openly cheered for the defeat of the Alberta NDP government, is not in the interests of Alberta.” Saskatchewan NDP leader Carla Beck has refused to meet with Lewis unless he changes his position on resource development.

The two provincial parties have bitter memories of Lewis’ Leap Manifesto, an anti-oil-and-gas screed that he published with his wife, author Naomi Klein, in 2015. Lewis’ position is just as radical today, calling for an end to fossil fuel production and billions in spending on green energy.

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And in 2026, that’s a problem. Energy sovereignty has become job one as governments grapple with oil and gas shortages caused by the war in Iran. It’s great to go green, but not when your people have no heating oil or can’t afford to fill up their car.

Under Lewis, the federal NDP threatens to have limited appeal to working class, union-card-carrying Canadians. It will appeal to idealists and those who have nothing left to lose, ie Gen Z voters disgruntled with the Boomer-beloved federal Liberals. That generational divide is the same one the federal Conservatives are mining, on the other side of the political spectrum. In fact, Lewis could help the Tories by shunting young union voters to the right.

Lewis could also help Carney by making the Liberals look eminently reasonable. His proposals are like the Liberals’ industrial policies on steroids: government-owned telecom providers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and housing developers. He wants to overhaul public health care from cradle to grave, and send the bill to the one per cent, taxing inheritances over $5 million, taxing capital gains like income, and ending corporate and fossil fuel subsidies.

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Lewis is clearly channeling New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who roared to victory on a similar socialist platform earlier this year. However, Mamdani was running for Mayor, not Prime Minister. Lewis must field candidates across Canada under a first-past-the-post electoral system. He needs to win at the riding level, and it won’t help him to have a million committed supporters spread thinly across the country.

The party with the most to lose in the wake of Lewis’ victory may be the Greens. If Lewis can co-opt their vote and graft it to what’s left of the NDP, he could possibly grow his party beyond its current six seats. It also means that Carney needs an absolute majority, as he could never rely on such a hard left party for support, particularly at budget time. The next election — whenever it comes — just got a lot more interesting.

Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.

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