When not snickering at it, commentators have largely dismissed the current NDP leadership race.

They point out, correctly, that the party got wiped out last spring, winning only seven measly seats in Parliament — barely enough to fill a golf cart, not enough for party status.

So the NDP is a dud. Case closed. After all, nothing ever changes in politics. Right?

Except, for instance, in 1993 when the Progressive Conservatives were slashed from a majority to two paltry seats in Parliament — just enough to fill all seats on a bicycle built for two.

I’m not willing to conclude Prime Minister Mark Carney’s grip on Canada is forever.

Rather, I’d predict that several years from now, in the post-Trump era, Carney’s shift to the right won’t sit particularly well with millions of centrist and progressive Canadians who will still be struggling with “affordability.”

What the NDP urgently needs is a leader who can address this key issue of “affordability” — another way of saying ordinary people don’t have enough money to get by.

It really boils down to class politics, which used to be the NDP’s bread and butter. And it’s a realm where Avi Lewis, the leading contender for the party leadership, excels.

Both Liberal and Conservative governments continue to deliver the familiar pro-market, anti-worker policy grab-bag — tax cuts for the rich, social spending cuts, privatization, austerity and weaker labour laws.

We’ve long been told this policy mix would create great wealth, which would then trickle down.

The wealth creation happened, but almost nothing trickled down.

In fact, that’s what’s driving the “affordability crisis.” The economy is generating lots of wealth, but it’s all going to the top.

Right-leaning politicians want us to blame immigrants, when in fact it’s billionaires who’ve made off with the money.

Or as Avi Lewis nicely puts it: “They want us to keep punching down, so we don’t look up.”

Despite its shortcomings, trickle-down economics remains today’s prevailing dogma, and anything outside its box is dismissed as unserious by leading commentators, or, as Lewis dubs them, “the very serious people who decide what’s serious in this country.”

NDP leadership candidates pitch their rebuilding plans to voters in final debate

Lewis exudes a kind of left-wing populism, which is at odds with prevailing dogma — just like Tommy Douglas in the 1960s when he established public health care in Saskatchewan. “It was a giant idea that was outside the box,” says Lewis.

Of course, ideas outside the box face fierce opposition, as Douglas discovered when Saskatchewan doctors staged a 23-day strike.

Lewis could certainly expect fierce opposition for his plan to introduce a wealth tax, aimed at the super-rich, even though wealth is more concentrated at the top today than ever in our history.

Also in defiance of prevailing dogma is Lewis’s call for more public ownership, even though public ownership can be an effective, pragmatic solution. For instance, a publicly-owned grocery store, like the one advocated by popular New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, would be an excellent way to address our affordability crisis — and be no more alien to our way of life than our publicly-owned liquor stores.

Lewis also recognizes Ottawa needs to be much more assertive in moving Canada off fossil fuels and onto clean energy — which puts him clearly at odds with Big Oil and Carney, but also somewhat at odds with Alberta MP Heather McPherson, the only parliamentarian in the NDP leadership race.

Lewis ran for Parliament twice and failed to get elected. But so did Jack Layton, who went on to lead the NDP to its biggest victory of 103 seats in 2011. And Progressive Conservative John Diefenbaker failed to get elected four times before becoming prime minister in 1957.

Lewis has a likeable, good-natured way about him, and his spirited embrace of left-wing populism — very much in the mould of his feisty late grandfather, former NDP leader David Lewis — is just what’s needed in this era of obscene wealth inequality.

This article was originally published in the Toronto Star.

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