Avi Lewis, the federal NDP's new leader, speaks at the party convention in Winnipeg on Sunday.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Brian Topp was president of the federal NDP and a national campaign director under Jack Layton. He was chief of staff to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, deputy chief of staff to Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, and served as provincial campaign director in B.C. (2013) and Manitoba (2023).
Whenever and wherever U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up in Minneapolis this past winter, citizens pulled out their whistles – warning away the targets of U.S. President Donald Trump’s violent masked paramilitaries. Demonstrators attempted to block ICE from carrying out its work, while others served as witnesses, videotaping the agents to show their behaviour to the world. Lawns were carpeted with handmade anti-ICE signs. And many businesses had notices in their windows stating ICE agents would not be welcome.
It was a determined, community-based, and inspiring example of a fired-up mass popular resistance. And it worked. Mr. Trump blinked once again.
By electing Avi Lewis as leader on Sunday, the federal New Democratic Party is placing a bet that Canadian voters can be fired up just like that, to join a similar campaign of mass popular resistance against Liberal and neo-liberal Canada.
New NDP Leader Avi Lewis faces a complex political dynamic in rebuilding party
But first Mr. Lewis is going to have to demonstrate a subtle, wise and inclusive touch in the cause of keeping his own party together.
His policy priorities are clear.
Out with Canada’s electoral system – proportional representation will now be the NDP’s only demand should Canadians give the party the balance of power in Parliament.
Out with Canada’s resource economy – hitting the brakes on Canada’s jobs engine in favour of clean and green.
Out with Canada’s tax system, with its undertaxed billionaires and business owners.
Out with Canada’s current fiscal policy: bold policy requires bold public spending and bold deficits.
Out with Canada’s market-friendly social policies: pieces of the banking, housing, and grocery industries would be the first candidates to be brought into the public sector.
Out with Canada’s current foreign and defence policy. Countries who engage in evil must be called out and berated. And out with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to ramp up military spending, which seems to be aimed at buying Canada’s place in a mutual-defence pool with other middle powers. This must be set aside in favour of other priorities, including whatever is happening in Ukraine or with Mr. Trump.
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It just might work, some of this. At least a little better than what the federal NDP was trying to do under Thomas Mulcair and Jagmeet Singh, a period in which the federal NDP lost over 90 per cent of its seats.
In 2017, the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn won 40 per cent of the vote and 262 seats with a similar offer. Mr. Lewis’ “for the many, not the money” slogan is an awkward edit of Mr. Corbyn’s “for the many, not the few” offer. France’s La France Insoumise, the German Green Party, Podemos in Spain, and Syriza in Greece all had similar breakthrough elections in the past decade or so. The federal NDP is now hoping to light those kinds of fires here.
None of this, however, is in any way how the NDP has actually conducted itself when in power or close to it – as the NDP currently is in most of Canada’s provinces and territories. Territorial and provincial New Democrats are, generally speaking, proponents of responsible resource and industrial development, aiming to create jobs for working people. The NDP in office is generally far more fiscally prudent and responsible than their fiscally care-free Tory opponents. And nowhere has the NDP introduced proportional representation. Also, unlike their federal cousins to date, the NDP’s territorial and provincial wings regularly get elected.
None of this is in line with Mr. Lewis’ views. And now that he is federal leader, the NDP’s opponents across Canada are no doubt hoping he will use his new pulpit to cripple his own increasingly successful provincial cousins.
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Clearly, that worries some of them. Carla Beck, leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, greeted Mr. Lewis’ election by releasing a letter refusing to meet with him until he reconsiders his approach to job creation and resource issues. Naheed Nenshi, leader of the Alberta NDP, underlined that he is not a member of the federal NDP and in as many words urged his fellow Alberta New Democrats to follow his lead.
Another challenge: some of Mr. Lewis’ strongest supporters will complicate his efforts to manage all of this. As Jason Kenney did on the right in Alberta, Mr. Lewis took advantage of the federal NDP’s comatose weakness to mobilize its most pur et dur members and critics. Judging by their online chatter, some of these people want to take a blowtorch to the NDP’s provincial cousins, and to the NDP’s tiny bench of activists with campaign experience. They will make it more difficult for Mr. Lewis to find common ground in his party, should he want to. (As a footnote, Lewis family supporters framing themselves as the NDP’s “anti-establishment grassroots” is the single funniest thing I’ve heard this year).
If Mr. Lewis navigates these challenges, he might have an opportunity. Canadians, after all, take a new look at their political leaders and their options every election. Therefore, every election is a new start and a new opportunity. The B.C. NDP, lest we forget, was reduced to two seats in 2001 and is now heading into its tenth year governing British Columbia.
But to get there, Mr. Lewis is going to need to find a way to appeal to working-class voters in urban, rural and northern Canada. And he is going to have to find a way to avoid lighting the wrong kind of fires within his own party.