“Last federal election, we got our asses handed to us”: Avi Lewis on how he plans to rebuild the NDP
The party’s new leader says he can tackle poverty, imperialism, climate change and plutocracy. But, first, he must return the NDP to relevance
March’s NDP leadership race was described as a battle for the soul of the party. What does your victory tell us? This battle plays out every few years, when people frame the NDP as a choice between the “radical” left and a centrist approach. Look back to 2015. As the NDP moved to the centre, Justin Trudeau got elected by passing us on the left. For us, the question became, “Did we lose focus on the central tenets of our politics?” I believe we need to move back to the left, but I also don’t believe in communicating these things in ideological language. Regular people don’t experience politics that way. It’s pretty clear that the current system works for the one per cent. The NDP needs to become the party of the 99 per cent.
Of all the leadership candidates, you were considered the most radical. Is that how you see yourself? In Canada, we’re trapped in a story. Our prime minister drops a defence industrial strategy that proposes half a trillion dollars of new public spending on weapons and war over the next decade, which would change the culture of this country and its role on the world stage. But nobody describes his proposal as “radical.” Then, when we propose a public grocery option—a network of 50 state-owned-and-operated, Costco-style grocery stores that would cost $300 million a year and would slash Canadians’ bills by up to 45 per cent—the right screams, “Look out! The socialists are coming!”
I want to go back to the 2025 federal election, when the NDP had an extremely poor showing. I think you mean we got our asses handed to us. Voters, particularly progressive voters, were animated by a fear of Donald Trump. People flocked to Mark Carney as the person who could save us. For many progressives, Pierre Poilievre was seen as Trump’s analogue here, and Canadians didn’t see the NDP as a viable option. In that unique historical moment, we weren’t able to make the case that Canada needed a good multi-party system.
I think a lot of left-wing voters felt like, if you weren’t voting Liberal, you were clearing the way for a Conservative victory. Yes, but that narrative doesn’t reflect the truth. Canadian voters are Charlie Brown, and the Liberal party is Lucy with the football. Over and over again, they vote for the seemingly progressive choice that they believe has the best chance to win. The Liberals get your vote, and then they yank the football away. Now they’re slashing billions in social spending, laying off tens of thousands of public sector workers and spending billions on weapons. They’re focused on extractive projects that will double down on Canada’s shipping of raw resources overseas. This does not sound like the progressive option. And this is the great challenge for the NDP. How do we start telling a new story, so that Charlie finally gets to hoof it through the uprights?
Is that a rhetorical question? No. We need a clearly defined platform that the Liberals can’t come and grab when it’s to their advantage. It’s happened in the past: we push pharmacare and dental health care, and then the Liberals get all the credit. We need to distinguish ourselves. So we’re advancing bolder, more ambitious policy solutions that are actually as big as the crises we face. Instead of summoning Galen Weston Jr. to a parliamentary committee and begging him to ease up on grocery prices, we’re talking about public ownership to effectively break up the monopoly. The Conservatives say they’re going to bring down the cost of groceries by cutting taxes. But there’s barely any tax on food. Come on, Pierre! And what are the Liberals doing? They’re talking about other things.
Such as? I’m trying to say this without being excessively negative, because I don’t believe in that kind of politics, but I am shocked by how the Carney government is operating in this moment. It’s pursuing a bunch of massive fossil fuel and military projects while cutting regulation, which is exactly what the Trump government is doing and what corporations and tech giants call for. Other countries have chosen a different path, but Canada is not even considering that.
Related: Avi Lewis, a democratic socialist from Toronto, is the new NDP leader
Are you saying that Canadians are going to wake up one day and wonder what happened to our values? I do worry about that, but what I’m saying here is that our government appears to have forgotten that Canadians can’t afford groceries, gas, phones, internet and health care. That’s what the government, regardless of the party in power, should be focusing on. It’s the NDP’s opportunity to offer a clear diagnosis of why life is so grindingly unfair and then to offer solutions in plain language that make sense to Canadians. We must speak about using the immense wealth in this country to directly solve the crises of everyday life. People are angry. They sense the utter unfairness of our system. Conservatives harvest that anger and turn it against marginalized groups such as immigrants and trans kids, turning us against one another. The Liberals, meanwhile, just try to distract people.
I think a lot of Canadians are attracted to the sobriety and stability of Carney’s brand. Absolutely. And I think his victory is one of tone over substance. His tone is calming and technocratic. He’s a very smart guy. I think that’s why he’s so popular right now. But he’s also doubling down on a bunch of things that make us less safe.
While campaigning, Carney distanced himself from his predecessor’s policies, and he skyrocketed in the polls. Why would Canadians vote for policies that are more socialist than those of Trudeau? Critics dismiss the NDP as radical when we propose the use of public resources for the public good. Yet a supermajority of Canadians support head-to-toe health care, for example, because caring for our eyes, teeth and mental health should be a staple of our public system. When people say such a proposal is too expensive, they mean that it doesn’t make money for the billionaire class. If our public health care covered every part of your body, and if it were supported with adequate funding, privatized health care would no longer be a boon to Galen Weston Jr. and the bankers on Bay Street. Politics is really about how we deploy the immense wealth of this country. The solutions aren’t secret.
Despite the Liberal shift to the right, in March, NDP MP Lori Idlout joined Carney across the aisle. What does that tell you? Lori comes from Nunavut and is responsible to her community, which is a largely Indigenous society that doesn’t have traditional loyalties to colonial parties of the colonial state. That’s just a fact. She may feel that she can deliver more benefits to her community as part of the Liberals than as part of a small party on hard times. The NDP has lost its base, and we need to build it back. My campaign tried to do that by acknowledging the emergency instead of selling the leader.
You mean like Trudeaumania? Yes, like Trudeaumania, but it’s also what the NDP did with our former leader, Jagmeet Singh, who was initially very personable and popular. Jack Layton also had that charm, and those are important qualities in a politician. But I think what we really need right now is ideas, and that is what we are putting forward.
I forgot to mention to our readers that you are the scion of the Lewis family, a Canadian socialist dynasty. I’m curious if there was a moment of youthful rebellion where you threatened to run off and join a consulting firm? No, I rebelled against my family by partying too much as a teenager. I had both ears pierced. I snuck off to Larry’s Hideaway to see Teenage Head. That’s when I came of age. Toronto in the late ’70s was an incredible time for new wave music. Then, in the ’90s, I wore a lot of regrettable shirts when I was a host on MuchMusic.
You’ve talked about the need to reconnect with the working class and suburban voters. Poilievre has you beat there, no? To his credit, Pierre talks a lot about how unfair everything is: people using food banks and sleeping on the streets. He’s Mr. Diagnosis. But his solutions are just cutting taxes and reducing government, which is not going to help anybody. When you see him in coveralls and a hard hat on the shop floor, he’s projecting a 1950s picture of working class guys. Don’t get me wrong—people working in skilled trades are extremely important. But the majority of Canada’s working class now lives in the suburbs: men and women from racialized communities, many of them working in the service and retail sectors and doing gig work. The Conservatives don’t play to that side of the working class—those people need things like national rent control and data rates that aren’t 1,000 times more expensive than those of people in Finland.
Has the NDP aligned itself too closely with the downtown elite? That’s more of a stereotype, not my experience. I currently live in Vancouver, and there are many NDP seats on Vancouver Island that are not downtown. Some of the communities are semi-agricultural; others are coastal tourism towns. Also, the NDP hasn’t won a federal seat in Toronto since 2011.
Are you hoping to? Rumour has it that you may be eyeing the seat opening up in Beaches–East York. Anything you want to announce? No. I am not in a hurry to get to the House of Commons. After a devastating defeat like the last federal election, we need to focus on rebuilding. That happens by getting out, connecting with our supporters and restocking our war chest. Not everything in federal politics happens in Ottawa.
If you do end up back in Toronto, what would you be most excited about? Toronto, for me, is about family and food. My mom and one of my sisters are there. All my oldest friends are there. So I love to get back to Toronto. And, I mean, the restaurant scene! I’m very loyal to certain places.
What’s your top spot? I love Yueh Tung at Dundas and Elizabeth, Canada’s OG Hakka restaurant. It’s an incredible family story, and the Manchurian chicken is to die for. I first went there when I was working as a reporter for City TV. I learned to always feed my camera guy whenever I covered a news story at city hall.
What are the political advantages of winning in Toronto? Breaking the Liberal stranglehold on Toronto is important. If a leader won in Toronto, a lot of other seats would come into play. You know, I have so many memories of Toronto. I have great fondness for the city and would love to represent a riding there. But I also fell in love with BC, and I’ve lived out here for most of the past 20 years. Both cities are home to me.
Your wife, Naomi Klein, is a famous author, and you’re a documentarian with ties to the CBC. Do you worry that you may not pass the “person you want to have a beer with” test? I struggle with this. It’s easy to make assumptions about someone based on their bio. Then you meet them, and they say “fuck” a lot, and they have weaknesses.
You say “fuck” a lot? Oh, I swear all the time. I want to be my authentic self, which means being the same no matter the surroundings. I love people. As a journalist of 20 years, it was my job to connect with people and make them feel safe enough to tell their stories. Sometimes I wish I could put an end to these bad faith accusations of elitism by hanging out with every person in Canada. So I guess the clock is ticking.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
