This op-ed was originally published in The Hill Times
Avi Lewis is about to sail the New Democratic Party out of the doldrums, and it will be fun to watch.
The prohibitive frontrunner has proven himself a tremendous organizer during this leadership race to succeed Jagmeet Singh at the helm of the NDP.
He’s also shown a lot of energy and spunk with ideas—both good and not so good—in endless supply.
It’s what he does next that will determine whether he can succeed in his efforts to keep tacking left while still managing to steer the party back to relevance, without ever correcting course.
The NDP was born on the Prairies. Called the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) at its inception during the toughest times of the depression, it has always stood out.Bottom of Form
The NDP is cut from different cloth than the Liberals and Conservatives, in the most literal sense: its founders didn’t wear pin-striped suits, many were men of the cloth.
One of those founders, J.S. Woodsworth, was an ordained minister who, today, would be described as putting forth a social gospel. He’d ask: what good is it for me to save a man’s soul if he can’t put food on the table to feed his family?
The CCF was a political party, but it was first and foremost a movement. A particularly Canadian movement.
Those tough times were met by equally tough leaders. Tommy Douglas would head a series of CCF governments in Saskatchewan and from there he went on to help found and then lead the new party, the NDP, in the early 1960s.
Saskatchewan was the first province to bring in Medicare. Again, personal experience and beliefs played a key role: when he was a child, Douglas had needed medical treatment his parents couldn’t afford, and received it from a doctor who accepted to treat him anyway. He’d always held the view that medical care was something to which everyone was entitled as needed, not according to the ability to pay.
That vision led to our current system of Medicare. With all of its challenges it’s still the best system in the world.
Especially during minority governments, the NDP has succeeded in putting forward important social programs that we all take for granted today.
Singh was following that tradition when he got Justin Trudeau’s minority Liberal government to agree to create a dental care program and the beginnings of universal pharmacare.
But Canadians also owe Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan to the earlier efforts of the CCF/NDP.
Standing up for farmers and workers, making sure everyone had access to medical care regardless of ability to pay, and taking care of people who’d lost their jobs were seen as radical ideas at the time. Today, they’re part of what defines us as Canadians.
Interestingly enough, in the 21st century, one of the biggest challenges for the NDP is staying relevant, both in provinces where their founding ideas took root and where they more recently found a home.
Thanks to the incredible hard work of then-leader Jack Layton, the NDP managed to establish a beachhead in Quebec in 2011 and for the first time, make the NDP a real national party. That has now been squandered, and there seems little enthusiasm to make the effort to get it back.
In resource-rich provinces, continued development of those natural blessings and the attendant environmental problems and pressing climate concerns, have put Lewis on an internal collision course.
The NDP has been in power in six of the 10 Canadian provinces, but it has never managed to form a federal government.
Two solid NDP governments in British Columbia and Manitoba bracket the key resource-producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Even though the NDP has recently been in power in Alberta and earlier on, in Saskatchewan, it will struggle to regain relevance unless it can square the circle of developing resources and doing our part to deal with the very real climate crisis the whole planet is facing.
This is where the “all ya gotta do” nostrums of Avi Lewis meet the real world of Canadian economics and politics.
A battle is brewing with the provincial parties and, thus far, Lewis has shown little interest in compromise, or respectful disagreement. For someone who’s never managed to get voters to elect him, Lewis doesn’t seem inclined to work to bring more folks on board, he just wants to be the helmsman.
The roots of the party are deeply ingrained in the need to protect working families. It’s not with simple statements about converting them to caring professions that you’re going to convince resource workers of the need to ditch their way of life and compromise their quality of life.
Of all of the characteristics that go into making a good leader, empathy, the willingness to listen to someone else’s point of view, is near the top of the list. Does Lewis have what it takes to listen and adapt, or is he more interested in convincing people that he’s right?
NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis will have a major challenge convincing Canadians that he represents greater security, not less, writes Thomas Mulcair.
The NDP’s current decline is not just about Canadian politics, it also affects this country’s place in a rapidly shifting global political landscape. The weakening of Canada’s social democratic voice leaves a gap in our political spectrum at a moment when democracies are grappling with economic insecurity, industrial transformation, and geopolitical competition.
Canada loses a lot when a major centre-left party fades—including the ability to shape debates around economic fairness, energy transition, and our role as a progressive middle power among allies.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has shifted the Liberals to the centre-right. That’s an opportunity for the NDP on social, economic, and environmental issues, especially among younger voters.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has done a great job of getting workers to look at his party; Lewis can’t afford to take anything for granted.
There is a great deal of insecurity among Canadian voters right now and Lewis will have a major challenge convincing them that he represents greater security, not less.
