Avi Lewis has decisively won the leadership of Canada’s New Democratic Party, so the Greek chorus of doomsaying commentators predicting the bleakest of bleak futures for the party will be cranking up the volume immediately.
Promising a new day for the battered Parliamentary fourth party by advocating government that “works for the many, not the money,” Mr. Lewis overwhelmed his four opponents with 56 per cent of the vote announced at the party convention in Winnipeg this morning.
Mr. Lewis’s closest rival, Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson, received 20,899 votes to his 39,734. None of the others even came close.
As a result, the prevailing wisdom of the Canadian commentariat in the next weeks and months is bound to be that Mr. Lewis’s election means the swift end of Canada’s social democratic party because its membership elected a social democrat on the first ballot with 56 per cent of their votes.
Who could have imagined that social democrats, democratic socialists and their ilk wouldn’t want Conservative policies rebranded as Liberal policies from their own party as well? And who would have thought they’d vote for an unambiguous social democrat to make that point?
Aren’t we all supposed to be neoliberals now, with the NDP merely representing the “woke” neoliberalism-with-a-human-face fringe of the narrow spectrum of economic policy positions permitted nowadays in Canadian political discourse?
Apparently not!
A hint of what was about to happen could have been found in the results of Jagmeet Singh’s seven and a half years leading the NDP, during which the party chased away many of the social democrats who were assumed to be its base by being as much like the Liberals as possible, and propping up the Liberals in Parliament when it wasn’t possible through the so-called Supply and Confidence Agreement.
And like almost all Western parties of labour, the NDP had already pushed many working class voters into the arms of MAGA right by ignoring their aspirations and refusing to acknowledge the role of the economic policies the party supported in crushing working families.
If the only reason the NDP existed was to prop up the Liberals and feel good about it – as indeed seemed to be the perception of a growing number of voters throughout Mr. Singh’s blundering tenure – why not just vote Liberal? Back on April 28 last year, a hell of a lot of them did.
Much of the lost working class – including many union members – went over to the increasingly MAGAfied Conservatives.
So who says a guy who advocates state intervention to support tenants’ rights, lower grocery prices, assured access to reproductive rights, fair taxes, and free post-secondary education won’t do better than the branch of the party that wanted to continue Mr. Singh’s approach, only more competently?
Well, who knows? The NDP is in such bad shape today that it might be hard for any leader to pull the party out of the muck. But who’s to say that a leader who proposes real change won’t do better at keeping the NDP in play than one who wanted to remain closer to the mushy middle of Canada’s political Overton window?
A couple of provincial New Democrat leaders on the oil-drenched Prairies kickstarted the inevitable the-party-is-over trope with churlish commentaries on Mr. Lewis’s victory as soon as it was known.
“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,” grumped Alberta Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi in a statement emailed to media at 9:25 a.m.
“Last year, Alberta’s New Democrats voted overwhelmingly to make membership in the federal party optional,” continued Mr. Nenshi, who is clearly part of the camp who thinks the NDP should be more like Liberals. “Many thousands of our provincial members, including myself, are not members of the federal party. We are a big tent and welcome the support of people who vote for every federal party.
“We believe in Alberta and we believe in Canadian energy and the good jobs it creates. We believe in more pipelines and in reducing emissions. We believe in strong public services and a strong jobs-driven economy to help pay for them.”
About the nicest thing that can be said about Mr. Nenshi’s screed is that it’s ill-timed and clearly a reaction to United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith’s inevitable effort to tie the Alberta NDP to its federal counterpart.
It has the potential, though, to turn into a spectacular own goal, driving away many in the party’s traditional base – already fed up with Mr. Nenshi’s passive approach to Ms. Smith’s ideologically driven misrule – in the next provincial election.
For her part, Ms. Smith’s mid-morning reference to Mr. Lewis’s victory was entirely predictable: “The UCP will never stop fighting against radical forces, including the Alberta NDP, who want to shut down our economy and keep our resources in the ground.” Yadda-yadda.
Saskatchewan Opposition leader Carla Beck took a similar tack to Mr. Nenshi, focusing on Mr. Lewis’s environmental positions in an “open letter” to the new national leader.
“The positions that you have expressed publicly in this leadership race, and in your prior interactions with the New Democratic Party, are antithetical to the values of a party built with and for working people,” she said. “You have repeatedly claimed you’re laser-focused on affordability; however, the policy positions you have taken don’t reflect that.”
Well, that’s a position that can be defended, at least in the context of the Prairie economy. Although it sure didn’t help that she ended her missive by telling the new federal leader that “when you publicly reverse your position on these matters and show a willingness to try to understand the realities of our province and the thousands of proud Saskatchewan workers who rely on our industries to feed their families, I will meet with you.”
No meeting then, I guess.
The likelihood Mr. Lewis suffering a fate like that of U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 was significantly reduced during the weekend convention by the election of a slate of elected officers who support Mr. Lewis’s program.
Two conclusions can be drawn immediately from what happened in Winnipeg:
1. Financial contributions to leadership candidates really are a good way to forecast the outcome of a party leadership vote, especially in a grassroots-driven party like the NDP.
2. The base of the national NDP remains dominated by social democrats, no matter what the party establishment thinks or wishes.
Thank you David. Super on point as always.
Nancy Fraser a critical theorist and feminist came to the conclusion that Habermas thought was restricted. She argued that it was missing an analysis of the polycrisis. She argued for “critical theorizing with an emancipatory intent.” The quote below is from her essay in London Review. She could have included wealth inequality in her list.
In the meantime, the world was changing. As the ‘pathologies of juridification’ gave way to the chaos of neoliberalisation, critique needed to shift as well. Crisis critique, especially, needed reviving. How else to grasp such glaring system ‘dysfunctions’ as global pandemics and planetary heating, skyrocketing debt and nosediving wages, retrenched public services and decaying infrastructure, hardened borders and persecutory scapegoating, de-democratisation and militarisation, genocide and hot war – and how else to grasp them not as contingent ‘bads’ but as non-accidental outcomes of capitalist dynamics?”
When you consider the crises facing us today and in the future and you listen to the media’s response to the election of a new NDP leader, it makes one ask oneself are we living in two different worlds?
CBC and other MSM ask the rhetorical question, Is the NDP relevant? and constantly come
to the conclusion that the country does not need a party that critiques the economic system, warns of the climate crisis or speaks of the horrors of Gaza and Lebanon.
Maybe Avi’s inherited eloquence will attact some who are more interested in excitement than ideology. His excellent speech today was about a hopeful future and solidarity. I think PP tries sometimes to encourage people to hope for the future but he aims at individualistic actions, not at acting as a group.
While the leadership of the ABNDP and SKNADP should be concerned about the rise of Avi Lewis, there are some things that may give them comfort.
Lewis is notorious for being skittish about policy ideas. His wife, Naomi Klein, is a far more articulate and interesting commentator on her work, which Avi farms extensively. Avi will have to learn that policy work has to apply to real world concerns, which I don’t believe he’s ready to do. While he looks for the big ideas, the ABNDP can get down to the real work of making sure Nenshi lives up to his potential, which doesn’t look too good right now.
Another point to not worry about Lewis is that he got the leadership with less than 60% of the vote. That’s a recipe for disaster in the short and long terms, so all the ABNDP has to do is stay the hell away from Lewis’ coming shite show.
Personally, Wab must be cheering the mistake that has been made. When Lewis falls, he’ll be ready to step in.
“… he got the leadership with less than 60% of the vote. That’s a recipe for disaster …”
Just like sainted Jack Layton, who won the leadership in 2003 with 53.5% of the votes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_New_Democratic_Party_leadership_election)
The only difference is that Jack Layton knew he had to build from that 53%. The result was an enormous outreach effort, to all areas of Canadian society and its communities, for the purpose of finding common cause with many interests. Layton built a big tent; Mulclair tore it down.
good point. guess they forgot about that.
The other candidates just didn’t look like they had it.
The two provincial NDP leaders should have kept their mouths shut.
There is an old line, united we stand, divided we fall. The Liberals and Conservatives are not going to have the best interests of the majority of Canadians in mind. Just have a look at the budget cuts. Don’t expect the Liberals or Conservatives to ever increase taxes for the extreme wealthy. With rising costs for housing and food people are not getting by and neither are the food banks. Some are having to reduce client visits to once a month. Haven’t seen the Liberals or Conservatives saying much about any of that. If the NDP doesn’t step up and raise the issue who will. At this point in time Lewis was the right candidate for the job.
There is far more that unites New Democrats than divides us. But, IMHO, it is what divides us — non-renewable resource development (not just oil and gas, but forestry and mining) — that is the greatest threat to our electoral success. Already we’ve seen how Conservatives can use Mr Lewis’ policy positions as a cudgel to beat up on provincial New Democrats. Expect this to continue.
And I’m with [Saskatchewan NDP Leader] Carla Beck on this point: “The NDP is the party of working people. It’s impossible to support — and respect — working people without respecting the jobs they have, not the ones you think they should have.”
For years, left-wing activists and progressive commentators — including a certain frequent commenter here, Mr Geoffrey Pounder — have been clamouring for the NDP to move further to the left and fully embrace an unabashedly socialist platform. Well, now we get to see if this is a successful strategy.
Less than 60 percent of the vote of a four horse race is a LANDSLIDE. 66% is 2/3 right ? Like , all you need is 50% this isn’t that complicated. It’s not a general election, its a party election.
Thankfully more pragmatic views are held in Provincial NDP minds.
As went the Greens; so goes the national NDP.
The captain of the Titanic said; this ship is unsinkable!
The Green Party isn’t a real party. It’s a centrist party with a single grievance, no material analysis, no economic platform and no ideas. One could argue they’re just a distraction from the political and economic realities bearing down on us, whether intentionally or not who can say. To paint the NDP, and Lewis specifically with the same brush is a pretty lazy take in my opinion; I don’t see how the situations are similar at all, and the Green Party is not a party of progressives, let alone social democrats, obviously not socialists.
It’s just the latest chapter in the never-ending existential crisis of the NDP…
I first saw Lewis on his CBC show. He seemed thoughtful, articulate and engaging. Since then he has become quite a polarizing figure, even with some in his own party. His communication skills will really be put to the test in his new job.
Compared to the Sask. NDP leader, Nenshi’s response seemed a bit more restrained, but there is clearly the sense he feels Lewis will not be good for the Alberta NDP and he may be correct. Just like Singh’s policies dragged down Notley, Lewis’s may do the same to her successor. Smith and the NDP are probably delighted they seem to have now found a new Federal leader to demonize since Trudeau left.
However, Lewis could have a more populist appeal that the nice suit wearing Singh did not. He also seems to have clearer policies about affordability, although they may not appeal to some. Singh also did talk a lot about affordability and the price of groceries, but we were not always sure how he would really fix them.
However, getting back working class votes may be harder. A lot of good paying union jobs in Canada are in resource extraction and some of Lewis’s policies are threatening to some of them. It will also may be a challenge for him to connect with them and not come across as elite politician.
He will have a short period of time to present a different image than those who have tried to demonize him and not being an MP it may be hard to get regular attention and media coverage while not sounding too controversial. It would be foolish to write him off too soon, but it is also fair to say the so far never elected new leader does have great challenges ahead of him.
If you’re talking about the alberta oil patch, no, there is not a lot of good paying union jobs. Where ? Maybe in some of the associated trades, sure, but not a lot, half a dozen people per site ? Electricians ?
Like, the absence of union workers is why alberta is a leftist organizing hellscape, let’s not kid ourselves. That is one hell of a straw man you’ve built in your mind.
As Avi pointed out today, the oil industry is employing fewer workers (he said 45%, I don’t know if correct). I don’t think it is going to grow again.
It doesn’t matter who the Alberta NDP has as their leader, because the media will continue to lie about them, while ignoring the blatant corruption of the UCP, without even caring. If Naheed Nenshi would have done this, it would be different. Or if the Alberta NDP had another leader, it would be different. That’s what certain people say. It wouldn’t make one iota of difference, because the media will continue to lie about the Alberta NDP, and tie them to the federal NDP and the federal Liberals, while supporting the UCP and Danielle Smith. The media would find some other lies about the Alberta NDP. Also, Danielle Smith has reduced the Alberta Legislature sessions so much, that they hardly ever happen, which doesn’t help. Holding the by-election for Edmonton Strathcona to the very last moment, also wasn’t good. That’s Naheed Nenshi’s riding. Why aren’t these Postmedia columnists talking about the UCP’s Corrupt Care scandal, that is over half a billion?
Copy editors checking facts? That’s thing of the past at Postmedia, apparently, as election column illustrates – Alberta Politics https://share.google/EieOjoFXvqVI1nsJx
Bell: Danielle Smith and UCP mock NDP Nenshi, the so-called rock star | Calgary Herald https://share.google/0I8dHo7F5kiu3W5Im
If the media hadn’t openly lied about Rachel Notley and the NDP, prior to the 2023 provincial election, we would have seen the NDP return to power in Alberta.
Corbella: NDP dislike oil and gas and its workers | Calgary Herald https://share.google/brOFIXsRwLDQagVF9
Rachel Notley can’t run on her record as premier because it’s a disaster | National Post https://share.google/pqOQLsOk3HhhH9rTi
Thank you, DC. I was very disappointed with Mr Nenshi’s comments and with the haste with which they were issued. I’m concerned that Mr Nenshi just “doesn’t get” the NDP. Most New Democrats, whether or not they supported him as leader, are wishing Mr Lewis well in the tasks he faces.
You can’t make a dream come true if you don’t have a dream. If all you’re doing is going along to get along, what use are you?
That’s what Avi Lewis brings. Policy wonks are there to turn dreams into concrete goals. Avi needs to get some competent ones, pronto.
The liberals are now conservatives and the cons are well…nobody knows any more. The Liberals have gone full private/public partnerships and are selling the seats on the Titanic out from under us at a rapid pace. Just take the F35 crap, for instance. The USA just *stole* uh, oh my….”appropriated” the F35 money Switzerland sent them for jets to retool their failing missile stocks for a war they started. These are the people Carney thinks he can buy billions worth of overpriced 3rd-rate military equipment, from. (That can be defeated with 20k drones and surface-to-air missiles built at home.)
Carney is a mealy-mouthed, incoherent sellout on foreign policy. Avi Lewis is not.
Carney promised cheaper houses–to those who could afford cheaper real estate and are presently housed, not as a human right in a country where sleeping outside will kill you.
Carney talked a big game on environmentalism and Native Rights–then reneged faster than my old bladder empties.
Nenshi has been utterly useless in fighting the UCP so what good is he, at this point? Instead of pontificating he needs to get out his Doc Martens and start marching with the peons out on the street for housing, healthcare, disrupting the monopolistic grocery stores with their endless profit-seeking on the backs of the poor and fight against engaging in wars that aren’t on our borders.
If the USA is gonna complain we’re all commies, I want to be insulted for what we’re doing, not their delusions of what we’re doing.
Avi might not have been my first choice. He’s at least plausible.
Why can’t the provincial NDP leaders just wish Lewis the best and leave it at that. Nenshi is harder on Lewis than he is on Smith and Lewis has been the leader of the NDP for less than a day. I think we made a mistake with Nenshi.
JE: To be blunt, the answer is because they’re jerks. Of course Mr. Nenshi was harder on Mr. Lewis than he is on Ms. Smith. He’s much closer to her politically. DJC
Jaundiced Eye: There was no mistake with choosing Naheed Nenshi as the leader of the Alberta NDP. The media will continue to lie about the Alberta NDP, no matter who they pick as a leader, while continuing to endorse the UCP, without ever questioning their major mistakes. The media lied about Rachel Notley, and the media lies about Naheed Nenshi.
EXACTLY! I’m so angry and disappointed with Beck and her advisors right now I could spit in their faces! We have a federal NDP leader with an excellent political analysis, who is incredibly media savvy, and has lived experience in a political family! The wisdom and skills he brings to this gig are phenomenal!
Maybe that’s why Nenshi and Beck are going after him. Maybe they’re worried he’s going to outperform them!
Welp. My perfect track record of not picking the winner of a federal NDP leadership race remains unbroken.
In my view, federal NDP members have decided to embark on a risky political experiment. For years, left-wing activists within the party, & progressive commentators outside it, have been arguing that the party needs to shift further to the left & embrace a genuinely socialist policy platform. Now I guess we’ll get to see if they’re right.
Personally, I’m skeptical. I believe in fishing where the fish are, and there are too few Canadian electoral fish where Mr Lewis plans to fish. But nobody would be happier than I to be proven wrong.
Carla Beck said it best when she said, “The NDP is the party of working people. It’s impossible to support — and respect — working people without respecting the jobs they have, not the ones you think they should have.” There’s a reason many ordinary working Canadians have abandoned the federal NDP for the Poilièvre Conservatives.
Mr Lewis’ positions will also be used as a cudgel by provincial conservative parties to attack their New Democrat opponents.
Time will tell, I guess.
“I believe in fishing where the fish are”
A fundamental misunderstanding — and underestimation — of the role of politics in progress: shaping and changing society.
Is there any idea more pernicious to democracy? (OK, I can think of one. Voting for the lesser evil. A phenomenon in which parties set their policies without consulting voters, and voters have to choose between greater and lesser evils.)
Should politicians be compasses or weathervanes?
Do we elect leaders to lead or to follow?
Should our leaders merely follow the parade? If so, they are not leaders.
That’s one reason we have government in the first place. To take a longer view. To think of future generations, not just the current electorate. Intergenerational responsibility. To investigate, to inform oneself, and respond to serious issues not necessarily at the top of the public’s mind.
“Politics is the art of the possible.”
So we are told by party apologists and defeatists.
No. Politics is the art of persuasion. Cars do not sell themselves. Progressive policy including sane climate policy does not sell itself either.
Politicians sell new ideas and policy change to voters all the time. That’s the job.
If you do not want that job, don’t run for office!
If political parties fish where the voters are, we have no need of government representatives or elections at all. Government by poll would suffice.
Part of a politician’s job is to sell party policy to voters.
Politicians need to use their bully pulpit to advocate for change, a just transition, and improvements in environmental education.
Politics is hard work. Politicians have to work at it. They can’t wait for voters to come to them.
Politics is the art of the necessary. Anybody can do the politically expedient. Anybody can govern by poll. Anybody can follow the parade. Anybody can pander to industry.
True leaders do what is necessary, even if unpopular. They persuade people to follow.
There is a role for both civil society and political leadership.
But without political leadership, much progress of the last two centuries would have come slower or not at all.
Pandering to voters preserves the status quo. It does not lead to progressive change.
When nominally progressive parties like the NDP pander to voters, it leads to change, all right. But change of the wrong kind — because it hands elections to the right-wing party that can energize their base and get out the vote on election night.
The battle is on for the soul of the NDP, pitting pragmatists without principles against those who want the NDP to stand for something. The weather vanes against the compasses.
“Pragmatists” like Notley, Shannon Phillips and corporate lobbyists Cheryl Oates (Communications Chief, director for Alberta NDP election campaigns in 2015, 2019, and 2023), political strategists like Brian Topp, etc., want to sand the edges off the NDP — including all the features that might make it of any interest to voters. Turning it into a generic, plain-vanilla party that does not offend Corporate Canada. Do NOT mention climate change.
Nenshi goes a step further. His goal was to turn the Alberta NDP into the Naheed Nenshi party. He will be looking for a job after the next election, which the AB NDP will lose badly to a corrupt separatist UCP party led by an O&G lobbyist and talk radio host. Because the AB NDP are incapable of learning.
A fossil-fuelled NDP is useless. To everybody.
Alberta does not need a Conservative-lite party. Albertans who support pipelines will just get behind the real pipeline party. The NDP’s shift to the right dooms the party to irrelevance.
Ottawa already has two corporate O&G expansionist parties. We do not need a third. Canadians who support pipelines will just get behind one of the two real pipeline parties.
Sooner or later, the world will shift away from fossil fuels. Failing to prepare Albertans for that eventuality is irresponsible. Doubling down on fossil fuels when the world is on the verge of turning away from them sets Albertans up for massive economic crashes and upheaval.
If progressive politicians cannot defend, promote, and sell progressive policy, why enter politics in the first place?
If you are not willing to address the issue of our time, why enter politics?
Canada needs a mainstream party to talk about issues that matter even if they never win government.
It’s impossible to support — and respect — working people without respecting the jobs they have, not the ones you think they should have.”
I’m sorry but all the people saying this are shooting themselves in the foot before they even get started. According to stats Canada there are 218k oil, gas, mining and quarry workers in Canada in 2025. There are 14.8 MILLION people working in the service economy. These people have no representation, no unions, no one figuring for them, even the “left” parties have been doing corporate welfare for my entire life.
So yeah, maybe understanding who workers are and how you’re going to get their vote is a good idea, but maybe have someone who has an idea of what kind of workers actually make up the economy if you want to start writing policy. Grande Prairie is a long way from everywhere actually, and not just geographically.
@Jerry
It’s the job of the politician to *earn* the votes of the citizenry. The problem is, too many of them expect to just fish the ever-decreasing stock instead of engaging many new voters or sometimes, voters and voters that feel disenfranchised. Nobody owes them a vote.
Who cares if the cons use the NDP’s position to attack them? The cons are going to attack them, regardless. Blocking the blows is part of the blood sport of politics.
You’re not wrong that the NDP needs to come up with a job plan. That should include green tech and energy and be looking forward–not back to the lost rule of the oil magnates.
That’s fear-based politicking. Might have worked in the olden days but nowadays, not so much. They’ve underestimated the electorate and done themselves a disservice, unfortunately.
I told my darling–who is done with the NDP even though a founding member–that if Lewis and McPherson combined won more than 80% of members’ votes, I’d probably be a done Dipper too. Pretty close, though!
I loved Tony’s earth-felt campaign–which he did for all the right reasons–and Tanille’s feistiness was most welcome, but it said a lot I didn’t want to admit that Rob Ashton, the blunt-spoken union leader from the BC docks whom I cast for, came in 4th-place (!!) despite endorsement from many labour figures. Sadly their workers have left the workers’ party of the left. Rob didn’t even crest 6%, lower even than the NDP is currently polling.
Speaking of polls, the post-Dipper contest is bound to be interesting. The purple man is getting less nonpartisan all the time.
Meanwhile, it’s been my Dipper experience –as a political partisan, my only one–that being a member of the NDP has at times been like a rollercoaster ride. I guess I better buckle up in case the party up and buckles.
My darling was vexed to see a Palestine flag waving behind the final gathering of contenders and their teams on-stage. Couldn’t see through the “crowd” if the flag person was compelled to cease and desist. My sweetheart asked, “Do you see a single Canadian flag anywhere?” (I couldn’t see through my welling eyes…)
Lewis finally uttered a workers’ party sentence in his victory speech, right up front and done with, likely acknowledging the gap between him and them so glaringly apparent in the results. IMHO, that’s what needs fixing the most (whatever rejoinder my darling uttered was probably not printable anyway…)
I’m sorry but do you not understand how the genocide in Gaza has become a central issue for folks on the left? Ask Kamala Harris about it. Both Avi and his wife*, (one of Canadas most important thinkers of any generation btw ) have long been advocates for the Palestinian people and critics of the genocidal government of Israel.
I literally don’t understand your take, leftists are supposed to support the genocide ? What ?? Why ? Isn’t the left supposed to be the principled party? The one with morals, empathy, convictions?
@A Little Bird
People who don’t see the importance of the genocide of the Palestinians are asleep at the switch.
Whatever a country does in its foreign policy, whether that’s a genocide or not denouncing that genocide, it will do at home. In this case, it’s how Canada, USA and Australian were built. They’re colonialist regimes egging on another colonialist regime.
Canada at least, tepidly, has tried to come to terms with this. The USA hasn’t even acknowledged it.
Whatever foreign policy a country enacts, they will, if they have not already, bring those atrocities home to roost. “Foreigners” are the target practise.
Doesn’t even require much empathy to know it. Just a basic knowledge of history.
In my time following David Lewis as federal leader and his son Stephen as chief of the Ontario NDP, should Avi work as hard as they did, success cannot be assured but he will give it his best. Unlike his predecessor he’s not likely to be spotted driving Italian luxury cars and sporting fancy Rolex watches.
The federal NDP needed to return to more leftist policies as they were not winning by being a “Liberal Lite” party. Why would voters choose the NDP over the Liberals if the parties seemed so closely aligned?
With Carney moving the Liberals over to the right and Lewis moving the NDP to the left, Canadian voters now have more real distinct options. This leaves the Conservatives with mainly a MAGA label that considerate Canadians are rejecting due to the chaos south of the border.
With PPs latest venture on Joe Rogen’s podcast, the CPC is becoming more defined as an American party, and hopefully that seals their fate.
The oil and resource rich western provinces have NDP parties that have completely different priorities from their federal counterparts. These provincial NDP need to add a qualifier to their names to state their resource friendliness. How about NDPR? The New Democrat Party for Resources…
Great column David. Thank you!
I will be rejoining the NDP (Federally) after a long hiatus because I can foresee real change, as opposed to the many years of muddle-headedness and opportunism presented as “pragmatism”.
The AB and SK NDP are stuck in the past. Dinosaurs mired in the tar pits. With their heads in the oilsands.
This is not leadership, but cowardice and failure of imagination.
Climate emergency, remember?
The AB and SK NDP want to pour fuel on the fire.
Dooming our grandkids.
How is that responsible or ethical?
As long as enough Albertans continue to believe this is the 80s and the oil industry executives like nothing better than to create jobs with six figure salaries, which is what the industry’s political representatives tell them, including Mr. Nenshi, they will continue to vote conservative, federally and provincially. Mr. Nenshi still thinks that by parroting the oil industry’s propaganda while blathering about big tents will persuade more people to vote for the party he lads, whose name he can’t even bring himself to pronounce. (Have you noticed how he always talks about Alberta’s New Democrats, not the Alberta NDP? This is deliberate. )
As for Mr. Lewis, before anything else he needs to stop pretending the NDP is the government in waiting and seriously become the champion of proportional representation. When every party including the NDP has the seats it deserves, then the NDP will have the opportunity to enter into a coalition government with perhaps the Greens and yes, the Liberals. Today the NDP is purely declarative, and another name for that is irrelevant.
I’ve made most of my points in the replies but there is one thing I want to say.
When your opponents are screaming about how the leadership of your party, and your platform are unelectable, or maybe even alien to the country itself the opposite is usually largely true. It’s never your job to convince the ideologically committed voters of your arguments , it’s your job to illustrate the ridiculous nature of their beliefs for everyone else. The virtue is in pointing out the emperor has no clothes, not in maintaining the charade.
I feel like more people need to remember that. These are the same criticisms the west always rolls out for a leader with even the smallest of socialist ideas. They are currently still doing it to the just elected mayor of New York. Either your an out of touch ivory spoon intellectual or a deluded working class organizer who “doesn’t understand” politics. They always say this shit. They said it about Marx ffs, they STILL say it about Marx.
It’s not about electability, it’s always about control, and more people who consider themselves “leftists” need to bone up on their reading.
For now, I say congratulations to Mr. Lewis, the ball is in your court now, it’s your game to win or lose.
Sorry there is one other point I would like to make. If you don’t have a federal NDP membership, and therefore did not vote in this contest than you effectively have a sour grapes argument. Better luck next time ?
I wonder today if there is another consideration hampering the ANDP from supporting the energy transition. If the oil industry shrinks soon due to market forces and widespread electrification, will Albertans blame the ABNDP as well as the federal Liberals for it? After all, some are still blathering about the NEP and the mythical harm it did.
But I think Avi Lewis may have been talking to the landowners getting cheated by the oil industry and he is pushing for cleanup. That’s a way in.
I never understood why Nenshi was invited to be leader of the Alberta NDP. The guy is a Neo-Liberal, small c conservative and was never too thoughtful about climate change, so what is the deal here?
The Alberta NDP has to make a choice between being a social democratic party or not. The problem is not Avi Lewis, the problem is the lack of any understanding of what the heck this party actually is.
If anything, Avi Lewis is trying to bring the extreme right wing social structure to a more centrist view of it.
Nenshi is now a ‘Drill baby drill’ advocate and should move to the UCP.
You have no business scolding Naheed Nenshi & Carla Beck for their positions they took on Avi Lewis there Mr. Climenhaga. Even you observed how much of a liability the now former Fed NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was to both the AB & SK provincial NDP parties. Smith and Moe used Jagmeet to their advantage.
Avi Lewis is the same liability to them and they have every right to distance themselves because of it.
Jay: My business is scolding everybody! I’m going to let you off with a tap on the wrist today, just so long as you understand the scolding may be harsher in future. DJC
I’m sure you’ve been scolding since as far back as the late Premier Ralph Klein when he was on a drunken binge. You’re old school. Scolding doesn’t have the same effect anymore in today’s politics.
I stand by my words regarding Avi Lewis being a liability to the provincial AB and SK NDP. Right now Carla Beck is at 33% popularity vs. Scott Moe’s 51% popularity (Angus Reid – April 7, 2026). While next SK election isn’t until Fall 2028, expect Avi Lewis to be in Scott Moe’s cross hairs for future campaign ad’s against Carla Beck.
Smith and Moe were only able to use Jagmeet to their advantage because he abandoned the left, and principles Canadians actually support for the mushy middle that impresses no one.
I’m sorry this is a few days old now but do you read this blog ?
Jagmeet Singh was a hypocrite.
I read the blog occasionally when I have time or when it involves SK.
It’s time consuming.