Avi Lewis may be the scion of a legendary NDP family, but he is the last thing the NDP needs now. Not only will the new party leader not help the party claw its way back to relevance, but he is almost certain to lead it to the brink of destruction. Simply put, he is the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Given their dire straits, the party could, perhaps, be forgiven for failing to select someone who can speak both of Canada’s official languages, even though they claim to be a national party. After all, their total lack of appeal in Quebec at the present time precludes any serious effort on their part to win seats there in the next federal election. (Note that the only surviving member of the extraordinary Orange Wave of 2011, Alexandre Boulerice, is planning a hasty departure for provincial politics, and the party has virtually no chance of holding on to that seat in a byelection.)
Which leaves the NDP desperately needing to appeal to the rest of the country, something Lewis – urban Toronto boy born and bred — is unlikely to do on a personal level, despite currently residing in BC. Nor is his electoral record of two failed attempts to win a federal seat in BC, the most likely place in the country for him to succeed, any cause for optimism.
And then there is his platform, which is so clearly out of touch with reality. Indeed, Lewis, as several commentators have noted, is the Canadian version of New York’s new radical left mayor and alleged Democrat, Zohran Mamdani. Many of the two mens’ platform planks, including state-run grocery stores and free public transit, are remarkably similar, and are bound to meet with the same fate, namely, failure. But the platform problem is far more egregious for Lewis, who after all is trying to attract votes across a country, not a city.
Polls the day after Lewis was chosen actually demonstrated a slight drop in the party’s support nationally, instead of the typical slight uptick that often follows a leadership race in any party. Worse still, the NDP continues to be seen as “irrelevant” by nearly 48% of those polled. Hardly surprising, given the radical, unrealistic platform he has put forward.
There is also some reason for concern about the position of the party on issues related to the Middle East, and more importantly on anti-semitism. The presence of vocal pro-Palestinian activists at the convention, along with the visible Palestinian flags and keffiyehs at the leadership vote announcement, raise legitimate concerns in light of growing anti-Semitic bias visible in socialist movements in Europe, and in particular in the UK Labour Party under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Political observers with long memories will no doubt appreciate the irony of Lewis being chosen to lead the NDP now. Back in the 1970’s the party was undergoing a similar type of existential crisis, with many members arguing it had become an irrelevant appendage of the Liberals and needed to adopt far more hard left positions. They coalesced in a movement called the Waffle, led by Mel Watkins and James Laxer. In 1971, Laxer was the Waffle candidate who ran for leader at the party’s leadership convention in Ottawa, only to be badly defeated by the moderate, middle-of-the-road candidate, David Lewis.
Today, the grandson of David Lewis has taken over as leader of the federal party on a platform the Waffle would have been happy to support. But Canadians are not interested in this type of radical departure from progressive moderates at a time of existential crisis for the country, as they continue to demonstrate with their increasing support for a Liberal leader and prime minister who is, in all but name, a Progressive Conservative of the reassuring middle.
There is another example for the federal NDP to follow. At the provincial level, New Democrats like Allen Blakeney, Roy Romanow and John Hogan succeeded in forming governments because of their recognition of the need for moderate left-wing stances. Avi Lewis’ father Stephen Lewis, although never premier in Ontario, was widely respected and well-known for his socialist perspective without ever appearing to be an extremist.
Yes, in the current situation it may be harder for the federal NDP to carve out a place on the political spectrum that seems relevant to Canadians, but it is an essential task that must be undertaken. Canada has always benefitted from a federal culture with three political parties representing the three philosophical streams of conservatism, liberalism and socialism. We will all be the better for it if the NDP succeeds in restoring its place in this culture.
Avi Lewis may have been the simpler choice, but he will not help this cause in the long run or even in the short term. Political parties do not live forever without support, both electoral and financial. The demise of the venerable Progressive Conservative Party, having been swallowed by the Reform/Alliance Party, is the obvious and very sad example of that reality. Let us hope the NDP does not succumb to the same fate and disappear entirely from federal politics.
