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NDP Leader Avi Lewis begins his term with the task of rebuilding the federal party in his unapologetically progressive vision, but there is already resistance from the leadership of the Alberta and Saskatchewan branches.
Lewis won a first-ballot victory with a platform built on bold ideas that he says meet the issues Canada is facing head-on. He won with about 56 per cent support, nearly doubling the vote count of runner-up Alberta member of Parliament Heather McPherson.
This includes ideas like publicly run grocery stores and telecom companies to deal with affordability and opposing new fossil fuel development to address climate change.
It’s this energy and environmental policy that sparked pushback from Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi and Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck. In separate statements after Lewis’s win, they said the federal position is out of touch with the reality of workers in those Prairie provinces.
Lewis is scheduled to hold his first media availability as leader Monday in Winnipeg.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Sunday that disagreements are part of being a big tent and they are all united on core values.
Keira Gunn, the NDP’s new treasurer and a Calgary delegate, said that both provincial leaders are up against governments that like to link them to the federal NDP.
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Gunn said while she sees the comments from Nenshi and Beck as strategic moves, she’s disappointed in how they did it.
“It’s maybe a strategic choice to then try to distance yourself immediately from the federal party, and I think that that’s where the comments come from,” Gunn said Sunday.
“But I have concerns that they’re fairly divisive at a time when we really need to come together and support each other as parties that have progressive values. Yeah, I’m a bit disappointed.”
Gunn said that she’s seen the Lewis campaign bring many active young people to the party, and the Alberta and Saskatchewan branches should see that young people are excited by Lewis’s message.
One of those young people is 17-year-old Milo Clarke from Brampton, Ont. He volunteered on the Lewis campaign and said he was drawn in by Lewis’s ideas and the authenticity he brought to the message.
As Lewis takes the reins of the party, Clarke said that he wants to see the new leader get out to working-class communities and make direct connections as a first order of business.
“I think the first thing he needs to do is go to a lot of industrial working-class areas, like Hamilton, like London, like Windsor, like Port Moody, like Halifax, areas that have like a lot industry,” Clarke said Sunday as the convention closed.
“He needs go and talk to those people, define himself to them before he can be defined by people who are not acting in good faith.”
Another question Lewis is expected to face is about when he plans to try to win a seat in the House of Commons.
He’s previously said that he isn’t in a rush, and plans to start the building process with the grassroots and meeting people at “their house” instead of the House.
Kinew encouraged Lewis get a seat, but said it’s up to him on the right place and time.
Former Ontario NDP MP Matthew Green spent about six months last year travelling the country and meeting with grassroots party members. He said that Lewis’s priorities should be outside Ottawa because of the reduced visibility of the NDP in the House due to not having recognized party status.
“I spent six years where we did have those things, worked diligently as a parliamentarian on the Hill, spent hours and hours in debates, spent hours and hours in media scrums only to go back to my community. And have them have no idea what was happening in Ottawa,” Green said.
“What is required for us to come out of the wilderness is having a real and deep connection to our membership. And if we don’t have that, we’re in trouble.”
If Lewis does take his time in trying to win a seat in the House, it would not be the first time the NDP has had a leader begin their term outside parliament. Former leader Jagmeet Singh worked outside Ottawa as NDP leader for just over a year before winning a Vancouver-area byelection in 2019.
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