In a wide-ranging interview with Christo Aivalis, NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis outlines his vision for Canada, advocating bold public ownership, stronger public services, and economic sovereignty. Drawing on his activist background and family legacy, he explains how a democratic socialist approach could reshape the economy and rebuild the party from the ground up.
I like his choice of words here. To be fair, I could back the vision of any of the current candidates be it Heather, Avi, Rob, Tanille, Tony, but members should democratically decide then start to coalesce around it and go boldly forth in that direction.
My only worry for Avi, is that if any part of this race gets even a slight tinge of meddling from the party management apparatus, it will cement the idea in the public view that he is the Nepotism-Dependent Party candidate. That would be a terrible look right when the party is trying to turn a page.
You’re not the first person I’ve seen complain about nepotism in the party. Would you have any readings to share for someone who doesn’t know anything about it and wants to be better informed?
No problem! On CBC’s introduction of Lewis:
So it’s not disqualifying or anything, he’s his own person as much as anyone, but he does come from multiple generations of high profile leadership within the NDP.
Secondly, several of the provincial NDP leaders had been acclaimed to their position i.e. ran for leadership or nominated without any listed rival candidates for leader
And in one of those cases there was animosity after Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from the race by BCNDP party execs.
That in addition to the federal NDP not performing well this year’s election, in one part due to a fear of diet Maple MAGA but the other due to Singh and the party’s workshopped messages weren’t resonating with the public and some groups of voters taken for granted like youth and unions.
So I would imagine party members at large may be concerned with a potential continuation of “Let’s fight the billionaires, corporations and wealthy in an unspecified manner!” “Let’s say the word ‘affordable’ a lot but not connect it to anything concrete” (that’s Poilievre’s line right now) “We’ll de-shittify your life somehow and make it better!” kinds of messages.
I wholeheartedly support Eby in BC, but every NDP-affiliated party should look inward, acknowledge and address reasonable concerns, and see how they could do better for Canadians as well as their members.
Good summary.
I will add that, having moved to BC from Manitoba 5 years ago, the BC NDP party shares almost nothing in goals and values with the Ontario/Manitoba Leighton NDP, nor with the east coast union-focused NDP, which was a bit surprising to me.
There is no strong sense of worker rights and union support here, only a mild socialist “vibe”. Makes it pretty difficult to get behind when Eby is trying to go it alone, ignoring the rest of the country.