Four months into the job, NDP Leader Avi Lewis is still in no rush.
Since winning the leadership of a party knocked to its knees in the 2025 federal election, Lewis has maintained his immediate priority is preparing the NDP for an election — not winning a seat in the House of Commons. Multiple byelections are set to take place before the end of the year; Lewis will be door-knocking with candidates in those ridings but won’t be on the ballot himself.
NDP Leader Avi Lewis spent the first 100 days at his party’s helm outside of Parliament, and isn’t looking for a seat any time soon.
But since his election in March, the seatless leader also appears to have made little headway in making a name for himself among Canadians.
Recent polling from Abacus Data found a quarter of Canadians don’t know enough about Lewis to form an opinion. An additional 31 per cent feel neutral about him.
Is Canada ready to surf a socialist wave? After the shock victories of three hard-left candidates in last week’s U.S. Democratic primaries, voters and their leaders may wonder whether our country could elect the likes of “democratic socialists” Darializa Avila Chevalier, Brad Lander and Claire Valdez. Chevalier is particularly radical: in a since-deleted X post she wrote “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.” She also called for abolishing borders and founded an anti-Israel organization at Columbia University that demanded “the total eradication of Western civilization.”
When Avi Lewis was elected leader of the New Democratic Party just over two months ago, he issued a boast that was almost Trumpian in its braggadocio.
“Canada, mark your calendar. The NDP comeback starts now,” he said.
But it turns out, he was right. A Liaison Strategies poll released on Monday had NDP support at 15 per cent, with the party leading among 18–34 year olds. To put that in context, the NDP won the support of 1.2-million voters in the 2025 election. If a vote were held tomorrow, with a similar turnout, at this level of polling, the party would win nearly three million votes.
Much has been said since March about how Avi Lewis has finally and fully landed in the family business, following in the footsteps of his father, Stephen, and his grandfather, David, who also were leaders for the New Democrats.
But Lewis has always been in a family business. His mother, Michele Landsberg, wrote for this paper for more than 25 years, and journalism runs in Lewis’s blood as much as politics. It was his first career and many people still know him from his broadcasting days, hosting the CBC TV show Counterspin and farther back, on City TV in Toronto.
Toronto is up to the challenge. There is no bottom to this town’s stupid.
We now have the final seat counts for the federal NDP in Canada’s two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec.
Zero and zero.
Let’s not fault the new party leader, Avi Lewis, for the Ontario shutout. That happened in last year’s federal election, long before he took the job.
The shambles in Quebec came before him too. But it now bears Lewis’s shambolic imprint.
While standing outside the House of Commons, Avi Lewis recalled that it has been five decades since his grandfather — former federal NDP leader David Lewis — stood inside the chamber to advocate for the Canadian left.
After David, there was Avi’s father, Stephen Lewis, a former leader of the Ontario NDP, Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and a longtime journalist and environment activist. He passed away last month at 88, shortly after his son was elected federal NDP leader.
Now, it’s Avi Lewis’s turn to take on the mantle. And going the federal route is a very intentional choice.
My head hurts at the thought Canada is so fecked Lewis may strike a nerve.
OTTAWA—Avi Lewis concluded nearly four decades ago that the NDP had lost its way.
He was a 20-year-old roadie on the Ontario New Democratic Party’s 1987 election campaign, helping leader Bob Rae in an uphill fight to take credit for the NDP’s policy wins under a minority Liberal government.
It didn’t work. Premier David Peterson got his majority and the NDP lost six seats.
The media are still trying to breathe life into the commies Carney must want it so.
Q: You don't have a seat in parliament… will you be doing what Poilievre did, which is persuading one of your caucus to gently step aside?
Avi Lewis: There is no way I'm asking one of these spectacular people to step aside. Not in a million years. pic.twitter.com/NiJD5z2TXA
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertsonca) April 13, 2026
Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) held a convention and elected their new leader, Avi Lewis, over three days last weekend. The convention made the NDP famous — perhaps “infamous” is more like it — and drew the attention of pundits from across the world.
All of this happened at a time when the party is in its death throes: it has lost its official status in Canada’s House of Commons, and has a measly six elected members of Parliament.
Don Davies, the Vancouver New Democrat MP who served as his party’s interim leader until the election of Avi Lewis last weekend, cautioned party members last December that if the NDP wanted to avoid another drubbing at the polls, it should focus on working people’s issues instead of becoming obsessed with identity politics.
The party didn’t listen.
They’re BIG Tent Woke Nazis.
For dreams to become reality, you first must get elected. That’s going to be a challenge for the NDP’s new leader.
The NDP put its best foot forward at last weekend’s convention, and the opening speech by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew was a highlight.
Deeply experienced and wise, Kinew represents the best of the NDP. He shone in both official languages, very much at ease on his home turf in Winnipeg.
His speech contained a strong message of hope, as one would expect.
Well, as honeymoons go, that was brief.
Avi Lewis may well have set a record for honeymoon brevity in Canadian politics. He wasn’t even done accepting the great prize of winning the leadership of the federal NDP last Sunday before two key figures in his own party denounced him over his resolve to move the country beyond fossil fuels.
Lewis may also have set something of a record for sheer cheerfulness in the face of such speedy backstabbing.
No shortage of media trying to make us believe Avi isn’t a complete commie nutter.
Avi Lewis was elected leader of the New Democrats on Sunday with a smashing first ballot win, inheriting a skeleton of a party. Only six NDP MPs sit in the House of Commons after Nunavut’s Lori Idlout’s recent floorcrossing.
However, this is a time of revived left-wing radicalism in the English-speaking world. Do not dismiss Lewis, as many have. If he plays his cards right, he will not be a punchline for long.
"Third-Worldism" perfectly captures the rising ideology of the left: preference for Islam over feminism, contempt for European colonialism, entitlement to Western riches, infatuation with Islamic nationalism, etc.
A very important piece by @GeoffRuss3:https://t.co/e6RYqoBovO— Jamie Sarkonak (@sarkonakj) March 31, 2026
You gotta pray Canadians aren’t that dumb. Pray a lot.
Here’s the conventional wisdom: The election of aging nepo-baby Avi Lewis as leader of the federal New Democratic Party is a tipping point that could see a marginal and unpopular party pushed over the edge into non-existence.
Maybe.
But that’s what a lot of people said about the Liberal Party in 2013, when Justin Trudeau became leader.
As you already know, the New Democrat Party over the weekend elected a new leader in Avi Lewis.
But prior to him stepping into Jagmeet Singh’s Gucci loafers, there were some other events that took place during the NDP Leadership Convention in Winnipeg.
This is what nightmares are made of.
Could easily be a comedy skit. pic.twitter.com/Y1UwYdr3wZ
— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) March 29, 2026
Between the non binary chair looking, and might I say acting, a little like Nazi youth combined with the equity card shuffle, this seems like an episode of Portlandia pic.twitter.com/yXDH2qKSdy
— Iseult (@iseult) March 29, 2026
My suspicion is the Juno’s and the NDP Convention are the same event rebranded.
Comment of the week goes to @KidTokyo86 😆 pic.twitter.com/KVnAsO85bm
— Stacey (@StaceyMonette27) March 30, 2026
