Avi Lewis to lead NDP after successful populist, left-wing leadership campaign
2mon 20d ago by lemmy.ca/u/floofloof in canadapolitics@lemmy.ca from www.thestar.com
The NDP needs to be as radical as possible and draw attention to the fact that both parties on the top are fucking us over equally.
Yes but also we need proportional representation so that the NDP isn't there just to re-calibrate what left/right means
That is Avi’s # 1 issue.
The problem I see is there a lot of hair brained ideas like government run grocery stores. Margins on grocery stores are tiny, so prices will be unable to fall significantly. The thing I was hoping the NDP would tackle is zoning, which is where corporation like Loblaws do have high margins, due to the scarcity of land due to regressive and sprawled zoning laws; alongside a lack of mixed use residential.
The NDP also supported mass immigration to depress wages for Canadians and create a double digit youth unemployment, there was no rebuke of that policy that Loblaws and Tim Hortons lobbied for. This is how Pierre was attaining the youth and the union vote, people obviously dont want massive money printing that inflates the price of goods, followed by mass immigration to reverse the created wage pressure as per the phillips curve.
Margins on grocery stores are tiny, so prices will be unable to fall significantly.
Loblaws made $2.7B profit in 2025.
Sure and how much of that was things like their REIT, or the higher margin non-food items? Loblaws is a franchise so like McDonalds, it makes money from owning and leasing land if I'm not mistaken.
In the end you're taking a risky gamble when its pretty obvious food prices are elevated due to all the Covid stimulus we printed, and it wont come down unless the money supply falls. We are still buying half of all mortgage bonds to artificially inflate asset values, while people complain about "greedy grocery stores" as if they are fully to blame.
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/markets/canada-mortgage-bonds-government-purchases-and-holdings/
Food prices are also going to increase along with fertilizer prices, due to the war
I think that more Crown Corps would be best. People often are reminiscent of the good old days, while ignoring that those days had way more government involvement and public companies, wages were higher (compared to goods) when there were more and stronger unions.
The same people who want the those old times back are the same people who fight social services, public sector jobs, etc.
"Why won't the government do more for me, also I want less taxes and those in public sector positions to make as little as possible"
I would love to see a return of a public oil company like when we had pertolcanada or our nuclear industry to make a comeback.
Maybe the indigenous should determine our immigration policies, or at least have a say in them;
otherwise, I'm pretty much open borders.
Ya I mean you wont have a social safety net then, as is shown by our failing healthcare and infrastructure after we did mass immigration; you're essentially enacting a far right libertarian policy at that point.
Ironically he also wants to kill one of our largest exports by stopping pipelines, so fewer jobs that are being debased by a large influx of labor, failing services from a lack of tax revenue and productivity, and I think you can see how this far left fantasy ends in ruin.
I'd also say the BoC is ringing the alarm bells on investment into Canada, it seems people dont trust this place to put their money, and that makes us poorer. The idea that "tax the rich" is a panacea is silly.
Our healthcare system was already going to shit during Harper.
Well I go by wait times generally. They were reasonable during Harper.
Maybe because the current crisis didn't happen overnight? We are witnessing the culmination of decades of neoliberal underfunding and enshittification and of smothering the healthcare worker education pipeline, including putting unreasonable barriers to the recognition of foreign trained healthcare professionals?
Mass low skilled immigration really didn't affect wait times you think?
Or insane things like this:
What a problematic framing you got there.
On a discussion about wait times, how does "low skilled" matter? It looks more like a racist/classist dog whistle to me. But since you went there... the increased immigration to Canada in the last decade was not "low skilled", it included people of all sorts of skill levels, including for example the many many many people that came to Canada on study permits and who are by definition not "low skill" and are by definition in an up-skill trajectory. Among the new arrivals many were in healthcare providing professions. I personally know of an Italian doctor who left after a year and of a Tunisian nurse who drives a cab. That our archaic credentials recognition system is unable to put them to work is not their fault. The solution is not "less migration" but "faster integration" from the airport to scrubs.
Not to mention of course that many of the new student arrivals would love to go into the healthcare professions, if given the chance. But our system actively discourages people from going to med school for example, with elitist fees and with non recognition of credentials from other countries. If we wanted we could have translated a part of the "mass migration" to a "mass training of doctors and nurses".
Your question is also disingenuous. Whether "mass immigration" had an effect and whether it had the decisive effect matters, especially if the real question that matters is what do we do to fix waiting times (and not the ick that "masses of unskilled brown people and their grandmothers" seem to be giving you). Because then we get into real question of what among the causes of long waiting times we can address with what policy levers. Chronic underfunding and underinvestment, chronic underpayment, overwork and burnout of workers, a pay-to-play education system that excludes people from the medical profession, an archaic credentials recognition system that wastes the abilities of immigrants, union busting and back to work legislation, a badly designed primary and preventive care system. But those are boring things that don't have an easy scapegoat like "immigrants bad".
And we are also ignoring the elephant in the room here that is ... the COVID-19 pandemic, that either killed a bunch of healthcare workers outright, or gave them long term disabilities, or burned them out when the Poilievrite crowd turned on them because of vaccine misinformation. The people that complain about immigrants the loudest are the same people who were yelling at doctors and nurses outside hospitals just a few short years ago. Oh we have not forgotten what the Right did to healthcare workers.
Speaking of COVID-19 and yelling at people. The most iconic pandemic era right wing movement was the "truckers" convoy. On the one hand, the majority of truckers were South Asian immigrants and were vaccinated. On the other hand, the loud obnoxious idiots in Ottawa who were also screaming about white genocide and mass migration were a small minority of mostly white truckers. What a perfect case study of who treats healthcare responsibly. The vaccinated immigrants who just wanted to do their jobs or the unvaccinated xenophobic diagonalists chilling under police protection in inflatable hot tubs who wanted to copy MAGA and overthrow the newly elected Trudeau government to stop being "replaced" by immigrants.
...
The problem with thought stopping bullshit bullets is that they are tweet sized but debunking them takes up time and effort.
“truckers” convoy.
or, IIRC, as one (NDP-voting) trucker I know put it, "the owner-operators".
Being low skilled matters because they aren't doctors or nurses, and tend to be fast food workers or uber drivers. Whether they were doctors in their own country is irrelevant, as this is a problem with the mass immigration policy regardless.
They also tend to require more government support than the taxes they contribute since Canada has a highly progressive tax policy. So we had capital shallowing, wages were depressed via diminished wage pressure, and now we have a failing social safety net and failing food bank system.
In April 2022, the federal government announced changes to the TFWP that would ease hiring caps for low-wage workers, remove hiring restrictions based on regional unemployment and extend work permits (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2022). Additional measures were announced later in in 2022, including a possible 18-month extension for post-graduate workers whose permit did or would expire between September 2021 and December 2022 (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2022).
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/sdp2025-8.pdf
Calling anyone who disagrees with answering the Tim Horton's lobbyists calls for cheap labor a racist is how we got here, the neo-liberals have been weaponizing language. So sure the housing shortage is caused by regressive and sprawled zoning laws, high developer taxes, greenbelt, etc, but in the end immigration should be tied to housing completions, and you're a fool who hates poor Canadians if you disagree.
Being low skilled matters because they aren’t doctors or nurses, and tend to be fast food workers or uber drivers. Whether they were doctors in their own country is irrelevant, as this is a problem with the mass immigration policy regardless.
The problem is also outdated and insular accreditation that reduces the skilled to unskilled roles.
They also tend to require more government support than the taxes they contribute since Canada has a highly progressive tax policy.
Sales and fuel taxes aren't progressive, and as many are young and childless, they probably require less health care and child services.
In April 2022, the federal government announced changes to the TFWP that would ease hiring caps for low-wage workers, remove hiring restrictions based on regional unemployment and extend work permits (Employment and Social Development Canada, 2022). Additional measures were announced later in in 2022, including a possible 18-month extension for post-graduate workers whose permit did or would expire between September 2021 and December 2022 (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 2022).
and your point is ..., ?
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/sdp2025-8.pdf
Please cite relevant points from this 42-page document.
Calling anyone who disagrees with answering the Tim Horton’s lobbyists calls for cheap labor a racist is how we got here,
Not all of them are racists, but I suspect most are.
the neo-liberals have been weaponizing language. So sure the housing shortage is caused by regressive and sprawled zoning laws, high developer taxes, greenbelt, etc, but in the end immigration should be tied to housing completions, and you’re a fool who hates poor Canadians if you disagree.
Canada is about 9.6 million sq km in size. I think reforming regressive and sprawled zoning laws, high developer taxes, and NIMBY laws would pretty much solve the problem.
I mean I think we agree on a lot, but you're fine to put the cart before the horse. You'd rather ad hominem attack people as racist rather than acknowledging reality of our current circumstances, while I'd just prefer the poor aren't continuously ground into dust by bad policy that debases salaries and exacerbates shortages.
Excuse my rudeness, its been rough watching a decade of this.
There may be valid concerns about increased immigration, but they're often tainted—spoiled even—by the bigots.
To me "Illegal immigration" is a dog whistle for immigration.
If Canada had a "whites-only" immigration policy, I doubt half of those complaining about foreigners working at Tim Hortons would continue to do so.
Housing shortages, IMO, are relatively easily dealt with in the 2nd largest country on the planet.
e.g. FWIW, wp:Manitouwadge doesn't seem to have a housing problem. e.g. https://www.royallepage.ca/en/on/manitouwadge/properties/
The weather currently looks colder https://weather.gc.ca/en/location/index.html?coords=49.141%2C-85.844but probably not much worse than what Toronto had last February.
Presumably under true competition among employers at least, lower wages lead to lower costs. People pay less for service, but if they want workers to get more money, then maybe increase the minimum wage to Ca$20 (≈US$14)/hr.
Would the average person who complains about immigration be willing to pay, say, an extra 25¢ for a coffee or donut, if it meant the lowest paid worker there got ≥Ca$20 (≈US$14)/hr?
You're monomaniacally stuck on blaming immigrants. Every problem in this country you bring back to immigration. Immigrants to blame for unemployment, to blame for housing, to blame for healthcare. Every other thread I've interacted with you, same shit.
You correctly blame the neoliberals for fucking us over. You correctly identify conservative zoning policies as a cause. But then you never dare look upstream. Never actually challenge the economic basis that created these problems. You accept that economic basis, and always you still go back to blaming immigrants. This "cart before the horse" analogy is precisely telling of the kind of nativist politics you're peddling. Ever look downstream, never upstream.
You claim to be speaking for the poor Canadians, but that's bullshit. You don't really care, not where it matters. Because in your brain if the bad immigrants go away, then we'll go to the good old days, right? When poor Canadians supposedly did not have to compete with bad immigrants for scraps. See your problem is the competing part, not the scraps part.
So while you do go some way towards identifying the problem, you just don't have the courage to name its source. You just fixate on immigrants. So all you do is either carry water for the Maple MAGA or maybe you're one of them.
Right now, as we post, the Sun is radiating on Canada:
((at least 100 watts/sq meter x 1 million sq m/sq km x at least 4 million sq km) ÷ 1 billion watts/gigawatt =)
at least 400 000 gigawatts of solar power.
If we harvested 0.1% of it, that'd be about 400 gigawatts of solar power, or about 10 kilowatts per Canadian.
Maybe we could line highways such as the 401, and the Canada-US border, with big beautiful windmills.
As electrical storage would not have to be mobile, the batteries need not be lithium or even lead acid, but wp:nickel–iron batteries, or maybe use wp:Pumped-storage hydroelectricity.
I think we could take 400 000 immigrants a year—probably less than 1% of our current population—particularly Americans, and maybe some Mexicans.
We could end subsidies for the rich, and change our so-called "intellectual property" laws to say ending it after 28 years.
Also we could purchase far less overpriced crap from the US military-industrial complex. It might be time to leave NATO and NORAD as Trump's America is perhaps a greater threat to Canada than the PRC, Iran, and Russia combined.
To electrify nearly everything, Canada would need 1000 twh/year extra solar. 0.25-0.5% of your your 400tw potential. Hydrogen is a practical way of covering energy transport, heating needs, and storage.
More profitable is huge solar/battery systems meant to create $2/kg Hydrogen for use or export from Canada's long summer days, 24/7 availability, and still provide energy needs of winter, and Quebec level cheap electricity.
I'm not sure if most of the electricity generated needs to be converted into hydrogen.
Indeed, I'm not sure if some of the solar power even needs to be converted into electricity: how many millions, or at least 100 000s, of homes could make use of wp:solar water heating. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they covert a greater percentage of solar power/surface area than PVCs and might be less harmful to the environment. Their use would be limited given our climate, but not so much as to make it an impractical supplement.
Most of the electricity generated could be used as is, or stored in batteries or with pump storage hydroelectricity.
Presumably electric vehicles could (continue to) use batteries and railways be electrified.
Hydrogen, or something else fluidic that could be produced by electricity, might power aircraft.
Electricity could be exported to the US, as well as products that require a lot of electricity for manufacture, such as aluminum, cement, refined metals, maybe even compressed and/or liquefied gases such as helium;
and yes, I suppose hydrogen could also be exported.
use of wp:solar water heating.
Although lower tech, it is more expensive than PV, and electricity is worth more than heat. A good solar strategy for winter needs is to have 2000L of hot water and/or smaller amount of dirt, heated during the fall for distribution in winter.
A hydrogen economy is about being able to use all intermittent electricity with 4c/kwh monetization floor. It is suited to Canada due to very long summer days, but in most places in the world, this is profitable unlimited energy free of geopolitical extortion. H2 is cheaper to transport than electricity on wires, but local production is always better as primary energy source.
Obviously, there's no need to nuke all other energy from orbit. It is very low emissions to use them as backup.
Oh, okay.
Some more reading for me to do, I suppose.
wp:Hydrogen economy, wp:Green hydrogen, wp:Solar cell, and wp:Crystalline silicon (which apparantly has a 13.1% efficiency), and wp:Solar-cell efficiency.
commercial solar cells, at reasonable cost range from 20%-25% efficient. I didn't comment on your original 10% efficient "land availability" because some empty space should exist.
I didn’t comment on your original 10% efficient “land availability” because some empty space should exist.
I thought I referred to 0.1%, but yes, let's leave some empty space (i.e. maybe ≥ 99.9%).
Again my concerns were/are efficiency and toxicity.
Glass tubes, painted black (or using a relatively non-toxic paint to decrease the albedo to, say, < 0.1), filled with water might have a high efficiency; are easily made (possibly 19th century technology); and with a relatively low impact on the environment.
PVCs other than silicon-based seem to require rare earths and other substances that are either toxic and/or are worse for the environment in mining and refining. Again, this is not to say to not use any, but not to when cheaper and/or environmentally better (or less bad) alternatives exist for particular uses.
my concerns were/are efficiency and toxicity.
The only toxic solar panels (cadmium) are US First Solar (company name) panels. Chinese panels are non-toxic. There are no rare earths in PV solar panels. Rare earths are in electric motors.
I mean you're talking about removing an energy export and replacing it with imports. How do we get the money to begin with to pay for the solar and batteries we will need to import from China, who refine all the rare earth and builds all the solar panels using cheap coal?
Fun fact, the materials needed for an renewables-electric based economy are not single use consumable, the way hydrocarbons are. So if anything, the best use of our current petro-economy is to ...build the renewables-electric based infrastructure. Not to mention that "Canada holds some of the largest known resources of rare earths globally". Maybe if instead of subsidizing oil and gas or spending ridiculous amounts of money on becoming an arms exporter, we funded research and development in renewables technologies we could actually develop home grown technologies of scale?
It's easy. Solar costs the least. Export oil/lng/other resources trade for solar. Cheaper than using our own energy. Still ton of local jobs deploying solar.
Nickel and iron aren't rare earths.
Well sure, but all the metal processing is China, I assume most people don't understand the intricacies.
Presumably this can be easily done in Canada as the technology is over 100 years old: in this, we'd be making nickel-iron batteries, not smart phones.
Let's fucking GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOT WOOT!
It's funny seeing the various negative posts/stories in the news about him. Like I'm still scratching my head wondering whether this editorial I saw claiming to be from a liberal, going on about why it was a bad move to go with Avi, because policies like "sanction Israel for conducting an ongoing genocide" won't play to the masses.
Like, do the libs really think Canadians are as blindly pro-Israel as America, just because Israel gives a ton of money to American politicians, and is friends with Donald Trump? They think siding with a genocidal regime that's bombing school children, threatening to blow up things like water desalination plants, enabling 'legal' death sentences for just a persecuted minority, and so on.... is going to get them votes? They don't think having a leader with a sense of morality will win over a chunk of Canadians? I.... I mean maybe they're right, but I sure as hell hope not.
Honestly, we need a new option, other than the obviously corrupt and captured PP/conservative northern trump party, and "the other guys". Especially when, so far, most of what the other guys have done seems to be to enrich their friends, cut services, enact bills and policies that go along with the American authoritarian agenda, and deliver very little to regular every day Canadians. As an undecided voter who's voted the whole range of the political spectrum (excluding the most extreme sides, like the people's party hah), I'm glad to see him in the race and look forward to what they might bring to the next election.
Best of luck to the NDP and Avi.
There's a concerted campaign against him from the far right. Pick any video on YouTube about Avi Lewis and look at the comments. They're consistently pushing the same points, and ramped up the attacks the day he got elected. They misrepresent his views consistently in the same ways, no matter what he says. I highly doubt it's an organic response by an average selection of Canadians. It smells like a far right onslaught designed to sow doubt about someone they feel the need to shut down, and in a way that's a promising sign.
I hadn't listened to Lewis much before he won leadership. I had basically heard him in the NDP leadership debate and in his social media posts, but having listened to his post-victory speech and couple of appearances since on CBC, I'm impressed by how good a communicator he is. That bodes well for the party imo. The NDP really need someone who can be out in front loud and clear bearing a standard for values and policies that are differentiated from the other parties. Lewis definitely seems like he could be that guy.
I hope that Avi can raise the profile and electoral chances of the NDP. I voted for Heather McPherson in the leadership, but my heart isn't broken by Avi winning. I met his father 35 years ago at a speaking event I hosted, and I have to say that that family are certainly deeply committed socialists. Avi comes by those bona fides honestly. I think the grocery thing is a bit nonsensical in practice, but having a conversation about it (and threatening suppliers with it) isn't the worst idea ever.
Olivia Chow has just announced Toronto will do it. And also we have a whole shadow system of thousands of food banks that are currently under immense strain. It is really not that far fetched.
This 100%. So many people rely on those food banks that were basically relying on non-profit grocery stores already. GVFB seems to be better run than an average small store, they deserve more support.
Describing his campaign is 'a populist win' is rather curious considering it's NDP members that do the voting. Wouldn't every party then be a populist movement?
Like Jack Layton, he’s a white heterosexual Anglo male with a good pedigree; and like Layton, I think he will win the NDP lots of seats.
We aren’t all that different from the Yanks.
(Here’s to you, wp:Jagmeet Singh: at least the Liberals remain a minority.)
He ran for parliament twice, got 25% of the vote in 2021, and 12% in 2025.
So? He ran in riding that have never voted NDP. He will run eventually and win a seat. No rush though. Jack Layton didn’t have a seat for a year.