Avi Lewis is the new federal leader of the NDP, but the leaders of provincial counterparts in Alberta and Saskatchewan are making it clear they want no part of his policies.
Lewis won the leadership on the first ballot Sunday with 56 per cent of the vote, a decisive victory over four competitors.
But as Lewis begins his role, Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck says she’s turning down his invitation to meet.
“The positions that you have taken when it comes to natural resource development are ideological and unrealistic,” Beck said in a letter released slightly more than an hour after Lewis’ election.
In her letter, Beck expressed concerns about previous statements by Lewis on issues like the fossil fuel sector, and said policies and positions Lewis has supported would risk $13.6 billion in economic activity for Saskatchewan.
“The NDP is the party of working people,” she wrote. “It’s impossible to support – and respect – working people without respecting the jobs they have, not the ones you think they should have.”
Beck said until Lewis reverses his stance on issues involving the province’s resource sectors, she won’t meet with him.
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Lewis has previously criticized both the Liberal and Conservative governments, saying the spread of wildfires was due to a failure to limit fossil fuel emissions.
He also recently said in an interview with The Canadian Press that Prime Minister Mark Carney had “thrown climate under the bus.”
During the leadership campaign, Lewis promised to slap an export tax on oil and gas shipped to the U.S. and to end all federal approvals for new pipelines.
Following his victory on the first ballot, Lewis said Sunday that he’s focused on party unity.
“This is a tremendous result. But even more important than the results of this leadership vote is the unity of our party,” Lewis said.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi criticized Lewis over his policies and noted that his provincial party voted to make membership in the federal party optional.
“It is clear that the direction of the federal party under this new leader, someone who openly cheered for the defeat of the Alberta NDP government, is not in the interests of Alberta,” Nenshi wrote in a post on X.
Nenshi released his own energy policy on Friday, which includes expanding Trans Mountain pipeline capacity and revisiting projects like the Energy East pipeline.
“Albertans deserve federal leaders who understand the importance of Alberta and our essential role in the federation,” he added.
Not all provinces share the same opinion though, with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew saying he loved Lewis following the new leader’s first speech in the role and the mandate received.
Kinew said he acknowledged they may not agree on everything, but believed he and Lewis could do “big things together.”
“The big things are health care, education. Yeah, we can have debates, heated debates about any manner of other issues, but the values are there,” Kinew said. “The values are we’re fighting for the average person, we’re fighting for the people who don’t have a voice right now and that’s the most important thing.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby congratulated Lewis on his election, but was measured in his response.
“Our priority is lifting up working people and growing prosperity,” Eby wrote on X. “We will work with anyone and any federal leader who shares our priorities, and stand firm against those who put that progress at risk.”
Lewis has said he isn’t in a rush to enter the House of Commons, instead planning to start his leadership by strengthening the grassroots before seeking elected office.
–with files from The Canadian Press
Hey MSGH.
Spend some quality time with your brain cell. It is obviously lonely living on its own.
The NDP (now the Neo Destruction Party) has become a haven for radical progressive activists.
Judging by how much Canadians have shown that they love self flagellation and prefer living as subjects under the misery of an ideology focused government ,I would not be surprised in the least if the NDP forms a majority government at the next election
@ MSGH, go back from whence you came.
Since when has nenshi championed Alberta and Alberta energy? This is simply his purpleness trying to get his polling numbers up.
MSGH,
We could tell you were ndp even without you admitting it. You just embarrassed yourself.
I think Lewis is an excellent choice to move Canada towards a socialist paradise like Cuba. Cuba has rejected oil and look at Cuba now, their CO2 emissions are virtually zero ( well except for the people using scrap wood and garbage to cook their food). Without oil their is no electricity for hospitals so it is like Canada’s MAID system but for everyone since no one gets treated at a hospital. My hopes are for 50% of the Liberal voters in Canada to switch to the NDP!
The NDP is irrelevant!
As a Canadian who lives in Alberta, I’m sick and tired of whinging Albertans moaning that the interests of the oil and gas industry (not even the interests of the majority of Albertans, such as those in agriculture in the south and those in forestry in the north) should run the entire country.
I’m also sick of the oil and gas industry’s pushing for Alberta separatism so they can sell off as much oil and gas as possible, no matter what it does to the environment and human survival, before demand begins to decline while, at the same time, investing in alternative energy so they’ll still be making money when that decline ultimately comes. They’ll still be making money, but Alberta won’t because they made sure the UCP blocked the development of alternative energy in the province.
As an NDPer, I’m glad to see Avi Lewis as the head of our federal party because he will care about all of Canada, not just the oil and gas industry. He might even help Alberta get rich on alternative energy, which it’s perfectly suited for, if Albertans will let him.
The Liberals have become Ersatz Conservatives, and the Conservatives have become Maple MAGAs. Though they’ve done as good a job as possible for Alberta, Heather McPherson and Naheed Nenshi would turn the NDP into an, at best, Ersatz Liberal party, which can win in Alberta and Saskatchewan and fulfill the oil and gas industry’s desire to make all of Canada a petrostate, but we need a real party on the left. As Colbert said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias,” and, sooner or later, reality is going to catch up with us.
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Nothing new to see here. The NDP will never be happy until we are all living in tents, riding bicycles and eating vegan. They want us to be a 3rd world country.
Just sad that the press will not get behind a just transition to a green economy like half the world. Canada is stuck in neoliberal oil and gas rhetoric. Our leaders reflect our ineptness
How to put the nail in the coffin of national NDP. Keep the policy of attacking the industry that powers Canada.
We just need an ultra orthodox right wing nut party for the balance of things!
David Eby would blow any ultra left wing politician…
won’t get votes anywhere. atlantic canada is solid liberal area and always has been. quebec won’t touch him since he can’t speak french. workers in ontario have all gone over to the conservatives. the prairies all hate his anti-resource ideas and BC is fed up with a more central version of the NDP.
Just saw their votes , bunch of idiots.
I guess was open door policy at mas house .
NDP is anything but a party of the working people!
They’ve just elected an eco-nut to run it. NDP is imploding.
Singh destroyed this party and this guy will never bring it back. He has great plans but shouldn’t his first priority be getting elected so he can go into the House of Commons and be a voice for the NDP members that voted for him. The NDP are done federally and the way Eby is going it will be done in BC also.
They’re not even a real party anymore.
This is essentially the snake eating itself
The NDP’s version of Justin Trudeau.
I really hope the Federal NDP party dies. This country needs a true labour party. We have a Green Party and many all things to all people parties. A true party for working people would be welcomed. I am not a leftist, in fact I consider myself a liberal (Not Liberal Party).
Give Canadians real choices especially during coalition governments.
Well said madam, well said.
“The NDP is the party of working people,” she wrote. “It’s impossible to support – and respect – working people without respecting the jobs they have, not the ones you think they should have.”
It’s like he looked at everything Jagmeet did and said hold my beer. Typical for the Party of least relevance in the country.
I guess we never have to worry about a federal NDP party in power with a platform like that. Lucky if they even regain official party status.
He’s going to put an export tax on oil and gas going to the US. Hmmm, he would have to be at least PM to do that and not in his wildest dreams is that ever going to happen.
Federally and shortly here in BC the NDP have and will become more and more irrelevant.
The damage Eby has done will take decades to fix.
A third rate leader of a third rate party
They will be riding the LPCs coattails again because they have nothing of any value to offer Canadians