Avi Lewis Elected As New NDP Leader

Photo Credit: Shannon Vanraes/Reuters via The Guardian

After Jagmeet Singh’s resignation, Avi Lewis was elected leader of Canada's New Democratic Party on Mar. 29 in Winnipeg. He received 56 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, with a total of 39,734 votes.

Lewis is the grandson of David Lewis, a founding member of the federal NDP, and the son of Stephen Lewis, former leader of the Ontario NDP. He spent much of his career in broadcasting, hosting shows on Citytv, CBC, and Al Jazeera English. He also co-directed documentaries with his wife, author Naomi Klein. He ran as an NDP candidate in Vancouver in both 2021 and 2025 but lost both times.

The leadership race was triggered by the NDP's 2025 federal election results. According to The Walrus, the party dropped from twenty-five seats to seven, losing official party status in the House of Commons. Jagmeet Singh, the longtime party leader, resigned on election night after losing his own seat, and Don Davies served as interim leader until the race concluded.

According to the NDP website, the leadership race ran from September 2025 to March 2026. Candidates were required to pay a $100,000 entry fee and stay under a $1.5 million spending limit. Five candidates ran, including Edmonton MP Heather McPherson, union leader Rob Ashton, city councillor Tanille Johnston, environmental volunteer Tony McQuail, and Lewis. As reported by CBC, data from Elections Canada showed that Lewis raised $1.23 million from over 10,000 donors, the most during this NDP leadership race.

One policy that Lewis is promising, according to CBC, is a Canadian "Green New Deal" that would invest two per cent of the country's GDP into addressing climate change and create one million jobs. He is also calling for a national rent cap, public-funded grocery stores to combat corporate monopolies, and a wealth tax on the top one per cent of earners. As per the CBC, he is also calling for a moratorium on AI data centre construction to rein in an industry which he says threatens jobs and harms the environment. Lewis has not addressed nuclear power in his platform, which is an increasingly prominent issue in Canadian politics, according to Jacobin.