And The Winner Is : A Dynastic Scion

"There's so much love out there for Jagmeet out there in our base, in our party and beyond."

"I would be delighted to get advice from Jagmeet."

"And he's got some kind of magic that I would love a part of."

"If it isn’t already obvious, we are building a new foundation for our party, and we are ready to come roaring back on the Canadian political stage." 

"Of course, we can already hear the howls from the establishment: 'But how will you pay for all this?' Well, let's remind them, this country is awash in wealth, we can have nice things."

"It is time, far past time, to properly tax the corporations and billionaires that have been riding a tidal wave of profits while the 99 per cent have been suffering and struggling."

Avram David Lewis, newly-appointed leader, federal NDP 

Avi Lewis speaks after he was elected leader of the New Democratic Party, on the last day of the party's convention, in Winnipeg on Sunday. (Shannon VanRaes/Reuters)

 

Could that be a death-wish for the New Democratic Party, already wobbling on uncertain legs, with no real official status in the House of Commons given its paltry 7 elected Members of Parliament when the 

'magic' leadership of former head of the NDP Jagmeet Singh led his party to the absolute worst election showing in the party's memory. If Avi Lewis, as new leader, takes any advice from Jagmeet Singh, the party that abandoned its original purpose in favour of supporting the Palestinian 'cause', where at the leadership convention Lewis was backgrounded by supporters in keffiyehs waving a large Palestinian flag to great acclaim, with no flag of Canada in evidence, the party will be buried in inglorious history. 

 

Avi Lewis speaks after winning NDP leadership in front of a waving Palestinian flag. CPAC screenshot

 

The most pressing of the tasks before this man is to find a seat in the House of Commons, to become a Parliamentarian. Not that he hasn't tried on previous occasions and failed. This time the momentum of a new leadership is with him and he will select a 'safe' riding and come galloping into the House to prod the Liberal government to 'tax the rich' and give the honest working family a leg up on the  upward mobility scale of success. He would, after all, know what it's like to live in an ambience of privilege, wealth and security.

 

David Lewis, left, who at the time was federal NDP leader, and former leader Tommy Douglas talk over coffee in Nanaimo, B.C., on Oct. 20, 1972. David Lewis is the grandfather of Avi Lewis. (Doug Ball/The Canadian Press)

 

His grandfather, David Lewis led the party from 1971 to 1975. His son, Stephen Lewis, Avi's father, who passed away the day his son became NDP leader (an omen of some kind, or just misfortune?) attended Oakwood College Institute in Toronto as a teen, and although his well-off family lived in walking distance of the school, Stephen Lewis was driven to school and picked up daily in a chauffeured limousine. Although Oakwood was a fairly prestigious school at the time, son Avi had his education at the private all-boys Upper Canada College.

 

Married to the notoriously uber-left political activist Naomi Klein, his mother progressive columnist and author Michele Landsberg, Avi Lewis is well steeped and marinated in progressive socialism. His background has been in broadcasting, well known to those who compulsively tune in to Canada's broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which itself has turned its programming inside-out in DEI progressive internal politics and decidedly un-neutral reportage. 

 

Avi Lewis even enjoyed a stint co-hosting Fault Lines for Al-Jazeera. He co-wrote A Message from the Future with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019. What amazing credentials for his current position ... He worked in academia as a lecturer in media studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and later became an associate professor at University of British Columbia in their geography department. Places where Critical Race Theory, the inalienable rights of transgenderism, and DEI are held sacred.

 

In 2015 Avi Lewis with wife Naomi Klein launched the Leap Manifesto with other progressives calling for a 'leap' away from fossil fuels in favour of environmentally friendly economic action, along with use of taxes to improve equality, and promotion of greater respect for Indigenous communities. According to one who should know, former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair stated an NDP  under Lewis with a rigid position on fossil fuels would see the party unelectable in remote communities (read: Indigenous) that depend on resource industries for their economic base. 

 

The NDP celebrated the great breakthrough  in New York City with the election of Muslim imperialist Mayor Mamdani with his forward-looking plans for city-subsidized grocery stores, free public transportation, free university approaches, and other people-loving, corporate-hating initiatives to make working peoples' lives less mundane and fraught with failure, to enable them to seamlessly enter the success platform of American prosperity. Now it's the NDP's turn to emulate that superb scheme for the betterment of non-capitalist humanity.

 

NDP Leadership hopefuls with the winner   still from video, CBC