Federal NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss his campaign’s focus on addressing the cost- of- living crisis and how Alberta fits into his plans for the party. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: You’ve said you’re campaigning on building a party for the 99 per cent. What does that translate to as far as the NDP’s direction as a party? Avi Lewis: We obviously are coming off the worst result in our history in the last election. Our campaign has been focused on the cost- of- living crisis, what we call the “everyday emergency” of just trying to get by in an impossible economy. Canadians are facing sky- high grocery prices. The price of cell phone plans, rent and mortgages, just keep going up and up and up. We actually think there’s a lot of money in this country. Six big banks made $70 billion last year. There’s no shortage of money. The prime minister has plans to spend hundreds of billions on the military in the next decade. There’s a mood for big projects in Canada right now, with a world coming unraveled by war and threat of annexation from the United States. We need to stay focused on what everyday Canadians need to get by, and to actually create solutions as big as these crises we face that would slash the cost of living for Canadians. We’ve been proposing things like a public option for groceries and cell phone plans and some new industries. Clean manufacturing and other industries that would actually put people to work as the economy is majorly challenged right now on all fronts. MH: From the standpoint of fundraising, you’re the frontrunner in this race. What about your platform do you feel is resonating with party members? AL: We’ve been seeing a lot of people come out since the fall, and the crowds are growing, and the sense of momentum is growing. We’re experimenting in our campaign, and just straight talking. Canadians are tired of politicians crafting the right message to not offend anybody, but not saying anything at the same time. We’ve been really forthright about the solutions we’re proposing to the crises we face, and speaking to the fact that Canadians are fearful these days. The war that’s been unleashed by the United States and Israel in the Middle East is terrifying. The price of oil is spiking, and Albertans know better than anyone the Big Five oil companies will make a lot of money in the next couple of years, but also will drive inflation. We know from the great economist Jim Stanford almost half of the last inflation crisis a few years ago was driven by sky- high oil prices. That could be worse this time. We need a government that actually protects Canadians. That’s why we’re calling for a public option for groceries. That’s why we’re calling for major investments to not just fix our broken health care system, but to extend it. Eyes, teeth, mental health, medicine, all parts of your health should be part of our health care system. We need a Canadian Shield made of Canadian steel - which we can’t sell to the United States because of the tariffs - to protect our economy from the United States and restore our economic independence. That looks like a 21st century grid for electricity, renewable energy across this country. Nobody ever blew up a refinery full of sunlight. There are different ways to build into the future of a Canadian economy that cuts people’s household bills, slashes our emissions and deals with the climate crisis and gets us off this boom and bust roller coaster and onto a solid plane of economic independence for Canada. MH: The latest polling from Nik Nanos shows the Liberals have an 11- point lead over the Conservatives. The NDP has 11- per- cent support. What does that polling reflect about where the NDP is at the moment? AL: Certainly in the last election we lost votes to the Conservatives and we lost votes to the Liberals. That’s why we’ve been laser focused on the cost of living emergency. We pay mobile data rates that are, in some cases 1,000 times what people in Finland pay. We have three telecommunications giants, Bell, Rogers and TELUS. [We have the] worst customer service anywhere. I don’t blame the service representatives, but the companies are squeezing us for more and more money, and they’re squeezing their employees for longer and longer wait times. You can watch your life drain out while you wait on hold to just change something in your cell phone plan. We actually need solutions that will win us back Conservative voters and Liberal voters. Something like a public option for cell phones. In Saskatchewan they still have SaskTel. They have lower cell phone plans than anywhere else. In fact a few years ago, Rogers, Telus and Bell had to lower their prices by around 40 per cent in Saskatchewan just to compete with a public option for an essential service in the 21st century. We need that kind of thing federally. We’ve got the money and know how to do it. We have to put the everyday Canadians’ bills first instead of big projects that will increase profits for a handful of corporations and won’t trickle down to consumers. We really need the same fix with the housing crisis. We’ve got to fix these problems directly. We believe the federal government ought to be doing that, and that’s going to bring back voters from both federal Liberals and Conservatives. At least that’s the plan. MH: How does Alberta fit into your plan for a rejuvenated NDP, especially considering the debate around a separation referendum? AL: Alberta is central to Canada’s future in so many ways. The premier has been extremely irresponsible, pretending not to while effectively stoking this separation movement, which I think is MAGA-aligned and potentially U.S.-funded. I think it’s very unhealthy and divisive. I’ve got a lot of time for [Alberta NDP leader] Naheed Nenshi, and have spoken with him in the course of this campaign saying thank you for standing up against the use of the notwithstanding clause against workers, against trans kids. An Alberta NDP government would be a wonderful thing. It would deal with this inflated but still serious threat from the separatist movement. To hold Canada together we need to just stop focusing on all of this noise and put Canadians’ daily lives back under the microscope. When people are struggling to pay their bills amid all this wealth being generated in a province like Alberta, we need new plans to make people’s lives better. I was standing in a field in Edmonton just a couple of weeks ago beside a pump jack that was at the end of its life that had been downloaded to a little company that collects all of these wells at the end of their lives. If we made polluters pay for the responsibility of cleaning up hundreds of thousands of wells from the conventional oil industry in Alberta - which something like 90 per cent of Albertans support - it would create decades of good jobs for the very same oil and gas workers that have been laid off from the industry. 40,000 of them since the last boom. The oil and gas industry has figured out how to make a barrel of oil with 45- per- cent fewer workers. We need a future for oil and gas workers in Alberta, like we need a future for workers all over this country in new industries and new projects like a reclamation boom. We actually make those companies that have made hundreds of billions of dollars from our common resources pay their fair share to clean up the most beautiful province in this country. That’s the kind of new idea that we want to bring to Canadians. Alberta is right in the centre of every major issue facing this country.
