Tom Mulcair: Avi Lewis is on to something with his plans to nationalize everything from pharmaceuticals to groceries

Former NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says the next steps for Avi Lewis is to get elected in the House of Commons.

Tom Mulcair is a former leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017. He’s a political commentator for CTV News and a columnist for CTVNews.ca.

Avi Lewis is a truly unconventional politician. He has managed to make himself a champion of young Canadians, which is quite a feat given that he’ll be in his 60th year in May.

They provided a lot of energy to his campaign but also tend to vote less and that could prove a challenge.

Under his leadership, the NDP will cement its role as a safe place for equity-seeking groups, a part of its branding that was a reflection of Jack Layton’s core beliefs.

But he’s also taken the fight against capitalism further than anyone in the history of the CCF/NDP (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor, the New Democratic Party), that stretches back to the Great Depression of a century ago.

His pedigree as the third generation of an NDP family helps him a lot and his wife, Naomi Klein, a true lioness of the international left, has also boosted him immeasurably.

Having taught in several universities since leaving politics, I know that Lewis is on to something with his plans to nationalize everything from pharmaceuticals to groceries.

Young people today are putting a bullseye on capitalism as the source of all woes, from wars to weather, and it’s feeling very 1960s on many campuses.

Something real has changed

I know, it’s a classic to evoke disaffected youth, but something real has changed and Pierre Poilievre was the first federal politician to really grasp it.

Justin Trudeau won in 2015 thanks, in large part, to an energized participation of younger voters. When he neared the end of his 9 years in office, that support had turned to cynicism, if not outright anger.

Poilievre sensed it and began a strong push for younger voters, stressing the fact (and it is a fact) that they have less chance of owning a home than their parents or even their grandparents, a key measure of personal financial success.

Lewis is mining the same vein, but pandering to very old ideas about scrapping capitalism comes at a cost.

He’s not just proposing to have the federal government run grocery stores, he wants to hobble the resource sector as well. It may not have been surprising that NDP leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan criticized him, but it was unprecedented to see them come out so forcefully against a new federal leader.

On the Monday after his election, Lewis was pleading for talks with the recalcitrant NDP in resource-producing provinces. There’s nothing new for a federal political leader to have to learn to juggle regional interests. But Lewis seems to have a very high opinion of his opinions and the talks he’s proposing seem, for now, to be more like an invitation to listen to him explain why he’s right.

Lewis is not new to the game. He launched the Leap Manifesto in September 2015, alongside a coalition led in part by Klein.

It called for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and for broader economic and social transformation in response to climate change.

Lewis dropped it right in the middle of the federal election campaign, without consultation with the NDP that I then headed.

I refused to criticize the goal of doing more to fight the very real climate crisis but it raised an obvious question in voters’ minds: is the NDP a protest movement or a government in waiting?

Opposing visions of the NDP

It became a flashpoint between opposing visions of the party: was it to become more activist, movement-driven, eco-social or more electorally savvy, labour-rooted, and broad-tent. Lewis was back with his “Manifesto” at the NDP Edmonton convention in 2016, where members voted to hold a review of my leadership.

The “Manifesto” was politely shelved as a statement of principles that required further study. Unbowed, Lewis is back with his “Manifesto” and the prediction of a deep conflict with resource-producing provinces, evoked at the Edmonton convention, is now in full view.

It’s not easy to get all sides to agree on big issues in Canada. It’s hard work but it’s essential to know how to listen respectfully and, yes, change if necessary. That’s what political leadership is about. Not convincing others that they’re wrong.

The NDP’s Sherbrooke Declaration was one of the cornerstones of the Party’s breakthrough in Quebec. It was bold and pitched an inclusive, respectful vision.

In 2008, I re-won Outremont riding after taking it in a byelection the year before. That was the first time the NDP had ever won a seat in Quebec in a federal general election.

In 2011 we won 103 seats, including 59 in Quebec. Last year, the NDP had the worst showing in its history, only seven seats and 6 per cent of the vote.

After successfully getting the Liberals to bring in anti-scab legislation, a national dental insurance plan and the beginnings of pharmacare, the NDP was unceremoniously given the boot by voters. For now, Lewis has said he’s not in a hurry to get a seat in the house. To quote one of his leadership rivals, that is a bit odd.

As Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew said in his exceptional speech to the convention when it opened last Friday, it’s great to be the conscience of Parliament but if you really want to get things done, you have to win.

Winning isn’t individual, it’s collective and it requires hard work and a certain humility and a willingness to accept that you can be wrong. Leadership isn’t only about imposing one’s views, it’s about uniting around a shared vision.

I was helped a great deal in the 2015 campaign by Stephen Lewis, Avi’s dad, who tragically died right after Avi won the NDP leadership.

Stephen Lewis, of course, was the former head of the Ontario NDP which he’d patiently built into a real political force in Canada’s largest province.

He was a generous person, whose deep convictions led him to do outstanding work in Africa after a remarkable stint as Canada’s UN Ambassador. He will be sadly missed. I offer my deepest sympathies to Avi and his family for their loss.