Mulcair: Avi Lewis has big ideas. In politics, that’s not enough

The NDP put its best foot forward at last weekend’s convention, and the opening speech by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew was a highlight.

Deeply experienced and wise, Kinew represents the best of the NDP. He shone in both official languages, very much at ease on his home turf in Winnipeg.

His speech contained a strong message of hope, as one would expect.

It also contained what could only be seen as advice for the then front-runner, and eventual winner, Avi Lewis:

“It’s important to be the conscience of Parliament. I don’t want to diminish that. That is very, very important. … But here in Manitoba, we are showing you why winning matters. You can have a progressive economy. You can have better health care. …”

The real question is whether or not Lewis was listening: whether he understood the message that politics is, yes, about ideas, but also about being in a position to do more than simply talk about those ideas — by winning and by being in Parliament.

Lewis, although a gifted orator, has thus far shown either an inability or an unwillingness to discuss, debate and compromise. Getting elected will continue to be difficult for him.

He has announced that his NDP will not be a place for moderates. The problem for Lewis — and now for the NDP — is that, politically, most Canadians are moderates. They want a government that has ideas, but that is also willing to listen.

Lewis’s “my way or the highway” approach to resource development may sound great around a coffee table. But when the leaders of the provincial NDP in both Alberta and Saskatchewan immediately and categorically distance themselves from Lewis’s anti-resource development rhetoric, alarm bells should be ringing.

In 2015, the NDP went into a general election with a firm intention and a concrete plan for Canada to do its share in fighting the climate crisis. We did so while still being able to share the stage with the then newly elected NDP government in Alberta.

Politics involves compromise. It involves adapting to regional differences, and it requires both determination and realism.

Lewis ran an excellent campaign. He out-fundraised all of his opponents combined, and his vote total was of the same magnitude. He is clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Lewis does not lack ideas, and the NDP — and before it, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) — has always had big ideas. As NDP founder Tommy Douglas liked to say: “Dream no little dreams.”

But for political dreams to become reality, as Kinew made clear at the convention, you first have to get elected. That is where Lewis’s dreams come into contact with reality. He has tried running federally for the NDP twice and finished third both times. He is understandably gun-shy.

When I left provincial politics in 2007 and joined Jack Layton’s NDP, he made me his Quebec lieutenant and co-deputy leader. I represented a great deal of hope for the party in Quebec.

When the riding of Outremont opened up in a by-election, there were plenty of Nervous Nellies. The few experienced Quebec operatives did not want me to run, fearing that if I lost — which, for the NDP in Quebec at the time was the near-certain outcome — their new lieutenant would be undermined.

Jack simply said that he could not imagine any circumstance in which it would make sense for his new Quebec lieutenant not to run in the first available by-election. I ran, and we pulled it off.

Sadly, Avi Lewis’s victory was followed by the death of his father, Stephen Lewis, the exceptional former leader of the NDP in Ontario, Canadian ambassador to the UN and humanitarian known for his AIDS activism. He will be sadly missed.

Avi is the scion of a political dynasty. His grandfather, David Lewis, was federal NDP leader in the early 1970s.

To Avi Lewis and all his family, sincerest condolences.

Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as minister of the environment in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.

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