NDP leadership race heats up as Rob Ashton accuses Avi Lewis of dividing the party

Disappointing that Ashton would throw away his own ambitions to try and dirty Lewis. I’m not sure if Lewis or McPherson is leading (I’m not sure anyone who doesn’t have access to membership sign ups would know), but Ashton and Lewis only likely path both end with the other as #3 and getting lots of crossover votes from the other camp. There is a reason these things are always hugfests, going negative is going to hurt Ashton a lot.

According to Tom Mulcair, Lewis is probably the frontrunner and most likely next NDP based on the amount of memberships each candidate has managed to sell. I’m guessing that this is a reflection of his frontrunner status.

There should’ve been a requirement to have been elected at the municipal, provincial/territorial, or national level. Ashton and Lewis have both so far been unelectable. Despite being the sort of urban voter to whom Lewis should appeal, we only win when we remain a party that accommodates the provinces, the cities, and the workers. In a cost of living crisis, in particular. MacPherson has my support.

If Lewis wins, I predict droves of union workers will stay away from the party much like they did in BC when Adrian “Dr. No” Dix was leading the BC NDP in an election against Christy “Hard Hat” Clark.

That could be the outcome with some of the other candidates, too.

In fighting? In a leftist party? Say it ain’t so. Progressives can’t even get along with eachother I don’t know how anyone could reasonably expect them to play nice with another party to govern.

For every good idea Avi Lewis has, he has about 20 bad ones. As someone who has voted NDP most of their life and considers themselves quite sympathetic to socialist policy ideas, Lewis would likely end up sabotaging any possible resurgence of “left-wing” politics. I am concerned he is going to overemphasize a focus on climate change while feeding into the narrative that progressives and the left-wing have a poor understanding of economics and the systems they work within.

Lewis’ focus on healthcare and the “green new deal” just assumes endless funding and unlimited cooperation from provinces; there’s no conscience for pace or feasibility. I am kind of tired of the Liberals and NDP promoting childcare programs that provinces never play along with; it’s been 20 years and it’s not working. Additionally, it’s hard to rely on “windfall profits” for taxation if you’re going to stifle those industries with public corporations, regulation, and subsidized alternatives to their products. For instance, the Green New Deal would generally be bad for the oil and gas industry, which Lewis intends to tax to pay for his new deal. Most importantly, however, most of Lewis’ ideas on climate change are way too stringent and overzealous: the public is no where close to his level of dedication to climate issues right now. His climate and healthcare policies are themselves non-winners.

If the NDP/Lewis want to run on public options, it would make sense to start small or in areas they don’t need to cooperate with provinces. The idea that the NDP or any government in Canada could establish a public option for food and grocery supply in Canada in four years is quite a stretch. The capital investment alone would take a substantial amount of time to establish; the development of a corporate structure, supply chain, staff, training, and everything else would further complicate and slow down the process. Notwithstanding the grocery idea, the other public options Lewis floats are not terrible by themselves, but it would be difficult to establish and pay for them all at the same time. These corporations would likely not be profitable for long time and would not provide Canadians cheaper services in the immediate to short term. It’s great example of too many eggs in the basket.

In essence, Lewis wants to do too much, has policies that work against each other, and assumes high degrees of cooperation and funding to be available without establishing reasonable plans to secure them. I have strong doubts he would win or reverse the party’s fortunes. Rather, I think he would make the party look unserious and further untethered from public opinion. Lastly, I would like to say it’s incredibly disappointing that none of the candidates have thought to run on expanding access to educational funding for critical sectors like healthcare; if they plan such radical changes to the economy and labour force, it might make sense to help people relocate in the labour market through subsidized education.

Avi Lewis winning the leadership would be the end of the NDP as a party of any relevance. I seriously think they would lose every seat and be permanently wiped off the federal electoral map with him as leader.

For one thing, what do people see in a guy who is effectively a nepo baby with 0 credentials, 0 political experience, has not been able to finish better than 3rd place in any electoral race he has entered, and is clearly an electoral failure?

For another, he is going to alienate the union wing of the party, permanently alienate the rural CPC-PC swing voters, as well as be basically disowned by the centrist provincial party establishments (i.e in BC, SK, AB, ON, etc.) to the point they will vote/work with the LPC instead of voting for him.