the ndp are consequently now faced with a problem that you see in canada with what we call fringe parties, which is that they can get an mp elected here and there, but they can't get their leader elected. we saw this most recently with the green party, and they had to go back to elizabeth may.
mr. lewis has already made attempts to win seats twice, in 2021 and 2025, and lost both times. there is no obvious place for mr. lewis to run where he might win. i frankly don't think there is a riding in the country that he's likely to win in.
further, mr. lewis' ethnicity (i don't suspect he's very religious) is likely to generate a large amount of hostility amongst core ndp voters, and i'd get some popcorn for that, as it's likely to be entertaining watching canada's previously left-wing party collapse into far-right conspiracy theory rhetoric. but it's coming.
i don't exactly disagree with the outcome. mr lewis was clearly the best candidate. but he's also the most unelectable candidate in canada in 2026 that you could imagine creating out of clay, if you could, and it speaks to a contradiction in the ndp voting coalition, and donor base. lewis will be able to hold 10-15% of voters across the country, but the ridings the ndp has been able to hold since mulcair have tended to be a little right of centre and more traditionally conservative, and the mps it actually elects reflect that. it follows that the mps that the ndp is able to elect are fairly centrist, while it's donors are more to the left, and there doesn't seem to be a way to address that other than to pick a fight with the liberal party, which the ndp tends to lose when it does, because the liberals constantly run to the left of the ndp on issues that actually matter, and the liberals have a far more left-wing record in actual governance. it's hard for an informed leftist in canada to actually vote ndp, given their record in government. the ndp actually have this really bad habit of unexpectedly swinging hard to austerity. at this point, they can't blame it on bad apples. it's happened across the country, and it leaves them in ruins.
a lot of former ndp voters are now conservative voters, and avi lewis is not going to swing them back, so how does he win a seat? he can't. and he won't.
this is the deep secret of canadian politics: the ndp is not a socialist party but is actually a real conservative party. not a post-thatcherian neo-liberal party, a pre-clarkian, stanfeldian, diefenbakerian old-timey conservative party.
so, they're kind of fucked.
lewis wants to be the guy that saves the ndp, but he's going to be the guy that buries them, and what happens next to the ndp is going to be ugly. he's going to win the vote, and then get attacked by his own party, which doesn't want him to win, and it's going to get vicious. this is going to alienate his donors, who are going to bolt to the greens or liberals (or bloc) and it's going to leave behind the ugliest part of the ndp, to collapse into a new socred party, and then fade into obscurity.
there may be some more floor crossings from the ndp to the liberals. unfortunately. because canadians didn't vote for a majority, but that will make it real, until the next election.