NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis visits Halifax

In a time where Canada-U.S. relations are frosty, NDP federal leadership candidate Avi Lewis said he supports the prospect of Americans fleeing to Canada.

Lewis spoke at a campaign event at the University of King’s College in Halifax on Monday.

“When a lot of progressive people want to flee American fascism and come here, we should be super welcoming to them,” he said when a member of the audience asked how foreign medical professionals could more easily immigrate and continue work in Canada.

“We had a generation of people during the Vietnam War (do that),” he said. “They were young lawyers and doctors and really idealistic people who did not want to kill people on the other side of the world for the American empire. And they came here and they helped build our university system. They helped build our health care system … We could use another wave of principled progressive Americans coming over here.”

The event hosted about 30 students at the King’s campus bar, the Wardroom, and was Lewis’s second event of the week in Halifax. The night before, he held a campaign event at St. Andrew’s United Church, just a short walk down Coburg Road, which drew a crowd of nearly 200 people. 

Lewis is proposing to address the cost-of-living crisis with public options, saying the capitalist system is not working for “basic everyday life.”

“When private companies cannot offer people the things that they need to live a decent life at a price they can actually afford, that’s market failure,” Lewis said to the crowd at King’s.

He proposed the government provide public options for things such as groceries, housing, cell service and Internet, as well as a one per cent tax on the wealthiest one per cent.

NDP leadership runs in Lewis’s family. His father Stephen Lewis was leader of the Ontario NDP from 1970-78, and his grandfather David Lewis was leader of the federal NDP from 1971-75. 

His campaign to be the next leader of the federal NDP began back in September, and is heading toward the NDP’s Winnipeg Convention, where the new leader will be chosen in late March.

One of Lewis’s competitors, Tony McQuail, was a Vietnam War resister who was born in Pennsylvania and came to Canada at 18. 

Another NDP leadership candidate, Heather McPherson, campaigned in Halifax at the same time as Lewis, hosting a social at Glitter Bean Cafe Co-op on Dec. 1. 

Glitter Bean appears to be an NDP stronghold — Lewis met people in the café before his event at King’s, and former federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh campaigned at Glitter Bean in the last federal election. 

Before joining politics, Lewis worked as a documentarian and journalist, which he said has “enriched” him. 

“I feel very humble about how lucky I’ve been to connect with so many different people around the world and learn that skill of being able to listen. It’s not something that politicians are expected to do (but) I think it’s something that people really want politicians to do. To just shut up and listen to someone speak their truth and make people feel safe and comfortable.”

Lewis also said he stands by being a “democratic socialist.”

“I think democratic socialism … believes that co-operation is a better human principle than competition. And we see the so-called competition capitalism has not led to a level playing field. It’s led to a tiny group of ultra-rich people dominating the entire economy.”