{"id":690581,"date":"2026-03-29T17:11:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/690581\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:11:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:11:16","slug":"avi-lewis-elected-as-new-federal-ndp-leader-on-1st-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/690581\/","title":{"rendered":"Avi Lewis elected as new federal NDP leader on 1st ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avi Lewis has been named the new leader of the federal NDP<\/a>, drawing to a close a six-month leadership campaign.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The new leader won on the first ballot, receiving 56 per cent of the total votes cast during the election, or 39,734 out of a possible 70,930.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a tremendous result,\u201d Lewis said in his first remarks following his victory. \u201cBut even more important than the results of this leadership vote is the unity of our party.\u201d<\/p>\n

While people in the room applauded Lewis, the result did not generate universal praise.<\/p>\n

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said in a post on X that Lewis becoming the federal leader was \u201cnot in the interests of Alberta.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbertans deserve federal leaders who understand the importance of Alberta and our essential role in the federation,\u201d Nenshi wrote.<\/p>\n

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The election of a new leader came months after former head of the party, Jagmeet Singh, said he would resign after the NDP\u2019s overwhelming loss in the 2025 federal election.<\/p>\n

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The party was reduced to seven seats in April 2025, but that number has dropped to six when Nunavut MP Lori Idlout crossed the floor to the Liberals earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it isn\u2019t already obvious, we are building a new foundation for our party and we are ready to come roaring back on the Canadian political stage,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cThe NDP comeback starts now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heather McPherson came in second place with 20,899 votes, with Tanille Johnston, Rob Ashton and Tony McQuail coming in third, fourth and fifth respectively.<\/p>\n

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Lewis went on to commend each of his fellow candidates, calling Johnston a \u201crising star\u201d and saying McQuail reiterated the importance of changing the First Past the Post electoral system. He also said Ashton was the \u201creal deal\u201d and that workers were at the heart of the party while adding McPherson knows \u201chow to win\u201d and that she helps others win.<\/p>\n

The NDP\u2019s new leader went on to stress the party\u2019s need to tackle issues Canadians are facing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians are living on the edge, we\u2019re under economic from the U.S. while Donald Trump stomps around the globe, grabbing foreign leaders and oil fields and starting wars he has no idea how to stop,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cAt the kitchen table in Canada, there\u2019s an even bigger crisis the everyday emergency of just trying to get by in an impossible economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated Lewis in a post on X, saying he would take a \u201ccollaborative approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to speaking about how we can work together to keep delivering for Canadians,\u201d Carney wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avi Lewis has been named the new leader of the federal NDP, drawing to a close a six-month…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":690582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[289384,2147,15785,289383,50,80],"class_list":["post-690581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-avi-lewis","tag-canada","tag-ndp","tag-ndp-leadership-race","tag-news","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}