Lewis begins NDP leadership with Prairie tension and a big rebuilding task ahead

Lewis said he wants to see both Nenshi and Beck become premiers of their respective provinces and his door will be open when they’re ready to talk.

“I do believe that hard conversations are necessary. I’m a person who actually welcomes them. I think that we need to have them,” Lewis told a Winnipeg press conference Monday.

But Lewis did not indicate he’s willing to budge on energy policy.

“We have run a seven-month campaign where the policy proposals were clear from day one,” he said. “We won the largest mandate for any NDP leadership race in history. We brought in tens of thousands of new members and we won a thumping victory on the first ballot, larger than any previous one in the one-member, one-vote era.

“We have a mandate from the members and I have a responsibility to be consistent with the ideas that brought those folks into the party and to support our campaign, and I’ll continue to do that.”

Lewis said he had a good meeting Sunday with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, one of just two NDP premiers in Canada. Lewis said that while he and Kinew have differences of opinion on energy exports at the Port of Churchill, they can still work together.

“Whether it’s Churchill or somewhere else ends up being the destination for more oil and gas exports, that’s something that we in the federal NDP do not think serves Canadians. The energy economy is extremely unstable,” Lewis said.

“We think that we need to accelerate the transition to a more stable, secure and safe economy and a more independent Canadian economy, which actually means not shipping our raw resources elsewhere, but using Canadian materials to create good unionized Canadian jobs.”

Lewis won a first-ballot victory with about 56 per cent support, nearly doubling the vote count of the runner-up, Alberta MP Heather McPherson.

In the last NDP leadership contest in 2017, Jagmeet Singh won on the first ballot with 53.8 per cent of the vote.

Singh took the helm of the party after a disappointing electoral showing in 2015 — when the NDP went from official Opposition status and flirting with winning government to a third-place finish.

Lewis faces a more monumental rebuilding task. In the 2025 election, the NDP plummeted to just seven seats, five short of official party status — the worst showing in the party’s history.

The caucus is now down to six MPs after Lori Idlout crossed the floor to the Liberals earlier this month.

Lewis is also taking over a party deeply in debt. NDP officials said at the convention the party carries a $13 million debt.

Lewis’s platform was built on what he called bold ideas, such as publicly run grocery stores and telecom companies and opposition to new fossil fuel developments.

Delegates at the convention said they are optimistic about the future direction of the party and that Lewis’s policies attracted more young people to the party.

One of those young people is 17-year-old Milo Clarke from Brampton, Ont. He volunteered for the Lewis campaign and said he was drawn in by Lewis’s ideas and authenticity.

Clarke said he wants to see the new leader get out to working-class communities and make direct connections as a first order of business.

“I think the first thing he needs to do is go to a lot of industrial working-class areas, like Hamilton, like London, like Windsor, like Port Moody, like Halifax, areas that have … a lot industry,” Clarke said Sunday as the convention closed.

“He needs go and talk to those people, define himself to them before he can be defined by people who are not acting in good faith.”

Lewis said he and the NDP federal caucus have decided that he won’t immediately seek a seat in the House of Commons and will instead focus on introducing himself to a broader swath of Canadians.

He said he accepts the “populist” label and looks forward to showing people what left-wing populism looks like.

“Right-wing populists imagine conspiracies of immigrants or Jews or a tiny class of puppeteers who control the world. Left-wing populists believe that capitalism concentrates wealth and power in the fewest hands,” Lewis said. “And we need policies and a response that actually responds to the needs of the 99 per cent of us.”

Lewis said no decisions have been made yet on caucus roles — including who will act as the NDP’s parliamentary lead in his stead.

It’s not uncommon for the NDP to choose a leader without a seat in the House of Commons. Singh became the party’s leader on Oct. 1, 2017 and did not become a member of Parliament until Feb. 25, 2019.

Lewis has run federally for the NDP twice. He lost in two Vancouver-area ridings in the 2021 and 2025 elections.

Lewis said that when he does decide to run again, it will be a joint decision with caucus.

“When the caucus and I feel that the party is at a point where I’m needed in the House of Commons, I will look for the first available winnable seat. And that moment is not now,” Lewis said.

Former Ontario NDP MP Matthew Green spent about six months last year travelling the country and meeting with grassroots party members. He said Lewis’s priority should be making connections with voters outside Ottawa.

“I spent six years where we did have those things, worked diligently as a parliamentarian on the Hill, spent hours and hours in debates, spent hours and hours in media scrums only to go back to my community and have them have no idea what was happening in Ottawa,” Green said at the convention Sunday.

“What is required for us to come out of the wilderness is having a real and deep connection to our membership. And if we don’t have that, we’re in trouble.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2026.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Lewis begins NDP leadership with Prairie tension and a big rebuilding task ahead

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