What does Lewis ‘profoundly disagree’ with in left platform?

Does Avi Lewis “profoundly disagree” with my campaign’s call to shut down the tar sands?
Or to convert Real Estate Investment Trust units into co-ops? Or to expand indigenous jurisdiction? Or to eliminate billionaires?
Or did Avi just want to distance himself from an anti-imperialist who has been widely smeared for challenging power?
In a recent statement responding to calls to speak out against the NDP brass’ decision to exclude me from the race, Avi criticized the unelected three person vetting committee’s subversion of democracy. He also said he would review the process if he became leader.

But Avi refused to make the simple, principled, statement “I think Yves should be allowed to run”. And days later he demonstrated how differently he treats candidates ‘approved’ by the party brass. Lewis announced that he’d donated to Tony McQuail and called on others to do the same to help him raise the funds to pay his third installment to the NDP.

In his statement critical of the vetting process, Avi noted that he “profoundly disagrees with some of Yves’ positions”. He didn’t mention which positions though he has many to choose from. Unlike the other campaigns, we’ve put forward a comprehensive platform, fulfilling Nina Turner’s maxim that “Candidates running for office should have a policy page like a restaurant should have a menu.” Drafted by 45 activists and researchers, “Capitalism can’t be fixed – onwards to a socialist future”, is likely the most widely read anti-capitalist document in Canada over the past three months. Available at NDP2026.ca, hopefully we can make it the top read anti-capitalist document for the new year.

I googled “profoundly disagree” (and similar formulations) with Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson’s names. Avi doesn’t appear to have criticized an NDP leadership competitor for repeatedly praising leading Zionist Irwin Cotler or applauding an individual who fought for Hitler. One wonders if Lewis “profoundly disagrees” with McPherson for having worked with the CIA-influenced Trilateral Commission or NATO Parliamentary Association? Or how about McPherson traveling to Taiwan in 2023 to stoke tension by undermining Canada’s longstanding adherence to the “One China” policy?

McPherson has opposed negotiations and diplomatic contact with Russia, criticizing the Justin Trudeau government for not being more belligerent towards that country. Does Avi “profoundly disagree” with her aggressive promotion of a NATO proxy war that’s gobbled up tens of billions of dollars in Canadian public resources and left countless dead?

One presumes that the producer of “This Changes Everything” would “profoundly disagree” with McPherson’s support for Ottawa paying $35 billion for the Trans Mountain pipeline. But he’s not recorded saying so publicly.

When I searched Avi and Heather’s names with “disagree” a few posts came up. Interestingly, one was a post of Lewis (correctly) complaining that McPherson adopted rightist language — “purity tests” — to criticize left positions in the NDP leadership race. “I don’t believe in using language that the right uses to slam the left,” Lewis noted. “I don’t believe in using that against each other on the left.”

Is Avi doing that when stating his profound disagreement with me? Is he echoing Zionist and establishment groups who’ve labeled me a Putin supporting, Rwandan genocide denying, antisemite? Or is it just a way to toe the NDP brass’ line while criticizing the three-person NDP vetting committee’s sloppily packaged exclusion report?

More than the other candidates, Avi and his camp worked to justify excluding our campaign. The open hostility initially puzzled me. I presumed Avi would calculate that my supporters were more likely to rank Lewis second on their ballot so he wouldn’t want to alienate them and that our positions would make him appear more palatable to the right of the NDP.

Instead, Avi chose (I believe) to ingratiate himself with the party establishment by supporting the NDP brass’ bid to suppress the left. Or to put it in the language they might employ, Lewis wanted to demonstrate that he’s a “team player” when it comes to preserving the party’s ‘respectability’.

But that’s why Avi’s claims to want to upend the undemocratic vetting process or turn the 343 electoral district associations into activist hubs ring hollow. If you genuinely sought to achieve those aims you wouldn’t actively assist those seeking to isolate/drive out leftist, activist, forces needed to take on the neoliberal, imperialist, anti-activist NDP establishment.

If you suppress the left from the party who will support your challenge against the establishment? If you back the brass’s bid to marginalize the most active members who would trust that you’ll give electoral associations the independence required to become activist hubs?

During Avi’s upcoming events people should ask him what policies in our platform he “profoundly disagrees” with.

Please email the other NDP candidates to urge them to speak out against the subversion of party democracy