The NDP will fight to win back what until recently was its only remaining Quebec seat — vacated earlier this year by Alexandre Boulerice — in one of two upcoming byelections in the province, the dates for which have yet to be announced; but Avi Lewis is not clinging to false hopes for a repeat of 2011’s Orange Wave, which saw then-leader Jack Layton’s surging popularity carry the party to unprecedented heights.
“The mainstream media made a big deal out of Alexandre leaving” the party to run provincially for Québec solidaire, said Lewis, who won the NDP leadership in March. “A lot has been made of the narrative that we’ve lost our last Quebec seat but in truth it was the last vestige of la vague orange, and I think there’s something healthy about letting that go because the nostalgia for it is intense.
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place and in the same way — or very rarely. I think we need to win in a different way.”
Former NDP leader Jack Layton, seen on Saturday, May 28, 2011, helped his party gain historic ground in Quebec. Dave Sidaway / The Gazette
Lewis sat down for pho noodles with The Gazette in July, near the end of a month-long stint he spent in Montreal, taking three hours of daily French lessons and knocking on doors with party candidates Pierre Ceré and Nimâ Machouf, who will be running in Rosemont—La Petite–Patrie and Laurier—Sainte–Marie, respectively.
“Byelections are a funky thing,” Lewis said. “The power of a ground game can be decisive when the turnout is lower, as it inevitably is in byelections. But also, it’s going to come right after a provincial election in Quebec, which is not ideal — a provincial election in which the mainstream media will be busy ignoring the left. So I’m tempering expectations around the byelections, but we’re going to work our asses off.
“Whether we win or lose Alexandre’s seat, I want us to have a strong stand in both ridings. We’re a party that is really starting from the bottom.”
Alexandre Boulerice speaks to supporters after being offically named Quebec Solidaire candidate in the Gouin riding in the upcoming provincial election, in Montreal Friday June 19, 2026. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
That’s fine by Lewis. The former documentary filmmaker and CBC/MuchMusic TV host believes the NDP — like the Montreal Canadiens of a half-decade back — is in need of a rebuild. As the grandson of former party leader David Lewis and the son of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, he says he’s up to the challenge.
“We need to decentralize power in the party and return power to the base and grassroots,” he stated. It’s an approach he thinks will work particularly well in Quebec. Regaining traction in the province is key to building momentum across the country, “but saying it doesn’t make it so,” he cautioned. “We need an approach that works here.”
That approach is long-term, according to Lewis — there is no fast-track to regaining popularity and official party status. The NDP won just seven seats nationally in 2025, of which five remain following the departures of Boulerice and Nunavut MP Lori Idlout, who switched to the Liberals.
Lewis himself is without a seat in the House of Commons, having yet to run for election since being named NDP leader. While he is keen to guide the party forward, he says he can’t do it alone.
“I genuinely see it as a collective project,” he explained. “There’s no false humility here; if it’s all on me, we’re going to fail. We need a different vision of leadership. The cult of the leader is a very unstable story. It produces guaranteed disillusionment. No matter how popular the leader is — whether it’s Trudeau ‘68 or Trudeau 2015 — eventually the arrogance of power will see it all come crashing down. We need to disperse leadership so it’s seen as a collective burden and responsibility.”
Through his family history, his work as a journalist/filmmaker and that of his wife, author/activist Naomi Klein, Lewis has long moved in what he calls “the terrain of social movements.”
His relationships with such movements “in a lot of different spheres” could serve him well in his burgeoning political career, he believes, and provide a path forward for the NDP.
“Some of the best organizers in Quebec and Canada are in social movements,” he said. “They’re also in unions and political parties, but social movement organizers have been less drawn to electoral politics.
“A great movement-organizing energy has been part of my whole life. Bringing that into the party and knowing how to connect with social movements in a respectful, non-possessive way — in alliance rather than absorption — is something new for the party, and it’s most natural for that to work in Quebec, where some of the country’s stronger social movements already exist. Even though Québec solidaire has fallen on hard times electorally, nobody else in Canada has a party like that, that was born of a social uprising and has maintained a social-movement style of politics.”
We believe (sovereignty is) not actually a pressing issue for most Quebecers.
Avi Lewis
Lewis’ father died at the end of March, two days after he was elected party leader, but he remains inspired by a phone conversation with his dad during the party leadership campaign in the summer of 2025.
“He asked me how I was doing and I was like, ‘It’s super stressful, it’s the craziest time,’” Lewis recalled. “And he’s like, ‘Well, tell me about your platform. Where’s your platform?’ I’m like, ‘We don’t have time to worry about the platform. We’ve got to find this person and that person who can do this and that.’ And he’s like, ‘OK but what are the policies you want to run on?’”
After an hour of talking policy with his father, “I was like, ‘Holy s—t, I feel so much better,’” Lewis said. “I felt so much more engaged and energized and positive. And he was like, ‘Right, stay on the issues. Stay on the reason you’re in this in the first place; stay on the things people actually need done.’”
Among the policies Lewis has proposed is a public option for groceries in the form of government-funded, non-profit, warehouse-style grocery stores across the country which he says could cut costs by 30 to 40 per cent; a network of public telecom providers; and building one million public homes using modular, pre-fab designs.
He also believes it’s important to offer an alternative to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s policy priorities — of which he named “unprecedented, historic investments in the military,” going “all-in” on AI “with virtually no regulation” and “this extraordinary reversal on climate and doubling down on fossil fuels.”
Lewis says the NDP can provide respite to those frustrated by “the right-wing era of the CAQ — the destruction of healthcare, of $10-a-day childcare, which is unravelling, and affordable rents, which are gone or going. These are all extremely pressing in Quebec and they are all the direct target of our political offer.”
The big difference is that “the left here is sovereigntist,” Lewis said.
New Democratic Party leader Avi Lewis, in Montreal, on Thursday, July 30, 2026. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
“We believe that it’s not actually a pressing issue for most Quebecers,” he added, noting the NDP is “the only federalist party that has an orientation towards sovereignty which respects the right of Quebecers to choose their own destiny. As a federalist party, we don’t believe Quebec should separate — especially now, with the United States doing whatever it wants — but it’s up to Quebecers to decide.”
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