Host: NDP leader, Avi Lewis, charge of all, turn all that around and he joins me now. Mr. Lewis, good to see you. In the studio for the first time. First time I’ve seen you since you won, so congratulations on winning the leadership. Look, I don’t need to tell you the situation the party you have taken over is in right now. We’ve seen Lori Idlout cross over to Mark Carney’s Liberals. We saw Doly Begum leave the provincial NDP and get elected as part of the majority window. I mean, how do you explain the NDP playing such a big role in this Liberal success?
Lewis: Well, I think the majority that we’re witnessing now is a troubling one. I think parliamentary historians would be hard-pressed to find an example anywhere in the world ever where a majority has been assembled through floor-crossers in the British parliamentary system.
Host: I have one example.
Lewis: Okay, tell me.
Host: Manitoba, 1969, when Ed Schreyer, a New Democrat, I should have known this — was one seat short and an opposition MLA sat as a Liberal Democrat to give him a majority and save the government.
Lewis: So there you go, in 1969. I was informed of that Monday night. So no one crossed to the government side, though, and there were not five. It’s like a coalition.
Host: No, no, this is, as a national government, this is an unusual thing.
Lewis: I’ll tell you, David, what I worry about. Look, you know I’ve been doing this for a long time. This is not gonna be the story that stays for years. But at the outset of this majority government, we have a world in which authoritarianism is rising, in which people are further and further distanced from a good feeling about their vote in our democracy. We live in a country where, with the first-past-the-post system, where 37% of the popular vote can get you absolute power virtually in Ottawa. We can’t take any more measures that tarnish our own sense that our vote means something. So I really am concerned about the floor-crossing majority, and that’s what it is. But that’s what we got now, and that’s where we’ll do our work.
Host: Well, I mean, do you think Canadians see this as tarnished and illegitimate in any way? Because if you look at what broader public opinion polls are, Mr. Carney was going to have gotten more popular since the last election. And look, I concede your point, this is an unusual way to cobble it together. They didn’t win it in an election.
Lewis: And I don’t think — I’m not saying this government has no legitimacy. No, no, it’s constitutional and legal. I don’t think there’s a time for hyperbole or anything like that, but it’s worrisome. And it speaks to — and the ideological span, which spans the entire spectrum now from Doly Begum to Marilyn Gladu — I don’t know what it means to be a Liberal anymore. And for us in the NDP, frankly, it is an opportunity to remind Canadians there is a consistent voice of principle in parliament. We stand for actually measures that will improve your daily life in a cost of living emergency. We’re fighting for a public option for groceries. We’re naming surveillance pricing at the supermarket and on retail and actually focused, laser focused on the emergency that people face every day trying to pay the rent. And this government has been distracted by trying to form a majority with floor crossers and by a lot of things internationally. And we’re gonna try to bring it home and have a relentless focus on what Canadians are going through, because it’s really hard. And there needs to be a voice for that in parliament.
Host: It’s impossible to ignore what’s happening internationally, though, when that is what’s driving so many things domestically. Like even the price at the pump right now is because of Donald Trump’s actions in Iran. There was a trade shock last year with this trade war, there’s a supply shock this year with the Strait of Hormuz issue. So you have to find a way to navigate that and recalibrate your economy.
Lewis: Well, those are also places where we have a very different offer and places where the Liberals and Conservatives have a very similar offer. Both Liberals and Conservatives have at times cheered on Donald Trump’s military adventures. The prime minister walked it back, but he celebrated the initial attacks on Iran. And he talked about the Iran nuclear threat, which we know was one of 50 different justifications that held no water whatsoever. And the NDP is an anti-war party. And we think that Canadians are very disturbed by these illegal, reprehensible, immoral wars that involve mass killings of civilians by Israel in Lebanon, by the United States in Tehran and elsewhere. And we need a clear moral voice in international affairs as well. And the Liberals and Tories don’t offer a big span there.
Host: You come to the question of slashing the gas tax, so they knock 10 cents off the excise tax. What’s that actually gonna mean at the pump in a couple of weeks? They’re gonna jack up the price anyway, we know this.
Lewis: We are offering other solutions.
Host: Well, no, I wanna talk to you about that, because look, the price of a barrel of oil — Brent Crude — went from 70 bucks to about $120. You can’t shield an economy from that kind of a shock. You can’t shield an economy when we’ve doubled down on the export of oil and gas to the point where it’s a major part of our economy. We’re tied into the world price, despite the fact that the gas you put in your car in Canada, the petroleum that we use, the vast majority of it is produced in Canada. So why are we paying these astronomical prices for gas? It’s not coming from the Persian Gulf.
Lewis: Because it’s a global commodity and there’s a global price. Because we’ve tied our economy into that global price, and we’re not moving away from oil and gas, despite the price shock that’s already here, and the tens of billions of dollars that those oil companies are gonna make in the next months and years.
Host: I saw you posting that you need a price cap at the pump.
Lewis: Because that will actually control the price. If you knock off one tax or another tax, they’ll just jack it up anyway. It doesn’t protect Canadians from the price going ever skyward.
Host: But you are then telling Canadian energy companies to take a haircut.
Lewis: Canadian energy companies can afford a haircut when they are forecast to make $100 billion in excess revenue this year alone. Tens of billions of dollars of excess windfall profits. We gotta be taxing that money and capping the cost of gas, returning those profits to Canadians to support them in the price shocks that those oil companies’ profits are going to drive. Jim Stanford, the economist, determined in the last price shock in 2022, 45% of it was driven — the inflation spiral — was driven by the high cost of oil. And the same thing’s gonna happen this time even more.
Host: But the federal government isn’t the only player in this. I come from an oil producing province in Newfoundland and Labrador, and when the price of oil goes up, the corporate profits and the royalties that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador get from their deals with the oil companies will go up. If you cap their profits, you cap what the provinces who produce these resources get, and they need — places like my home province need that cash.
Lewis: We are addicted to oil as a society, and the governments are addicted to the revenue. In countries around the world, this is accelerating the transition away from oil and gas. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford an electric vehicle in this country — and they should not be so expensive — if we’d actually pursued a real policy to make EVs affordable in this country, it costs you the equivalent of 30 cents a litre to charge up your car. And countries around the world are accelerating the transition away from oil and gas. Canadians are being left behind because doubling down on the energy source of the 19th century is not gonna do us well when the wind and the sun are free all day, every day.
Host: A lot of what you’re talking about with price controls sounds a bit like a National Energy Program.
Lewis: Oh, don’t — no. The massive proportion of these profits are being captured by the oil and gas companies, tens of billions of dollars, and they’re mostly foreign-owned. Big Six in Canada are about 60% American-owned. So Donald Trump’s wars are driving up the price of oil, and tens of billions of dollars from Canadians are going to American millionaires. I’m not talking about anything that would derail any commercial arrangements. Christa Freeland put a 1% windfall profit tax on the banks in that same period when they were making excess profits. A windfall profit tax to offset the price caps and to return that money to protect Canadians from price capture — that’s in the federal government’s purview. The oil sands themselves would never have been developed as a commercial resource without massive amounts of federal subsidy. The federal government has got to protect Canadians in the everyday emergency of just trying to get by in this cost-of-living crisis. We’re gonna stay laser focused on that.
Host: Do you know if Alexandre Boulerice is gonna leave to run in the Quebec election? When do you expect an answer?
Lewis: It’s his personal decision, but it matters to us as a party trying to rebuild. You know, the notion of leaving one jurisdiction to go to the other — at least it’s not a floor crossing. Alex has been struggling with this, and we expect that he’ll make his decision soon. And obviously we’re braced for it. We’ve seen a lot of movement in politics, and I think what people wanna know is that the politicians that they elect remain true to the cause. And Quebec is in a very fluid and important political moment. And if Alex feels that he needs to fight over there for the democratic socialist cause — there’s no NDP, eventually, in Quebec — he’ll be fighting for the same values and the same programs. We really want him to stay. He chaired my first full caucus meeting today. He is an incredible parliamentarian, a principled, lovely, warm person, and he would leave a giant hole if he left, but we’re hoping he stays, but we’re prepared for whatever.
Host: I have to ask you about your first press conference on Parliament Hill this week. Your rookie mistake?
Lewis: Sure. Yes, of course. So we had a caucus meeting in the green room. And everybody said, you take all the questions. They may wanna ask us questions. It was my first press conference. What I didn’t understand is I thought that we’d set the rules of there be a question and a follow-up, which is where they got off on the wrong track. I understand now the parliamentary press studio is the press corps’ house. And you’ll see me act a little differently in future.
Host: Part of it is being able to call an audible in the moment. Like Heather MacPherson is actually an elected official. Was that just a mistake?
Lewis: We made an agreement and I made the decision that I made in the moment. And yeah, for sure I regret doing that. For sure. Heather’s incredible. Heather and I got to know each other really well during the leadership race. And I have immense respect for her. And I have a tremendous amount to learn as I enter this game. And yeah, for sure I’d do it differently, 100%.
Host: Well, look, we appreciate you coming in, taking our questions. And I know it’s been an up and down year. So congratulations for winning and my sincere condolences on your father — a great man and a great Canadian. I’m very sorry for your loss.
Lewis: Thank you.