A meeting with Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck wasn’t on the agenda for federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis during his five-day, 11-stop visit to Saskatchewan.
Shortly after Lewis won the national NDP leadership race at the end of March, Beck stated she was at “glaring odds” with the federal leader over his views on natural resources. In a letter to Lewis penned around that same time, she called his position on the matter “ideological and unrealistic” to realities in her province.
Speaking by phone while driving to Star Blanket Cree Nation on Thursday, Lewis told the Regina Leader-Post that the “minor ruffle of feathers” has since settled down.
However, he said the Victoria Day long weekend made it difficult to arrange a time to meet with Beck during his May 13-17 visit.
“Carla and I are in touch, and we haven’t been able to make our schedules work for a visit while we’re here,” said Lewis, whose next stops were scheduled for Moose Jaw and Regina.
Speaking to reporters at the legislative building on Thursday, Beck — a Regina MLA — also insisted that her schedule was too busy to accommodate it.
Beck said her focus is on pressing the Saskatchewan government about a leaked internal document that indicated billions of dollars could be spent on refurbishing a coal power plant.
“My calendar right now is, as I said, pretty much built around this issue, this extreme coverup of $26 billion (and) doubling power rates in this province. I haven’t changed that schedule,” she told media.
Lewis said the federal party has taken note of areas where its platform conflicts with regional “hot button” issues.
He said some Saskatchewan-based members are helping him adapt messaging so it’s more palatable. That means taking into account how many jobs rely on oil and gas and finding a way to emphasize how those skilled trades are needed for a future in clean manufacturing and renewable energy, which the party aspires to foster in Canada.
“Fossil fuel revenues are perhaps the largest source of provincial revenues, and … making a transition to renewable energy and moving away from the destabilizing effects of the fossil fuel economy has to be communicated in a different way,” Lewis said.
The federal NDP has only five seats in the House of Commons. Lewis, who lives in B.C., doesn’t hold one of them but he won the party’s leadership race March 29 on the first ballot with 56 per cent of the vote.
Lewis said he hopes to build momentum across Canada on that strong mandate.
His family ties to the NDP go back to his grandfather, David Lewis, who in the 1970s succeeded Saskatchewan’s Tommy Douglas at the helm of the national party.
The NDP has a long history in Saskatchewan, but it hasn’t had representation from the province in Ottawa since the 2019 general election. That’s when Saskatoon’s Sheri Benson, Regina’s Erin Weir and the north’s Georgina Jolibois all lost their seats.
However, Saskatchewan’s appetite for a left-leaning federal voice doesn’t appear to have entirely dissipated. Nearly half of Saskatchewan-based donations during the NDP leadership race went to Lewis.
According to data from Elections Canada, about 850 people from the province gave a combined $99,000 to all NDP leadership race candidates. Of those donors, 407 contributed $47,300 to Lewis’s campaign.
Lewis accepts that there can be different approaches for provincial and federal politics and said he ultimately supports Beck. The new leader added that he wants the NDP in power to push policies that help the working class.
“The areas of common values and shared policy priorities are huge, and we’re going to keep emphasizing that because I want Saskatchewan to have an NDP government,” he said, “and I’ll do anything that I can to support that, and I support Carla.”