Savhanna Wilson
Good morning Winnipeg!
My name is Savhanna and I am the campaign manager for this wild and beautiful operation you’ve just gotten a glimpse of… the movement to make Avi Lewis the next leader of the federal NDP!
I said yes to this invitation because I knew I needed a sliver of hope. Watching the world around us grow more hostile towards everyday people, I was excited to organize an unapologetically values-driven campaign that puts people first.
Because I believed that a better world is possible — and now, I know that it is.
Everything worth doing is done with other people, and I want to bring out some of the incredible organizers that have made this all possible.
These are just a few of the people who have
…propelled the campaign across over 30 communities in 9 provinces and territories
…sold memberships in 338 out of 343 ridings!
…collected donations from over 10,000 people in hundreds of communities across the country
…and signed up over 8,400 volunteers from coast to coast to coast all eager to join in and become the architects of our shared future.
Our campaign has become a gathering place for people who are ready to get out and build the world we deserve, and to do it the way that it should be done: with art and music and joy and laughter and celebration and friendship and with love.
It’s my absolute honour to introduce three of the people who have helped us along the way.
We are so grateful to have with us this morning to nominate Avi Lewis…
the legendary MP of Winnipeg Centre, Leah Gazan
Our next NDP President, Niall Ricardo!
And author, activist and Avi Lewis superfan Naomi Klein
Please give it up for Leah Gazan!
Leah Gazan
My name is Leah Gazan and I’m the proud MP for Winnipeg Centre. Or as I like to call it, the centre of the universe.
Home of JS Woodsworth.
Home of the General Strike.
And welcome to the place where we are going to elect Avi Lewis as the next leader of the NDP!
Now people have asked me: Leah, why are you supporting Avi?
His campaign has inspired thousands upon thousands of people to come out to events, donate their time and money, and join our party — I see a movement.
And it’s because Avi speaks truth to power and has offered real solutions, like a public option for food and groceries.
He understands that gender equity, the right to access safe abortions, and gender affirming care are bread and butter issues.
He stands up for Indigenous rights, human rights, and speaks out against genocide, without apology or exception.
And he’s not Liberal-lite, he’s a proud democratic socialist.
We’ve faced adversity before and each time, we’ve picked ourselves up and come back stronger than ever.
This is not a city of quitters. We are not a movement of quitters. Avi and I aren’t quitters, we’re fighters! Join us, let’s build a party of the 99% together that will take on the billionaires and win.
Niall Ricardo
Chers amis, chères camarades,
Je vous parle aujourd’hui avec conviction — parce que ce parti, c’est chez moi. C’est chez nous. Depuis que j’ai 19 ans, j’y ai vu des membres extraordinaires — le sel de la terre — qui continuent de se battre avec solidarité et espoir.
Mais le moment exige plus de nous. Face aux défis que vivent les gens, on a besoin de croire en notre force collective.
Parce que quand on s’organise, quand on se tient ensemble, quand on n’a pas peur d’être qui nous sommes vraiment — un parti fier, ancré dans ses valeurs, du côté des gens — il n’y a rien qu’on ne peut pas accomplir.
C’est ça que propose Avi.
Des solutions ambitieuses, oui — mais surtout, une capacité de rassembler, de mobiliser, et de nous amener à croire à nouveau en ce que nous pouvons faire ensemble.
Avant tout, cela signifie comprendre que la transformation ne viendra jamais d’un parti seul. Elle naîtra d’une convergence vivante entre les mobilisations de rue, les luttes syndicales, les mouvements communautaires, la résistance autochtone, les réseaux internationaux de solidarité et, oui, les espaces institutionnels lorsqu’ils peuvent être conquis.
C’est cette convergence qu’incarne Avi Lewis.
Du Québec, cela résonne profondément en nous. Nous savons que les véritables acquis ne sont jamais le fruit d’un don, mais d’une lutte acharnée. La Révolution tranquille, les droits syndicaux, l’éducation publique, les soins de santé universels, les avancées féministes – tout cela est né de la lutte, et non d’un consensus.
C’est pourquoi nous devons nous rallier à Avi.
Car ce moment historique n’appelle pas à la prudence. Il exige du courage.
Alors soyons à la hauteur. Soyons fiers. Et avançons, ensemble.
Avec Avi, tout devient possible. Merci!
Naomi Klein
Thank you Niall, Leah, and Savhanna. And thank you to everyone on this stage and in this room and watching across the country who have helped power this amazing campaign.
Many of you already know that I happen to be married to Avi Lewis — and have been for almost 30 years.
So I can tell you with quite a bit of authority how kind he is. How funny. How generous.
I can tell you what an amazing dad he is, that he makes our kid the best lunch and breakfast he can think of every morning that he is in town. I can tell you that he is obsessed with the Blue Jays and that he has an inexplicable love of Dungeons and Dragons.
I can also tell you that Avi is the most dedicated son to Stephen and Michele, who I know are watching right now. Contrary to the opinion of a very long line of doctors, Stephen Lewis was not going to miss this for the world.
I know it can seem strange to people who aren’t political, but our lives are intertwined with politics, with left ideas, with social movements. And there is no way I would rather live.
For 30 years, Avi and I have been having a neverending conversation about how to win the world we so desperately need, one that prioritizes art and friendships and kids and the health of the living world — and how to beat the disaster capitalists standing in our way.
Right now, in Canada, the way we win that world is we elect Avi Lewis as leader of the NDP.
My friends, it’s time to re-weave the left in Canada, connect our issues to each other in a common story and in a common front — and remind the hard working people in this country that there are real alternatives to the far right politics of hate and division — and the so-called centrist politics of oligarchy and austerity.
Avi’s campaign is about so much more than him. It’s an invitation to rebuild the NDP into a bold and exciting force for bottom-up organizing in Canada — something we desperately need if we’re going to wrest this country back from the bankers and corporate overlords who have been dampening our dreams for far too long.
This is about creating an NDP that belongs to each and every one of us, a welcoming and sturdy party that will bring our movements together — for Indigenous sovereignty and labour rights and climate justice and racial and gender justice.
Together, we are going to help each other dream big once again.
So today I’m asking you to stand with me, and thousands of others, to nominate Avi and rebuild this party with radical, joyful energy — one phone call, one event, one canvass, and yes — one donation — at a time.
This has been one hell of a campaign — relentlessly positive, hardworking, creative, and so much fun. We’re at the finish line, and now we’re gonna wake this country up together.
And now it’s my absolute pleasure to bring to the stage, my partner in life and troublemaking, the next leader of the federal NDP, Avi Lewis!
Avi Lewis
Thanks Naomi. Thank you Savhanna, Leah, Niall, and every staff and volunteer and donor to our campaign.
This has been a seven-month marathon at the speed of a sprint, and it has been the thrill of a lifetime to run it with all of you.
And now we’re so close to the finish line, and the start of a much bigger race: to bring our party back from the wilderness and into the heart of Canadian political life once again!
The campaign has played out against the backdrop of one of the bleakest times we have ever lived: war and genocide, economic attacks and threats of annexation, and for all Canadians, the grinding everyday emergency of the cost of living, out of control.
And yet. Our journey across this vast land has been punctuated with hope: the daily victories of care and compassion, the seeds of a brighter future planted by workers and neighbours in the soil of struggle.
Here’s a few memories that will stay with me…
The New Flyer bus factory, right here in Winnipeg. A UNIFOR shop floor bursting with pride and camaraderie, making electric and hybrid buses with Canadian steel, for use across the country.
The plant has thirteen and a half billion dollars in back orders: every one shining with the promise of a clean transportation revolution waiting to happen.
The Northern Community Land Trust in Whitehorse, where local housing activists have built homes that young families with modest incomes can buy, most of them under 300 thousand dollars. Homes that can never be flipped, only sold for the original price plus inflation. True non-market housing.
Un rassemblement passionnant à Montréal, avec de la musique, de la joie, une ferveur politique et quatre cents personnes qui ont chanté pour redonner vie à notre parti au Québec.
A conversation with a 40-year veteran of the oil patch beside an abandoned well in Edmonton. We talked about how the disaster of these dangerous, tapped-out wells could turn into a reclamation boom. Decades of good jobs for oil and gas workers in cleaning up these sites rather than drilling new ones. All paid for with the swollen profits of oil companies if the law of “polluter pays” was actually enforced.
And that’s what fires me up: this country is filled with wise and caring people who are already hard at work, building the solutions we need to all the crises we face.
And that includes all you dedicated NDPers, who have never abandoned hope despite all the predictions of our demise!
Our campaign, as you know, has been powered by a set of simple principles that we believe are key to our collective comeback.
First, we stay laser-focused on the cost of living crisis: the everyday emergency of just getting by in an impossible economy.
We’re the only party that criticizes capitalism, so we’re the only party that can tell Canadians the truth about why everything is so expensive.
You know what it is: a handful of giant corporations dominate every sector of our economy.
Ces cartels corporatifs fixent les prix, contrôlent les marchés et profitent de la crise du coût de la vie.
Donc, le système fonctionne exactement comme il a été conçu : il concentre la richesse et le pouvoir entre les mains d’une petite élite.
Second, in the face of inequality at an all time high, we’re done nibbling around the edges. It’s time to fight for solutions that are actually as big as the crises we face.
Solutions that are popular, practical, and can inspire Canadians in these incredibly hard times.
From head-to-toe healthcare to fare-free transit and tuition-free education, we can fire up our base and build a bigger coalition. We do it by fighting for the big wins that would truly change peoples’ lives.
It doesn’t mean we can win them tomorrow, but I’ll tell you what it does do: it brings in new organizers from communities already in the struggle. It builds the energy, excitement and ground game that we need to win!
Third, we’re not shy about saying the loud part out loud. We’re not burying our politics in platitudes. We’re communicating with straight talk, grounded in moral clarity.
Quand Israël commet un génocide à Gaza, nous appelons les choses par leur nom.
When the US and Israel start an illegal and reprehensible war against Iran that sets the world on fire, we say: Canada should have absolutely no role in it whatsoever.
Fourth, Canadians don’t want a two-party system. But we need a political offer that cannot be confused with or co-opted by either the Liberals or Conservatives.
We’re at a high stakes moment in human history. Canadians know we are at a crossroads.
And we need a clear vision for how we get through this. How we can protect Canada from Trump and all the chaos and toxic slop he generates. How we can come out stronger, more stable, more secure.
Because that’s not where we’re headed now. Under the Carney government, the path ahead is paved with unprecedented corporate welfare for the billionaire class and more and more insecurity for the rest of us.
C’est la voie sur laquelle les libéraux et les conservateurs nous entraînent en adoptant ensemble, à Ottawa, des projets de loi qui sont vraiment affreux.
This agenda doubles down on the past: exporting ever more raw resources. It follows the lead of the US with more pipelines and ballooning military spending.
It embraces Silicon Valley’s job-killing generative AI, with no brakes or meaningful regulation.
This is a recipe for a future of continued chaos. Fossil fuels alone destabilize our world in many ways at once: they attract explosive wars, they drive inflation and pain well beyond the pump, and they accelerate climate breakdown.
But there is another path. And it’s our job as the NDP to light the way.
It’s a safer path, one that leads to a calmer, less volatile future.
A path that makes common cause with countries around the world that are quickly moving away from the boom and bust roller coaster of oil and gas.
Like the UK, which this week mandated solar panels and heat pumps in every new home build, as a response to the oil price shock.
For Canada, it’s a path on which we harness some of the vast wealth of our nation and use the tool of public ownership to put it to work directly solving the everyday crises we face.
That means building houses that families can afford, with public developers hiring public construction companies.
Tens of thousands of good unionized jobs retrofitting those homes, manufacturing and installing those heat pumps to slash energy bills and emissions at the same time.
Public options for groceries, cell phones and pharmaceuticals — ensuring that working class Canadians can buy essential goods and services with lower prices and higher wages.
In short, it’s a vision of the federal government using its power to go after some of the immense under-taxed wealth of this country — and put it to use in directly making life easier and more secure for Canadians.
It’s a path to a Canada where we are happier, healthier, safer — and proud of our role on the international stage.
We know how to build power behind this vision, because we’re already doing it on this campaign.
Collaborer avec les mouvements sociaux dans le cadre des luttes locales – qu’il s’agisse de l’organisation des locataires, du soutien aux grèves ou de la défense des immigrants et des gens Trans contre les attaques de l’extrême droite.
We generate excitement with our bold ideas. We turn that excitement into momentum through organizing.
We super-charge our organizing by trusting our base to lead at the riding level.
We build back our ground game well in advance of the next election, and win more seats.
We fling open the doors to the 99%, and become once again — as my Grandfather David Lewis called it in the 1940s — a political instrument of the people.
So friends: for Tommy and David and Ed, for Audrey and Alexa, for Jack and Jagmeet, for all the fighters who came before: Canada needs a strong NDP now more than ever. Let’s get to work!