Leah Gazan unterstützt Avi Lewis und unterstützt als erste NDP-Abgeordnete einen Führungskandidaten
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/leah-gazan-backs-avi-lewis-becomes-first-ndp-mp-to-endorse-a-leadership-candidate/?taid=6968ddd8ff85670001b6b49b&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
6 Kommentare
Huge endorsement for Lewis, and doubly so considering she’s not endorsing her colleague, Heather McPherson. Gazan commands a lot of respect within the NDP, especially on its left flank, and while it’s not too surprising that she supports Lewis, I was expecting her to stay out of the race since she works with McPherson day-to-day. Balances out the Charlie Angus’s endorsement of McPherson yesterday, in many ways.
Noticing [some others](https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/why-im-supporting-avi-lewis) sway to Avi right now too (which is great, IMO). Rob Ashton’s recent AMA flub was an unnecessary own goal for his campaign.
I’m pretty torn on this race myself, as someone who has voted NDP 3/5 times that I’ve voted federally. On the one hand, I both agree with Lewis more ideologically and believe he’s the better option for the party electorally. The party hasn’t had a truly left wing leader in a long time, with the Carney Liberals tacking so hard to the right there, in theory, should be a big space on the left for them to occupy (what this actually looks like in practice remains to be seen).
On the other hand, I really hate the idea of picking a leader for a party that isn’t even an MP and therefore isn’t even sitting in parliament. I hated it when Singh did it, I hated it when Carney did it, and I hate it now. And it’s even worse in this case than those two because the NDP can’t exactly afford to have an MP step down and risk losing a by-election to get their leader into parliament.
Either way, huge endorsement here. Interested to see how it all plays out.
Shouldn’t the party leader be a sitting member of parliament? How are they going to lead the party if they can’t even win their own seat?
The issue with Heather is that she doesn’t seem likely to [challenge the stranglehold of the NDP federal executive over setting the NDP’s direction](https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/06/26/news/ndp-executive-infighting-spills-open-leaked-emails) and [promote internal democracy and transparency](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ndp-caucus-members-letter-interim-leader-don-davies/). Leah has spoken up on this issue many a time, but Heather has not (to my knowledge at least not directly) whereas Avi has. This is a key issue for many people who want to see a fundamental change within the party ahead of the next elections.
This doesn’t exactly clear any doubts of mine over whether Avi will be able to unite the party. Gazan lead the movement that was critical of Davies bring appointed interim leader, and that’s of a very small group.
The real thing to watch for is if there will be any other endorsements, since this one was no surprise.