If you’ve been following this Substack recently, you’ll have seen my piece endorsing journalist and filmmaker Avi Lewis in the race to lead Canada’s New Democratic Party. This interview with him was originally conducted for Jacobin magazine where I’m a columnist, and can be read in edited form on Jacobin’s website. Here, I’m pleased to share audio of the full conversation with you all — only a handful of very light edits have been made.
While I won’t belabour the arguments already made in my endorsement, I think and hope that the content of this interview will reinforce them. Avi Lewis, in my view, offers what is far and away the best vision for Canada’s NDP as it seeks to rebuild after last April’s devastating election losses: one anchored not only in bold and unapologetic left wing policies but also in the kind of dynamic movement-building that will be necessary to win them.
With last year’s fundraising numbers, recently released by Elections Canada (and published here by The Writ’s Éric Grenier) we got an early taste of what the campaign’s organizing model is capable of. Via Grenier:
To American readers, I know these numbers might scan as somewhat small. But in the contexts of both the NDP and Canada’s comparatively well-regulated campaign finance system, they are actually record-breaking. Moreover, as you’ll see from the map by 338’s Kyle Hutton found in the below, the Lewis fundraising operation is impressively diffuse (and hardly limited to Toronto and Vancouver as some critics have erroneously claimed).
Anyway, I’m pleased to bring you all the conversation in full (with apologies for the slight audio differential between interviewer and interviewee, which I was not able to fix.) Enjoy.
