On March 6th, the Peterborough Lions Club welcomed federal New Democratic Party (NDP) leadership candidate Avi Lewis, as part of his ongoing cross-country campaign. 

A professor, former journalist, activist and filmmaker, Lewis is a longtime advocate for the end of fossil fuel use. Previously, Lewis has made two attempts at representing Vancouver-area ridings on behalf of the NDP, and is seen as a frontrunner in the federal leadership race. Much of his campaign has taken an anti-corporation approach to addressing job security and rent control for working-class Canadians.

The event kicked off with a musical performance by Faith Nolan, a local guitarist and singer-songwriter whose music touched on themes of revolution and pacifism. Between songs, Nolan joked about local politics, quipping “Jeff Leal called me, and he said, ‘Faith, I’m never gonna use the N-word again.’ And I said, ‘I believe you, Jeff.’ ” 

For her final piece, Nolan invited Lewis to join her to sing the anti-fascist Italian folk song “Bella Ciao,” Lewis’ campaign song. 

According to Lewis, the choice of an anti-war anthem was intended to symbolize his intent for the NDP to become “a political instrument of the people,” a phrase coined by his grandfather, former NDP leader Davy Lewis.

“When we’re dealing with rising fascism and these unhinged wars of aggression, and these massive violations of international law, including war crimes, and the worst of all war crimes—genocide, we need a political party that sees itself in solidarity with social movements,” Lewis told Arthur. “Not rushing to the front of people’s parades and taking credit for social movement wins, but understanding its place in the common front . . . That’s the kind of NDP I want to lead.

“When it comes to the movement against genocide, I’m an anti-Zionist Jewish person, and I’ve been speaking out publicly out of a sense of deep grief and horror and responsibility since the beginning,” he continued. “I’m really proud that the NDP is a party where we can have signs and buttons that say ‘Free Palestine’ and we can call a genocide a genocide, and we can say that it’s still ongoing.”

After this performance came a speech by Morgan Carl, leader of the Peterborough NDP Riding Association. Carl focused on many of the group’s ongoing community-building efforts, such as the NDP Youth Breakfast initiative. According to Carl, the association’s current main focus is to “work with one another to survive the horrors, because everything’s on fire, as you would have noticed if you’ve checked your phone or existed in society recently.”

The next guest at the event was Benj Rowland, a local singer-songwriter who alternated between the electric guitar and hurdy gurdy while maintaining a steady rhythm with bells on his shoes. Rowland’s folk music brought a sense of celebration to the event.

Following Rowland was Chelsea Otero, a local migrant rights activist and co-organizer of September 2025’s Draw the Line rally. Otero spoke about the housing crisis in Peterborough, and echoed Carl’s sentiments about the importance of community solidarity in addressing these issues.

In an interview with Arthur, Lewis also spoke of this interconnected approach to addressing affordability and climate justice.

“We have huge crises facing us. The cost-of-living crisis is attacking working class Canadians, the climate breakdown is affecting all of human life - all life,” Lewis told Arthur. “The wealth of this country . . . needs to be channeled into getting off of fossil fuels as fast as possible, slashing emissions, and the cost of living at the same time.”

This dual-sided approach to economic and environmental solutions, dubbed “A Green New Deal for Canada,” is a key pillar of Lewis’ platform. This draws inspiration from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” during the Great Depression, and promises to create 1 million jobs in climate infrastructure. Lewis’ plan also involves free public transit and strengthening the Youth Climate Corps.

“We are stuck in [a] story about how essential fossil fuels are to our economy,” Lewis said. “It’s a relatively small part of the GDP, it’s only a couple hundred thousand jobs or less in direct employment, and there are far more jobs per dollar invested in renewable energy . . . But we are stuck in a story that serves the most powerful and wealthy people in our country.

“Nobody can make a huge amount of money on solar because they can’t capture the sunlight and force you to pay for it,” Lewis continued. “The fossil fuel industry is a money-making machine which is destroying the conditions for life, fueling petro-states, [and] creating the reason for wars fought over oil.”

According to Lewis, this shift from corporate-backed fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is a key part of addressing unemployment in Canada.

“We have incredible renewable potential in Canada,” Lewis said. “We could use Canadian steel that we can’t sell to the United States because of tariffs [to] create tens of thousands of unionized electrical jobs, rolling out a new high-efficiency electricity grid with battery storage and renewable energy, and be able to trade clean energy interprovincially instead of argue about pipelines for another decade.

“We need to do it under public ownership,” Lewis continued. “[This] would create a generation of jobs in manufacturing, repairing and installing these heat pumps. All of this work [can be done] using Canadian materials, generating employment—especially for young people—and slashing our household heating and cooling bills.”

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While Lewis is optimistic about the future of his party as a proponent of radical policies, he remains realistic in terms of their overall popularity. As part of his platform, Lewis said he intends to be frank with voters about the state of the federal NDP.

“We’re fighting for our survival as a democratic socialist party,” Lewis told Arthur. “We believe that our solutions can actually meet the measure of the epic crises that we face in the world. But even if you don’t agree with that, make sure that we’re still around. Unless you just want the [Liberals and Conservatives] to choose from. [They] are doubling down on war, more fossil fuels, major projects where we export raw resources to other countries, and all the same things the Canadian economy has ever done . . . as if doing the same things and hoping for a different result wasn’t the worst plan on earth.”

In a similar vein, Lewis was extremely critical of Doug Ford’s for-profit approach to education and other public services. 

“The Doug Ford government is a dystopic nightmare for everyone involved,” Lewis told Arthur. “This is an anti-democratic government that is prepared to punish anybody and everybody in the service of lining the pockets of its rich buddies. And I think that they are hostile to all public services, and they see universities as a threat, because a more educated populace is not good news for a thug-like government.”

When asked about Doug Ford’s proposed changes to post-secondary education in Ontario, Lewis encouraged students to be proactive.

“They want to privatize everything,” Lewis said. “If I were a student in Ontario today, I’d be getting together with other students who are upset, and I’d be getting myself to Queen’s Park, and I’d be building a protest movement against this. Because this Doug Ford government has actually backed down from time to time when they crossed a line. 

“This is a time for the student movement to . . . try to get support from other social movements, and parties like the NDP, who are fighting at Queen’s park and trying to push back and build a massive wave of protest that might knock the government off this path.”