Tasha Kheiriddin: Avi Lewis and the dark path of the far left

NDP Leader Avi Lewis speaks during a press conference calling on the government to address the issue of funding to mental health, addictions, and substance use services in Canada at the West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, April 30, 2026. Photo by HYUNGCHEOL PARK /Postmedia

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Is Canada ready to surf a socialist wave? After the shock victories of three hard-left candidates in last week’s U.S. Democratic primaries, voters and their leaders may wonder whether our country could elect the likes of “democratic socialists” Darializa Avila Chevalier, Brad Lander and Claire Valdez. Chevalier is particularly radical: in a since-deleted X post she wrote “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.” She also called for abolishing borders and founded an anti-Israel organization at Columbia University that demanded “the total eradication of Western civilization.”  

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Who’s voting for these people? Gen Z, who pollster David Coletto says are “ripe for a disruptive story.” Young Americans began embracing the hard left in 2025, when three out of four voters aged 18-29 cast a ballot for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, one of the leaders of the Democratic Socialists of America. This year, 35 of the 150 primary candidates endorsed by the DSA either won or ran unopposed; 34 have lost, with the remaining races yet to be decided. 

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Do young Canadians lean left? According to pollster Jean-Marc Léger, it’s a mixed bag — and that is due to gender. Over a third of both women and men aged 18-34 classify themselves as left or centre-left, compared with 16 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men in that age group who call themselves right or centre right. The most likely left-leaning voters, however, are women aged 18-24 (45 per cent), while men aged 25-34 are the most right wing (33 per cent). 

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Of course, it depends what type of left is on offer. Canadian politics has had its socialist moments: in the 1970s NDP leader Ed Broadbent wanted to nationalize banks, and Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis championed rent control, workers’ rights and public utilities ownership. In the past decade, however, the federal NDP embraced balanced budgets under Thomas Mulcair and wealth taxes under Jagmeet Singh — not exactly the radical recipes of their American cousins.  

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But now there’s a new guy at the helm, and things could change. NDP Leader Avi Lewis, son of Stephen, has styled himself as Mamdani light, calling for state-run grocery stores and a moratorium on fossil fuel extraction. Still not quite wiping his hands on the Canadian flag, but edging closer, with statements like “five per cent of GDP (on military spending) is a destructive and nihilistic fantasy, pouring fuel on the climate fire.” 

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The American left is feeding off more than green rhetoric and eat-the-rich diatribes, however. Anti-Israel sentiment is one of its galvanizing features, a sea change from the days when progressives joined hands with Jewish voters in the fight for U.S. civil rights. Now, Jews find themselves the target of the left’s vitriol — and young people are leading the charge.  

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While there is a shift in sympathies from Israel to the Palestinians among all age groups in the U.S., it is most marked among Americans aged 18 to 34. Fifty-three per cent say they sympathize more with Palestinians, the first time a majority has expressed this view, while 23 per cent sympathize more with Israelis, a record low. In Canada, a Leger survey about views of Israel found a drop in positive attitudes from 33 to 22 per cent among all age groups, including 20 per cent among young adults 18-34.