Lewis vs. The Voters: Where the NDP Leader Collides with Canadians
The numbers reveal a growing disconnect between NDP policy and voter priorities
With Avi Lewis officially taking over the mantle of the NDP leadership, it’s about as good a time as any to take a look at some of his policies and compare them to the feelings of Canadians today.
Immigration
One of Lewis’ top issues when it comes to the economy is immigration, something that has become a bit of a hot button issue in the last few years. After Trudeau launched a campaign to increase immigration to the highest levels Canada has ever seen, and Carney’s subsequent drawdown of that plan, Canadians have grown increasingly sour on immigration writ large.
As per Lewis’ platform, he states, “Many of us are struggling with unaffordable housing, impossible grocery prices, and services that don’t meet our needs. The problem isn’t too many immigrants. The problem is a system designed for corporate profits instead of building a country that works for all of us.”
Recent polling from Nanos Research finds 52% of Canadians say that there should be fewer immigrants brought into the country for 2027 than the combined 765,000 permanent residents and temporary residents, including students and workers. That’s down from a recent high of 64% saying they want fewer immigrants coming to Canada, but it’s still much higher than the post-pandemic low of 34%, when 46% of Canadians were fine with the level of immigration at the time.
Those numbers also come on the back of a Research Co poll from January 2026 that found 48% of Canadians view immigration as having a negative impact on Canada, the highest it’s ever been, while only 34% say they view immigration positively.
Lewis’ platform also states that he wants to “Build a single-tier immigration system with permanent resident status for all and equal rights from day one.” As it reads, it sounds like Lewis’ plan would be to provide temporary foreign workers (TFW) and other individuals who come here to work or study temporarily with permanent residency status, something that many would-be immigrants to Canada spend years trying to achieve.
Nevertheless, a Narrative Research poll from late 2024 found 46% of Canadians saying that Canada would be better served by having fewer TFWs. The only two groups that are higher than TFWs for who Canadians say fewer would better serve the nation are international students at 52%, and refugees at 59%.
Refugees are another topic that would likely come up in the future for Lewis in an election campaign, given his current platform states he wants to, “Double the number of government-assisted refugees to meet Canada’s humanitarian commitments instead of abandoning people fleeing war and violence.”
With 59% of Canadians saying the nation would be better served with fewer refugees present, it’s already off to a rocky start with the majority of the populace. A Nanos Research poll from the same period finds a similar level of discontent with refugees, with that survey finding 56% of Canadians at the time saying Canada should accept fewer refugees and protected persons for the upcoming year, compared to only 10% who say Canada should accept more.
Lastly, recent polling from Leger finds Canadians supporting a series of measures that would enact stricter rules on temporary residents and asylum seekers. For example, 72% support requiring temporary immigrants to live in a province for one year before qualifying for provincial support programs, or 69% saying temporary immigrants and their families should pay fees to use public healthcare or education.
Canadians have, in recent years, soured greatly on immigration and are pushing for more stringent measures to be put in place. Lewis will have an uphill battle on this issue in particular, but it’s not the only one.
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Oil & Gas Pipelines / Climate Change
Onto another major issue that Lewis has long campaigned on, even before his leadership run: climate change and fossil fuels.
Avi Lewis is championing his version of the American idea of a Green New Deal, based off US President FDR’s New Deal program. In short, it would call for a mass phaseout of fossil fuels, the promotion of green energy and electrification, and protections for natural environments.
This sort of politics was much more popular among Canadians back in 2015, when Trudeau first took over, and when Lewis was promoting the NDP’s LEAP manifesto. At the time, Nanos found 67% of Canadians saying that protecting the environment should be the priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and the loss of jobs.
Today, it couldn’t be more different.
The latest iteration of that question found those saying the environment should come first plummeting thirty-two points to 35% of the population, while those saying the economy should come first even if the environment suffers as a result, rocketing thirty-three points to 57%.
Part of Lewis’ platform says, “We also need to tell the truth about what the climate emergency no longer allows. That means straight talk that there will be no federal approvals for new pipelines, offshore oil projects or liquified natural gas terminals.”
Yet again, polling finds Lewis to be on the wrong side of this issue, especially in the face of American belligerence and threats to Canadian sovereignty. Polling from Abacus in early 2026 found net support for a new oil pipeline from Alberta to BC’s coast sat at an eye watering +44%, with net support in Alberta and BC at +72% and +25%, respectively.
That support for new oil and gas pipelines has been maintained during Trump’s second term and Carney’s first government, with Nanos finding 75% of Canadians support a national energy corridor, which would move oil and gas from Alberta to Eastern Canada, back in March 2025. Only 20% opposed the idea at the time.
All that is to say, on the oil and gas front, if Lewis had been leader when Trudeau first came into power, the NDP may have been well situated to gain from a Canadian populace that was much more environmentally minded.
Back in mid-2019, Angus Reid found 33% of Canadians saying climate change and the environment was among the top three issues facing the nation. In the latest Angus Reid poll from early March 2026, the share of Canadians saying the environment or climate change is among their top three issues sat at 14%, compared to 60% who said the cost of living or 40% who said healthcare.
Whether Lewis can successfully twin affordability issues with climate issues in a way that appeals to Canadians in this radically different environment will have to be seen. Yet, if the polls don’t move much from where they are today, it’s unlikely the environmental focused, anti oil and gas overtures will be well received enough to win over new seats.
Though, there are some areas where Lewis’ policies may appeal to a greater share of Canadians.
Economic Issues
Targeting corporations and the rich in Canada has been a popular position to take for the last decade or more, and unlike environmental policies, these have seen little fluctuation in their level of support.
For example, Lewis’ platform states, “We will introduce a wealth tax of 1% on net wealth above $10 million, 2% above $50 million and 3% above $100 million.” This policy remains popular, with polling from Leger in 2024 finding 78% of Canadians support the idea of a wealth tax on those who hold more than $10 million worth of assets.
However, Lewis’ platform also follows up with, “Canada is the only G7 country without an inheritance or estate tax. We propose a 45% tax on the estate/inheritance of wealth of over $5 million” which ends up being a losing issue for Lewis, as the same poll found only 29% of Canadians support the idea of an inheritance tax.
Lewis also wants to create a number of new publicly owned corporations in fields such as energy, grocery stores and telecommunications. This is a bit of a tricky one to pin down where Canadians stand, because we don’t have any current polling to back up the idea of publicly owned corporations in these fields.
Polling from over the years does tell us that Canadians want more competition in our markets, such as Angus Reid in 2023 finding 78% of Canadians say there needs to be more competition in the airline industry, or 72% who say the same thing for the telecommunications industry.
A Nanos poll from 2025 finds 68% of Canadians believe increased competition from smaller, regional telecom companies would lower prices, while 75% believe the market is dominated by a very small group of large national carriers.
So while this shows a real appetite for new competition to be introduced into our markets (which is desperately needed), it does not tell us whether Canadians would be happy with the idea of government run services stepping in to provide that service. We’ll have to wait and see if pollsters explore these options now that Lewis has been elected leader.
Another issue that Lewis brought up in his platform was the promise to reintroduce the Digital Services Tax, which was a program that taxed digital services, predominately non-Canadian ones, that relied on Canadian data or contribution by Canadians. That tax saw fierce backlash from the likes of Google, Facebook, and the US government, which eventually led to the repeal of the tax by Mark Carney last year.
Innovative Research found that 48% of Canadians believe that imposing a digital service tax on US tech companies was a good idea, while another 34% believed that it was a bad idea. Support was highest among New Democrats at 62%, with Bloc and Liberal voters a little further back at 60% and 58%, respectively.
Lewis is also calling for the following, “It’s time to cap the rents. A national cap on rent will give power back to renters and make life more affordable by putting an end to steep rent hikes.” There are questions as to how the federal government would go about implementing rent control, but with that aside, 65% of Canadians say they would support rent control where they live, as per a June 2023 Narrative Research poll.
The platform also calls for building a million new homes, including social, co-op, non-profit and supportive housing within five years. A poll from Leger in 2024 found 65% of Canadians believed a budget proposal to spend $8.5 billion to help build 3.9 million new homes by 2031 was a good idea. A slightly older Leger poll from mid-2023 found 79% believe government supplied housing would improve the rental situation, while 77% say tightening rental controls would also help the situation.
Conclusion
In the end, Avi Lewis is out of step with Canadians when it comes to immigration and oil and gas, while his overemphasis on the environment comes at a time when Canadians aren’t particularly focused on conservation and more on economic growth. Where he does excel is on the economic front, with popular policies that tackle the rich and powerful being the diamond in the rough for the new NDP leader.
Whether Lewis will be able to push his ideas forward and gather enough traction ahead of the next election to regrow the party will have to be seen. Yet, unless the situation changes around present issues like immigration, the NDP is going to be seen as an unacceptable choice for many of the CPC-NDP voters they rely on in non-urban ridings.
The flipside would be the NDP’s more progressive minded policies that appeal to downtown urban voters, but unless the Liberals start to come down dramatically in the polls, the NDP are running head first into the Liberal grinding machine that killed Jagmeet Singh for many years, and are at risk of rerunning the same failed electoral strategy that put the NDP in its current situation.
Lewis has a lot of work ahead of him, and right now the dashboard is lit up with just about every light you can imagine. Will he succeed and bring the party back from the brink, or will his push to the left alienate what voters are left in the NDP, and crater it into non-existence? Time will tell.