Avi Lewis bombs first presser, blocks own MP from speaking, and warns of 'spying' price tags that don’t exist
If Avi Lewis was hoping to introduce himself to the Parliamentary Press Gallery as a serious leader with a serious plan, he failed spectacularly. The newly crowned NDP leader's first official press conference on Parliament Hill this morning was a masterclass in how to look small, insecure, and hopelessly out of one's depth.
Lewis arrived flanked by his "small but mighty" six-member caucus to announce a crusade against "surveillance pricing," the dystopian-sounding practice of retailers using AI and personal data to charge different prices to different shoppers.
The policy might have been the story if Lewis hadn't immediately torpedoed his own event with a display of stage management so clumsy that it bordered on parody.
NDP Leader Avi Lewis interjected to block his own Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson from answering a question she was specifically asked, insisting he would field all queries himself before delivering a generic response she was far better qualified to give. Photo credit: CPAC
Most notably, when a reporter asked for comment on Donald Trump's blockade of Iranian ports, the obvious person to answer was Heather McPherson, the party's widely respected Foreign Affairs Critic, who was standing directly beside Lewis.
Instead, Lewis physically blocked the question, insisting the scrum stick to a rigid "question and a follow-up" format that exists nowhere outside of his own head.
“I'm going to take the rest of the questions,” Lewis snapped.
The optics were brutal. A rookie leader, lacking a seat in the House of Commons, muzzled his own expert because he couldn't bear to share a microphone. It projected the kind of controlling insecurity that makes backbench MPs nervous, and voters tune out.
When Lewis finally did answer the foreign policy question himself, calling the situation “unhelpful and dangerous,” the damage was already done. He had spent more energy enforcing imaginary rules than demonstrating leadership.
The hits kept coming.
Asked point-blank if he's jumping ship for provincial politics, MP Alexander Boulerice squirmed through a smile and gave a non-answer so empty it made "we'll see what happens" sound like a binding contract. Photo credit: CPAC
Pressed on whether Quebec MP Alexandre Boulerice—his Quebec Lieutenant—plans to leave federal politics for the leadership of a provincial party, Lewis allowed Boulerice to offer a word salad of evasion.
For a party hemorrhaging support in Quebec, the inability to confirm the loyalty of one of its six MPs was a flashing red warning light.
Lewis was equally evasive when asked about BC NDP Premier David Eby's controversial decision to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). “I think they're having a debate in British Columbia and we're focused on the federal level,” he said.
That's a neat trick: claim the moral high ground on international human rights, then punt when the messy, real-world application of those rights happens inside your own political family.
And then there was the policy itself.
Lewis warned Canadians that grocery store digital price tags might be “talking to your cell phone” and charging you more for Tylenol if you've been googling your baby's fever. It's a terrifying scenario. It's also one for which Lewis provided precisely zero evidence of actually occurring in Canada.
He cited a US Federal Trade Commission report that relied on hypothetical scenarios, and an Instacart study that experts attribute to delivery zone differences, not personalized AI profiling. The Canadian Competition Bureau has studied the issue and found no evidence of the kind of individualized, real-time price discrimination Lewis described.
Selling fear of a future dystopia is easy. Proposing concrete solutions to the cost-of-living crisis Canadians are enduring today is hard. Lewis chose the former, and he couldn't even sell that without tripping over his own insecurities.
For a party only barely polling in the double digits and watching Liberals snap up progressive votes by the bushel, this morning was supposed to be a reset. Instead, it was a reminder that the NDP has traded Jagmeet Singh's designer suits for a trust-fund socialists lecture-hall scolding, and the result is no more electable.
The "small but mighty" caucus left the scrum looking a little smaller and a lot less mighty.
