‘Cracks beginning to appear’ for Liberals in Quebec, Avi Lewis says

OTTAWA — As Prime Minister Mark Carney was triggering three byelections across the country to keep his majority, NDP Leader Avi Lewis was spending most of July in Montreal preparing the ground game for two of the most progressive ridings in the country.

Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie and Laurier–Sainte-Marie have not yet been vacated by NDP MP-turned-independent Alexandre Boulerice and Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault, respectively, but they are expected to resign their seats in the next month. Those departures are widely expected to trigger yet more byelections later in 2026.

For Lewis, winning either of those seats is key to keeping an NDP presence in Quebec.

That is why he wanted to get a head start — even though no byelections have yet been called — by spending three weeks uninterrupted in Montreal and its surroundings.

“It’s the longest I’ve been anywhere in a year, including my own home, and it’s been honestly thrilling,” the NDP leader said in a recent interview with National Post.

His immersion was spent taking daily intensive lessons to improve his level of French but also putting those lessons into practice by meeting with local stakeholders and knocking on doors in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie and Laurier–Sainte-Marie with his candidates who are both fairly well-known entities in Montreal political circles.

Pierre Céré, an activist for the rights of the unemployed who unsuccessfully ran for the Parti Quebecois leadership in 2014, will aim to replace Boulerice in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie. Nimâ Machouf, an epidemiologist and pro-Palestinian activist, will be running for the fourth time in Laurier–Sainte-Marie but not against Guilbeault this time.

One thing they kept hearing at the doors in those two ridings, Lewis said, was how upset voters are about the Carney government’s plans to build a new pipeline in Alberta.

“It was offered many times to me unsolicited,” he said. “The pipeline is really top of mind for people in these two ridings where I’ve been knocking on doors, and it’s come up a bunch. People want to see the government double down on renewables and not on oil and gas, especially with the wildfires being such a huge story this summer.”

He said the frustration was especially palpable in Guilbeault’s downtown Montreal riding. The former environment minister has openly said he is resigning because he disagrees with the Carney government’s stance on environmental policies.

Lewis said voters are fully aware a byelection will be taking place in their riding because of the Carney government’s “U-turn on climate policy,” and because it is one of the most progressive ridings in the country, he said voters do care about the climate.

Machouf’s activism against Israel has also raised her public profile among progressive voters in Montreal, Lewis said. She was one of six Canadians detained by the Israeli military last fall after participating in a flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza.

“Nimâ’s participation in the flotilla has made her a local celebrity in her riding,” he said.

But Lewis is not ready to say that the wind is turning in Quebec against the Liberals.

“There are cracks beginning to appear,” he said.

Lewis said he has had a couple of meetings during his time in Montreal with Liberal stalwarts, who he said are leaving the Liberal Party and joining the NDP specifically over the government’s shift on climate policies or the government’s embrace of artificial intelligence. While anecdotal for now, he believes a shift is happening.

“It’s not really showing up in the polling yet, but I do believe there are early signs of buyer’s remorse for Mr. Carney because of things that he has done and not done.”

A senior NDP official had previously described Lewis’ time in Montreal as a way to reintroduce the leader to Quebec and to gain a better understanding of the province.

“For a political animal like me… this is a very exciting and dynamic place to do politics, and it’s a long-term engagement for me to not just understand something about Quebec politics intellectually, but to really get it in my skin,” he said of his time there.

“I’ve levelled up from a modest level to the next modest level up in these three weeks, and I look forward to a chance to do it again.”

After revelling in Montreal festivals and street life, Lewis is now back to reality.

The government announced on Sunday three byelections will be taking place in the Toronto riding of Beaches—East York, the B.C. riding of North Vancouver—Capilano and the Quebec riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord on August 31. The NDP has not yet appointed candidates in these ridings, nearly one week into the campaign.

Lewis would not comment on the rumours that former NDP leader Jack Layton’s son, Mike Layton, could be running in Beaches—East York.

“There’s a lot of conversations happening,” he said. “I don’t think that a ‘big name’ is necessarily the secret. I think we really believe in the ground game.”

Lewis said his team already has volunteers out knocking on doors in the community, and it started the moment the byelections were called by the prime minister.

“The conversation in Beaches—East York is super active, as you can imagine, right now, and I think within days there will be a candidate announced.”

National Post calevesque@postmedia.com