WINNIPEG — The NDP leadership candidates made their last pitch to voters Saturday morning in a last-ditch effort to win support from the handful of members who have not voted yet.
Many of the roughly 2,000 delegates at the Winnipeg convention have already cast their ballots.
This includes Sofia Lindfield, a delegate from Halifax who said this is her first year getting more involved in the party. She said she voted for filmmaker Avi Lewis because he’s putting forward “big and bold” policies to address issues around affordability and the environment.
“I really appreciate where he comes from on climate in particular. I’m climate organizer. I’ve worked in this space for over six years at this point, and this is the first time that I’ve really seen a bigger-name candidate take on climate with the real kind of urgency and science-based facts that we really need to be seeing,” Lindfield said.
Lewis said in his Saturday speech that fossil fuels “destabilize” the world in a variety of way from inflation, climate change and “explosive wars” — a reference to the current conflict in Iran.
He said it’s up to the NDP to chart a path that “quickly” moves away from the “boom and bust roller-coaster” of the oil and gas sector.
The Heather McPherson campaign sent out a fundraising email talking about how this stance provides attack lines for provincial NDP opponents in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Naheed Nenshi, Alberta NDP leader, unveiled his party’s energy policy Friday and it discusses increasing Trans Mountain pipeline capacity and revisiting cancelled projects like Energy East.
McPherson said in her leadership showcase that NDP governments in Manitoba and B.C., plus holding opposition status in several provinces, show’s that they party’s values can win.
“We can choose to ignore, or even oppose that success, or we can build from it together,” McPherson said during her closing speech.
Gabriel Cassie, an Ottawa delegate who is originally from Alberta, said he’s supporting the Edmonton MP because he’s seen what can happen provincially when a New Democrat marries “ambition and pragmatism” to win an election.
“One of the other things that really drew me to supporting Heather was, and really to do with my support for the NDP over these years, was the really big focus on the health rights and well-being of people around the world,” he said.
Mary Childs, a Vancouver delegate who said she first joined the NDP more than 40 years ago, said that she’s supporting Lewis after volunteering on his Vancouver-Centre campaign last year and she’s seen his ideas attract new people to the party.
When asked about potential divisions between provincial NDP wings and the federal party if Lewis is chosen as leader tomorrow, Childs said she’s confident that the party can work together despite differences.
“I mean one of the campaign slogans is ‘socialism is a big tent’ and I think it’s possible to work together positively on things,” Childs said.
“We don’t have to agree on absolutely everything all the time in order to all be trying to work to make Canada a better place for everybody.”
The party’s roughly 100,000 members will pick the new leader through a ranked ballot system, where the first candidate to get more than 50 per cent support is the winner. Voting closes early Saturday evening.
The next NDP leader will be announced Sunday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2026.
David Baxter, The Canadian Press
