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| Affiliation | New Democratic |
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| Name | David Lewis |
| Address |
, Ontario , Canada |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
June 23, 1909
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| Died | May 23, 1981
(71 years)
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| Contributor | User 13 |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Mar 29, 2023 01:11am |
| Tags |
Jewish -
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| Info | David Lewis succeeded Tommy Douglas as leader of the New Democratic Party in 1971.
As a child, Lewis lived through the German invasion of Russia in the First World War and through the Russian Revolution. In 1921 his family moved to Montreal.
Lewis attended McGill and won a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford where he established contacts with members of the British Labour Party.
Returning to Canada, Lewis practised law in Ottawa and in 1936 he became National Secretary for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. During these years he also became a key CCF theorist. Efforts to gain election to Parliament in 1940, 1943, 1945 and 1949 were unsuccessful, as a result of a vicious anti-socialist campaign directed against him.
In the 1950s, Lewis practised labour law, held a variety of executive positions in the CCF and helped draft the Winnipeg Declaration. He consistently worked to rid the labour movement of communist infiltration and to forge a link between the Canadian socialist and the labour movement. Through his efforts, the primarily western farm-based CCF was transformed into the more urban and successful New Democratic Party.
Lewis ran for Parliament in York South in 1962, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1972 and 1974, losing only in 1963 and 1974. He quickly became one of Parliament's most skilled debaters and served in a variety of the Party's executive posts culminating in his election as leader at the 1971 NDP Convention.
Campaigning against "corporate welfare bums", Lewis achieved his greatest political prominence in 1972 when New Democrats held the balance of power during the Liberal minority government of 1972 to 1974. This Parliament enacted a new Elections Expenses Act, brought in pension indexing and created Petro-Canada and the Foreign Investment Review Agency, because of NDP support.
Also in this period, the New Democratic Party made a major breakthrough in British Columbia where the NDP under Dave Barrett formed the government for the first time.
Following his defeat in the 1974 general election, Lewis stepped down as leader but remained active in the Party and in the leadership of the Socialist International until his death in 1981.
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