In his victory speech on March 29, newly elected federal NDP leader Avi Lewis said to "mark your calender, the NDP comeback starts now."
Part of this comeback is a plan to transition Canada away from fossil fuels and towards Green industries.
It’s plan that clearly resonated with NDP members as he won 56 per cent of votes in the leadership content.
But not everyone shares Lewis and his supporter's enthusiasm for his version of a Green New Deal, since it would entail stopping any new pipeline construction.
Something that both Alberta and Saskatchewan's NDP members have taken issue with.
Carla Beck, leader of the Saskatchewan NDP and of the Official Opposition, released an open letter to Lewis shortly after his victory.
It told him that his stance is "ideological and unrealistic," and would "hurt Saskatchewan workers, communities, and industries."
Saskatchewan have reason to worry: the province is Canada's second largest oil producer below Alberta.
However, University of Saskatchewan public policy professor Peter WB Phillips points out that "no matter what his (Lewis’s) position is, I don't think it's going to influence the public policy choice we have to make because, you know, he hasn't got party status."
But this will be a challenge for Lewis to keep party unity, as Phillips points out that the "NDP is the only national party that has no air between the provincial and the federal party" and "that makes it difficult because all the other parties have plausible deniability."
