Is Avi Lewis doomed? Nope.

Years ago, back when CBC TV still valued debate, I used to appear on a panel show called Counterspin. Its host was Avi Lewis.

Counterspin was on every day, and it had some other hosts, but I don’t remember any of them. I remember Avi, though.

We’d sit around an elevated table and debate stuff. Usually, we’d yap about the news of the day, from the Left or the Right or whatever. I don’t remember any of that, either.

But I remember Avi.

He was really, really smart. He was charming. He kept the discussion going, and he knew how to make us feel comfortable. He’d challenge us and all that, but he wasn’t a jerk. Even though we all knew he was a New Democrat - his father and grandfather had been leaders of different New Democratic parties - Avi didn’t jam copies of Das Kapital down our throats.

And he was really quick on his feet. Sometimes, I’d tease him. Once, I looked at him and said: “You’re an angry young man.”

Without pause, deadpan, Avi said: “I’m not young.” CBC turned that exchange into a commercial.

Anyway, this all to say that I think people are really underestimating Avi Lewis. Since his party’s leadership convention in Winnipeg, the NDP has been the butt of many jokes. There have been lots of columns and podcasts pronouncing the NDP as dead as a DoDo.

There have been clips of NDP bouncing around the Internet, yes, which strongly recall the bar scene in Star Wars, but weirder. The NDP convention was like this giant gathering of the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, except with a bunch of humourless people completely incapable of self-awareness or laughter. At the end, they waved around a Palestinian flag, not Canada’s. Figures.

So, because the NDP convention was basically a televised three-ring circus, a lot of people are assuming that Avi Lewis is crazy or stupid. They’re wrong. He isn’t. And I think there’s three reasons why he needs to be taken seriously.

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