Avi Lewis has built much of his federal political identity around Indigenous-sovereignty activism — specifically, opposition to resource development on lands claimed by Indigenous groups. In 2021, while running for the NDP federally in West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast, Lewis aligned himself with the Fairy Creek protests on Vancouver Island and signed a 350 Canada pledge calling for "an immediate moratorium on new fossil fuel approvals and a freeze on all fossil fuel expansion projects under construction." The pledge is documented in the Marxist publication Spring Magazine, which praised Lewis's stance.
Lewis's framing of Indigenous issues took an extreme turn in late 2025 during the NDP leadership race. At the party's French-language leaders' debate, Lewis described major resource projects — the kind of nation-building infrastructure championed by Prime Minister Mark Carney — as "big, manly things with huge work camps entailed in remote areas." During the English portion of the debate, he expanded the point: "The impacts on Indigenous women and girls are intense, are horrifying."
The implication that Canadian energy workers represent a sexual threat to Indigenous women drew rare cross-partisan rebuke. The National Post reported that Lewis was effectively claiming pipelines are a "conduit to rape and murder." Independent voices — including pro-development First Nations leaders who back resource projects as a path out of poverty for their communities — were not consulted.
The "rape and murder" framing turns a complex policy debate into a defamation of an entire workforce. It also flattens a real, documented social problem — missing and murdered Indigenous women — into a political weapon against natural-resource development.
References
Fairy Creek, the NDP and Indigenous Sovereignty — Spring Magazine (August 31, 2021)