{"id":98622,"date":"2025-10-29T08:20:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/?p=98622"},"modified":"2025-10-29T08:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:20:23","slug":"ndp-leadership-contenders-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-ahead-of-french-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/29\/ndp-leadership-contenders-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-ahead-of-french-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP leadership contenders have first face-to-face meeting ahead of French debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By David Baxter Three of the five NDP leadership candidates had their first face-to-face encounter, which serves as a preview for next month&#8217;s French debate. Rob Ashton, Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson took part in a forum at the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation gala in Ottawa, while Tanille Johnston and Tony McQuail were not able to attend. The three contenders saw degrees of agreement on issues like the need to speak more plainly about issues and put greater emphasis on riding associations. Some differences are emerging: Lewis said that Canada cannot expand fossil fuel production and that the party has not been straightforward enough in communicating energy policy. &#8220;Thomas Mulcair supported the pipeline. Jagmeet (Singh) sent a lot of mixed messages on pipelines, and I think that hurt us,&#8221; Lewis&#8230; <\/p>\n<div class=\"pmpro\">\n<div class=\"pmpro_card pmpro_content_message\">\n<div class=\"pmpro_card_content\">This content is for Yearly Subscription, Yearly Subscription &#8211; Corporate, Print Subscription Only, and Canada Print and Online members only.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/wp-login.php?action=register\">Register<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"pmpro_card_actions pmpro_font-medium\">Already a member? <a href=\"https:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Ftheturtleislandnews.com%2Findex.php%2F2025%2F10%2F29%2Fndp-leadership-contenders-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-ahead-of-french-debate%2F\">Log in here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David Baxter Three of the five NDP leadership candidates had their first face-to-face encounter, which serves as a preview for next month&#8217;s French debate. Rob Ashton, Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson took part in a forum at the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation gala in Ottawa, while Tanille Johnston and Tony McQuail were not able to attend. The three contenders saw degrees of agreement on issues like the need to speak more plainly about issues and put greater emphasis on riding associations. Some differences are emerging: Lewis said that Canada cannot expand fossil fuel production and that the party has not been straightforward enough in communicating energy policy. &#8220;Thomas Mulcair supported the pipeline. Jagmeet (Singh) sent a lot of mixed messages on pipelines, and I think that hurt us,&#8221; Lewis... <\/p>\n<div class=\"pmpro\"><div class=\"pmpro_card pmpro_content_message\"><div class=\"pmpro_card_content\">This content is for Yearly Subscription, Yearly Subscription - Corporate, Print Subscription Only, and Canada Print and Online members only.<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/wp-login.php?action=register\">Register<\/a><\/div><div class=\"pmpro_card_actions pmpro_font-medium\">Already a member? <a href=\"https:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Ftheturtleislandnews.com%2Findex.php%2F2025%2F10%2F29%2Fndp-leadership-contenders-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-ahead-of-french-debate%2F\">Log in here<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":101363,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-ticker","pmpro-level-required","pmpro-level-3","pmpro-level-2","pmpro-level-5","pmpro-level-4","pmpro-level-6","pmpro-level-7","pmpro-no-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NDP leadership contenders have first face-to-face meeting ahead of French debate - The Turtle Island News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theturtleislandnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/29\/ndp-leadership-contenders-have-first-face-to-face-meeting-ahead-of-french-debate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NDP leadership contenders have first face-to-face meeting ahead of French debate - The Turtle Island News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By David Baxter Three of the five NDP leadership candidates had their first face-to-face encounter, which serves as a preview for next month&#8217;s French debate. Rob Ashton, Avi Lewis and Heather McPherson took part in a forum at the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation gala in Ottawa, while Tanille Johnston and Tony McQuail were not able to attend. The three contenders saw degrees of agreement on issues like the need to speak more plainly about issues and put greater emphasis on riding associations. Some differences are emerging: Lewis said that Canada cannot expand fossil fuel production and that the party has not been straightforward enough in communicating energy policy. &#8220;Thomas Mulcair supported the pipeline. 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