On April 30, new federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis joined NDP MP Gord Johns on Parliament Hill to urge the Carney government to increase funding for mental health.
At the press conference, Lewis threw his support behind Johns’ Bill C-201, a private member’s bill that would amend the Canada Health Act to cover community-based mental health and addiction services.
However, journalists’ questions quickly took the media event in other directions.
In addition to providing comments on mental health, Lewis shared his views on a range of hot button topics, including a new sovereign wealth fund, visas for Gaza students, and the “climate champions” leaving government.
Mental health
The central issue of the press conference was Bill C-201. Introduced in May 2025, the bill aims to fully integrate mental health care into Canada’s universal health-care system.
Lewis voiced strong support for the bill.
“When Tommy Douglas first envisioned public health care in Canada, he imagined a system that would care for people from head to toe,” said Lewis. “Mental health is part of your health. It should be part of our public health care system, publicly funded for all.”
Lewis said mental health coverage should be treated as the kind of nation-building project Prime Minister Mark Carney frequently touts.
“Mental health coverage is a nation-building project worthy of the term,” he said.
“It boggles the mind that we are doing nothing about this crisis when it’s costing society so much well being, destroying so many lives and costing so much economic activity and productivity,” he said.
Lewis noted that investing in mental health pays off. “For every dollar that you invest in mental health, you get $3 in economic return,” he said.
Lewis also linked the issue of mental health to technology. Lewis said he does not think recent proposals to ban youth from social media are the right solution.
Earlier in the week, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said the province would ban social media for children 16 and under. The federal government has also previously said it is considering such a ban.
Lewis said bans do not “get at the fundamental issue, which is that the business model for social media is to extract our personal information and all of our movements online.”
Lewis said legislative responses need to address the “addiction relationship with social media.”
Lewis also tied gaps in mental health support to broader concerns around medical assistance in dying (MAID), warning that vulnerable Canadians are being left without adequate care.
“People are living in legislated poverty,” he said, referring to people with disabilities who rely on federal support programs such as the Disability Tax Credit and the new Canada Disability Benefit, which pays out up to $200 a month.
“If people are choosing MAID — choosing to die because they can’t get supports that they need in life — something is broken in our system.”
Sovereign wealth
Reporters’ questions took Lewis in other directions as well.
Asked about the prime minister’s promise to create a new sovereign wealth fund, Lewis made clear he strongly opposes the proposal.
Carney’s proposed version is fundamentally different from leading international models, such as Norway’s, Lewis noted. It includes selling public assets and directing public money toward private projects, rather than using resource taxation to build long-term public wealth, he said.
“The sovereign wealth fund … will be yet another subsidy for already profitable corporations,” he said.
In a November economic update, the government said it would “consider options for the privatization of airports.” More recently, in the spring 2026 economic update, it said it intends to “unlock the full value” of these assets and attract private investment.
During the press conference, Lewis says the NDP is “absolutely opposed” to the privatization of airports.
“Privatization doesn’t benefit the public purse, except in the short term,” he said. “Especially in a central infrastructure like airports, workers always pay the price in privatization schemes, and the public always ends up paying more in the end.”
Climate change and visa delays
In further news this week, Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson announced his departure from cabinet and federal politics.
Wilkinson served in senior cabinet roles in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, including as minister of natural resources and minister of environment and climate change.
When asked about Wilkinson’s resignation, Lewis said the departure of key “climate champions” from the Liberal cabinet shows that climate is no longer a serious priority for the government.
“I think that says all you need to know about where climate sits in the range of priorities for this government — which is nowhere visible,” he said.
Lewis, who is not currently an MP, declined to address whether he plans to run in Wilkinson’s former riding of North Vancouver—Capilano.
“My work right now is out there in Canada and, respectfully to you all, not here in the bubble,” he said.
Lewis was also asked about more than 130 Palestinian students from Gaza who have been admitted to Canadian universities but remain in limbo as their visa applications face delays or rejections.
Lewis said he believes the government’s response reflects anti-Palestinian racism.
“[These students] represent a bright future for Canadian scholarship, and they have managed to apply for postgraduate studies in Canada … from the rubble of a society which has been ground to dust in an ongoing genocide,” he said.
Lewis added that admitting students from Gaza would be in Canada’s best interest. “[It’s about] the future of the knowledge base of Canada, of the important research that these students can contribute,” he said.
“It is scandalous that the Government of Canada is creating extra barriers.”
