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It was a bit odd watching Stephen Lewis deliver his barnburner of a speech to a hooting crowd of New Democrats in Edmonton on the weekend, lending his considerable prestige to the Leap manifesto.

The manifesto, he conceded, “is a radical document, of that there is no dispute.” Nonetheless, he urged it “become a centerpiece of constituency debate over the next couple of years.”

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Why? Because “an intense exchange of views along with the issues raised in the manifesto can only be helpful. What kind of a party are we if we would run from an internal controversy when you seek a redefinition of who we are and where we are headed.”

It’s not that I don’t like the #Leap Manifesto. It should be displayed in a gallery on Queen St. and brought out each year for TIFF.#NDP — James Laxer (@jameslaxer) April 9, 2016

It was odd because when Lewis was a younger man, leading the Ontario NDP in the early 1970s, he led the effort to purge the party of a similar attempt to introduce radical thought to a resistant NDP establishment. What Lewis is championing now looks an awful lot like the debate he did so much to avoid more than 40 years ago.