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OTTAWA — Former politician and longtime Canadian social activist Stephen Lewis has died. Here are some quick facts about Canada’s former ambassador to the United Nations and one-time leader of the NDP in Ontario.
Early life: Lewis was born in Ottawa on Nov. 11, 1937 to Sophie (née Carson) and David Lewis, who was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, forerunner of the NDP and later that party’s federal leader. Lewis’s grandfather Moishe Lewis was an activist in the Jewish Labour Committee in Montreal. Growing up the eldest of four children in a family steeped in politics and social activism, Lewis learned early on to hone his oratory.
Education: In 1956, he entered the University of Toronto, where he joined the Hart House debating team. Lewis switched to the University of British Columbia in third year, then returned to U of T for his final year, but didn’t write his final examinations. He went to law school twice in the early 1960s but dropped out both times. After university, he travelled to Africa, where he taught English and fell in love with the continent.
Personal life: In 1963, he married journalist and social activist Michele Landsberg. The Toronto couple had three children, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, Jenny Leah Lewis and Avi Lewis, who is married to writer Naomi Klein. Avi Lewis was elected leader of the federal NDP on Sunday. During his acceptance speech in Winnipeg on Sunday, Lewis acknowledged his father was “not doing too well” but was hanging on to see the next chapter of “the movement” and remained passionate “about the promise of democratic socialism.”
Career: Lewis began working for the federal New Democratic Party early on and in 1963, at the age of 26, was elected to the Ontario legislature. In 1970 he became leader of the provincial NDP, which in 1975 became the official Opposition. In 1978, a year after the party suffered an electoral setback, Lewis resigned as leader and became a media commentator, lecturer and labour arbitrator. In 1984, then-prime minister Brian Mulroney appointed Lewis as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held for four years. He was then named special adviser to the UN’s secretary-general on African affairs, a post he held until 1991. From 1995 to 1999, Lewis was deputy director of UNICEF and from 2001 to 2006 served as the United Nations special envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa. In 2003, he co-founded the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which as of last year had raised more than $200 million for grassroots organizations fighting AIDS in Africa.
Awards and honours: Lewis’s awards include companion of the Order of Canada, Maclean’s magazine’s Canadian of the Year (2003); the Pearson Peace medal (2004); being named one of the “100 most influential people in the world” by Time magazine (2005); and Canada’s Queen Elizabeth 2 Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012).
How his peers remember him: Former NDP national director Anne McGrath said Lewis had a “monumental footprint” both in Canada and internationally.
“It’s really hard to encapsulate the kind of impact that he’s had,” she said. “It’s a huge loss.”
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said people all over the world will be mourning his death.
“What he did was extraordinary,” she said. “He forced leaders all around the world to step up and take responsibility for the (HIV-AIDS) crisis.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2026.
— with files from Sheryl Ubelacker and Alison Jones in Toronto
The Canadian Press staff
