Stephen Henry Lewis CC (born November 11, 1937) is a Canadian politician, public speaker, broadcaster, and diplomat.

[2] From the time he was born, and through his early childhood, his father was the national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the predecessor party to the NDP.

[7] Lewis's performance was considered the highlight of the event, while Kennedy's was flat according to many members in the audience like John Brewin.

[10] In 1974, Lewis supported the Elliot Lake miners and advocated to Ontario Premier Bill Davis for the creation of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines.

After leaving politics, Lewis served as an arbitrator with the Ontario Ministry of Labour and was a commentator on TV station CITY-TV's CityPulse News and CKEY radio in Toronto and appeared nationally with Dalton Camp and Eric Kierans as part of a weekly political panel on Peter Gzowski's CBC Radio show, Morningside.

[12][13] After working for several years as a labour mediator, columnist and broadcaster, in 1984 Lewis was appointed Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations by Governor General Jeanne Sauvé, on the advice of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

In 2005 he adapted his Massey Lectures in a book titled "Race Against Time", where he describes the disjuncture between what the international community promises and their actions in responding to the pandemic in Africa.

In 2009, Lewis strongly criticized Pope Benedict XVI's assertion that condom use only makes the AIDS crisis worse.

[17] The campaign saw Lewis, along with musician k-os, Federal NDP leader Jack Layton, Olympic gold medalist Duff Gibson and many other Canadians, performing various dares for the event.

In 2007, Stephen Lewis and long-time colleague Paula Donovan co-founded AIDS-Free World, a non-profit organization that advocates for more effective global responses to HIV and AIDS.

Two of them were active and high-ranking officials within the Ontario NDP during the 1980s and 1990s: Michael Lewis was the secretary, and Janet Solberg was the president.

[21] In 2021, Lewis publicly revealed that he is undergoing experimental treatment for inoperable abdominal cancer, which recurred three years after surgery for an earlier occurrence of the disease.

[23] He delivered the annual Massey Lecture in 2005, and it was published in book form under the title Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa.

The book consists of five lectures that depict the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, critically examining the international community's passivity as a contributing factor.

The Mississauga school has a focus on educating students on issues relating to social justice and global citizenship to enhance the Ontario Curriculum.

Lewis was also invested as a Knight Commander of the Most Dignified Order of Moshoeshoe by King Letsie III of Lesotho.