As New Democratic Party (NDP) members across Canada prepare for the March 24 leadership convention, one of the seven candidates vying to become leader of the opposition made a campaign stop in Powell River recently.
Nathan Cullen, Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP, travelled to Powell River on Wednesday, March 14 and spoke to about 25 people who gathered in a restaurant for lunch. He has been called a dark horse and a breath of fresh air in the race to replace Jack Layton, former NDP leader who died in August 2011.
Cullen, 39, was first elected in his northern BC riding in 2004, defeating a Conservative incumbent. He was raised in Toronto, worked in international development after university and moved to Smithers when he was 26 to become a coordinator for Katimavik, a Canadian program for youth volunteers.
His idea-centred campaign appeals to progressive-minded party members.
“The antidote to what we’re seeing from the government right now—the aggression, the cynicism, the vitriol—is not more of the same, but from the left,” he said. “I’ve lived in places that were going through actual war. Politics is not war. War is war and war is terrible. No one wins. But politics, when done well, can actually lift people up, can bring people together in unique ways that they didn’t think were possible.”
Cullen opposes the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and expressed his views before the government review panel. He is against exporting raw resources, which he says has led to the country’s economy de-evolving and “going backwards.” He believes that pipelines that carry raw bitumen, and supertankers off the coast, pose a threat to the environment as well as a way of life.
He also has pitched the idea of cooperation in the next election, allowing riding members to choose one candidate from among Liberals, Greens and the NDP to take on the Conservatives. “I’m looking to be a leader, I’m not looking to be a dictator,” Cullen said. “There are ridings in this country that love this idea, there are other places where it wouldn’t work. The choice that gets made as to whether to do it or not happens with the people who actually know whether it’s a good idea, not Ottawa, not Toronto, not me in Skeena, but you.”
Meanwhile, NDP MLA Nicholas Simons, who represents Powell River-Sunshine Coast in Victoria, has thrown his support behind Thomas Mulcair, the party’s deputy leader who is a Montreal MP and is now considered the frontrunner in the contest.
In recent days, thousands of New Democrats have been casting their ballots for the next leader and the race concludes on Saturday, March 24, with a convention in Toronto. Other candidates in the race are Niki Ashton, Paul Dewar, Peggy Nash, Martin Singh and Brian Topp.
