Canada's opposition chooses new leader

Canada's social democrats chose a firebrand center-leaning MP to run for prime minister in 2015, after the death of a leader who led them in last year's election into the opposition benches for the first time. Former deputy leader Thomas Mulcair won the New Democratic Party nomination with 33,881 votes representing 57.2 percent of the ballots cast at a leadership convention in Toronto. He beat out six rivals by vowing to track the NDP to the center to appeal to a broader electorate and consolidate the party's recent gains. The married father of two adult sons, with dual French-Canadian nationality, who represents a break from the party establishment, increased incrementally his support in each of four rounds of balloting dogged by technical problems. In round two, Mulcair took the most second-choice votes from dropped candidates to stall the momentum of party strategist and former president Brian Topp, who was the old guard's top pick. A final shift of likeminded backers from a third-placed relative unknown candidate who favored cooperation with Liberal Party to avoid vote-splitting of progressive voters in the next election, eventually clinched the win for Mulcair. The new party leader must now attempt to carry into the 2015 election the momentum generated by Jack Layton, who died on August 22 only three months after maneuvering the once-marginal party to historic gains at the ballot box. "Our current government appeals to people's fears and rules by seeking out division... but what unites us is far greater than what opposes us," Mulcair said in an acceptance speech. Canadians share the same fundamental values such as safe streets, universal healthcare and public pensions, which "we risk loosing under the policies of the current government," he said. "In order to win the next election and have our first NDP federal government, our party must reach beyond its traditional base and unite all progressive forces under the NDP's banner," he concluded. The last general election in May changed Canada's political map as the NDP surged past the Liberals, who ruled for much of the past century, to form the official opposition for the first time in its 50-year history. It also humbled its three rivals in all-important Quebec province, which holds a quarter of seats in Canada's parliament, destroying the Bloc Quebecois's separatist hegemony. The party's success in electing 103 MPs and becoming the largest opposition in 31 years was widely attributed to Layton's grit and self-deprecating humor. Many Canadians viewed him as the nation's most trustworthy politician. But since his death six months ago, the NDP's potential has remained latent as the party drifted under a caretaker leader, the Bloc resurged in Quebec, and the Liberals filled the spotlight in the House of Commons. Mulcair, 57, is now tasked with ending that lull, becoming the first real social democratic contender for prime minister. Although a general election is still years away, the latest polls show the NDP tied with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Tories, largely thanks to the lasting memory of the mustachioed Layton, who was paid a tearful tribute at the NDP convention. Mulcair was recruited by Layton in 2007 after he quit as environment minister in the Quebec government over a sale of park lands to a private condo developer. A lawyer and former public sector union representative, he has been elected six times to political office, provincially and federally. He helped orchestrate the NDP breakthrough in Quebec, but must now also broaden the NDP's appeal in the rest of Canada.