Monday, September 12, 2011

He's Topp of the list (for now)

The first of an anticipated rush of hats has been tossed into the NDP leadership campaign, as Brian Topp entered the leadership race on Monday, gaining the endorsement of longtime New Democrat and former leader Ed Broadbaent.

Topp is a bilingual Quebecker, the current President of the NDP and as the Executive Director of ACTRA the Alliance of Canada's Cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

In addition to his time as NDP President (which he will now relinquish) and ACTRA head, he can count on his resume his time spent in the fulcrum of Democratic Socialism that is Saskatchewan (serving government in the Roy Romanow era) as the Premier's deputy chief of Staff.

Word out of British Columbia that prior to today's decision, Topp had been tapped to help out BC NDP leader Adrian Dix in what at the time was thought to be a possible BC Election campaign (an event now seemingly deferred by Premier Clark)

He was a close confidant of Jack Layton, and in his remarks announcing his candidacy for the leadership he  outlined that while no one can clearly replace Jack Layton, it's his  hope and his goal to keep Layton's message alive into the next election.

In addition to counting on the support of former leader Ed Broadbent, Mr. Topp has also collected the backing of  Gatineau MP Francoise Boivin.

While he's first into the gate, there are any number of other potential NDP candidates for the leadership, a few familiar names in recent NDP history and no doubt, others that Canadians haven't met  as of yet.

New Democrats will meet in convention in Toronto on March 24th to select Jack Layton's replacement.

Some background on today's announcement.


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