The funeral of Jack Layton
Following the death of Prime Minister Jack Layton, the New Democrats were thrown into chaos. Six strong candidates announced their intentions following interim Prime Minister Bill Blaikie's announcement that he would not be a candidate.
Niki Ashton - Holding up the hard-left wing of the New Democrats, Ashton is a 29-year-old rookie MP for Churchill in Manitoba. Her hard-left politics win her fans, but she is unpopular in the caucus and is prone to making embarrassing statements. Her awkwardness in public also make her a risky bet.
Rebecca Blaikie - the President of the party, Blaikie is the daughter of interim Prime Minister Bill Blaikie. She has never been elected to parliament, however. The native Manitoban moved to Quebec as a young woman, and is largely responsible for the party's surge in la belle province. Still, she has trouble shaking the nepotism label.
Andrew Cash - the former punk rocker and alt-weekly publisher, Cash has long ingratiated himself with the left-wing counterculture of Toronto. He considers himself a descendant of Jack Layton in regards to his politics.
Nathan Cullen - the leader in the House of Commons, Cullen is a wildly popular MP with strong links to the Layton wing of the party. Not as much as an outsider as Cash (who's a career backbencher), Cullen is widely considered to be a safe pair of hands for the party and country, and a continuation of Layton.
Megan Leslie - Leslie presents herself to be somewhere in between Cullen and Mulcair. She made a name for hesrslef as an LGBT rights activist and a social justice advocate against poverty. A prominent environmentalist, Leslie is the party's environment minister. She hopes her social liberalism will distract from her somewhat more moderate stances on fiscal issues.
Tom Mulcair - the member for Outremont received national attention for serving in Jean Charest's cabinet during Jean Charest's tenure as the Premier of Quebec following his fall from grace in federal politics. Mulcair is viewed as someone with centrist leanings, and apparently considered joining both the Conservatives and federal Liberals when he made the leap from Quebec City to Ottawa. The most "establishment" choice, Mulcair is the favorite.
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