Why Cullen Won’t Try to Lead Provincial NDP
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 @ 3:59 AM
Smithers, B.C. – Nathan Cullen says he won’t be making the jump to provincial politics.
The NDP House Leader and MP for Skeena Bulkley Valley says he feels like there’s still more to be done at the federal level, although he admits a run at the BC NDP leadership was a tempting possibility.
“The biggest factor is what’s going on federally and my role on behalf of the Northwest in Ottawa. Being the House Leader for the party is obviously something that feels really engaging and feels important. Also, just the project that got started 9-10 years ago about making the NDP as a possible federal government. That doesn’t feel like that project is done obviously. We’re facing an election in the next year and a half or so and I think we’re making a great case, I think Tom Mulcair is doing an amazing job and it just didn’t feel like my work was done there.”
Cullen’s name had been brought forward as a possible candidate to take over for Adrian Dix who announced he was stepping down after May’s surprising NDP election loss to the BC Liberals. He says he feels incredibly blessed by all of the support he received from across the province and across Canada while he considered the possibility.
Cullen says the job for the federal New Democrats prior to the next federal vote will be to convince voters not just that the Harper Conservatives are on the wrong track, but that the NDP and Tom Mulcair have what it takes to govern.
Comments
On an international irony, maybe the next leader of the NDP in BC will be just as successful as the next leader of the Taliban in Pakistan. Some games ya just can’t win.
Until the NDP figures out we need a functioning economy to run the social services they hold so dear, they will never hold power in this province.
The NDP actually held power in B.C. for a whole decade in the nineties and made a horrible mess out of this province, taking it from #1 in Canada (Mike Harcourt said so!) to dead last and have-not status.
How soon too many people forget! And that is what the politicians are relying on – voter amnesia.
Cullen is staying where he is because it is a far surer thing for him. Simple. If he tried for the BC leadership he’d be quitting his job, running for leader, hoping to get a seat….and then hoping he doesn’t shoot himself in the foot like Dix did.
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