The Crowded Field...

With the exit of Nova Scotia MP Robert Chisholm from the leadership race (it turns out that learning French might, you know, take a while), the field drops to a still crowded eight. This includes five veteran MPs from across Canada (Niki Ashton, Nathan Cullen, Paul Dewar, Thomas Mulcair, Peggy Nash), another freshly-minted MP coming out of the 2011 Orange Wave in Quebec (Romeo Saganash), the current president of the NDP Brian Topp, and activist, Nova Scotia pharmacist, Sikh community leader and overall no-chancer Martin Singh.

Some of these figures are political veterans with decades of experience in NDP politics - Peggy Nash and Paul Dewar especially - while others are relatively new (Niki Ashton is 29, meaning that her time on earth is shorter than Nash's union experience. Fascinatingly, Ashton wasn't an orange wave MP, but made her way in 2008). None of them are household names in Canada, and many are completely unknown outside of diehard NDP circles. Over the next week, I'll be looking in to their records and their statements to give you a sense of who they are.

This will be an interesting contest - every segment of the party has its champion among the candidates, and individual rivalries will play out in the context of generational ones (NDP membership skews young and old - idealistic students and retirees - giving younger candidates a shot at top posts) and in the sudden prominence of Quebeckers in what was until recently an anglophone, prairie-and-union political party. Finally, with the chance at governing more of a reality than ever before, candidates will have to convince the rank and file that they will not only represent their interests in Ottawa, but that they can beat Stephen Harper at the polls. So stay tuned...