Brian Topp was in Edmonton last night campaigning for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada. At an event hosted by the Edmonton-Strathcona NDP association, more than 130 people packed into the City Arts Centre to listen to Mr. Topp deliver a pitch for their votes in the leadership contest.
A long-time political operative in the federal NDP and Saskatchewan NDP, Mr. Topp has never actually served in elected office. Facing a friendly crowd, he was well-spoken and displayed a healthy level of pragmatism when answering questions about delivering an effective opposition and building the NDP towards forming government. Hitting on issues friendly to the social democrat crowd, Mr. Topp spoke about raising corporate taxes, returning to a progressive tax system, abolishing the Senate, and implementing stricter environmental regulations.
I have not paid much attention to or written much about to the NDP leadership contest until this point, so I have turned to Pundits’ Guide’s excellent resource on the contest to get myself informed.
The local NDP association will be holding a leadership candidate event with Parkdale-High Park Member of Parliament Peggy Nash on Friday, December 16, 2011.
In the 2011 federal election, the NDP received 107,067 votes in Edmonton (25% of the vote). The poll results in the map below show the NDP vote is concentrated in Edmonton-Centre, Edmonton-East, and Edmonton-Strathcona.
