NDP leadership candidate Robert Chisholm speaks in exclusive one-on-one

Yahoo! Canada News interviewed NDP MP Robert Chisholm Monday, about his bid to replace the late Jack Layton as leader of the NDP.

Chisholm is the former NDP leader in Nova Scotia, and is well-known in that province for leading his party to official Opposition status in 1998.

After dropping out of politics in 2003 he worked as a researcher and regional director for CUPE before being elected to Parliament this past May and being named the NDP's international trade critic.

Here are some excerpts from his interview with Yahoo! Canada:

Yahoo!: It's a crowded slate of candidates running for the leadership of the NDP. What do you bring to the table that perhaps others don't? In other words, if I was an NDP member, why would I vote for you?

Chisholm: I'm the only candidate that has actually led a party. I'm the only candidate that has been the leader of an opposition.

I've been there. I've been through the good the bad the ugly. I've been faced with having to make tough decisions with being the final decision maker.

Yahoo!: The perceived frontrunners in this race - Brian Topp, Thomas Mulcair, and Peggy Nash - have the majority of caucus support. Does that hurt your campaign?

Chisholm: I've not spent time in Ottawa. I haven't been part of the front rooms and the back rooms of Ottawa and I don't necessarily see that as a drawback.

As a result people don't know me as well, and that's fine.

But...I'm travelling the country talking to New Democrats about who is going to be ready on March 25, who is got the leadership experience to be able to stand-up to Stephen Harper, to pull the caucus together and lead them in the same direction, and to build the party. I have that experience because I've done it.

Yahoo!: You have been critisized in the media for your lack of French proficiency. How do you respond to the criticism?

Chisholm: 80 per cent of the population in the country don't have facility in a second language. Not to make any excuses but like a lot of Canadians I live in a province that's unilingual. I haven't been exposed to (French).

I am learning French…I started with a tutor not long after I was elected (in May)

I did 4 weeks of immersion this summer — before the leadership stuff came up and I've been working ever since with a tutor almost every day.

Yahoo!: Where do you stand on potential cooperation, coalition, or even merger with the Liberals?

Chisholm: I think on any given issue there should be cooperation, there should be communication amongst members and amongst parties in the house. We're doing the people's business and we should do whatever we can.

In terms of a formal merger or anything like that, I don't like that idea I frankly find a bit anti-democratic that people in the backrooms would decide who people would have to vote for…it just doesn't make sense to me.

Yahoo!: Your colleague, [NDP MP] Pat Martin recently stated that your party's prolonged leadership race is making it "very difficult" to mount a vigorous opposition. Your party also seems to be down in the latest polls as well. How do you respond to Martin's comments?

Chisholm: We as a caucus are going through unprecedented stresses and strains with a huge breakthrough followed by Jack's tragic death and now, as a result, we're forced into this leadership race.

We have an interim leader Nycole Turmel, who is doing absolutely superhuman work. It's a tough time but we have to go through it. That's the situation we're in.

I'm incredibly proud of the work that my colleagues are doing and I feel kind of bad that I'm not in there helping them more than I am but you won't find me being at all critical of the work they're doing. I think they've stepped up and they're doing a good job.

Yahoo!: What issues would you like to see your party focus on in 2012?

Chisholm: The issue that has kind of been front and centre as a result of the Occupy movement... (is the) gap between the rich and poor is ever widening.

The way to deal with economic equality as far as I'm concerned is to first of all deal with poverty.

We had in our platform, in the Spring, the idea of lifting seniors out of poverty. We've got to move forward with that.

We've got to come forward with a national strategy on affordable child care. If somebody can't find an affordable way to care for their children how can they go to work?

Housing is the same thing. If you don't have an affordable safe home to live in then what else matters.

We've got to tackle that stuff.