CANADIAN POLITICS: Nycole Turmel, the new NDP leader

OTTAWA—Nycole Turmel, the new interim leader of the federal NDP, promises that Canadians are going to get to know her a lot better over the next couple of months.

Plucked from the rookie backbenches to fill in for ailing New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton, Turmel said she would bring her own strengths and style to the post.

“I believe that I am strong enough to represent Canadians wherever they come from,” Turmel told reporters on Thursday after the NDP’s federal council formally installed her as interim leader. “You will be seeing a lot more of me.”

Acknowledging that she doesn’t have Layton’s charisma or profile, Turmel said she would nonetheless be a strong voice for the official Opposition over the summer while the NDP leader is undergoing cancer treatment.

“He has a great charisma, we all know that,” she said. But “I have my own way of presenting.”

The 68-year-old former union leader, more comfortable in French than in English, and only elected to the Commons for the first time in May, was hand-chosen by Layton to be his interim replacement.

The NDP caucus endorsed that decision on Wednesday and the approximately 75 members of the party’s federal council made it official on Thursday, in a swift, hour-long meeting in Ottawa.

Layton addressed the meeting by telephone and Turmel apparently gave a “roaring” speech, NDP president Brian Topp later told reporters.

Officially, Turmel is supposed to be in the job only until Parliament resumes in mid-September, when Layton has said he plans to return to his job.

However, in the days since Monday’s stunning announcement by a gaunt, clearly ill Layton, an increasing number of NDP MPs and partisans have been hinting that Turmel could be in the job a little longer.

And that prospect has raised questions about why Turmel, a rookie in the Commons, was elevated to the interim leadership over more seasoned MPs such as B.C.’s Libby Davies or Quebec’s Tom Mulcair.

Some pundits and commentators have suggested that Turmel’s inexperience will make it easier for interim Liberal leader Bob Rae to claim the lion’s share of attention for opposition to the Conservatives while Layton is away.

Turmel spoke repeatedly on Thursday about how she’ll be backed by the strong team that Layton has built, though she couldn’t say how much Layton himself would be consulting from the sidelines. “We want to leave him to make sure he comes back in September,” she said.

The NDP is also being fiercely protective of Layton’s privacy, especially surrounding the type of cancer he’s now facing, which remains a secret. This, on top of Layton’s clearly fragile appearance this week, has fed speculation that his condition is dire and the treatment will be long and arduous.

When asked about the prospect of her new job being extended past Sept. 19, Turmel said only: “Mr. Layton will be back.”

Windsor-St. Clair MP Joe Comartin underlined this same stand with reporters: “We’re not prepared to address the ‘what if.’ We’re going on the assumption he will be back.”

In her remarks to reporters on Thursday, Turmel went to some lengths to play up her experience with the NDP — beyond elected politics.

“I’ve been at this for decades,” Turmel said. “In the 1990s, I chaired cross-country NDP panels that consulted Canadians on their ideas about progressive government. I served as associate party president under (former leader) Alexa McDonough and moderated the leadership process that saw Jack Layton elected (in 2003).”

Turmel said she will be visiting Vancouver and Newfoundland in the coming days and pushing the same messages that thrust the New Democrats to their strong election showing earlier this year and historic heights as official Opposition.

“I’ve never been prouder to be a New Democrat,” she said.