A face from the past returns to the provincial NDP
Posted Sep 14, 2011 3:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A former leader of a provincial opposition party is making a comeback.
Ray Martin, who led the NDP to the opposition benches with 16 seats in 1986, will seek the nomination in Edmonton-Glenora for the next provincial election.
Martin tells 660News he was thinking about a return to politics, but a letter from the late federal leader Jack Layton sealed the deal. The letter pertained to Martin losing his wife to cancer earlier this year.
“It was a very nice letter,” says Martin. “You can imagine, as sick as he was, for him to take the time to do that really had an impact on me.”
“I am,” Martin continues on the topic of seeking the nomination for Edmonton-Glenora, “after a lot of thought, you can appreciate at this stage of my life,” (that) I have decided that I still have a lot to offer and I’m going to seek the NDP nomination and I’m going to try hard to win that seat for the NDP.
Martin served four terms as an MLA, and says he’s looking to speak out on a number of issues including the export of jobs with the Keystone XL Pipeline to the United States, the health care system and cuts to education.
