Jack Layton
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Jack Layton (b. 1950, Hudson, Quebec) is a former Toronto, Ontario city councillor and the current leader of Canada's New Democratic Party.
Layton studied at McGill and York Universities; he holds a Ph.D. in political science from York. He has been an activist for over 30 years in a variety of causes, leading the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and writing several books, including Homelessness: The Making and Unmaking of a Crisis. He started the White Ribbon Campaign for men who opposed violence against women.
He was elected leader of the NDP at the party's leadership convention in Toronto, on January 25, 2003. Layton won on the first ballot, with 53.5% of the vote. He was the first candidate for federal NDP leadership to win on the first ballot since the legendary Tommy Douglas.
Since he currently has no seat in the House of Commons, he delegated runner-up Bill Blaikie to act as parliamentary leader. He has indicated his intention to run in the next general election in the riding of Toronto-Danforth against Dennis Mills, the heavy favourite whom he lost to by a wide margin in the 1996 election, as opposed to the traditional approach among leaders without a seat of running in a by-election after a fellow party member resigns.
Although he has no parliamentary seat, Layton has been trying to draw considerable attention from the Canadian mass media. Much of his rhetoric has involved attacking the policies and character of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin as a fiscal conservative subverting the ideology of the Liberal Party of Canada in order to realign with the political right.
Another contribution has been to increase the party's profile in Quebec, the province in which the NDP is the weakest. A native of the province, he has visited Quebec more times in the first year of his tenure than the previous leader, Alexa McDonough, did in her entire leadership, and has forged ties with various Quebec activist groups such as Montreal's Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU). One of his opponents in the leadership race, Pierre Ducasse, was the first Québécois to run for leader of the NDP; after the race, Layton appointed Ducasse his Quebec lieutenant and party spokesperson.
He is married to Hong Kong-born Toronto city councillor Olivia Chow.
In 2004, he is releasing a new book, Speaking Out.
| Preceded by: | NDP leaders |
Succeeded by: |