Mountain MP says she won’t run in next election, will spend more time with family
Charlton wants to give party time to launch candidate search, be ready for next election
Hamilton Mountain voters will be electing a new f ace to represent them when the nation goes to the polls next year.
In a surprise announcement Friday afternoon, New Democratic MP Chris Charlton said she will not be seeking re-election in 2015.
Charlton, who has held the riding since 2006, said she told party leader Thomas Mulcair a few months ago she would not be running again so she could spend more time with her husband Brian – a former New Democrat MPP and cabinet minister – and other family.
Charlton said she made the announcement Friday to give her riding association enough time to form a candidate search committee and to give the new candidate time to do pre-election work. While many believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper will call a spring election, Charlton believes it will happen on its set date of Oct. 19, 2015.
“Brian and I have been talking about this for awhile,” said the 51year-old former NDP staffer at Queen’s Park. “You don’t make these big decisions without think- ing about it very carefully… Brian is 68 now and, if there’s another majority government, he’ll be 72 (at the end of it). He’s retired now. I just think it would be lovely to spend some time together while we’re active. It’s not that it (72) is ancient, but there are still some things we very much want to do.”
McMaster University political science professor Henry Jacek said Charlton was “an outstanding MP” and the NDP will find it hard to fill her shoes.
“She will be a very big loss to the NDP,” he said. “There’s no question about that. It’s unfortunate for the NDP. It’s hard to imagine another candidate who would match the quality of representation she gave to Hamilton Mountain.”
The Hill Times, a weekly news- paper that covers Parliament, voted Charlton one of the “Hardest Working MPs on the Hill” in May 2010.
Charlton ran five times for public office before she was elected in January 2006 to Parliament. She ran in the 1997 and 2004 federal elections, the 1999 and 2003 provincial elections and for Ward 7 in the 2000 municipal election. She worked at Queen’s Park for the NDP on-andoff between 1989 and 2005.
Before Charlton won Hamilton Mountain, Liberal MP Beth Phinney held the riding for 17 years. From 1968-1988, it was held by the Liberals, the NDP and the Conservatives. The Liberals and Conservatives are busy lining up candidates for 2015. The Liberal nomination meeting is expected next month and is being contested, so f ar, by teacher Shaun Burt and nurse-practitioner Jan Park Dorsay.
Charlton said her top highlight was after the 2011 election when the NDP formed the Official Opposition with Jack Layton as leader. She said, however, other highlights were when she reunited families split between Canada and refugee camps and having her motion approved during the recession to extend EI for the longterm unemployed.