NDP MP from B.C. won’t seek re-election
OTTAWA — Nathan Cullen, one of the NDP’s best known and most effective MPs, is calling it quits.
The northern British Columbia MP announced Friday that he won’t seek reelection this fall.
That makes 13 of the 44 New Democrats elected in 2015 — including five of the 14 in B.C. — who won’t be running again.
“It sounds glib, but it’s the best answer I’ve had today: It’s time. Fifteen years, five elections, a leadership race, 2.5 million miles flown, half a million kilometres in the car,” Cullen said in a phone interview from his home in Smithers.
“I always wanted to do this work to my best and full ability, and if I ever started to feel the hint that I wasn’t giving the place what it deserves, then I should leave, I should let somebody else do it.”
Over the last little while, Cullen said he’s found “small moments” where he wondered how much longer he could try to balance being a good MP and a good husband and father to eight-year-old twin boys.
“Increasingly, I just felt like I couldn’t make both things sustainable.”
Representing the sprawling, remote riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley made finding work-life balance more difficult for Cullen than for many other MPs. He joked that the life of MPs from remote ridings needs to be counted in “dog years” — one year for them is like three years for an MP from Central Canada.