Northwest B.C. NDP MP Nathan Cullen is seriously considering a run for his party's leadership.
Cullen, who has represented Skeena-Bulkley Valley in the House of Commons since 2004, said Thursday whether he should take the jump is a question he's currently in the process of answering with the help of close friends and confidantes.
"It's a bit awkward just yet to give you the CV on why I'm so terrific," Cullen joked. "I feel like I've got to do a broad and wide consultation which is what I'm going to do - me going out and asking for people's reflections on what they think the party and the country need right now."
Cullen, married and the father of twin one-year-old boys, said he'll make a decision by the end of this month.
"I go in to win," Cullen said. "I don't go in to raise issues alone or for a noble defeat. Winning is going to have to be important, it's going to have to be real, I'm going to have to feel like we have a decent shot of winning."
The vacancy came open when Jack Layton died Aug. 21 at age 61 from a second bout of cancer.
If he became leader, Cullen would follow in the footsteps of Alexa McDonough and Audrey McLaughlin, both who came from relatively out-of-the-way areas of the country. However, pundits have suggested an MP from Quebec would make a leading candidate as a way to solidify the party's gains in Quebec in the last election.
Cullen noted he grew up in Toronto and speaks passable French although he admitted he's been told it's on part with former Prime Minister's Jean Chretien's English.
"It's an unusual mix in a way, being born and raised in the big city and yet living and loving rural Canada," Cullen said. "It gives me a healthy perspective of the need to marry those things and I always thought Jack did that well.
"He was obviously from Toronto but he knew a lot about what it's like to live in rural Canada and he made it easy for me to work with him."
