Anil Naidoo will represent the NDP in Ottawa Centre for October’s provincial election.
The activist and former federal party worker defeated 2007 candidate Will Murray on the second ballot Wednesday night at the Montgomery Legion.
Naidoo came to Ottawa in 2000 to assist former MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, following work in the inner city of Edmonton.
He has promoted the right to water around the world as an organizer with the Blue Planet Project, and said he can help constituents deal with the local impacts of international issues.
“There are the larger issues that I work on, climate change and green energy, they haven’t brought it down to the level of people and working with communities,” he said. “The global forces that are at play impact locally.”
“Ontario has the population and the ingenuity and the people to really be leading a lot of the transitions we need to make.”
Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar said Naidoo will be a strong community voice.
“He gets it, he understands that politics has to be done differently,” he said. “The idea of just having a speech and throwing out some literature and having people vote for you is not enough, you have to be on the ground connecting with people.”
Naidoo won over Murray, who came second in 2007 to Liberal Yasir Naqvi by about 2000 votes.
Also on the first ballot was social worker Erica Braun.