Martha Hall Findlay, the appealing underdog candidate for the national Liberal leadership in 2006, announced Tuesday she won't be running for the office when the party holds its next leadership convention in Vancouver in May.
The non-entry into the race of the 49-year-old Ms. Hall Findlay makes it unlikely that there will be a woman candidate, although suburban Toronto MP Ruby Dhalla may possibly dip in her toes.
Ms. Hall Findlay, MP for the Toronto riding of Willowdale, said in an interview that part of her reason for not running is financial. She still owes $170,000 from her last try at the leadership.
She also said that, after a leadership run, a by-election and two general elections, she has been campaigning pretty much continuously for five years. "It's been a relatively bumpy, hard-slogging road," she said, "and I'm the member of Parliament for Willowdale and that needs to be my first priority."
In a statement Ms. Hall Findlay made public Tuesday, she said she felt she could give more effective service to the country and her party by being a hard working MP and becoming engaged in rebuilding the party after its dismal showing in the last election.
"We must re-inspire Canadians about what Liberal means in Canada," she said.
Ms. Hall Findlay, a businesswoman who has degrees in international affairs and law, said she was not at this point publicly endorsing any candidate for the leadership, and she said she could have a role in the May convention that would require neutrality.
She was the only woman to get to the convention floor in Montreal in 2006 after MPs Hedy Fry and Carolyn Bennett dropped out. She got the least number of votes on the first ballot - compelling her to withdraw - and she immediately declared support for the eventual winner, Stéphane Dion.
The likely absence of a woman candidate for the leadership this time around "certainly has been a really big issue in making this decision," Ms. Hall Findlay said. "It is important that women are represented. We're actually 52 per cent of the population and we need to be there.
"The level of support from across the country has been fantastic. And I have to tell you, compare that to two years ago when we had a team of three. So it was a really tough decision."
But she cautioned against the notion that just having someone of a particular gender solves the problem, adding that's the kind of solution that results in a Sarah Palin.
"I must have said a thousand times in the first few months of the campaign [in 2006]that I'm not just here as a woman. I'm here because of my whole background in international affairs and business.
"What we can do is work very hard at encouraging more women to run and get to the point where they are willing to stand for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Arguably half the candidates [for the leadership]should be women."
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