TORONTO – MP Peggy Nash has launched her bid for the leadership of
the federal New Democrats, saying Canadians need a real alternative to
the Conservative government.

Nash, who is the party’s finance
critic, announced in Toronto this morning she’s joining the crowded race
to replace the late Jack Layton.

Noting her bid has become the
worst kept secret, she says if she were prime minister, she would keep
the Canadian economy stable and even make it stronger.

Nash says
we’re living in a time of instability and volatile change with the
European financial crisis, the American debt ceiling and Canadian
businesses are struggling.

But she says there’s an appetite for change, noting the almost two-week-old Occupy Toronto protest in the city.

Nash
joins in the race deputy leader Thomas Mulcair, former party president
Brian Topp, Quebec MP Romeo Saganash, B.C. MP Nathan Cullen, Ottawa MP
Paul Dewar and a little-known Nova Scotia pharmacist, Martin Singh.