Meet Gary Burrill: The clergyman at the helm of Nova Scotia’s New Democrats
Posted April 30, 2017 9:42 am.
Last Updated May 3, 2017 1:40 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – Name: Gary Burrill
Party: New Democratic Party
Age: 61
Hometown: Woodstock, N.B. (with family roots in Yarmouth, N.S.)
Job before politics: The social justice advocate and graduate of Queen’s and Harvard was ordained as a United Church minister in 1992.
Leadership history: Elected leader in 2016 without a seat; he was an NDP backbencher for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley from 2009 to 2013.
Notable moment: Beat out two sitting MLAs in the leadership race: Perceived frontrunner MLA Dave Wilson, a former cabinet minister, as well as MLA Lenore Zann.
Spotted in his office: A photo of J.B. McLachlan, a Cape Breton coalminer, union leader and labour advocate, and a photo of the home of Joseph Howe, provincial politician, newspaperman and public servant.
Quote: “We are in a new moment. The best way forward is investing in the real lives of real people.”
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version referred to J.B. McLachlan as Jamie McLachlan.
