Most of the mainstream media, with the help of the Mulcair and Topp campaigns, constructed the leadership battle at the NDP convention as a battle between those who wanted to move to the centre to win government and those who wanted to win maintaining the "traditional" social democratic values of the NDP.

I just got back from the biggest demonstration I've ever been on, maybe the biggest in Canadian history. Some of the signs said "Printemps Erable" (maple spring, a play on words in French), and it sure felt like it. In a massive show of solidarity, Quebec students not only said "no" to fare hikes but "no" to a neo-liberal agenda that says the poor, students and workers have to pay for the crisis of capitalism.  Estimates are between 200,000 and 300,000 marchers.