NDP's Craig Scott

[attach]5533[/attach]As a political science student in the 1980s, Toronto-Danforth NDP candidate Craig Scott was often asked if he’d seek a career in public office.

“Back then I said ‘no way, I don’t think anybody should be going into politics until they really know what they’re doing it for and they have something to contribute. Maybe in my late 40s when I’ve accomplished something’.”

It turns out, the now 49-year-old law professor was predicting his own future.

Up until a few months ago, Scott, a professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, says he had not given political life any serious consideration, and was only nominally involved in the party as a policy advisor.

In the months following the death of former Toronto-Danforth MP and NDP leader Jack Layton, the Riverdale resident said he was approached to bid for the nomination. After a long decision-making process, and a subsequent nomination win, Scott is going full steam ahead with his election pitch.

Though the riding heavily supports the New Democrats, Scott says he’s aware he must prove to the electorate that he can carry on Layton’s legacy.

“It’s important to me to be a strong, grounded constituency-based MP,” he said. “Jack was remarkably rooted here despite living just across the city and despite having a leadership portfolio, so the pressure on me to be even more rooted is big, but I will be.”

[attach]5534[/attach]But the issues Scott intends to draw attention to if elected are reflected, he says, both in his own work experience in human rights and the environment, and in the riding itself.

“This is a riding that values environmental consciousness as much as probably any riding, at least in Toronto,” he said. “I hear that constantly at the door.”

Scott is in a good position to challenge the government on environmental action, as he was working on climate changes issues and corporate responsibility long before they became hot-button issues on the global stage.

Today, he says all MPs must be beating the drum on Parliament Hill to draw attention to, and find solutions to, what he calls a global ecosystem collapse.

“We have to take this seriously,” he said, adding there are local solutions to reducing the negative environmental impact, including local green job creation.

If elected, Scott said he will also lend a voice to the Aboriginal population. The urban Aboriginal experience, he says, is not on the radar at any level of government.

“I think especially in the city of Toronto we need to get a better handle on the human resources, and the particular challenges of that community in our city,” he said, noting the First Nations School of Toronto, located in the riding, is a good starting point for communication.

Four days after the byelection, the party itself will choose a new leader, but Scott said he’s not hearing concerns at the door about the party’s uncertain future under a new leader.

“People are more thinking in terms of that gives us three years under a new leader to just continue what Jack helped build.”

As for the rigours of public office, his experience in and outside of the academic world has prepared him for a tough job on Parliament Hill, Scott says. A Rhodes Scholar and former associate dean, Scott says he’s used to pulling 80-hour workweeks.

“I do believe I’ll add a strong voice to an already strong caucus and holding the government to account over the next three years.”