Michelle Neill says 'everyday Islanders' at the heart of everything the NDP stands for

This is the fourth in a series of profiles of P.E.I.provincial party leaders this week, heading into advance polls that start March 25. Regular voting day is April 3.

New Democratic Party of P.E.I. Leader Michelle Neill says she's notthe kind of politician you'd expect.

That's the point.

"I like to call myself the most unpoliticianpolitician there is, right?" Neill told CBC this week.

"I've lived here on the Island all my life, 50-plus years, and I want to ensure that everybody has equal accessto affordability, to health care, to housing. That's what I'm about. That's what the NDP is about."

Political announcements, podiums and the limelight are fine and all but what she enjoys most isbeing on thedoorstep listening to Islanders.

"I'm loving it. It's one of those things that if I could go door to door and talk to people about the concerns that I have and make money doing that, alone, I would love that," she said with a laugh.

"I want to ensure that anything that I bring forward to the legislature when I get there because I'm going to be getting there, I hope that I can make sure that I'm actually speaking from experience."

The party is running a full slate of candidates, some new and asyoung as 18 and some familiar nameswith years of campaigning experience.

They werethe first to nominate a candidate ahead ofthis election andthe first to publish their full party platform.

Who is Michelle Neill?

Neillis new to political leadership, but no stranger to public service.

She spent nearly 30 years working as a team leader and assistant manager in thefederal civil service, and as a union president. She's taken part in several rounds of national collective bargainingwithin thePublic Service Alliance of Canada.

She's also been involved in local organizations like Wings on Ice Skating Club, the Charlottetown Figure Skating Club, North Star Minor Hockey Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and more.

Neill's first shot at elected office was running in the 2021 federal election in Malpeque. That riding went to former Liberal MLA Heath MacDonald, but just a few months later Neillturned her attention to the provincial NDP leadership.

She was the only person to offer, and became leader at the party convention in Charlottetown in April 2022.

A year later, she's going into this electionlooking to write anew chapter in the history book of the NDP one that includesa voice in the legislature for the party.

Because if you look back, history hasn't been kind to the NDP in this province.

NDP Leader Michelle Neill wants to make a splash in this election

2 years ago

Duration 5:06

CBC P.E.I. is on the campaign trail with NDP Leader Michelle Neill. She says party support is on the rise, and they're looking to win a seat in the legislature for the first time since 1996.

The long journeyof theNDP

This election campaign marks the seventh in a row where NDPcandidates have hit the trailunder a new leader. In that same stretch, this is only the third time they've run a full slate of candidates.

You'd have to go back to 1996 before coming across the first and only NDP member elected on Prince Edward Island: Dr.Herb Dickieson.

That election was a remarkable one for Island history. Long before Peter Bevan-Baker was the lone Green in the legislature,Dickieson andthe NDP were first to shake upP.E.I.'stwo-party political dominance. If the party had agolden age, this was it and it is the rootofthemulti-party legislaturethe Island has now.

Dickieson was the MLA for West Point-Bloomfield for just one term, but has never really left politics. Since then he's been a darling in the party and an architect in helping build its future.

• FULL COVERAGE: Prince Edward Island's2023 provincial election

Neill hasn't forgotten thefoundational role Dickieson played in challenging the Pat Binns government. He foughtthe idea of putting a toll on the Hillsborough Bridge;pushed to create a provincial ombudsperson (the PCs did it in 2021) and lobbied for universalpre-kindergarten in the education system (which the PCs also did in 2021).

He's done a lot of good, and he was only one NDP. Imagine if we had several more. Michelle Neill, talking about former MLA Herb Dickieson

"He's done a lot of good, and he was only one NDP," Neill said. "Imagine if we had several more."

From 2000 through 2019, though, the party ran 131 candidates across seven elections and had zero people elected. Its share of the popular vote is regularly around three per cent, but has reached as high as 11 per cent.

Under a proportional system, the NDP would have had several members elected by now. But that's not the system P.E.I. has.

The task of getting anNDPcandidate elected under a first-past-the-post system has proven to bemountainous. It is the colossus the party has, time and time again, failed to defeat.

Michelle Neill wants to change that.

'We are all different'

The ultimate goal is to govern the province, but getting in is the first step, and Neillis counting on it. History may not have been in the NDP's favour, butthey're persistent.Dedicated in every election.The underdog without a sense of quit.

"I would love to form government. How wonderful would that be? What acoup," she said with a laugh.

"It's something that I aspire to, certainly, and you know what? If we get a few candidates in, thatagainis still a win."

Among the many issues the NDP has identified in this campaign, health care is at the top. Staying firmly away from the privatization of health care is central to the party's policy.

So too are keeping provincial politicians out of Health P.E.I.'s operations, and putting fixes in place that health-care workers are asking for, Neill said.

"We need to cut out some of the political interference, to be quite honest," Neill said. "These are frontline workers that we never could have kept our health-care system going without them. So we have to ensure that we listen to all of them and put in place the ideas that they are talking about to make it better for everyone."

On that issue, and others, Neill said they are the party to get it done.A party of everyday Islanders, with solutions from everyday Islanders.

"We're hard workers, we're doctors, we're paramedics, we're accountants we're all different types of people who want to help everyday Islanders," Neill said.

"We are all different. We all have different perspectives that we're bringing to the table, because that's extremely important. We want to ensure that there's diversity, that all Islanders can see themselves in the legislature."