Veteran New Democrat MP Libby Davies says she won't be running in the party's leadership race.
There had been some speculation that the popular East Vancouver politician would join the race to replace Jack Layton.
In an interview from New Orleans, La., where she's speaking at an HIV-AIDS and homeless conference, Ms. Davies says the next leader has to reflect that our country is bilingual and she doesn't speak French.
Ms. Davies says she had a lot of encouragement from people to run for the leadership and she thought about the idea carefully before ruling it out.
But she says she does have a role to play as one of the last few New Democrat veterans from the 1997 election.
Ms. Davies says the NDP will live up to the challenge of being Official Opposition, and she sees her role as helping to make that happen and to support caucus and interim leader Nycole Turmel.