and the subsequent election of Progressive Conservative Cecil Clark, which gave the NDP 11 seats to the Liberals' 10. Chisholm unexpectedly resigned the leadership after the campaign, at the November 6, 1999 NSNDP provincial council meeting. He said that he wanted to spend more time with his family and could not subject them to ten more years of political life. He remained sitting as an MLA in the Legislature and remained as leader until a new one was elected. He was succeeded by Helen MacDonald in 2000; and after she could not win a seat in the house, Darrell Dexter eventually became the leader in 2001. Chisholm did not run for re-election as an MLA in 2003 provincial election. Private life After the 2003 provincial election, Chisholm returned to the labour movement and worked as researcher for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Since 2004, he has been a member of Dalhousie University's board of governors. In 2007, he became CUPE's Regional Director for the Atlantic Region. In the spring of 2009, he started a consulting firm with his wife Paula Simon: Simon Chisholm Consulting. Return to politics On January 18, 2011, Chisholm announced that he would seek the New Democratic Party nomination in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for the 2011 federal election, and was officially nominated on January 25. On May 2, 2011, he was elected, winning 15,661 votes and defeating Liberal Party of Canada incumbent Mike Savage. Following the death of federal NDP leader Jack Layton, Chisholm was a candidate in the 2012 New Democratic Party leadership election, but after speaking English during a leadership debate in French on account of his lack of fluency in the latter language, he withdrew in December 2011 and subsequently endorsed Thomas Mulcair. In the 2015 federal election, Chisholm was defeated by Liberal Darren Fisher. Electoral history References External links 1957 births Living people Nova Scotia New Democratic Party MLAs Leaders of the Nova Scotia CCF/NDP New Democratic Party MPs Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Nova Scotia Carleton University alumni Dalhousie University alumni 21st-century Canadian politicians People from Kentville, Nova Scotia