Gold Winner Gary Burrill
Silver Winner Brendan Maguire
Bronze Winner Lenore Zann
Last year when he won this award, Gary Burrill had just barely met the cutoff. A late-spring provincial election finally earned the NDP leader at seat at Province House. A repeat win now, after an actual year carrying his own weight for the New Democrats, is understandably a bit more meaningful. “Imagine!” says Burrill. “What a thing.” Though the NDP only occupies seven seats in the Leg, Burrill and his team continue to fight for the little guy by demanding a $15-an-hour minimum wage, while also tackling big-picture issues such as climate change. “It’s hard to think of myself without the other six,” says the NDP leader. “We’re a fighting unit.”