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Canada elected 91 rookie MPs to parliament in the 2019 federal election. The National Post spoke with a selection to discover what was behind their political drive. Today, Maura Forrest’s interview with NDP MP Leah Gazan.

OTTAWA — Leah Gazan comes by her socialist credentials honestly. Raised in Winnipeg, her parents were organizers with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a social-democratic party founded by farmers, labourers and socialists that was a predecessor of the NDP.

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Gazan, the newly elected NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre, says she grew up steeped in politics. “I believe in democratic values, I believe in our socialist roots,” she told the National Post in a recent interview. “I’m a proud socialist and I’m looking forward to pushing that in the House of Commons and in caucus.”

Gazan’s focus on a grassroots style of politics has earned her comparisons to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the U.S. congresswoman who’s part of a crop of young, social media-savvy politicians pushing the Democrats to the left.