N.S. NDP Leader Claudia Chender says she has integrity-or-bust approach to politics – Halifax [Video]

Nova Scotia NDP Leader Claudia Chender doesn’t make a habit of getting kicked out of the legislature — it’s happened once in her seven-year political career.

But last fall, when a Progressive Conservative minister said children across the province had access to free, healthy food in schools, Chender — knowing that statement wasn’t true — couldn’t help but blurt out, “that’s a lie.”

In response, the Speaker of the Nova Scotia house of assembly demanded Chender retract her unparliamentary language, but she wouldn’t. As a result, she was booted from the legislature.

“Theatrics really aren’t my thing, but at that moment it felt really important to me,” Chender said in a recent interview.

“I think you don’t have anything in politics if you don’t have your integrity.”

Chender, 48, a non-practising lawyer and mother of three, said she jumped into politics in 2017 because she got tired of yelling at …