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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
City councillor Mark Heyck was surprised to hear that Thomas Mulcair, the newly elected leader of the federal New Democrats, thanked him during his victory speech in Toronto Saturday.

Heyck was singled out when Mulcair, rattling off a list of supporters, said, "We even have a Northern co-chair in Mark Heyck from Yellowknife."

"We were watching it streaming online and - 'Oh, that was nice,'" said Heyck of his reaction to being named.

Heyck said the designation of co-chair was "sort of a lead endorsement from each of the regions across the country. I was one of the first ones that had approached their campaign from across the North," he said.

Heyck, the past-president of the NDP's Western Arctic riding association, said he decided sometime in February to endorse Mulcair. He drafted a letter, which he sent to Mulcair's campaign team, and which was then e-mailed to all NDP members across the North.

"I had been kind of going back and forth between a couple of different candidates and it was a difficult choice because there were a lot of really great candidates for the leadership but I decided last month that I was going to support Mr. Mulcair. So I contacted his campaign manager and offered to make an endorsement to members across the three Northern territories," Heyck said.

Western Arctic NDP MP Dennis Bevington, who had endorsed Paul Dewar for party leader, supported Mulcair on the final ballot, once Dewar had been eliminated.

"I really supported having another caucus person as leader. I worked with Mr. Mulcair for four years - he's a really capable and confident person and he showed through the campaign that he can attract support from right across the country," said Bevington.

Bevington said Mulcair was a "well-rounded" leader who would understand the issues facing Northerners.

"I'm sure that he's very familiar with all the things that are part of the Northern scene - the lack of infrastructure, the huge resource opportunities, the cost of living, those things," said Bevington.

Heyck has managed Bevington's campaign for the past four federal elections but said he wasn't hesitant to break from Bevington's endorsement.

"We all have our differences of opinion ... Dennis had his reasons for endorsing Paul and I had my reasons for endorsing Tom but that's part of an open, democratic process."

Though Heyck acknowledged that "anything's possible in politics," he said he didn't believe Bevington's failure to endorse the winning candidate would impact the Western Arctic MP's political future.

"That's not the type of party that the NDP is," he said. "Within minutes of Mr. Mulcair's victory speech he had affirmed that Libby Davies, an MP from Vancouver, would remain as deputy leader despite the fact that she had endorsed another candidate ... Everybody realizes that the real opponent is sitting across the aisle in the House of Commons and it's not one another. So there seems to be a fairly strong sense of unity amongst everybody."

Bevington said new MP assignments were a possibility, although he doesn't expect any changes to be implemented immediately.

"I think Mr. Mulcair recognizes that we're all professionals here and we all represent important parts of the country. I was up in the House today speaking on Northern issues and will continue to do that," he said.

As for Heyck's own political ambitions, "you never want to rule anything out," he said, although he said he has no current aspirations to run at the federal level and is still not declaring his intentions for October's municipal election.

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