Jack Layton, on the mend from recent hip surgery, put aside his cane, shucked off his jacket and set about serving hamburgers to the throng at the Mission Hills Golf Course on Wednesday.

The Federal NDP leader arrived at a Cranbrook whistle stop with local NDP candidate Mark Shmigelsky, served up some food, and then gave a campaign speech to a large crowd who packed into the facility.

Earlier in the day, Layton was in Prince George, the riding of long-term Conservative MP Jay Hill, who retired in the fall of 2010. Later, he arrived in Kootenay-Columbia, riding of long-term MP Jim Abbott, who also announced his retirement last year. When asked why he was spending the time in what had been apparently safe seats for the Tories, Layton said the ridings were winnable for his party.

"I always think of the advice my coach used to give me when I was in competitive swimming - 'you see that fellow up in front, you can barely see his legs kicking,'" Layton said. "'But there are still several lengths to go, you go out there and get him, because it's the right thing to do.' That's the kind of optimistic attitude we bring to politics.

"I remember when I was first elected leader, people told me all kinds of things weren't going to happen. Virtually all of them have happened. We're here because we want to see representation here in the Kootenays that actually speaks for people's needs.

"Mr. Harper doesn't seem to get it. He's giving all kinds of help to the banks down on Bay Street. People here are asking 'what about us, what about our jobs? What about our families, what about our health care?'

"That's why I don't care what the gap was. We're going to catch them, we're going to pass them, and Mark is going to be the Member of Parliament."

Candidate Mark Shmigelsky echoed the sentiment.

"We grow as people, we experience issues. I'm a hard-working person like the people in this region … they want respect out of Ottawa and they're not getting it from Mr. Harper.

"I'm out here with all these people, working hard to replace the Conservatives in this riding with someone that's going to work for this riding."

"I feel at home where I am, I feel at home with everyone in this room," Shmigelsky said. "We're going door to door, people are opening their doors, saying 'good for you, you run for us, you work for us,' and that's what I'm going to do.

"I never would have imagined this group of people coming out here," Shmigelsky said. "We have workers in every region in every community - as long as everyone in this room talks to their friends and they talk to their friends, we're going to change and going to get back to the way Parliament should be. That's having a Member of Parliament that doesn't shut the door because they think you voted against them. They're going to open the door and bring people together so we can meet the challenges of the future now and tomorrow."

Layton's speech to the crowd was essentially a castigation of the Stephen Harper government. Layton blasted the expulsion of people out of Harper's rallies ("We believe in operating a wide open society where no one gets shut out"), the role the federal government played in the implementation of the HST in B.C., and the various scandals which have been in the news of late.

"(Harper) said he was going to clean up the Liberal scandals," Layton said. "Well he did, sort of, but they were replaced with scandals of a Conservative nature."

"It comes down to Ottawa is broken, and it's up to us to fix it. Far too many people are getting left behind."

Layton said that as Prime Minister, he would bring in a national child care, lower taxes for small businesses, create 200,000 new jobs, create 100,000 new long-term care beds, and "commit to bringing in a program to ensure home care is there for you for when you need it.

"I'm not going to stop until that job is done, just like Tommy Douglas didn't stop until Medicare (was implemented)."