When Layton subsequently died from complications due to cancer on August 22, 2011, Turmel became Leader of the Official Opposition, the second woman to be so appointed.

Over time, Turmel held progressively more senior elected positions at the local and regional level of her union,[8] eventually serving as vice president of the CEIU in the late 1980s.

Turmel tells the story as follows: Women workers were being told by our union not to take strike action against an unfair employer.

The union leadership eventually accepted the strike, which lasted for 15 days and ended with the workers winning wage increases, bonus payments, and improved parental and family care leave.

She first campaigned to try and save the base and, when it became evident that that was impossible, she lobbied to ensure that displaced employees got a job somewhere else without losing their benefits.

"[4] In 1990, she made the decision to run for a national elected position; as part of a pioneering wave of women within the union who were assuming leadership roles, she campaigned for the presidency of the CEIU arguing that "it's time a woman ran the component, and I am ready.

"I worked a lot on our pay equity struggle," said Turmel, "I was on the executive when we decided not to accept the government’s offer to settle and to wait for the court decisions.

[12] It was during that time that Turmel suggested that a Member of Parliament “deserved to be roughed up because he did not respect the picket line,” a comment that has been featured on Conservative attack web sites.

[17] From 1992 onwards, Turmel acted as one of the PSAC leaders helping to coordinate and officially lend the union's support to the United Way's Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign.

After retiring from the PSAC, Turmel served as vice president of the Ombudsman's office of the City of Gatineau from 2007 to 2011, and she sat on the boards of two affordable housing agencies in the Outaouais.

[18] She also became treasurer of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women in October 2010 and she represented workers on the Management Committee of Financial Assets of the QFL Solidarity Fund.

[4] In November 2009, Turmel ran in the Gatineau municipal election in the district of Plateau-Manoir-des-Trembles; she lost to opponent Maxime Tremblay by 96 votes out of 4,261.

[21] In the 1990s, she served as Associate President (Labour) of the party under leader Alexa McDonough, and she co-chaired, with Dick Proctor, the Social Democratic Forum on Canada's Future, a panel of "nine distinguished Canadians" which held broad cross-country consultations between March 1998 and January 1999 "to create a vision for the future of the federation" and canvass Canadians' ideas about progressive government.

[24] In December 2006, Turmel took out a membership in the Bloc Québécois in support of her friend, Carole Lavallée, who was running for the party.

This put Turmel in violation of the NDP constitution which prohibits being a member of more than one federal political party at the same time.

[21] Turmel allowed her NDP membership to lapse in 2009, something she says was unintentional and attributes to a credit card expiry date issue; she became a paid-up member again in October 2010.

[24] In January 2011, Turmel cancelled her membership in the Bloc Québécois and later filed papers to run as a New Democrat candidate.

[27] Her campaign focused on local issues including getting legislative protection for Gatineau Park, a possible ferry between Aylmer and Kanata, and expanding the Rapibus transit project.

She only assumed that office upon Jack Layton's death on August 22, 2011, and she stands as just the second woman to have held the role, after former Canadian Alliance MP Deborah Grey, who served in 2000 during that party's leadership race.

[32] While serving as interim NDP leader, Turmel participated at the state funeral for Jack Layton, reading a biblical passage.

Following through on a promise made during the 2011 federal election, Ms. Turmel introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons to protect Gatineau Park on November 8, 2012.

As well, the GPPC has said Ms. Turmel's legislation lacks a public-consultation mechanism, disregards the issue of Quebec's territorial integrity, and fails to make conservation the first priority of park management.

[35][37][38][39] In 2006, Turmel received the Mitchell Sharp Award for Meritorious Service from the Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign.

Upon conferring the award, Jo-Anne Poirier, CEO of the Workplace Charitable Campaign, remarked, "Nycole is extremely focused on the community and showed great leadership throughout the years, making herself available at all times to lend support and advice.

"[4] A Research Academic Chair at the Université du Québec à Montréal on public spaces and political innovations was named in Turmel's honour and financed by the PSAC.