Mulcair says he expects to be replaced as NDP leader within a year

Outgoing NDP leader Tom Mulcair says he expects to be replaced as head of the third party in the House of Commons within a year.

Mulcair made the comments in an interview with Rosemary Barton, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics.

"I've always looked at a one-year horizon, which to me seems the most reasonable," Mulcair said. "I think a one-year horizon from the events of Edmonton is fair. That's essentially the signal that I have been given consistently since the beginning of this."

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At the NDP convention in Edmonton in April, delegates voted 52 to 48 per cent in favour of proceeding with a leadership election.

Going into the convention, then NDP president Rebecca Blaikie said the vote would have to be in the 70 per cent range in favour of keeping Mulcair to avoid a leadership contest.

After the vote Mulcair indicated that he would stay on until his successor could be chosen.

Mulcair said that while he is leader of the NDP he will continue fundraising for the party.

"I have offered my colleagues to help with fundraising, I am doing my own fundraising and, by the way, (on) the actual leadership race itself, because the party always keeps a cut, there is going to be a lot of money raised by the party," Mulcair added.

A bleak picture

Yet recently released figures from Elections Canada paint a bleak picture of the party's fundraising efforts in the first quarter of 2016, when it collected just $1.3 million.

A letter from the party's president, vice-presidents and treasurer, obtained by The Canadian Press, says the party's federal council should consider the competition's financial impact, given campaign debts pegged around $5-million after last year's marathon election.

The concern is that leadership candidates will siphon away donations that would otherwise go to the party.

Watch the full interview 

Interview with NDP Leader Tom Mulcair

9 years ago

Duration 7:35

Tom Mulcair talks Fort McMurray fire, physician-assisted dying legislation, electoral reform and holding down the NDP fort until a new leader is chosen.