Trudeau 'slammed the door' on coalition talk five times, says Mulcair
With less than two weeks left in his campaign, Tom Mulcair is facing some difficult decisions. The leader of the New Democratic Party began the election with a promising lead. But then the Liberals went left, promising big-ticket change backed by $10 billion deficits. The niqab debate appears to have calmed the storm of NDP orange which swept over Quebec during the last election. Now, the polls are showing the NDP running third with the Conservatives trying to stave off a Liberal surge. Mulcair needs to act swiftly to find his way back into contention.
Earlier today, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair joined As It Happens host Carol Off in studio and they talked about the possibility of a coalition.
Mulcair points to the 2011 federal election and the unexpected gains the NDP made in Quebec as evidence that Canadians should be skeptical of the numbers currently projected in polls. Off referred to Jack Layton's campaign, and asked whether Mulcair is open to a forming a coalition government. She cited a new Forum Research poll that shows a majority of Canadians support a Liberal-NDP coalition rather than a Conservative minority government. Here is an excerpt from their conversation:
CAROL OFF: [Jack Layton] said that Canadians want us to work together and if there's a minority he is open to a coalition in the interest of Canadians. Are you open to a coalition?
TOM MULCAIR: Well don't forget I was with Jack Layton. I was already there in the House of Commons and I helped write that coalition agreement. The Liberals signed it with us. Then they turned up their noses on their own signature. And guess what? Seven years later we're still stuck with Stephen Harper. So my job between now and October 19th is to continue talking to Canadians about the type of positive change that the NDP can bring in. Explain that if, as we see in the same polls that 70 per cent of Canadians do want change in Ottawa, the NDP offers a change.
Mr. Trudeau slammed the door on it as he has several times in the past. He's gone as far as to say that he could eventually work with the NDP as long as I wasn't there.- Tom Mulcair
TM: Every time I've opened the door to that, and I have as recently as this summer opened up the door to working with the Liberals, Justin Trudeau takes it upon himself to personally slam that door shut. So what I've got to do between now and October 19th is get as many NDP MPs elected as I can, to form a strong, stable majority NDP government. That's my job.
CO: Okay, you opened the door in the summer? How many other times?
TM: Four other times, most recently was July.
CO: And what was the reaction from the Liberals?
TM: Mr. Trudeau slammed the door on it as he has several times in the past. He's gone as far as to say that he could eventually work with the NDP as long as I wasn't there. That's their track record. Our track record is always being open to working with others and that's why Canadians know that they can trust an NDP government to do the right thing which is to get rid of Stephen Harper. That's my priority.
CO: But if your priorities are to get rid of Stephen Harper, why is your campaign against Justin Trudeau? Even your most recent ads are, again, attack ads on Justin Trudeau.
TM: My adversary is Stephen Harper. He's the person I have to defeat and replace. But it is also fair for Canadians to be reminded that when push comes to the shove, Justin Trudeau votes with with Stephen Harper. He voted with Stephen Harper on C-51. He's of one mind with Stephen Harper on the Keystone XL. pipeline. They both agree on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Only the NDP has the courage to say that Canada's richest corporations, the banks, the oil companies, should start paying their fair share of taxes. Mr. Trudeau would never do that so that's an objective thing Carol the Canadians are allowed to know about. There's nothing personal in that reference.
Mulcair hasn't seen the details of the Trans-Pacific trade deal but with his party struggling to make up for lost ground in the polls, Mulcair takes a firm stance, explaining he wouldn't even put the trade pact to Parliament. He adds that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shares his opinion and is open to more negotiations.
CO: Did you get a bump up from Hillary Clinton this week?
TM: I think that Hillary Clinton is showing that people of principle stand up against a deal that's bad for the families in their country.
CO: But do you think by virtue of her stand on TPP, which she says doesn't reach her high bar for what the United States should have…?
TM: The bar hasn't been put high enough and actually TPP has a better deal for the U.S. on auto than Canada does...
CO: So is TPP dead in the water?
TM: I can tell you that an NDP government will never ratify that agreement as Mr Harper negotiated in the dying days of a campaign. He was sitting around the table with a bunch of people who knew they had a chump with him. Who desperately needed the deal. That's why he signed on to a deal that was as bad as it was for auto, for example. I would never bring this deal to Parliament.
CO: If you're the government...if you're the Prime Minister, it's not even going to a vote?
CO: If it's changed would you put it to a vote?
TM: We would certainly try to change it. I mean that's what you try to do. I think that Hillary Clinton saying the same thing -- that the bar hasn't been set high enough so that leaves the door open to getting a better deal.
CO: But you haven't seen the text yet?
TM: You know exactly how many jobs that represents and that's enough. But those are the things that we know already. Stephen Harper's trying to hide the rest of the deal. He doesn't want Canadians to see it. If he was proud of this deal he'd be making it public. He's obviously not. He knows that there's stuff in there that Canadians have every right to be worried about and that's why the NDP is proudly standing up against it. Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper have said they're for it. We're against it -- period.
This interview was edited for length and clarity. To hear the full interview please click on the Listen audio link above.