Mulcair reminds Quebec of results, seeks more active support

Progressives from across Canada need to unite with Quebecers to form the first “social-democratic” NDP government in the country’s history, Tom Mulcair said at a campaign rally in Montreal.

Mulcair staged the event in front of Beaver Lake on top of Mount Royal park, the same location he chose in 2007 to announce he would run for the NDP, becoming only the second-ever New Democrat elected in the province. Since then the party’s fortunes have exploded in Quebec, sending 59 MPs to Ottawa out of 75 available seats.

“The ‘orange wave’ started here in Quebec and on Oct. 19 we can finish the job,” Mulcair said. “Since Stephen Harper came to power he’s never faced a more tough, real and determined opposition than the NDP,” Mulcair said.

“Remember the two previous Liberal party leaders? Harper passed over them like a steamroller.” Mulcair defended his party’s pledge to increase the corporate tax rate, a policy platform Harper said would help wreck the economy. An NDP government would institute a “slight and gradual increase” of the tax rate for large corporations, he said, in order “to have the capacity to do the things we want to do for the best interests of the public,” such as a national child daycare program.

The NDP would also decrease the tax rate for small and medium-sized businesses from 11 per cent to nine per cent, since, he said, it’s the smaller companies that create most of the jobs.