Leadership hopeful Mulcair unapologetic about dual citizenship

Responding to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments on NDP leadership candidate Tom Mulcair’s dual France/Canada citizenship, Mulcair says he has nothing to apologize for and that Harper is only revealing his anti-immigrant prejudices.

After a spotlight was shone on Mulcair when recent media reports noted that the Outremont MP has Canadian and French passports because he is married to a woman who is a French citizen, Harper seized the opportunity to cast doubt on Mulcair by making a comparison with himself.

Harper fires at Mulcair
“Just to be clear, these cases have come up in the past, and obviously it’s for Mr. Mulcair to use his political judgment in this case,” the prime minister told TVA. “In my case, I’m very clear. I’m a Canadian and only a Canadian.”

While Harper’s comments were described by a Toronto newspaper as “a shot across the bow at Mulcair,” it also marked the first time since the NDP leadership race started that the Conservative prime minister took so much trouble to single out any of the NDP candidates. With his comments, Harper may have inadvertently proclaimed Mulcair to be the NDP’s leader-in-waiting, while singling Mulcair out as the potential opposition leader who concerns Harper most.

“I make Stephen Harper very nervous,” Mulcair said in an interview with the Laval News during a $20-a-plate fundraising spaghetti dinner held in Montreal’s Rosemont district on Jan. 19. “I’m the last person he wants to see facing him for the next three-and-half-years. I was part of a team that brought down the Parti Québécois in Quebec City. A very tough, determined, structured opposition.

Says Tories anti-immigrant
“So, yeah, of course they’re going to start to try to attack me,” Mulcair continued. “But what they did is a monumental mistake, because they communicated that as far as the Conservative Party of Canada is concerned people who come from families that are from immigration to Canada are not real Canadians. Those were the exact words of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper believes that if your family is from another country and that you’ve kept a tie to another country that somehow you’re not a real Canadian.”

Mulcair isn’t the least bit concerned by claims made by Harper and others that Canadian political leaders should have undivided loyalties. “Nobody fought harder for Canada in the 1980 referendum and the 1995 referendum than me,” said Mulcair. “I was a member of the National Assembly during the 1995 referendum.

“I was a young lawyer working in the Quebec government during the 1980 referendum. I worked my tail off to save Canada, to keep Quebec in Canada. I have no lessons to receive from Stephen Harper about being a good Canadian. And he’s going to find out about it as soon as I face him in the House after March 24.”

Mulcair favoured
While NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp was favoured at the start of the race, the perception among many observers in the media now has shifted towards Mulcair. “We plan to win because we laid out a five-month campaign and we’re right on track with what we wanted to do,” said Mulcair. “We’re gaining support every day. We’re gaining a lot of labour union support.

“We’re gaining a lot of community group support. We’re selling memberships across the country, and I’ve met not just thousands but probably by now 10,000 NDP members across Canada. I’m proud of that fact. I’m going to keep working hard. That’s all I can promise to do. But I know that I’m capable of continuing exactly what we worked out with Jack, which is to form the first NDP government.”