Mulcair avoids tangling with Ontario’s partisan premier
Betting the high road will take him to 24 Sussex Drive, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is avoiding a head-on collision with Ontario’s partisan premier.
While Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal ministers are targeting him almost as much as they do Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, Mulcair is staying above the fray.
“I look forward to working with Kathleen Wynne and every other provincial premier when we form government on Oct. 19,” the NDP chief told reporters in Toronto on Monday.
“I have to work with all provincial premiers irrespective of their political stripes. And you know what, here in Ontario we’re going to have no trouble sitting down,” said the former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister.
“We’re going to hold two meetings a year with the Council of the Federation. Mr. Harper has yet to attend one. We’ll have one in Ottawa and we’ll rotate it in the provinces — we’re going to show that we mean it,” he said, referring to the organization of provincial and territorial premiers.
Mulcair’s comments came after a Liberty Village area rally attended by a capacity crowd of 400 people that saw about 75 other supporters forced to listen on speakers set up outside the sweltering Sudbury Street hall.
He was in Toronto to announce that an NDP government would boost the Guaranteed Income Supplement by $400 million annually and reduce the age of eligibility for the stipend and Old Age Security back to 65 from 67.
“I have no hesitation whatsoever to sit down and work on important issues like child care, better protection for our seniors — these are things we will work on with the provinces every day,” he said.
But at almost exactly the same time as Mulcair was talking about building bridges, Wynne was at Queen’s Park tearing a strip off him for suggesting her Liberal government is backing his $15-a-day child-care pledge.
“We need the details about what Mr. Mulcair’s plan would be. At this point we don’t have those details. For him to say that we endorse it or that we support it goes beyond what we have said,” said the premier, who has injected herself into the federal election more than any other provincial leader.
“In this election campaign I am going to be calling for clear policies that make it very apparent about the role of what the provinces will be and how the new federal government would work with the provinces,” said Wynne, a vocal supporter of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Federal New Democrats reminded her that on Nov. 18, Liberal MPPs supported a provincial NDP motion — by a vote of 67-21 — backing a $15-a-day child-care plan. Only the Progressive Conservatives voted against it.
While Wynne was not in the house for the vote, Education Minister Liz Sandals and 18 other cabinet members stood up in favour of the NDP proposal.
The provincial Liberals insist the November motion was largely symbolic.