Old stomping grounds
Some of the landmarks of Thomas Mulcair’s early life in Quebec:
99th Ave. and 2nd St. in Laval, Que.
Mulcair grew up in a bungalow on this corner. He had his first paper route in the neighbourhood when he was 10. In 1994, on his first day of campaigning for a seat as a Liberal in the Quebec national assembly, he retraced his paper route while canvassing door to door.
Sainte-Anne-des-Lacs, Que.
This hamlet in the Laurentian Mountains was founded by Mulcair’s maternal grandfather, Pierre Hurtubise. It’s where Mulcair’s parents were married and where they owned a cottage. When he was a child, Mulcair’s summer playground was Marois Lake. His father moved the family here in 1973 and set up shop as an insurance broker. Three years later, Mulcair and Catherine Pinhas were married in the local church.
Chomedey Catholic High School
(Later named Laval Catholic High School and now called Laval Junior Academy) This school in the Montreal suburb of Laval is where Mulcair, in 1969, decided he wanted to become a politician. In his second year he helped lead a sit-in that forced the principal to restore recess. It’s also the place where a teacher, a Catholic priest named Alan Cox, preached the importance of social justice by taking Mulcair and other classmates to do community work in poor neighbourhoods.
McGill University
Mulcair began his first year of law school in 1973, about a month before his 19th birthday. He initially rented a room for $64 a month in McGill’s downtown student ghetto. His tutor was professor Irwin Cotler, who would later become justice minister in a Liberal government. Mulcair graduated with a degree in common law.