Insiders insist party unity is stronger than ever and while still sharp-tongued and stubborn — he balks at yet another question about his beard, and refuses to entertain the idea of a pro-sovereignty government in Quebec — Mulcair has enjoyed praise for both his success in the House of Commons and on the summer barbecue circuit.
“I guess now that I’m a kindly grandfather I’ve calmed down a little bit but I’m still a very determined person and I know exactly what we have to do to defeat the Conservatives in 2015,” he told Postmedia News in an interview days before he plans to reunite with caucus members in Newfoundland to hammer out the party’s strategy for the fall Parliamentary session.
Mulcair said he feels the pressure of his predecessor Jack Layton’s legacy “constantly” which is what drives him to push his team hard on “everything from fundraising to membership.”
He’ll need to win an additional 70 seats if his party’s to form government in 2015 and he’s determined to make gains in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario’s industrial heartland as well as the Prairies.
“I have a very heavy responsibility to build on what Jack accomplished on May 2, 2011,” he said.
“Candidates that have money in the bank when the campaign starts, win, and that’s something I am going to continue to drill.”
While sitting around a boardroom table to chat is no longer an option with more than 100 members of Parliament, Mulcair said theatre seating and microphones have not changed his commitment to Layton’s inclusive approach to leadership.
“I tend to try, to the extent possible, to keep the best part of what I saw Jack do with caucus, which was always to listen,” he said.
“Jack was very, very hesitant not to contradict or not respect the full right of every member of caucus to basically say whatever they wanted at the caucus meeting.
“That’s something that I actually consciously practice to make sure people feel really free and comfortable coming forward, even if it’s to take a completely different tack on something because the only way you can come to the right solutions sometimes is looking at something from somebody else’s point of view.”
House leader and former leadership opponent Nathan Cullen said working under Mulcair over the past few months has only confirmed the positive impression he already had.
He said Mulcair has shown “calm” in the face of tough situations and agrees he’s created an environment where members are free to say their piece.
“Everybody in the room talks, Tom listens. He asks a few questions, we figure out how we’re going to make the decision, the decision is made and we move on,” he said.
“It’s a type of leadership style I can absolutely work with and he’s not trying to be anybody but himself.”
Political commentator and former NDP strategist Ian Capstick has worked with Mulcair in the past and argues the Angry Tom label is unfounded.
Unlike Layton, a populist from a “consensus-based” political culture in Toronto, he says Mulcair is a public administrator from Quebec’s “eat or be eaten” political sphere.
“Mr. Mulcair doesn’t suffer fools gladly, that is to be clear. He’s a very intelligent man and you have to have a certain rigour of your intellect to be able to have conversations with him,” he said.
“He has the capacity in private to be short but I don’t think that ever manifested itself on the public stage.”
Capstick argues both Mulcair and his wife, Catherine, are “pretty good at working a room.” He’s successfully connected with crowds on the summer barbecue circuit and “kicked ass” at the Calgary Stampede and Toronto Pride — two key summer stops for politicians, he said.
McMaster University political scientist Peter Graefe said while Mulcair has “toned it down,” he’s just not a “friendly guy” like Layton, but rather a “tough but fair teacher” who is able to ask the difficult questions.
During his short reign, Mulcair, he suggested, has managed to boost public support and position the NDP as the “party of competent public administration” rather than a party that’s just “screaming from the opposite benches.”
Graefe added Mulcair’s comments about the “Dutch disease” in which accused the oilsands of artificially inflating the Canadian dollar and killing manufacturing jobs in Central Canada, was a “winner for him” in Ontario.
Carleton University political scientist Bruce Hicks agreed Mulcair has appeared “a little more statesmanlike” and a “little less aggressive” in public but that it’s tough for him to shake his moral outrage in the House of Commons.
It’s there for all New Democrats, he argues, and it’s unlikely to go away since the party’s chief adversary is another ideological party from the other end of the political spectrum.
“The two sides are opposed and the reaction on almost any issue is almost visceral,” he said.
“Instead of debating policy in a matter that the public watching it can pick up on nuances of debate and what actually are better or worse policy directions, it’s almost a shouting match between two ideological sides.”
That said, while Hicks argues Mulcair lacks the “calmness” of Layton during question period, he’s also left the real antics to firebrands such as Charlie Angus and Pat Martin.
The often-outspoken Martin made waves last year after calling Conservative procedural moves during budget debates a “ f---ing disgrace” on Twitter, adding “There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot s---.”
Angus was recently in the spotlight leading the NDP’s forceful attack against the Conservatives over squalid living conditions at the remote Attawapiskat reserve in northern Ontario.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Tobi Cohen
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