06.30.2015 07:43 AM

(Updated) Mulcair honeymoon ending in 5…4…3…

In this, the NDP leader frankly looks not unlike a megalomaniac without a shred of principle. But, then again, the main source is Dimitri Pseudas (a guy who allegedly has been investigated by the Mounties for stuff like this, according to the Globe), and the author is Martin Patriquin (a guy who trades in inaccuracy and prejudice, according to the Quebec Press Council).

So NDP stalwarts will likely shrug it off. Should they?

UPDATE: Mulcair is denying it all, pretty categorically. Will Pseudas and Patriquin’s anonymous sources now pony up real evidence? Doubt it. Looks like an LPC war room fail until they do.

49 Comments

  1. Jeff says:

    Not sure this is going to be so so bad, but it might start the death by 1000 cuts when you start to dig in Mulcair and the promises he made so far. The NDP is going to be very vulnerable on the lack of trust on the economy when it comes down to it. I think what is going to be really damning will be when the attacks come about how many times he refinanced his house.

    • Marco Coletta says:

      Who cares how many times he refinanced his home, people refinance for many reason and many times.

      That would less of a story then this, what’s next, do you want his personal bank records too? how much gas he used as environment minister? You liberals are really grabbing a straws with this idiocy of trying to smear a man personal image based on his non-political dealings.

      1. Even if the issue comes down to 300K salary, which doesn’t make logical sense seeing as he when to the 4th party NDP for a job, trying to get the best salary isn’t dishonest or a mark against someones character.

      2. As Warren said it’s Souda’s (oh so honest) word vs that of the leader of the opposition and until they (the LPC) can present irrefutable evidence the end result is that as a private citizen Mr. Mulcair made a principled choice when it was clear he would have to support a policy he opposed.

  2. Ropshin says:

    It’s one thing for Mulcair to want to run for the Cons. It’s quite another for him merely to apply for a civil service appointment and then turn it down when it was demanded that he abandon his views on Kyoto.

    So far, the latter seems to be the more credible version since the prior version is peddled by a tarnished Liberal functionary eager to serve his new masters.

  3. Justin says:

    You’ll be counting down for a long time if you’re waiting for the “honeymoon” to end. It’s the new normal.

  4. CM says:

    Heh.

    Mulcair: Not a Dipper

    Mulcair: He didn’t join the NDP for you

    Brother, can you spare Tommy three hundred large?

    Mulcair: The Conservatives couldn’t afford him neither can you.

  5. Alex says:

    This story has been an open secret for a long time. John Ivison on a few occasions has made reference on TV panels that the Tories were going to reveal that Mulcair wanted to run for the Cons, but that the talks broke down over grubby reasons. So when I saw the headline for this story this morning I cringed. Then I read it and shrugged for a variety of reasons.

    1) This story will get lost in the Canada Day celebrations. 2) If your main source is Dimitri Soudas then you are in trouble. 3) It’s hard to accuse someone of being an opportunist when they decided to run for the NDP in Quebec in 2007, when the Party was a non-entity in the province. 4) Unless there is a clear smoking gun, such as an email or recorded phone message, the PMOs and Cons version of events is worthless. At this point only hardcore Tory partisans take the PMO at face value.

    Mulcair has a lot of weaknesses, some of which may undo him in the future. However, if this is what the Cons are hanging their hopes on to attack Mulcair, then their arsenal is pretty weak. On the other hand, if the Tories have any evidence to prove that Mulcair lied in his reply to Maclean’s – e.g. he did talk to Soudas; the talks did break down over money — then he will fall victim to the classic fault of the coverup being worse then the crime.

    • Warren says:

      If Soudas is involved, Alex, the Liberals marketed the story. Not the Tories.

      • Matt says:

        Which makes him a hypocrite, no?

        He essentially did the same thing when the Conservatives dumped his ass, and he went to the Liberals with a list of demands to join up including giving Adams a riding of her choice to run in.

        • GWiz says:

          That’s bull dung… Soudas was a by product of Adams, a sitting CON minister, jumping to the Liberals where the only “guarantee” she got was that she could contest in an open nomination race in an open riding against whomever else was running for the nomination…

  6. John from Saskatoon says:

    If anyone thinks the Tories don’t have a plan of attack against Mulcair and the NDP they’re delusional. The NDP have a little spending issue of their own that has yet to really be hammered on. It will be among many other things. NDP are smiling now outwardly but they know what’s coming. They will drop in the polls including the real one on Election Day.

    • GWiz says:

      Why would Harper and the CONS attack Mulcair and the NDP as long as Mulcair and Co. continue to do Harper’s bidding to get the Liberal vote split over a CON Bill of all things? Mulcair’s completely voluntarily serving as Harper’s attack dog against the Liberals has already paid off big time for Harper, and all it’s cost him is voters that were never his to lose… What really beats me is that with Mulcair acknowledging that he wants the Quebec separatist vote to keep his Quebec seats why anyone outside Quebec, or Quebec Nationalists for that matter, would even consider voting NDP… Anyone have an answer for that strange phenomena?

      • John from Saskatoon says:

        I don’t think you will see votes flocking to the NDP from the ROC on Election Day for your stated reason and many more.

  7. Peter says:

    I must say that, despite all the Dippers cracking champagne over the polls, I have a hard time seeing Mulcair surviving a campaign without slip-sliding away. He looks good in Parliament and in short sound bites, but has an awkward goofiness on the hustings. The Libs will pull out all the stops and the campaign in Quebec will be to the death. Plus there are all those loose cannons behind his back, including many who don’t like or trust him and don’t always speak in whispers.

    Given this and Justin’s party and policy missteps, I’m beginning to think all Harper will have to do is smile blandly and keep repeating “Steady as she goes”.

    • jeff316 says:

      Agreed. This is a blip and he’ll still likely end up in third place or just a slight-ahead second.

  8. davie says:

    Could be that what will help the NDP is that the pattern has been around for almost a couple of decades: Chretien’s face, Martin’s dithering, Gooddale trust(done with impunity by RCMP upper echelons), Dion’s ineffectual intellectualism, Layton’s coup with separatists, Ignatief’s stop over, JT’s youth, Tom’s anger,…all personal attacks from the same sources, – including pretending someone else said it first. People know this is going to happen, and might now be ready to pay less attention to how any particular target’s feces stink. People might just be turning away from this kind of business as usual.

    (It will be fun to watch Cons and Libs, on the one hand, claiming NDP leadership is actually Conservative and therefore a bad, bad thing; and on the other hand, trying to scare the bejesus out of people that a communist scourge is imminent.)

    • Peter says:

      With respect, that sounds like the nervous musings of someone for whom “People” is a euphemism for political wonks who are all charter members of the “I hate Harper” club.

      • Justin says:

        Harper haters are 61% of the country who disapprove of him

        • John from Saskatoon says:

          By your line of thinking the same amount of people would be Trudeau haters and Mulcair haters. Just because you don’t vote for someone doesn’t mean you hate them. Those titles are for the small population of political nerds and activists.

          • gyor says:

            He’s going on disapproval numbers, not people who simply don’t plan to vote for him. Harper disapproval numbers are 60% to like 30% approve, Mulcair’s numbers are the exact opposite, 60% approval vs. 30% disapproval, giving Mulcair net positive approval and Harper net negative approval.

          • John from Saskatoon says:

            Gyor, can you tell me the difference between disapproval and hate? If you can then I’m not sure how your response to my comment fits.

        • Elisabeth Lindsay says:

          Actually, Justin, by your way of figuring things, that would mean that 68% “hate” the NDP. 71 % “hate” the Conservatives. 73% “hate” the Liberals. 95% “hate” the Greens and the Bloc.

          308.com – June 29th.

          How does that in any way make sense?

  9. JH says:

    Right on about Patriquin and the Quebec Press Council’s findings on inaccuracies and prejudice. Why do you think CBC features him on P & P? Birds of a feather and all that.

  10. PT says:

    This is “trial balloon” dirt. If someone really wanted to wound Mulcair with this, they wouldn’t throw it out right before Canada Day when everyone’s thinking more about barbecues and fireworks than politics. Most of the public will miss this, but political strategists will be watching for any part of this that seems to stick, taking notes on how the NDP react, and writing talking points to test in their pre-campaign focus groups.

  11. Peter says:

    Leaving aside that disapprove and hate are not synonyms, that means up to 39% (probably well into the 40s in the ROC) who may potentially vote for him and give him a new mandate. “Tis not that I disapprove of Harper less, but that I disapprove of the others more”.

  12. Simon says:

    Unless there is a “must have another $10,000”-type of smoking gun, I can’t see this sticking. It just doesn’t smell like flat out opportunism, and more like inside baseball sort of stuff. The big mitigating factors seem to be these:

    1) Quebec politics. I think people in the ROC understand party lines aren’t cut and dried on the federalist side in Quebec. There’s the example of Jean Charest. And didn’t Pierre Trudeau himself leave the NDP for the Liberals?

    2) Environmentalism. Another issue that transcends party lines. And again there is the example of Trudeau, who said if you wanted to get anything done in politics you had to join the Liberals.

    3) The NDP really were not on the radar when Mulcair joined (which is actually the opposite of what Trudeau did). This is actually a very strong counter argument. Does an opportunist join the NDP when Mulcair does? (Unlike now where apparently they are coming out of the woodwork).

    Just too many mitigating factors.

    • Warren says:

      I continue to be amused by the number of Dipper commuters swarming web sites, like this one, to say “no story here,” “real people don’t care,” blah blah blah.

      You have become just like the Con trolls you once professed to detest, boys and girls.

      • John from Saskatoon says:

        Real people will care if there’s evidence. There may very well be email evidence of conversations with Soudas. If there is we’ll see it and Mulcair will pay dearly. Libs are dreaming if they think they’ll benefit though. At the end of the day I believe the Conservatives will win a majority.

        • Patrick says:

          Some would say Conservaties are dreaming if they think they are going to get another majority after a decade in power.

          • John from Saskatoon says:

            Some would but the problem with people that respond to polls and more generally those who pick NDP don’t tend to actually go and vote. It’s easy to answer a phone or online survey and say who you’ll vote for. It’s another to go do it. Conservatives generally have a more efficient and motivated base of voters. The right is also lacking a split in their vote like as in Alberta recently where the NDP got elected because of a majority right wing vote split. If the NDP polling holds you may very well see soft Liberals vote Tory for fear of NDP. There’s not just a stop Harper vote out there. There will also be a stop Mulair vote.

          • Lance says:

            Would they be the same people that were dreaming that the Ontario Provincial Liberals would get another majority after a decade in power? They were dreaming that it would happen, and guess what, it did.

          • Matt says:

            People sid the same about the Ontario Liberals.

            Pretty much every poll had the “time for a change” category ing the high 60 percent area, and IIRC Ipsos had it in the mid to high 70’s.

  13. Chris says:

    This story doesnt hurt Mulcair it actually helps him. Con voters see him as more palatable now that they know he was offered to work in the inner circle of Harperland.

  14. MF says:

    Mulcair of the Libs need to make their own “job application” add for PM in which they reject Harper for PM and give the reasons for doing so. If possible they should use the same actors that the CPC used in their ad. Could even include the “nice hair” quip with respect to Harper.

  15. Sparky Satori says:

    More Liberal pants-pissing hysteria commences in 5-4-3-2-1.

  16. Gordon says:

    This is a story about which people will care, considering it squarely involves the credibility and character of the individual who wants to hold this country’s highest office and chart the nation’s course over the next several years. Any political operative (or partisan apologist) writing in to downplay this story is nervous. One couldn’t imagine Trudeau or Harper ever engaging in such discussions with another national party.

    Moreover, the story has the potential to reignite some internecine feuds within the NDP that are probably still fresh after Jack Layton’s passing. Lingering doubts about Mulcair’s true NDP credentials and concerns about his opportunism and motives will again be considered. It is significant.

    • doconnor says:

      People here have claimed that Harper talked with the Liberals and Trudeau Sr. was originally a New Democrat.

      The idea that Muclair turned down a $180,000 job over money and choose the more difficult and lower paying job of an oppsition MP instead seems unlikely.

  17. Torontonian says:

    How does this hurt him? When the Tories try to red-bait him, the answer will be: “Hey, you guys tried to get him yourself, so how bad can he be?”

  18. Tired Denier says:

    Sudas is part of the toxicity we now enjoy today. He needs to be completely expunged from the conversation if the Liberals are run competently. No one like that can be allowed in a post-psychopathic, post-sociopathic election war room. All he did was run an army of trolls from #tcot who suppressed everyone else on the Internet. Recently he was exposed, and they made up some other story why he went down.

    How can that be trusted? There is so much to attack with the Conservatives with. Any rational person would conclude that the only one who benefits when the Liberals and the NDP attack each other is Harper. Anyone who is doing Liberal vs. NDP trolling clearly has to be a Conservative, and if the liberals are starting to attack Mulcair it is because they have a Conservative in their war room who in his heart wants to f*** more Liberals than just his wife.

    Traitors, spies, and double agents may have information for you, which is why they get safe haven. Even so, they betrayed the enemy so they cannot be trusted. You never hire a crossover in the Intelligence Bureau of any organization. Sudas may get a job cleaning the salad bar for the Liberal Party or some such thing where he cannot do the least bit of harm. He and Adams make a lovely couple, and I am sure they will fit into the Liberal Party fine.

    Attacking Harper brings a sense of revenge and healing that the Canadian people need. Lib vs. NDP attacking make us all say fuck you, go home, and don’t ever show up in a political office again, until you attack Harper and help the other 71% or so of this country ground hiim into the dust. Every microscopic particle of feces from the CPC must be answered with a ton of bricks.

  19. the salamander hordes says:

    .. if folks who vote are aware of or concerned about angry Tom Mulcair’s actions..
    just imagine what the same folks must feel about Robodrone Stephen Harper
    after all.. the Harper legacy is impossibly tainted toxic and failed
    and its all well documented.. nigh on ten disastrous years
    and Mulcair aint really done nothin wrong.. yet
    not has ‘young’ middle aged Trudeau

  20. Gordon says:

    It is the fact that he was serious enough to negotiate. The vast majority of progressives of Liberal and NDP stripes would not negotiate dividing up a pizza with Harper and his coterie.

  21. Liam Young says:

    This is exactly the kind of scumminess that will backfire on the Harper Cons because it (a) shows that Stephen Harper is obsessed with keeping files on you regardless of your interaction with the government, the Cons or any other organization in Canada that opposes the Cons (hence Bill C-51) and (b) it gives Mulcair an opportunity to say ‘there’s not a chance in hell that I would have seriously contemplated working for the Harper Cons’ and further distance himself from these people.

  22. Gordon says:

    But Liam, that is exactly what he did: he negotiated. If there was “not a chance in hell” then he would not have engaged in negotiations with CPC planners. If it is indeed a fact that he was negotiating it demonstrates that he was, in actuality, pretty serious. Maybe this is one of the reasons the “conscience” voters of the NDP were leaning towards Brian Topp in the leadership? Perhaps they knew what we are all starting to figure out: that the guy who would eventually win their leadership is really just in the game for his own benefit. For the highest office in the country, Canadians want a straight shooter and someone guided by principles and a holding a clear vision- not someone out there brokering self-aggrandizing deals with an egregious Harper government. The right wing press who are out to help Mulcair so Trudeau falters will say this is inside baseball and while it sort-of is, Canadians see through leaders who are just looking out for themselves. The more people scrutinize Mulcair, the more they’ll take a second look and think twice about the phony coffee shop smiles that we see in the ads.

  23. Sparky Satori says:

    Actually, Gordon, the only “opportunists” are the critters like yourself who crawl from the woodwork to impugn a man because their OWN party is turning in a feeble performance.

    It isn’t the right wing press that’s doing Trudeau in; it’s the man himself. I feel sorry for him, actually, because he knew he wasn’t up to the challenge, but was coerced into the leadership because without him – something shiny to distract from the dim Lib fortunes – the party’s death spiral would have continued. So, Trudeau’s the leader, and the death spiral STILL continues.

    The thing that works about Conservative attack ads is that they accurately identify the central weakness of the opponent. Dion was “NOT a leader” because his English was pitiful and he was the first choice for leader of a negligible minority of the LPC. (And I actually liked him, but that’s not the point.) Iggy DIDN’T come back for you, and left as soon as it because apparent he needn’t have come back at all. And Trudeau is NOT ready for prime time. Even LPC’s own initial ads carried the inadvertently self-revealing slogan “getting ready to govern.” Do let us know when you are.

    Your nemesis is your party’s inability to select a leader of convincing character. Concentrate of what’s wrong with your own white elephant, because fixating on some other party’s leader won’t get you out the current status quo: circling the drain. Desperation at being in third place is bring out the worst in you, collectively, and YOU specifically.

    Finally, if you think there’s something wrong with “self-aggrandizing” cross-floor politics, I have two words for you: EVE ADAMS. One of the dimmest bulbs imaginable, yet clasped to the Trudeau bosom. Along with the stink from the PMO she brought into your tent with her. Who got the worst of that deal: Trudeau or Adams? You’re not just an opportunist, but a hypocrite to boot.

    Now go back to the kiddies’ table and let the grownups talk, OK?

  24. e.a.f. says:

    so if its true that the Cons wanted to hire Mulcair why are they so opposed to him being P.M. ???

    • Torontonian says:

      Exactly. As I (more or less) tried to say above, this is a self-cancelling smear. It amounts to: “You shouldn’t vote for him because we tried to get him and couldn’t.”

    • reader says:

      So for voters who don’t mind Harper but might want a change anyway, this self-cancels as Torontonian says.

      But for those the many who did not vote for Harper in 2006 when Mulcair was thinking of joining him, and wouldn’t ever vote for Harper, this does not self-cancel.

      Harper was VERY clear on his views of Kyoto. Mulcair did not need to get into negotiations with him to discover what his views on Kyoto were. Talks broke down over something, maybe not money, almost certainly not Kyoto, but for some of us, the question is why was Mulcair in talks at all with Harper’s crew?

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