New Democrat leader Thomas Mulcair comes across as another character created by famed Brit mystery writer Agatha Christie. Like Christie’s prolific series of books from 1920 to 1975 featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, the politician is from another time, another era. It might explain why Mulcair is out of step with Canadians. He does not connect.
Despite the painstaking and persistent grilling he has given the Conservative government in the House of Commons, Mulcair’s excellent performance has been little noted. To Canadians, he is just a stuffy little man in his three-piece suit. Taking off his tie makes little difference.
Mulcair is a lawyer and he comes across as a lawyer. He is the subject of lawyer jokes. His words are measured, his smile forced and his scruffy beard is unappealing.
Mulcair seems to fit with only a small part of the population even in Quebec where politicians are measured on their loyalty to that province. He is almost too francophone with his dual citizenship in France and Canada. His ties to France would never be accepted in a prime minister by most Canadians. It is easy to understand why there are no rules forbidding the dual citizenship in parliament but obviously nobody ever thought of having a prime minister with split loyalties.
Maybe it is the perpetual underdog attitude of New Democrats that his dual citizenship was never an issue when he was chosen leader. They should have considered the attitude of Canadians when former Prime Minister R. B. Bennett went to England and a peerage after being ousted by the voters in 1935.
But that is the least of Mulcair’s problems. Caught between Harper and Trudeau, he is between the proverbial rock and hard place. As the Ontario Liberals have just proved in the 2014 provincial election, there is no room for New Democrats if the Liberals lead with their left. Trudeau has already started pushing into New Democrat territory and the New Democrat leader is unable to counter the push. For Mulcair to move to the right as Andrea Horwath tried in Ontario would be a fool’s game.
The coming federal election will be a mystery that Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen and Perry Mason would all fail at solving. It is not just that politics is a very different genre. Along with Mulcair, they are all from a different time.
-30-
Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]