Thomas Mulcair

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Thomas Mulcair (2011)

Thomas ("Tom") Joseph Mulcair (born October 24, 1954 in Ottawa , Ontario ) is a Canadian politician and professor of law . He has been a member of the Canada's House of Commons since 2007, representing the Outremont constituency in the province of Québec . From March 2012 to October 2017 he was chairman of the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Before his political career, Mulcair was a civil servant in the Province of Quebec and a lawyer. He also taught law at several colleges and universities. From 1994 to 2007 he was a member of the National Assembly of Québec , where he represented the Chomedey constituency in Laval for the Parti libéral du Québec . In the provincial government of Jean Charest , he was Minister for Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks from 2003 to 2006.

Family and professional career

Mulcair is the second oldest of ten children of Harry Donnelly Mulcair, an Irish-Canadian father, and of Jeanne Hurtubise, a French-Canadian mother. Because of this, he is fluent in both English and French . His maternal great-great-grandfather is Honoré Mercier , Prime Minister of Québec from 1887 to 1891. Mulcair grew up in Hull (now part of Gatineau ) and Laval , where he attended a Catholic high school. After graduating from CEGEP at Vanier College in Montreal , Mulcair studied at McGill University . In 1977 he received degrees in common law and civil law . During his penultimate year in college, he was President of the Association of Law Students at McGill University and a member of the Student Council.

Mulcair has been married to the psychologist Catherine Pinhas, a French woman with Turkish-Jewish roots, since 1976 ; the couple has two sons. They moved in 1978 in the city of Quebec , a year later Mulcair was admitted as a lawyer . He worked in the Ministry of Justice of the Province of Québec until 1980 as a legal advisor, then with the Supreme Council of the French Language. In 1983, Mulcair was appointed director of the legal department of Alliance Quebec , the lobbying organization for English-speaking Quebecers. In 1985 he opened his own law firm and also taught at Concordia University and the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, among others . From 1987 to 1993 Mulcair was President of the Office des professions du Québec , a government supervisory authority for professional practice. From 1995 he worked as a lawyer again.

Provincial politics in Quebec

Mulcair joined the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ). On September 12, 1994, he ran in the elections to the National Assembly of Québec and was elected in the Chomedey constituency in the western part of the city of Laval . On November 30, 1998 and April 14, 2003 he was re-elected with over two thirds of the votes. After the PLQ won the 2003 elections and the provincial government was able to set up, he was appointed to the cabinet by the new Prime Minister Jean Charest as Minister for Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks.

Mulcair was a proponent of the Kyoto Protocol . In November 2004, he launched a plan for the sustainable development of Québec and drafted a corresponding implementation law. This included a supplement to the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The province's residents should have the right to live in a healthy environment that respects biodiversity. Mulcair's sustainability plan was based on successful European models and was considered one of the most advanced in North America. The National Assembly unanimously adopted the law in April 2006. Despite protests from various environmental groups, he pushed ahead with the expansion of the motorway network.

As part of a cabinet reshuffle, Mulcair received an offer from Charest to take over the Ministry of Government Services. However, he saw this as a downgrade and preferred to resign from the cabinet at the end of February 2006. There was speculation that Mulcair did not get on particularly well with Charest personally and that he had also refused to give his consent to a controversial tourism project in the Parc national du Mont-Orford . He remained a member of parliament, but later announced that he would not run for the March 2007 elections.

Federal politics

On April 19, 2007, Mulcair confirmed that he would run for the NDP in the upcoming general election. He confirmed various speculations about his move to federal politics after he had been present a month earlier at a speech by NDP chairman Jack Layton . Mulcair also became Layton's primary advisor on Québec issues. On September 17, 2007 he took part in a House of Commons by-election in Outremont and prevailed with a clear lead. It was only the second time that an NDP representative had prevailed in the province of Québec.

Immediately after his election, Mulcair was named vice chairman of the NDP. He began his work in the House of Commons on October 12, 2007. As a member of the Finance Commission, he gained great influence. He was re-elected in October 2008, as was the election on May 2, 2011 . In the same month he took over the chairmanship of the House of Commons parliamentary group and was next to Layton the most important representative of the NDP, which had become the largest opposition party.

Jack Layton died of cancer on August 22, 2011, after which Nycole Turmel took over the party chairmanship on an interim basis. On October 13, Mulcair officially entered his candidacy for the chairman election, which would take place five months later. Various political observers assumed that he would move the party a little more into the center of the political spectrum in order to appeal to more middle and new voters in the next general election. At the party conference on March 24, 2012 in Toronto , Mulcair prevailed with 57.2% of the votes cast in the fourth ballot.

The Canadian general election in 2015 was a disappointment for the NDP: If it had been ahead in polls at times, it ended up far behind the previous other opposition party, Justin Trudeau's Liberals. At the federal party conference of the NDP in April 2016, Mulcair was criticized. He had previously defended a Muslim woman who was exposed to public criticism for wearing a nikab when she was naturalized . This was also one of the main reasons for the poor performance in the general election in 2015. A motion that party members should elect a new chairman by primary election within 24 months was accepted with 52% of the delegate's votes. This was the first time in Canadian history that an incumbent party leader lost a leadership review vote - a kind of vote of confidence . Mulcair remained in office until the primary election was officially won on October 1, 2017 by Jagmeet Singh , who became Mulcair's successor as party chairman.

Mulcair has announced that it will no longer run in the next Canadian general election and will withdraw from politics.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Mulcair  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alec Castonguay: Thomas Mulcair: l'homme fort d'Outremont. L'Actualité, May 19, 2011, accessed April 7, 2012 (French).
  2. ↑ a b About Tom. (No longer available online.) Thomas Mulcair website, archived from the original on March 30, 2012 ; accessed on April 7, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thomasmulcair.ca
  3. ^ Margo Gibb-Clark: Quebec's 'others': Life in a French world. The Globe and Mail , June 22, 1983, p. A1.
  4. ↑ Sustainable Development: Because Quality of Life Counts! Ministère de developpement durable, environment et parcs du Québec, November 25, 2004, accessed April 7, 2012 .
  5. ^ Hugo Meunier: Prolongement de l'autoroute 25: Les environnementalistes s'adressent à la Cour supérieure. La Presse, April 1, 2006, p. A6.
  6. ↑ Mulcair quits in a huff. (No longer available online.) Montreal Gazette, February 28, 2006, archived from the original on October 25, 2012 ; accessed on April 7, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.canada.com
  7. ↑ Michel Corbeil: Mulcair règle ses comptes: Malgré ses flèches à Charest, il reste député. Le Soleil, March 7, 2006, p. A1.
  8. ^ Mulcair will not be a Liberal candidate in the next election. Newswire, February 20, 2007, accessed April 7, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Michel Corbeil: Mulcair joint les rangs du NPD. Le Soleil, April 19, 2007, accessed April 7, 2012 (French).
  10. ↑ En bref - Mulcair courtisé par quatre partis fédéraux. (No longer available online.) Le Devoir, March 13, 2007, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved April 7, 2012 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / cl-t175-493cl.privatedns.com
  11. ↑ Thomas Mulcair confirme sa candidature à la direction du NPD. Le Devoir, October 13, 2011, accessed April 7, 2012 (French).
  12. ^ New NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair Wins Weak Mandate After Glitches And Low Voter Turnout At Convention. Huffington Post, March 24, 2012, accessed April 7, 2012 .
  13. ↑ https://torontosun.com/2016/04/12/mulcair-lost-by-bowing-to-islamism/wcm/b5c2f740-f3bc-4cff-8922-2f909d3c17b0
  14. ^ NDP votes for leadership review; Mulcair likely out as leader .
  15. ^ A history of dramatic leadership reviews in Canadian politics . In: Maclean's , April 10, 2016. Retrieved April 11, 2016. 
  16. ↑ Wherry, Aaron: NDP votes in favor of holding new leadership race . In: CBC News , April 10, 2016. 
  17. ↑ Jagmeet Singh wins the NDP leadership race , The Toronto Star. October 1, 2017. Accessed October 1, 2017. 
  18. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tom-mulcair-ndp-leadership-exit-1.4307981
personal data
SURNAME Mulcair, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mulcair, Thomas Joseph (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Ottawa , Ontario