Robert Aubin (born May 26, 1960 in Trois-Rivières, Quebec) is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2011 election.^[1] He represents the electoral district of Trois-Rivières as a member of the New Democratic Party.

He has a diploma in geography from Université Laval and a degree in music and education from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.

At the time of his election, he had been a teacher at the Séminaire St-Joseph for nearly 25 years. He has also been a musician.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Robert Aubin
• Robert Aubin - Parliament of Canada biography

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This article about a Quebec Member of Parliament is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Thomas Mulcair MP
Leader of the Opposition
Incumbent
Assumed office March 24, 2012
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Stephen Harper
Preceded by	Nycole Turmel
Leader of the New Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office March 24, 2012
Preceded by	Nycole Turmel (interim)
Member of the Canadian Parliament for Outremont
Incumbent
Assumed office September 17, 2007
Preceded by	Jean Lapierre
MNA for Chomedey
In office 1994–2007
Preceded by	Lise Bacon
Succeeded by	Guy Ouellette
Quebec Minister of the Environment
In office 2003–2006
Preceded by	André Boisclair
Succeeded by	Claude Béchard
Personal details
Born	Thomas Joseph Mulcair (1954-10-24) October 24, 1954 (age 57) Ottawa, Ontario
Political party	New Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Catherine Pinhas
Residence	Beaconsfield, Quebec, Canada
Profession	Attorney, professor, politician
Religion	Roman Catholic

Thomas Joseph "Tom" Mulcair^[1] (born October 24, 1954) is the Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada, a lawyer, university professor, and politician. A New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for the electoral district of Outremont in Quebec since 2007, he was selected as the leader of the New Democratic Party, thus the Leader of the Official Opposition, in the leadership election on March 24, 2012, with 57.2% of the votes on the fourth and final ballot.^[2]

He was the provincial Member of the National Assembly of Quebec for the riding of Chomedey in Laval from 1994 to 2007, holding the seat for the Liberal Party of Quebec. He served as the Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks from 2003 until 2006, in the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest. Elected MP for Outremont in a by-election in 2007, he was named Deputy Leader of the New Democratic Party, jointly with Libby Davies, shortly afterwards, and has won re-election twice.

On May 26, 2011, he was named the New Democratic Party's Opposition House Leader. On March 24, 2012, Thomas Mulcair was elected to be the new federal NDP leader, succeeding the late Jack Layton. Prior to entering politics, Mulcair was a senior civil servant in the Quebec provincial government, ran a private law practice, and taught law at the university level.

Early life, family, and education[link]

Mulcair was born in 1954 at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, to a French-Canadian mother, Jeanne (née Hurtubise), and an Irish-Canadian father, Harry Donnelly Mulcair. He is the second-oldest of the couple's ten children, and was raised in the Wrightville district of Hull (now Gatineau) and in Laval, just north of Montreal. He graduated from Laval Catholic High School, and in Social Sciences from CEGEP Vanier College.^[3]

Mulcair graduated from McGill University in 1977 with degrees in common law and civil law. During his penultimate year, he was elected president of the McGill Law Students Association, and sat on the council of the McGill Student Union. He has been married to Catherine Pinhas since 1976; she is a psychologist who was born in France to a Sephardic Jewish family from Turkey.^[4][5] The couple have two sons, one is a police officer while the other is an engineer.^[6][7]

Mulcair has remortgaged his Montreal home eleven times since the 1980s, raising the value of the mortgage from $58,000 to $300,000.^[8]

Early career[link]

The couple moved to Quebec City in 1978, and Mulcair was called to the Bar of Quebec in 1979.^[9] He worked in the Legislative Affairs branch in Quebec's Ministry of Justice and later in the Legal Affairs Directorate of the Superior Council of the French Language.^[10]

In 1983 Mulcair became Director of Legal Affairs at Alliance Quebec. In 1985 he began a private law practice, and was named the reviser of the statutes of Manitoba following the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Manitoba reference case. Mulcair also taught law courses to non-law students at Concordia University (1984), at the Saint Lawrence Campus of Champlain Regional College in Sainte-Foy, and at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. He served as Commissioner of the Appeals Committee on the Language of Instruction (1986).

Mulcair was President of the Office des professions du Québec (1987 to 1993), where he introduced reforms to make disciplinary hearings more transparent and successfully led a major effort to have cases of alleged sexual abuse of patients decisively dealt with.^[11][12] Mulcair was also a board member of the group Conseil de la langue française, and at the time of his appointment to the Office des Professions he had been serving as President of the English speaking Catholic Council.

Enters provincial politics[link]

He first entered the National Assembly in the 1994 election, winning the riding of Chomedey. He was re-elected in 1998 and 2003. When the Quebec Liberal Party formed a provincial government in 2003, Premier of Quebec Jean Charest named Mulcair Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks. At the time of his appointment to Cabinet he had been serving on several volunteer boards including The Montreal Oral School for the Deaf, Operation Enfant Soleil and the Saint-Patrick's Society.^[13] During his tenure he was a supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.

Mulcair accused former Parti Quebecois minister Yves Duhaime of influence peddling. Duhaime filed a defamation suit in 2005 and Mulcair was ordered to pay $95,000, plus legal costs.^[14]

Advocate for improved environmental rights[link]

On November 25, 2004, Mulcair launched Quebec's Sustainable Development Plan and tabled a draft bill on sustainable development. Also included was a proposed amendment to the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to create a new right, the right to live in a healthy environment that respects biodiversity, in accordance with the guidelines and standards set out in the Act.^[15] Mulcair's Sustainable Development Plan was based on the successful European model and was described as one of the most avant-garde in North America.^[16] Mulcair followed the proposal by embarking on a 21-city public consultation tour, and the Act was unanimously adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec in April 2006.

Accomplishments related to infrastructure included the completion of Autoroute 30 between Vaudreuil and Brossard, Autoroute 50 between Gatineau and Lachute, the widening of Route 175 between Stoneham and Saguenay, the widening of Route 185 from Rivière-du-Loup to the New Brunswick border and the introduction of a toll bridge which would complete Autoroute 25 between Montreal and Laval,^[17] despite some public opposition by environmental groups.

Departure from cabinet[link]

During a Cabinet shuffle, Charest offered Mulcair the position of Minister of Government Services in the Quebec government, and Mulcair chose to resign from cabinet rather than accept the apparent demotion.^[18] There was speculation that his contrary opinion on a project that would have transferred lands in Mont Orford Provincial park to private condominium developers led to his removal as Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks.^[13][19]

On February 20, 2007, he announced that he would not be a Liberal candidate in the 2007 Quebec general election.^[20]

Federal politics[link]

Thomas Mulcair during the 2011 campaign

On April 20, 2007, Mulcair confirmed that he would be running for the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the next federal election.^[21][22] His presence in the front row during a speech in Montreal by NDP Leader Jack Layton in March 2007 had already led to speculations to that effect.^[23] He had previously given a speech at the Federal NDP Convention in Quebec City in September 2006.

Mulcair's maternal great-great-grandfather was former Quebec Premier Honoré Mercier, to whom he referred when he announced his return to politics in 2007: "My great grandfather [sic] was Honoré Mercier, so what else could you expect from me." ^[24] Mulcair identified former Quebec Liberal Party leader Claude Ryan as his political mentor.^[25]

By-election win[link]

Mulcair also became Layton's Quebec lieutenant. On June 21, 2007, in an uncontested nomination, Mulcair became the NDP's candidate in the riding of Outremont for a by-election on September 17. Mulcair won the by-election, defeating Liberal candidate Jocelyn Coulon 48% to 29%; the seat had been a Liberal stronghold since 1935 (except for the 1988 election). Jean Lapierre suggested that Mulcair was likely aided by defecting Bloc Québécois supporters (the Bloc candidate had finished second in the 2006 federal election). In addition, Coulon's writings had been condemned by B'nai Brith Canada, and the local Jewish community in Outremont makes up 10% of the riding demographics.^[26][27] The Conservatives focused their attacks on the leadership skills of Stéphane Dion, and there were allegations that Michael Ignatieff's supporters tried to sabotage the race for the Liberals to undermine Dion's leadership.^[28][29][30]

Mulcair was only the second NDP Member of Parliament ever elected from Quebec, following Phil Edmonston in 1990 (one previous MP, Robert Toupin of Terrebonne, had crossed the floor to the NDP in 1986). Mulcair is also only the second non-Liberal ever to win Outremont, following Progressive Conservative Jean-Pierre Hogue in 1988.

Deputy leader[link]

Thomas Mulcair during the 2011 campaign.

He and colleague Libby Davies were jointly appointed deputy leaders of the party.^[31] Mulcair was sworn in on October 12, 2007.^[32]

On October 14, 2008, Mulcair was re-elected the Member of Parliament for Outremont, making him the first New Democrat to win a riding in Quebec during a federal general election. He defeated the federal Liberal candidate, Sébastien Dhavernas, by 14,348 votes to 12,005 (a margin of 6.4%).^[33]

In the 2011 federal election, despite facing a strong challenge from Liberal Martin Cauchon, a former federal justice minister, Mulcair was re-elected once more with 56.4% of the popular vote, 21,916 to 9,204.

Comments about Osama bin Laden's death[link]

In a May 2011 interview following Osama bin Laden's capture and killing in Pakistan, Mulcair was asked whether the U.S. should release pictures of bin Laden. Mulcair answered, "I don't think from what I've heard that those pictures exist, and if they do I'll leave that up to the American military,"^[34] and added "I think that if the Americans have taken pictures in that circumstance, it won't be able to prove very much as to whether or not [Bin Laden] was indeed at one point holding a weapon."^[34][35] Mulcair's answer was initially criticized^[36] and interpreted by some as casting doubt on the existence of photos of bin Laden's corpse.^[35][36][37] Mulcair later clarified that he had actually been referring to the question of whether any pictures exist showing whether bin Laden had been reaching for a gun before he was killed^[38] and that he never doubted American forces had killed bin Laden nor that the U.S. had photographs proving bin Laden was dead.^[38][39] Paul Wells of Maclean's claimed that the CBC interviewer Evan Solomon failed to pose a clear question,^[40] but also added that that may have been the case because of Mulcair's first answer which, "opened up vistas of possible weird that Evan wasn’t quite prepared to navigate."^[40]

NDP leadership[link]

Thomas Mulcair gives his acceptance speech on March 24, 2012

Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton died on August 22, 2011, following a battle with cancer, and was honoured with a state funeral. Mulcair stated that Layton's death had hit him exceptionally hard, and that while he was considering a federal NDP leadership bid, he would need several weeks to make up his mind on that decision.^[41]

Mulcair declared his candidacy for the federal NDP leadership at a press conference in suburban Montreal on October 13, 2011. He attracted the support of 60 of the 101 other federal NDP MPs,^[42] including Robert Chisholm^[43] and Romeo Saganash,^[44] the only two to have dropped out of the leadership race.

Just prior to the convention opening, Brian Topp and Ed Broadbent, both defined the race as staying true to the NDP cause, by going with Topp, or moving to the centre and away from its current principles by going with Thomas Mulcair. Pundits had comparisons with New Labour in Britain under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, with Mulcair's stance on the party.^[45][46][47]

Thomas Mulcair also disappointed by having to speed through his convention speech after an overly long introduction by supporters, instead of having a great speech as anticipated, to end in a timely manner and not be ushered out for being over time.^[48][49]

Nevertheless, entering balloting day pundits predicted that Mulcair would receive support in the first round between 30 and 35 percent, though some people in the Mulcair camp predicted 40 percent. Pundits expected a clear multi-ballot win if Mulcair received 35 percent or more, and a multi-ballot slugout if his share was nearer 30 percent, which would allow other challengers to potentially catch up and beat him.^[50][51]

On the fourth and final ballot, Thomas Mulcair was elected NDP leader with 57.2% of the vote, beating challenger Brian Topp's 42.8%.^[52][53]

On April 18, 2012, Mulcair moved into Stornoway, with his wife, Catherine Pinhas.^[54]

Electoral record[link]

References[link]