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NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has had a couple of red-letter weeks. He moved into the mansion called Stornaway for Opposition Leaders, with its big expense account and Royal trappings.
He got tons of attention when he recycled the “Dutch Disease” phrase to blame the booming West for the beleaguered East.
Then he toured the oil sands, Canada’s economic cornerstone, by helicopter and described them as big or “awe-inspiring”.
These recent events certainly serve to reveal the character of the latest actor on Ottawa’s stage who is in a major supporting role. Here’s my analysis of Mulcair based on his recent milestones:
1. On living in a mansion
Mulcair is the latest incarnation of what the British dubbed the “champagne socialist”. Stornaway is another symbol of inherited privilege, like the Monarchy, where status and perquisites are given away to the duly “crowned”.
Mulcair, if consistent with his ideology, should have declined the grand housing perq and diverted the excessive cost of his upkeep to some worthy cause.
He opted instead to live like Royalty even though he backed statements by fellow NDPer Pat Martin that the cost of Royal visits alone was sufficient to abolish the Crown as head of state. He also signed a petition to have The Queen’s portrait removed from the Foreign Affairs building a few months ago.
(To square the circle, the NDP leader cannot criticize the “cake” and eat it too. But he is.)
2. On Dutch Disease
Mulcair is a simple-minded ideologue.
The Dutch Disease was named after the rise of the Gilder in The Netherland’s, due to oil and gas exports, which began to reduce the competitiveness of the country’s other exporters and tourism sectors. The same phenomenon applies in Canada, Australia and others.
Mulcair has seized on this to explain a world he doesn’t understand. He blames Canada’s booming oil exports for the moribund economies in Eastern Canada. That’s only a sliver of the problem and to say otherwise is nation-busting. This is why the Western Premiers are furious at him as well as at Ontario/Quebec’s political elites.
For the rest of this column, please go to the National Post website: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/06/01/why-thomas-mulcair-is-clearly-a-national-problem/