NDP Leader Tom Mulcair ends Ontario blitz in Essex

The NDP is the only party with the backbone tostand up to the Conservatives and walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, party leader Tom Mulcair said Sunday as he embarked ona blitz of ridings in southwestern Ontario that went to the Toriesin the last election.

"Just know this,"Mulcair said in Sarnia, Ont."If Mr. Harper's secret deal does not protect supplymanagement in its entirety,If it does not protect our manufacturingsector, if it does not protect your ability to buy yourpharmaceuticals and your prescription drugs at a decent price, the NDPwill not feel bound by Mr. Harper's secret deal."

On one of his most active campaign days to date, Mulcair honed inon the Liberal position on the trade talks in Atlanta. Specifically,he seized on comments by Liberal candidate Catherine McKenna, who onSaturday said her party was not willing to echo the NDP's positionthat they wouldn't feel tied to an agreement.

• Tom Mulcair pledges support for vital sectors amid TPP trade deal talks
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• Harper pledges transparency on TPP while Mulcair says talks have been 'secret'

"Where was Justin Trudeau and his Liberals in all of this? Well, yesterdayin Ottawa, they were saying that they had no choice but toback Stephen Harper's secretly negotiated deal for the Trans-PacificPartnership," Mulcair said in Brantford, Ont., his first stop ofthe day.

"The NDP, when we form government on Oct. 19, will not be boundby this secret agreement that Mr. Harper has been negotiating."

Mulcair later spoke in front of about 300 people during anotherquick stop in Waterloo, Ont., where he implored the crowd to keep inmind what the Trans-Pacific Partnership could do to the region'sfarmers whose businesses could unravel.

"Think about the family that's been running that dairy farm forgenerations," he said.

Mulcair, who has been confronted with headlines in recent daysthat say the NDP has fallen behind in the polls, stressed thatpeople seeking change have only one genuine option.

"Get tired of the Liberals and the sponsorship scandal? Noproblem, you're supposed to go back to the Conservatives. Whenyou're tired of Stephen Harper's unblemished record of continuouscorruption and a revolving door of favouritism and $90,000 chequesin the Prime Minister's Office? No problem, you're supposed to goback," he said.

"Hold on. This time, for the first time in our history, there'shope. We can get real change."

Mulcair highlights manufacturing jobs loses

The whistle-stop tour is also intended to deliver the NDP'smessage that Harper has failed Ontario's agricultural and industrialheartland, long before the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks began.

Mulcair has repeatedly accused the Conservatives of enactingpolicies that cost 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the recession in2008, including 43,000 in Canada's auto industry.

His campaign also included a stop in Stratford, Ont., at thecampaign headquarters of NDP candidate Ethan Rabidoux, who isrunning to represent the Perth-Wellington riding.

NDP, Liberal campaigns cross paths in Stratford, Ont.

9 years ago

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NDP leader Tom Mulcair takes dig at the Liberals for bus taking supporters to Justin Trudeau's rally in Brampton.

A school bus parked across the street from the event didn't gounnoticed by Mulcair. The bus was there to pick up local Liberalsupporters for what the party was billing as a huge rally for JustinTrudeau later in the day in Brampton, near Toronto.

"The way to show support for the people in Stratford is to showup in Stratford," Mulcair quipped before his campaign headed toLondon, Sarnia and Essex.

The NDP issued a handout that lists all the communities thatMulcair is visiting, with highlights beside each one showing thenumber of manufacturing jobs that the NDP says the communities havelost since the Conservatives came to power.