There will be many who will wish to diminish the significance of this — not enough MPs from outside Quebec, etc. etc — but when you stand up with more than one-third of your 100+ Parlamentary caucus to run for your party's leadership, that's saying something. And that, folks, was Thomas Mulcair today.
Now, if you believed the whisper campaign that seemed to be afoot in Ottawa, Mulcair was loathed by his parliamentary colleagues. I wasn't prepared to believe this until I heard from at least few actual New Democrats. I have tried my darndest to eavesdrop on as many conversations as I could among NDP MPs and staffers in Ottawa, but so far, I cannot name a single loather. I can find many Conservatives, however, who tell me that they believe Mulcair would likely represent the biggest threat in four years to Prime Minister Harper.
Here is the list, incidentally, of the NDP MPs who have signed on to make Mulcair the first NDP prime minister:
- Robert Aubin – Trois-Rivières
- Tarik Brahmi – Saint-Jean
- Sylvain Chicoine – Châteauguay-Saint-Constant
- Anne-Marie Day – Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles
- Matthew Dubé – Chambly-Borduas
- Pierre-Luc Dusseault – Sherbrooke
- Réjean Genest – Shefford
- Sadia Groguhé – Saint-Lambert
- Dan Harris – Scarborough-South-East
- Sana Hassainia – Verchères-Les-Patriotes
- Pierre Jacob – Brome-Missisiquoi
- Matthew Kellway – Beaches-East York
- François Lapointe – Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup
- Alexandrine Latendresse – Louis-Saint-Laurent
- Hélène Leblanc – LaSalle-Emard
- Wayne Marston – Hamilton-East-Stoney Creek
- Marc-André Morin – Laurentides-Labelle
- Marie-Claude Morin – Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot
- Pierre Nantel – Longueuil-Pierre-Boucher
- Jamie Nicholls – Vaudreuil-Soulanges
- José Nunez-Mélo – Laval
- Annick Papillon – Québec
- Claude Patry – Jonquière-Alma
- Manon Perreault – Montcalm
- François Pilon – Laval-les-Îles
- John Rafferty – Thunder Bay-Rainy River
- Mathieu Ravignat – Pontiac
- Jean Rousseau – Compton-Stanstead
- Djaouida Sellah – Saint-Bruno-Saint-Hubert
- Lise St-Denis – Saint-Maurice-Champlain
- PhilipToone – Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine
- Jonathan Tremblay – Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord