Background:
Lawyer and administrator, former head of the Office des Professions du
Québec, three-term Liberal member of the National Assembly for Chomedey
riding, minister of sustainable development, environment and parks from
2003 to 2006, now official NDP spokesperson for Quebec.
Quote: "We stand for public administration with a heart. That's what differentiates the NDP from the rest of them."
JEFF HEINRICH,
The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, March 13, 2007Canada
should send human rights observers to Afghanistan to report on the
living conditions of prisoners taken by Canadian forces and handed over
to Afghan authorities, NDP leader Jack Layton said yesterday.
Speaking
at the Universite de Montreal, Layton was reacting to news last week
that the International Red Cross does not tell Canada if there is any
mistreatment of Afghan prisoners.
"Canada has a legal and moral
obligation to ensure that its actions do not lead to torture," Layton
said in a speech to a packed amphitheatre of students and faculty.
"That
is why, today, the NDP is calling on the Department of National Defence
and Minister Gordon O'Connor to immediately ask for professional human
rights monitors to oversee and report on the condition of prisoners we
give to the Afghans."
Last Thursday, contradicting earlier
statements he made in the House of Commons, O'Connor said the Red Cross
does not update Canada on the state of prisoners its soldiers in
Afghanistan hand over.
To reporters yesterday, Layton criticized
Afghanistan's soldiers for being "inexperienced and not well trained,"
and added Canada - unlike Britain and the Netherlands - makes no effort
to find out if the "so-called Taliban" prisoners it captures and turns
over aren't then abused by the Afghan army.
Layton reiterated his
party's position that Canada should pull its troops from Afghanistan
entirely, saying they're pawns in U.S. President George W. Bush's
"search-and-destroy mission" there that has turned the country into "a
theatre of civil war."
On another subject, fuelling speculation
over a coming federal election, Layton lauded a potential NDP candidate
who watched his speech from the front row yesterday: former Quebec
environment minister Thomas Mulcair.
Calling him an old family
friend and "a real expert" on the environment, Layton said the NDP's
door is "always open to talented individuals like Mr. Mulcair."
Mulcair,
who spent 13 years as MNA for Chomedey, announced last month he won't
be running in the March 26 Quebec provincial election, prompting
predictions he'd declare for the NDP in the next federal election.
But
yesterday, Mulcair was non-committal. "I really haven't decided," he
said before leaving the university with Layton to drive him to lunch.
"I don't even know if I'll be staying in politics."
jheinrich@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
Thursday 22 February 2007 Thomas Mulcair leaving politics
Former Quebec environment minister Thomas Mulcair will not run for the Quebec Liberals in the upcoming election.
The MNA for the Laval riding of Chomedey announced his departure from politics in a short press release Tuesday.
Mulcair served in Quebec's national assembly for 13 years, and gained a reputation for his aggressive style in question period.
He was shuffled out of cabinet in 2006 after he raised concerns about the privatization of Mont Orford, a provincial park in the Eastern Townships.
Quebec premier Jean Charest reportedly offered Mulcair a less prominent portfolio as minister of government services, which he turned down.
Mulcair was first elected in Chomedey in 1994, and has held several positions at the national assembly, including justice critic and deputy house leader.
Mulcair is in Europe and wasn't available for comment.
Wednesday Feb 21, 2007
Mulcair won't run for Liberals in next provincial election
After 13 years as MNA for Chomedey, former Quebec environment minister Thomas Mulcair announced yesterday...
After 13 years as MNA for Chomedey, former Quebec environment
minister Thomas Mulcair announced yesterday that he will not be running
for the provincial Liberal Party in the coming election.
However,
the one-paragraph news release made public late yesterday afternoon, on
the eve of an expected provincial election call, gave little details
about the decision.
It did not say whether the decision not to
run was Mulcair's or whether Premier Jean Charest, who crossed swords
with Mulcair in February 2006 and bumped him out of the environment
minister's job, pushed him out of the coveted riding.
Rather than accept a demotion to government services minister, Mulcair quit the cabinet.
Mulcair,
who is in France with his wife, could not be reached for comment about
his announcement or about his political future. Members of his staff
were not talking yesterday.
In an interview last March, Mulcair
said he would remain MNA for Chomedey and was still devoted to the
Quebec Liberal Party. However, he said he was concerned about the
party's low showing in the polls at the time and was openly critical of
the Charest government.
The first sign that something might be
afoot came last weekend when the Quebec Liberal Party showed off its
slate of candidates and Mulcair's picture was conspicuously absent.
Yesterday, rumours about Mulcair's future swirled.
A
lawyer by profession, the 52-year-old has had a high profile career
that has included serving in cabinet and as head of Quebec's Office des
Professions.
Mulcair sparked speculation about his political
future last fall when he made a surprise appearance at the New
Democratic Party's convention in Quebec City to talk about the
province's approach to the environment.
Yesterday, Karl Belanger,
spokesperson for federal NDP leader Jack Layton, said the two men have
spoken several times. While no deal is in place for Mulcair to run for
the NDP, Belanger said, the door is open should the former provincial
environment minister want to run for the party.
Other rumours have Mulcair being courted by the Conservatives or by the federal Liberals.
ethompson@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
2006
Monday Jun 12, 2006 This week, we are back on the ground, as it were, and delighted to have as our guest Thomas Mulcair. While currently best known as the recent highly respected Quebec Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks, he is also a long-time actor in community and legal affairs and has been a professor at
Champlain Regional College, St. Lawrence Campus, Sainte-Foy, Professor, civil law course, Concordia University, and Professor, Legal translation, University of Québec, Trois-Rivières. He has served with the Legal Affairs Office, Conseil de la langue française, and has been Director, Legal affairs, Alliance Québec. His involvement with education includes stints as Commissioner, Appeals Committee on the Language of Instruction, and Board member and Chair of the Board, English Speaking Catholic Council.
We are not sure whether the fact that he is a certified coach of the Québec Ice hockey Association excludes him from discussion of the World Cup (that would be a pity!).
I didn't Ok Orford: Mulcair
Ex-environment minister speaks freely of events that led him to quit cabinet
ELIZABETH THOMPSON, The Gazette
Friday, March 31, 2006
Former Quebec environment minister Thomas Mulcair contradicted
Premier Jean Charest's account of his role in the controversial Mount
Orford project yesterday, saying he never endorsed the proposal to
allow developers into the provincial park.
"I refused to sign any papers on that," Mulcair said in his first interview since his departure from the cabinet last month.
He said he advised the government on what it legally could and could not do but never endorsed the project.
"I told them the only ways that they could go, because I did tell
them that it was illegal the way it was being proposed at first.
"I refused to sign off on it," he added. "I wouldn't make that proposal, and I didn't."
Mulcair's comments come one month after Charest suggested his former
environment minister had agreed to the plan that would sell the
650-hectare ski and golf site to build condos.
Yesterday, Mulcair broke his self-imposed silence, speaking freely
for the first time about the events that led to his departure from the
cabinet Feb. 27.
After Charest bumped him from his job as environment minister,
Mulcair quit the cabinet, refusing a demotion to the position of
government services minister.
While Mulcair took pains yesterday to say he did not want to
criticize Charest, the portrait that emerged was one of a minister and
a premier on opposite sides of the ongoing battle between big business
and the environment.
"No question," Mulcair replied when asked whether he thought Charest
was heeding corporate interests. "That's part of what you've got to
listen to, but you've also got to listen to the average person."
While the final meeting with Charest came like a bolt from the blue,
Mulcair said, the tensions between the two men had been growing for
some time.
"There were larger issues and there were smaller ones. Let's just say for the first two years things had gone swimmingly."
The problems began, Mulcair said, in August 2005 "in one particular
file, and then there were several other (problems) over the course of
last autumn."
One of them was the debate over the Rabaska project to build a
liquefied natural gas terminal near Quebec City, Mulcair recounted.
Another clash between Mulcair and Charest occurred over Mulcair's
decision to fight a proposal by soft-drink giant Coca-Cola to remove
some of its containers from Quebec's recycling program.
"Mr. Charest called me to task directly on the Coca-Cola issue,"
Mulcair said. "You would have to ask him (why). I still don't
understand. His exact words were, 'I'm (not) going to wake up in the
morning and read things like that in the newspaper. You have to verify
(it with us.)
"I said, 'Are you in the process of telling me that a minister who
receives a call at 5 p.m. can't respond in their own dossier?'
"His answer was, 'I'm the one who is going to speak in the name of the government from now on.' "
Mulcair said Charest did not appreciate his very public dispute with
former federal environment minister Stephane Dion over Quebec's role in
meeting Canada's Kyoto accord commitments.
And Mulcair doesn't rule out the possibility that he might also
have been bumped to make life easier for new Conservative Environment
Minister Rona Ambrose, a former adviser to the Alberta government,
which opposes Kyoto.
Describing his fateful meeting with Charest,
Mulcair said it was "bizarre." He said Charest couldn't seem to look
him in the eye and the premier's arms were tightly folded - body
language those close to him have seen all too often when things are not
going well.
After being told he was being bumped from environment
and offered the government services portfolio, Mulcair asked for time
to think about it. For more than 45 minutes, he consulted those closest
to him, he said, and all agreed he should turn it down.
"I went
back in and I saw Mr. Charest and I said, 'Look, obviously after the
amount of work that I've done and the results that I've obtained, I'm
not going to accept that.'
"I did say one (other) thing to him:
'You're doing the same thing to me that you did to (former finance
minister Yves) Seguin.' I said, 'You simply cannot stand having people
around you who won't tell you what you want to hear.' That was the last
thing I said to him, and I haven't spoken to him since."
Mulcair was replaced as environment minister by Claude Bechard, MNA for Kamouraska-Temiscouata.
As he left office, Mulcair said, the feelings swirling through his mind were actually more of relief than of anger.
"If
I had to give you one word, it would be 'relieved,' because it was
extremely frustrating in the last six months to try to move anything."
Mulcair
said he will continue to serve as MNA for Chomedey and remains devoted
to the Quebec Liberal Party. However, he is concerned about its current
low showing in the polls.
Looking back over his three-year
tenure, Mulcair said, many accomplishments stand out, especially the
government's sustainable development bill, which makes a clean
environment the right of all Quebecers.
The bill, said Mulcair,
will provide a framework for managing big environmental decisions that
will serve the province for decades.
ethompson@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
Relations Canada-Québec
Dion-Mulcair: c'est fini!
Les relations s'enveniment entre Ottawa et Québec sur la question environnementale.
03/11/2005 Le ministre québécois de l'Environnement, Thomas Mulcair, refuse de discuter du Protocole de Kyoto avec son homologue fédéral, Stéphane Dion, et préfère poursuivre les discussions avec un autre membre du gouvernement Martin.
Le ministre Mulcair a taillé en pièces la stratégie fédérale sur les changements climatiques. Il la juge injuste envers le Québec et faite sur mesure pour l'Ouest canadien.
Québec veut obtenir 350 millions de dollars d'Ottawa pour lutter contre les gaz à effet de serre. Il veut se servir de cet argent pour investir dans le transport en commun et les trains de banlieue.
D'ici 2012, le Canada s'est engagé à réduire ses émissions atmosphériques de 6% par rapport à 1990. Les négociations entre Ottawa et Québec piétinent depuis trois ans.
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Stéphane Dion et Thomas Mulcair 
