Trudeau makes quiet House debut

Mulcair gets passionate about foreign worker abuse while rival works his turf.

by Samantha Bayard

OTTAWA, April 15, 2013 (Straight Goods News) — Justin Trudeau's first appearance in the House after being crowned Liberal leader yesterday (with almost 80 percent of the vote) suggests he will be fishing in NDP waters.  While the NDP's Tom Mulcair launched a passionate attack on the Harper government over the latest abuse revelations concerning temporary foreign workers (TFW), Trudeau took a page from the NDP, criticizing a new consumer goods tariff as an attack on the middle class.

"A tariff is a ‘tax levied by a government on imports,'" Trudeau said in the House. "When middle-class Canadians go to a store to buy a tricycle, school supplies or a little red wagon for their kids, they will pay more because of a tax in this government's budget." In doing so, Trudeau was echoing a charge the NDP made after Harper's March budget.

Before him, Tom Mulcair focused on how the TFW program has been used to outsource the work of Canadians, while, at the same time, abusing foreign workers.

"Three hundred forty thousand temporary foreign workers is 40 percent of the jobs created in Canada, since the recession," Mulcair said in the House. "Under the Conservative government, temporary foreign workers are not being used to fill a shortage of highly skilled labour. They are replacing clerical workers in Ontario, fish plant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, food service workers in Alberta and miners in British Columbia. There are still 1.4 million unemployed Canadians. Could the Prime Minister tell them what specific skills are required to work at a Tim Hortons counter that he thinks Canadian workers do not have?"

After Question Period, both leaders met with reporters. Mulcair said he intends not to indulge in personal attacks on the new Liberal leader. "It’s not my way of doing politics. In fact, you very rarely hear me say anything personal about the Conservative ministers except to call them to account in their files. It’s not a game that I play so I’ll let the Conservatives explain their strategy. I’ll let the Liberals defend their new leader. We’re going to keep calling them to account on substantive issues."

Tom Mulcair says he will stick to substantive issues.

Mulcair said he was "pleased to see today the new Liberal Leader use the theme that the NDP put forward last week, talking about the increased taxes that the Conservatives are proposing."

Trudeau steered clear of policy issues, as he did throughout his leadership  campaign. As he had throughout the leadership, he condemned "the divisive approach that the Conservatives have had," saying it is "beginning to  wear on people. A big part of the shift towards the Conservatives in the last elections was because the Liberal Party had turned inward."

Justin Trudeau says he will "reach out and re-engage in a way that doesn’t pit one
region or one community against another."

 

© Copyright 2013 Samantha Bayard, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca