OTTAWA – Tom Mulcair is trying to cast the NDP as the ethical antidote to Conservative and Liberal corruption.
The federal NDP leader used a speech Tuesday to paint the “old-line parties” as two peas in a pod – tired, unaccountable, self-serving and corrupted by the pursuit of power.
“It’s not just that any one government or member of Parliament is corrupt,” he said in the text of a speech delivered to the Canadian Club of Ottawa.
“It’s that the old-line parties themselves have become corrupted. They’ve become tired. They’ve given up on being accountable to the interests and expectations of Canadians. They’ve lost sight of what they came here to do.”
By contrast, Mulcair maintained the NDP has retained its energy and its idealism – perhaps, he seemed to suggest, because it’s never won power federally and, therefore, has not been corrupted by it.
“What New Democrats are offering is a positive, progressive vision based on our shared values,” he said.
“Its a vision that turns the page from the tired and corrupt record of successive Conservative and Liberal governments and builds for the future.”
Mulcair contended the Conservatives – awash in a stubborn Senate expenses scandal that refuses to go away – have become part of the culture of entitlement their precursors in the Reform party rode into Ottawa to change.
“Step by step, the old Reform-turned-Conservative party has turned its back on its own ideals in the pursuit of power,” he said, echoing the complaint of Alberta MP Brent Rathgeber as he quit the Tory caucus last week.
Mulcair didn’t mention newly minted Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau by name but he contended the Grits have become so dominated by corruption that they’re incapable of changing their ways, no matter who is leading the party.
“Every time Canadians grow tired of their latest round of ethical lapses, Liberals go looking for a new saviour. They promise it’s a new day, they promise that this time it’ll be different,” he said.
“And each and every time, it ends the same way, with nothing but broken promises and broken hearts.”
WATCH: Mulcair, Harper spar once again during question period
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