Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Is NDP MP Randall Garrison right that Tom Mulcair will repeal Bill C-51?

As many are aware, there has been something of a controversy on the left as to whether or not the NDP is committed to fundamentally scrapping Bill C-51 as opposed to, as the Trudeau Liberals are, seeking to "improve" or change it through amendments.

This even got to the level where some were seeking to claim that to call for a bill's repeal or its amendment were not actually that different. (They are!).

This all resulted from NDP leader Tom Mulcair saying, in an interview on Global News and in answer to a direct question as to whether or not he would, if elected, repeal the bill (it was even phrased as Yes or No) answering "we would change it for sure".

This seeming equivocation and backtracking from his previous seemingly stronger stance left some NDP supporters and others questioning Mulcair's commitment to overturning the bill.

Now it turns out that NDP MP Randall Garrison is saying that Mulcair is, in fact, in favour of repealing Bill C-51.

At a "town hall" meeting held in Victoria BC on February 27, 2015, Garrison, rather testily one might note, responds to a question from an audience member about what Mulcair said on Global by both seeming to say that Global had somehow "retracted" the interview as an "error" and that Mulcair had, in fact, said to him directly after the interview that the NDP was "committed" to repealing C-51.

I guess the language does matter after all.

However, outside of this town hall answer, shown below, Mulcair, to the best of my knowledge, has not said this publicly anywhere.

Would the real Tom Mulcair step forward please and answer a simple question...is the NDP, if elected, as his own MP Garrison claims he said, going to repeal Bill C-51 or not?

(The video is extracted from a video publicly posted on You Tube. The full video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V3-ikkBlOA The comments referenced here come at the 55 minute mark).


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