Tom Mulcair, Canadian lawyer and politician
Thomas Joseph Mulcair (born October 24, 1954) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) from 2012 to 2017 and leader of the Official Opposition from 2012 to 2015. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2007 and sat as the member of Parliament (MP) for Outremont until 2018.
Mulcair was a senior civil servant in the Quebec provincial government, ran a private law practice, and taught law at the university level. Mulcair joined the federal NDP in 1974 and was the provincial member of the National Assembly of Quebec for the riding of Chomedey in Laval from 1994 to 2007, holding the seat for the Quebec Liberal Party. He served as the minister of sustainable development, environment and parks from 2003 until 2006, in the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest. Elected MP for Outremont in a by-election in 2007, he was named co-deputy leader of the NDP shortly afterwards, and won re-election to his seat three times. On May 26, 2011, he was named the New Democratic Party's Opposition house leader and also served as the NDP's Quebec lieutenant.
Mulcair was elected as the leader of the NDP on the fourth ballot of the 2012 leadership election. The NDP having the second largest caucus in the House of Commons, Mulcair became the leader of the Official Opposition. As leader, he took the NDP to the centre, advocating for balanced budgets. Though polls early in the 2015 federal election campaign indicated the possibility of an NDP minority government, the party lost just over half of its seats and resumed third-place status. During a leadership review vote, held at the 2016 federal NDP convention, 52 per cent of the delegates voted to hold a leadership election in October 2017. Mulcair stated he would remain leader until the party chooses a replacement. Mulcair later announced in May 2016 that he would retire from politics, and would not contest his riding in the next federal election. He resigned his seat on August 3, 2018 in order to accept a position in the political science department of the University of Montreal. He has also been hired as an on-air political analyst for CJAD, CTV News Channel, and TVA.