XPost: can.politics, ont.politics, mtl.general   
   XPost: tor.general   
   From: Çons@30%   
      
   Personal data - Thomas Mulcair   
      
   Date of birth         October 24, 1954   (age 57)   
   Place of birth       Ottawa, Ontario   
   Political party      New Democratic Party   
   Spouse                 Catherine Pinhas   
   Residence            Montreal, Quebec, Canada   
   Profession           Attorney, professor, politician   
   Religion               Roman Catholic   
      
   He has been married to Catherine Pinhas since 1976.   
   She is a psychologist with Turkish-Jewish heritage who was born in France, and   
   the couple have   
   two sons.   
      
   In 1992, he conducted a wonderful spat with Augustin Roy, the hopelessly   
   superannuated head of   
   the Quebec Corporation of Physicians.  Dr. Roy saw nothing wrong with an   
   Ottawa psychiatrist,   
   who had pleaded guilty to serial sexual misconduct with a patient, taking up   
   residence at a   
   Montreal hospital.  Mr. Mulcair disagreed - all over the news.  At one point   
   he described a   
   "donnybrook" of a conversation with Dr. Roy, who responded that Mr. Mulcair   
   was a "disgrace to   
   the legal profession."   
   This was an easy target, perhaps, but Mr. Mulcair didn't miss.   
      
   "The laws don't exist to protect faulty practitioners," he thundered.  "They   
   exist to protect   
   the public.  If Dr. Roy doesn't realize that, he'll be made to realize that."    
   The psychiatrist   
   soon fled to Argentina, never to be heard from again except in relation to   
   patient-protection   
   legislation that Mr. Mulcair championed.  Dr. Roy was gone two years later.    
   Consumer   
   protection is a key focus of Mr. Mulcair's leadership campaign.   
      
   As a "star candidate" for the Liberals in the 1994 provincial election - a   
   stark battle between   
   separatism and federalism - Mr. Mulcair was front and centre in public   
   debates, warning of   
   economic doom should the PQ, let alone the Yes campaign, prevail.   
      
   In 2006, rather than accept a demotion, he abruptly quit and was soon   
   campaigning for the   
   federal NDP in Outremont, a Liberal bastion that he took surprisingly easily   
   in a byelection.   
   He claimed the resignation was a matter of principle: The government wanted to   
   give provincial   
   parkland to developers; he refused to approve. But anonymous sources muttered   
   darkly that he   
   simply wasn't a team player.   
      
   In a 2011 profile in L'Actualité, veteran Liberal MNA Pierre Paradis recalled   
   Mr. Mulcair as a   
   "ruthless warrior."   
      
   There was the time, in a television studio in 2002, when he yelled, "I can't   
   wait to see you in   
   prison you old c---," at a former PQ minister he had accused of influence   
   peddling. Said former   
   minister successfully sued Mr. Mulcair for $95,000.   
      
   In the Vancouver debate last weekend, Paul Dewar suggested that unlike the   
   "happy warrior" Mr.   
   Layton, Mr. Mulcair was too much warrior, and not happy enough, to lead the   
   party in which   
   everyone is supposed to play nice.   
      
   This, surely, is another conceit. Jack Laytons don't grow on trees. And one of   
   the many things   
   Mr. Mulcair and his leadership opponents agree on is the notion that   
   Conservatives are quite   
   literally tearing apart the moral, social and economic fabric of Canada. Why   
   shouldn't their   
   leader be angry?   
      
   "I think, watching Parliament, that [Mr. Mulcair] is the only one who can go   
   head-tohead with   
   Stephen Harper and Bob Rae on a consistent basis, day to day," says Mr.   
   Nystrom.   
      
   At some point, the New Democrats will have to confront the realities of what   
   they hope to   
   achieve. Nice guys and ideologues might finish second now and again in   
   Canadian politics. But   
   none has ever finished first.   
      
   *******************************************************   
   "We CAN look after each other better than we do today.   
   We CAN have a fiscally responsible government.   
   We CAN have a strong economy; greater equality; a clean environment.   
   We CAN be a force for peace in the world."                      - Jack Layton   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)