Video reveals Mulcair praised west-east pipeline to American audience

September 24, 2015

Mulcair says different things in French and English

 MONTREAL – Thomas Mulcair talks down the Energy East Pipeline when speaking in Quebec, but he told an exclusive group of Americans in 2013 that moving oil from west to east via pipeline is his “priority.”

 “I would make sure that we took care of our energy security, something the current government is not doing, because whatever else happens with global warming, we will have to heat our houses and run our factories. I would move petroleum products as a priority from west to east. Get it to tidewater quickly there, there is existing track ways. I don’t know if we could actually use the existing lines, though there is some thought of reversing some lines.”

(Thomas Mulcair, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington D.C., March 13, 2013)(https://youtu.be/rcJlIM9yQZ8?t=36m22s  (36 minutes, 22 seconds)

The event was hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Centre. A copy of Mulcair’s remarks released to media in 2013 don’t include the pro-pipeline comments.

 “Thomas Mulcair says whatever is convenient depending on who he’s speaking to. In Quebec, Mulcair talks down the Energy East Pipeline, but in Washington, he couldn’t have sounded more open to something just like it,” said Liberal candidate for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, Marc Garneau. “He says one thing in French and something completely different in English. The only thing Thomas Mulcair’s experience has taught him is to play politics with everything.”

 The video is the latest in a series of videos released during this campaign that show Mulcair bashed unions, praised Margaret Thatcher, railed against Quebec’s universal child care system, and advocated for the privatization and mass export of Canada’s fresh water resources.