NDP Leader Tom Mulcair speaks to supporters at a town hall meeting in Dartmouth, N.S., Wednesday, October 14, 2015.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
Despite polls that suggest he is stalled in third in the race to form the next federal government, Tom Mulcair greets supporters with a crinkly eyed smile and assurances that his party will come out on top.
But his first campaign stop Wednesday was in Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, where incumbent MP Robert Chisholm, a former leader of the Nova Scotia New Democrats who was considered a star candidate when he first entered federal politics in 2011, is fighting to keep his seat against a rising swell of Liberal support.
And across the East, as well as in Quebec, where Mr. Mulcair went later on Wednesday, Justin Trudeau's popularity is threatening seats that the NDP was counting on just a few weeks ago.
Mr. Mulcair visited a pumpkin patch in the riding of Repentigny on Wednesday to have photos taken with his grandchildren as the media and his RCMP detail stood watch.
Polls suggest the New Democrats sit a few percentage points behind the Conservatives and well behind the front-running Liberals, whose leader, Mr. Trudeau, is now calling for a majority.
Some New Democrats in Nova Scotia blame the media's reliance on opinion surveys for the difficulties their campaigns are facing as voting day approaches. They argue that the constant reporting of polls that say Mr. Trudeau is running away with this election is pushing voters who want change to vote Liberal.
Mr. Mulcair will not be drawn into that sort of rumination. Asked if he shares his supporters' frustration with the way the election campaign is being reported, he said only that "I share optimism and confidence with the people that I meet across Canada."
Like Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Mulcair has called upon Canadians to give his party a majority government. And, with the exception of a slight change of messaging around his party's policy on marijuana – the NDP is advocating decriminalization, but Mr. Mulcair said Tuesday that he would move toward legalization – the NDP Leader is sticking to the same script and the same game plan that was drafted by the party weeks ago.
"Whatever the polls have shown, I've always said the same thing: For the first time in Canadian history, we have a three-way race," he gamely told a cheering crowd of supporters in a theatre lobby in Dartmouth. "For the first time in 148 years of being told that we have no choice but to alternate between Liberal corruption and Conservative corruption, in this election Canadians have a real choice. The NDP is the Official Opposition for the first time. We are in a three-way race."
But he does not answer reporters' questions directly, especially when they pertain to his party's turn of fortune – the NDP was ahead of the Liberals and the Conservatives when the writ was dropped in August. And he deflects any suggestion that the New Democrats are not still poised to win this thing.
When one reporter asks what he will do if no party is given a majority, what steps he will take to ensure that the NDP plays a major role in whatever government Canadians elect next Monday, Mr. Mulcair says only that he knows Canadians want to defeat Stephen Harper.
"From coast to coast to coast, the one thing that Catherine and I have been hearing non-stop in this campaign is that Canadians want change," he replied, referring to his wife, who is constantly at his side, bolstering his spirits. "And the only party offering real change is the NDP. On too many subjects, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Harper have the same position."
There are still places in the country that remain bastions of NDP support.
Although Mr. Mulcair is expected to lose some of the many seats he now holds in Quebec to the Bloc Quebecois and to Liberals, he could retake Repentigny, near Montreal, where the New Democrat who won in 2011 defected to the Quebec party Forces et Democratie.