Article content continued

The risky strategy could give rival parties a chance to trash NDP proposals or steal the best ones. But New Democrats are hoping it will remind Canadians that the NDP is the real contender for power, not the Liberals, who’ve been leading in opinion polls since Trudeau took the helm 18 months ago.

In a brief speech to his 96 MPs, Mulcair asserted that Canadians are for the first time looking at the NDP as a government in waiting.

Since vaulting past the Liberals to become the official Opposition in 2011, Mulcair said New Democrats have been “showing Canadians that we are ready to take on Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and they now know this team does have the leadership and the experience to form government tomorrow morning.”

Nevertheless, some MPs betrayed frustration with the constant questions about why the NDP is trailing in third place in the polls if, as they maintain, Trudeau is such an empty vessel.

Charlie Angus, veteran NDP MP from northern Ontario, chose to respond to the questions with sarcasm, saying he’s “literally terrified” to find that voters in his riding have tattooed Trudeau’s name on their necks.

“In Kirkland Lake, you see a man like me running in fear for his life,” he joked.

Outside the retreat, Mulcair offered his comments — while refusing to take sides — on the nailbiter referendum on Scottish independence.

But however it turns out, the NDP leader says the result will have to be respected.

“I think that it couldn’t be clearer that international law has been very firmly respected here, there’s been clear negotiations on everything from the question to the information that had to be put forward and the final decision is simply with the Scottish people,” Mulcair said Wednesday.