MONTREAL—New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair said raising the corporate tax rate would serve the public interest because it would allow the federal government to pay for expensive programs like universal child care.

“What we are saying is this: that we have lowered (the corporate tax rate) so much, to the tune of about $50 billion, that we have removed the capacity of the state to do a lot of the things that we want to do in the interest of the public,” Mulcair said Tuesday morning at a campaign event at a park on Mount Royal in Montreal.

“So, when we talk about quality child care at maximum $15 a day — 1 million places across Canada — part of that money is going to come from a slight and graduated increase in the tax rate for Canada’s largest corporations,” said Mulcair.

The NDP has long been known as a party that calls for the creation of large-scale national programs — they were the ones who pushed for universal health care, after all — but with that always come questions as to how they plan to pay for it.

The party has pledged not to raise personal income taxes, beyond cancelling the income-splitting for two-parent households brought in by the Conservatives this year, and has promised to keep the expanded Universal Child Care Benefit as well.

It has also committed to lowering the tax rate for small businesses — one percentage point at a time — to nine per cent from the current rate of 11 per cent.

That leaves going after larger corporations, which also has the benefit of being more populist in its appeal to voters who would traditionally be more interested in supporting the NDP.

The Conservative government lowered the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent in 2012.

They had previously lowered it to 18 per cent in 2010 and 21 per cent in 2006.

Mulcair has not yet announced the rate he would like to see, but has dropped many hints.

He has said it would be lower than the U.S. combined rate and on Tuesday added it would be “far below the average that the Conservatives had for the 10 years they’ve been in power” and “well below anything the Liberals have ever had.”

In June, Mulcair said in an interview with on CBC Radio that he would raise it to 18 or 19 per cent.

That interview also drew sharp criticism when he provided an incorrect number when asked about the current rate.

Tuesday, Mulcair was vague when asked what he would do to attract foreign investment to Canada while also raising the corporate tax rate.

Mulcair focused his answer on foreign trade agreements, an issue on which the NDP has evolved since its knee-jerk opposition to them.

“We’ve been enthusiastically in favour of trade deals that were fair and that were on an even playing field,” said Mulcair, noting his party’s support for trade agreements with South Korea and Jordan.

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At the same time, Mulcair said he would be “prudent,” such as when his party decided not to take a position on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union (CETA) before seeing the full text and expressed concerns over the investor-state dispute resolution.

He also reiterated his concerns over the Trans-Pacific Partnership and expressed concern that during an election campaign, Harper would be more likely to acquiesce to provisions that would undermine the supply management system that protects egg, dairy and poultry farmers in Canada from foreign competitors “What is going to be on the table with Mr. Harper negotiating right in the middle of an election campaign? He’s vulnerable,” said Mulcair.

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