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In the next federal election, for the first time, the NDP and leader Tom Mulcair will campaign as official Opposition. Mulcair sat down with Citizen parliamentary bureau chief Mark Kennedy to discuss his plans.

Q. For years, people looked at your party as the social conscience of Parliament. By the time of the next campaign, you will have been the official Opposition for four years. Why should Canadians turn to the NDP as their next government?

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A. The good news is we’ve still got a very strong social conscience, but we’ve also got a lot of experience, leadership, and we can deliver.

Q. Your opponents are going to claim that if an NDP government was put into power, all hell would break loose. Taxes would go up. There would be carbon taxes. What’s your response?

A. The political party in Canada with the best record for consistent balanced budgets is the NDP. We’re prudent public administrators. You know why? Because we always have to prove that we are … The only real exception to that has been Bob Rae (when he ran the Ontario government in the early 1990s). And we all know who he was with at the end of his political career.