SASKATOON—NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair says he won’t engage in pointed personal attack ads against his political archrivals but warns that he won’t be shy about highlighting their shortcomings.

With a divisive political fight shaping up against Justin Trudeau’s rebounding Liberals and the Conservatives under Stephen Harper, Mulcair said he’s never used “personal, negative” ads in his long political career and suggested he won’t start now.

He distinguished between the NDP’s efforts in 2011 to highlight then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s Commons’ absences — what he called an “objective fact” — from the Conservatives’ pointed campaign that the Harvard lecturer “didn’t come back for you.”

“That’s a very kind of visceral, personal attacks. We don’t do that sort of stuff in the NDP,” Mulcair said Tuesday.

“I’ve never been part of a party that went for that type of personal attacks. I’ll leave that for others,” he told reporters here as NDP MPs gathered for a caucus meeting.

But don’t expect the New Democrats to pull their punches as they go after the records of both the Liberals and Conservatives in government.

“We’ll talk about the policies of the other party, we’ll talk about the failings of the other party and we’ll say why people should vote for us,” he said.

The 2015 election hangs over the caucus meeting as MPs gather this week to discuss strategy for the upcoming session on Parliament, that was due to resume Monday. However, the Conservatives are likely to prorogue on Friday, delaying Parliament’s return until mid-October.

In the 2011 election, the New Democrats achieved a historic milestone — becoming the official Opposition.

Mulcair and his MPs have made clear this week that their mission for the next two years is to persuade Canadians they are ready to take on the job of government.

“We plan to make sure that Canadians can have confidence in us and our ability to lead,” he said.

Mulcair continues to insist that he’s not fazed by the popularity of Trudeau, brushing off the potential threat the Liberal support could mean for his party’s chances.

“This for me is not a concern . . . I know this was the arc, the cadence of the year to come,” Mulcair said.

“We’re more than two years out from the next election. We know exactly what we have to do. We know the themes that are carrying us through.

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“Canadians want change. We’re convinced of that. . . . That’s palpable. When you go across the country as I’ve had a chance to do, you sense that. We know what we have to do.”

There are signals they’ve moved to an informal election footing. For example, NDP MPs were given orders to knock on 3,000 doors in their ridings this summer. That’s part of a campaign to ensure the party’s politicians, many of them rookies, have laid the ground work needed to help their re-election.

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