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He chuckled over a recent editorial cartoon in The Globe and Mail, which showed a fuming Mulcair, laden with charts and graphs, standing alone at a microphone while reporters swarmed to Trudeau, who had merely coughed.

“We have to fight for every column inch [of media coverage],” he said.

But all that will change once an election campaign is actually underway, he predicted.

“Come next fall, people are going to be looking at the substance of the positions, they’re going to be looking at leadership and the ability to stand up strongly. The way I’ve been taking on [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper, people see that.”

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Mulcair expects the NDP will still have to push hard during the campaign to be taken seriously by the media as a contender for power. But it’s a challenge he appears to relish.

“Nobody’s ever given me anything in my life. I put myself through school and I come from a family of 10 kids and I’ve worked hard literally all my life,” he said.

“For me, hard work isn’t a slogan written by somebody else,” he added, in a dig at Trudeau’s “hope and hard work” mantra.

An experienced campaigner and nimble verbal jouster, Mulcair clearly believes he can out-perform the neophyte Trudeau on the hustings and in the crucial televised leaders’ debates.

We’re fighting for families, we’re fighting for the environment, we’re fighting for Canadians. That’s us

“I love campaigning. Frankly, I’m a very strong campaigner, I don’t give up and I go morning, noon and night,” he said.

“I’ve been elected three times provincially, three times federally and I’ve won a leadership race. Believe me, I know what I’ve got ahead of me, I know what I’ve got to get done. But I know exactly what I have to do, too.”