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Speaking in Quebec City, Mulcair acknowledged that he was approached in 2007 about taking on a role with the governing party — talks he has discussed publicly before.

But he is denying a report this week in Maclean’s magazine that says he walked away because his salary demands couldn’t be met.

“After I left provincial politics, various parties approached me and I was interested in continuing to work on environmental issues,” Mulcair said Tuesday after a meeting with Premier Philippe Couillard.

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A little context is in order. A report on Mulcair’s brief dalliance with the Conservatives appeared in the Montreal Gazette as early as April 2007, soon after he left his job as environment minister in Jean Charest’s Quebec Liberal government. It noted that the talks fell apart when Mulcair refused to “toe their line” on environmental issues. The story was dredged up again in 2011 when Mulcair was a leading candidate to replace the late Jack Layton. And now here it is again, with Mulcair atop the opinion polls just weeks before an election is called.

In other words, it’s not really “news,” and tends to pop up whenever someone needs to affix a bit of mud to the Mulcair image.

It’s worth assessing who stands to benefit from the latest revival of this dusty tale. As the Post’s Tasha Kheiriddin has noted, a muddied Mulcair very much suits the interests of the Bloc Québécois, which is seeking to regain ground in Quebec. As it happens Gilles Duceppe, the newly returned Bloc leader, has been quite keen on spreading the story, which — surely by pure coincidence — appeared in Maclean’s magazine shortly after Duceppe returned to his old job.