It was an unprecedented rally in what Tom Mulcair and the New Democratic Party hope will be an unprecedented election campaign.

Last night, hundreds of NDP members from Peel and Etobicoke showed up on the campus of the University of Toronto Mississauga to publicly celebrate what until recently was the unthinkable: that the party could win the national election while winning seats in Mississauga.

It was the first time a federal NDP leader has ever rallied local troops en masse during a campaign.

It wasn’t that long ago candidates in some local ridings struggled to win the 10 per cent of the vote required to get their deposits returned.

But last night’s event – held presciently in the rotunda of the new “Innovation Centre” at UTM before a standing-room only crowd – was a show of unbridled optimism.

Mulcair took pains to suggest that residents here can identify with his party. “Mississauga and the NDP share the same values; hard work, community and ensuring opportunity,” he said. “These are the same values that I learned when I grew up in Laval, Que., a community very similar to Mississauga.”

The NDP leader touted his proposals to kick-start the economy and strengthen the middle class, including a one cent increase in gas transfers to cut commute times for Mississauga residents; a reduction of 2 per cent in small business tax; $15-a-day child care; a $400 million increase to seniors on the guaranteed income supplement, and a return to age 65 for eligibility for old age security.

An NDP national transit plan will invest $1.3 billion annually. “I say this to Mayor (Bonnie) Crombie, with an NDP government in Ottawa, you have a stable, long-term partner on infrastructure and transit,” Mulcair said.

Ali Naqvi of Mississauga East-Cooksville, who’s running federally for the fourth time claimed, “We’re making a breakthrough.

“The federal leadership is talking about the issues that matter. The central campaign is solution-based. In the past we were great at identifying the problems but not at identifying solutions. This time we have solutions.”