‘We need to finish the job of making ourselves a viable progressive alternative’

Brian Topp talks to the Toronto Star and challenges Thomas Mulcair.

He does not accept my point about restoring government revenues. That’s a pretty fundamental issue. If you don’t do that, you can’t follow through on your commitments. His proposal, to the extent that I can understand it, to divert revenues from our environment plan to general government revenues is wrong.

I haven’t heard him speak clearly on this issue of equality. Canadians are increasingly aware that the Conservatives have broken the government and there is much they can’t do together as a result. If Mitt Romney had filed that tax return that he released about three or four weeks ago in Canada, he would have paid lower tax than in the United States. That cannot stand. You cannot do what we need to do together as a society when the Conservatives have broken the government like that. It’s not about increasing taxes on “people”; it’s about reallocating money that is currently being spent on tax giveaways to people who don’t need help, in order to transfer the money to funds to people who do.

Mr. Topp also answers Mr. Mulcair’s proposal that the party needs to “renew.”