OTTAWA - Tom Mulcair intends to start this fall nailing down some key planks in the NDP's election platform — a full year before the next scheduled federal vote.
The NDP leader says he'll be unveiling "some very concrete" proposals on child care, infrastructure investment, health care funding and re-instituting a federal minimum wage, among other issues.
Ordinarily, political parties keep their platforms under tight wraps until a campaign begins, to avoid giving rival parties a target or an opportunity to steal their best ideas.
But New Democrats are willing to take that risk as they fight to reassert themselves as the real alternative to Stephen Harper's ruling Conservatives.
That role has been usurped by the third-place Liberals since Justin Trudeau took the helm 18 months ago.
New Democrats are gambling that the benefits of early disclosure — demonstrating how an NDP government would be different than the Harper regime and contrasting their substance with Trudeau's refusal to be nailed down on important policy questions — will outweigh the disadvantages.
