Tom Mulcair is the fourth federal leader to meet with Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre.
The NDP leader and the mayor discussed Coderre's wishlist for the city of Montreal, something Coderre has already done with Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May, and Gilles Duceppe; Stephen Harper is so far the only leader who has not confirmed a meeting with Denis Coderre.
Both agreed that Montreal and other metropolises throughout Canada need more power and funding, and that the federal government should include a minister of urban affairs to interact with the nation's big cities.
“To have at the federal level, a minister of urban affairs; not the same as municipal affairs, which is something which is the provinces,” explained Mulcair, adding that an NDP government “we will be that reliable long-term partner.”
Mulcair said an NDP government would give major cities an extra $1.5 billion per year in infrastructure funding.
The two men also agreed that Canada Post should not end home delivery.
Likewise they both said that tolls should not be implemented on the replacement for the Champlain Bridge, and that the federal government should permit cities to create safe injection sites for drug users. They also agreed on the need for more social housing and a return to full service by Canada Post.
The two men disagreed when it came to the wearing of a face veil during citizenship ceremonies.
"Under the current rule a woman who is wearing a niqab who seeks to become a Canadian has to take off her face covering and I fully agree with that," said Mulcair.
Current law is that anyone wearing a face covering must positively identify themselves to an official before taking an oath, but then can put it back on, and Mulcair said the NDP would not challenge that.
"No one has the right to tell a woman what she must, or must not, wear," said Mulcair.
"If some of these women are being oppressed we have to reach out to them, and it is not by depriving them of their Canadian citizenship and rights that we can help them."
The mayor disagreed, saying he does not believe that women should be wearing the niqab during a citizenship ceremony.
"I've said clearly when, during an oath, you have to unveil, you have to show your face," said Coderre.
The issue made a splash in Canadian politics last week, when four judges agreed that immigrants can wear niqabs while swearing an oath to become citizens.
In the federal court ruling, the judges said the fault lay with the immigration minister's attempt to ban the niqab with a ministerial act, instead of by changing the law or seeking the approval of cabinet, which flew in the face of the federal government's tradition of accommodating minorities.
Documents obtained by the Globe and Mail indicate senior members of the immigration department advised Jason Kenney repeatedly that his edict would be overturned by the courts because he was not following proper procedures.
The other thorny issue they discussed was Mulcair's view that a vote of 50 per cent plus one in a provincial referendum would be enough to split up the country.
“In a democracy, the rules that supplied in England and in Scotland are that the side that wins, wins. And that’s what we've always taken as an approach,” he said.
In the recent Scottish indepedence referendum, Scotland and the UK mutually agreed on the wording of a question, based in part on the recommendations set down in Canada's Clarity Act.
NDP policy as laid out in its Sherbrooke Declaration states that Quebec, and Quebec alone, can determine a question for any future referendum on independence.
