A decade ago a friend of mine spent a summer apprenticing as a page in the National Assembly of Québec during the time that Thomas Mulcair served as Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment, and Parks in the government of Jean Charest.

He described vividly how opposition Parti Québécois deputies were terrified of Mulcair. His encyclopedic knowledge, searing intellect and brilliant rhetorical gifts could shred a careless opponent. His nickname at the time, The Grizzly, reflected that approach. This was no Winnie the Pooh or Panda -- tangling with Mulcair could leave an opponent seriously mauled.

More than 2000 New Democratic activists spent the weekend at a policy convention in Montreal -- described as the largest policy convention for the party to date. It was an historic weekend not just for the number of delegates in attendance, or because of the highly anticipated change of the party's preamble; this was also the first convention post Jack Layton, and the first convention where Tom Mulcair has had the opportunity to set the tone for his leadership. More than 92 per cent of delegates demonstrated they had confidence Mulcair could take them into the 2015 election (Watch the confidence votes results here.)

Here's some free advice for a couple of would-be Canadian prime ministers who are both in the news these days, the NDP's Tom Mulcair and the Liberals' Justin Trudeau: Hammer Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the economy.

Both of them were with their party faithful yesterday -- Mulcair at the final day of the NDP's policy convention in Montreal and Trudeau at his coronation as Liberal leader in the evening in Ottawa. Either of them, it is said here, has the potential to form the next government of Canada if the planets line up the right way.

But that means, to succeed, something is going to have to go wrong for Harper -- because, as we pretty well all know, more often than not opposition parties don't win elections so much as governments lose them.