NDP Leader Tom Mulcair focuses on Southwestern Ontario

NDP leader Tom Mulcairlaid out his plans to create more jobs for Canadians, especially in Southwestern Ontario, just days afterpromisingtax breaks for small businesses and manufacturers if he's elected prime minister.

Since the summer, Mulcair and his party have been unveiling planks in a platform the NDP intends to run on in the coming electionscheduled for October, andsome political scientists say Southwestern Ontario will be a key battleground.

• Mulcair unveils more platform planks: tax relief for small biz, manufacturers

"In Canada right now we've seen a whole generation of well-paid manufacturing jobs, especially in Southwestern Ontario, simply bleed out of the economy," said Mulcair in a phone interview with host Colin Butler on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition Thursday.

"400,000 well-paid jobs disappeared, those were jobs with enough of a salary well-paid enough to live on and frankly most of them came with a pension. Now sevenout of 10 Canadians are working but they won't have a pension so that's one of the things we want to get done," he said.

Earlier this week, Mulcair said the NDP wouldwould cut the tax rate for small businesses from 11 per cent to nine per cent, andextend the accelerated capital cost allowance for equipment used in manufacturing for two more years.

Mulcairalso expanded on another plank of his platform, the innovation tax credit.

"This is of great interest in, of course, the Kitchener-Waterloo area,"he said. "This would be something that would allow companies that invest in machinery and equipment to deduct that faster and get specific help from the government."