NDP's Hidden Agenda Nestled in Their Hidden Constitution

Jack Layton should be kept the hell away from Canadian Constitution

When NDP leader Jack Layton recognizes the problems the Canadian Constitution poses for Canadian unity, he should be commended for his presence of thought.

That doesn't mean he should be allowed anywhere near the Constitution itself.

First, there's the question of how much Layton would give up to please Gilles Duceppe, the Bloc Quebecois, and the rest of the Quebec separatist movement. Considering that Layton was the organizational force behind the 2008 coalition government, it hardly seems unfair to speculate.

For his own part, Duceppe would very much like to know precisely what it is they might be talking about.

"When there's a problem, usually you have a solution," Duceppe remarked. "So where is the solution then?"

"I said that I would judge every proposal from wherever it comes from the New Democrats or the Liberals," he continued. "I see nothing being proposed at the moment, except to say, well, we'll have to settle that issue."

Layton has pretty much dodged any questions he's been asked about this issue. And there may be a good reason why: it seems the NDP doesn't do well with Constitutions, particularly its own.

As Terence Corcoran explains in a column in the Financial Post, the NDP Constitution is essentially a secret document. It's not typically made available to be viewed by the general public, although it is available to party members.

However, through the investigative work of CBC's Leslie MacKinnon, the "core principles of democratic socialism", as outlined in the document, has become public knoweldge:

"*That the production and distribution of goods and services shall be directed to meeting the social and individual needs of people within a sustainable environment and economy and not to the making of profit;

*To modify and control the operations of the monopolistic productive and distributive organizations through economic and social planning. Towards these ends and where necessary, the extension of the principle of social ownership….

*The New Democratic Party is proud to be associated with the democratic socialist parties of the world and to share the struggle for peace, international co-operation and the abolition of poverty."

To anyone who's paid so much as passing attention to Canadian politics, this is no surprise. It was more of a public secret -- one widely known by the general public, slthough not publicly acknowledged.

It presents an image of a party that is far, far more ambitious than it ever lets on; a party that would fundamentally re-shape Canadian society if ever given the opportunity. It's an image of a party that is about far more than improving health care for Canadians; it's about transforming Canada into a far-left utopia.

It seems unwise to assume that if Layton were ever to lay his pen to the Constitution he wouldn't do everything in his power to entrench intrusive big-state socialism upon Canadians on a permanent basis.

Whether or not Layton could actually get the job done -- by getting the Provinces to agree -- is another matter entirely. Layton would have to be delicate in order to avoid encroaching upon Provincial jurisdiction, or at least to make it seem like he isn't.

Most importantly, Jack Layton should be kept as far away from the Constitution as possible.

Michael Ignatieff and His Coalition Stooges

Lord Gilles the Iron-Fisted

Duceppe's overbearing nature often overlooked

One of the Canadian media's favourite portrayals of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is as a control freak.

But as Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe celebrates his 20th anniversary as an elected Member of Parliament, Thomas Mulcair, the NDP's MP for Outremont, notes that Mulcair is much more demanding with his own MPs.

“For all those who say that Harper is a control freak, they don’t know Gilles Duceppe," Mulcair explained. "He is iron-fisted with them.”

Harper was, indeed, renowned for imposing a much greater degree of internal discipline on his MPs and party staff. The Conservative Party, as had the Canadian Alliance, had been troubled by breakdowns in discipline, largely in terms of party messaging.

Harper's discipline has had the effect of containing some of the more extreme elements within the Conservative Party from attempting to wildcat on party policy. This degree of party discipline has even driven out some of the more extreme right-wingers the party may have otherwise been saddled with.

This particular detail leads one to wonder if there's something Duceppe needs to keep under wraps within his party. If so, one wonders precisely what it is.

After all, it isn't as if the Quebec separatist movement -- or even the Bloc Quebecois itself -- hasn't frequently been a haven for racist individuals within Quebec's population. As a political arm of Quebec separatism, the Bloc Quebecois is founded on a racial ideology that doubtlessly attracts such individuals.

Duceppe himself isn't immune to the kind of gaffes that point to a vision of a sovereign Quebec in which pure laine Quebeckers are Quebeckers and everyone else is scared.

Moreover, Gilles Duceppe won't be around forever. One day, he will have to retire as leader of the Bloc. In the course of the leadership campaign to replace him, Canadians inside and outside of Quebec will likely be introduced to the very ugly face of Quebec separatism.

It will only be a matter of time before all Canadians -- even the so-called "progressives" who enjoy making excuses for it -- won't be able to deny Quebec separatism for what it is.

My, But How Quick the "Progressives" Are to Swallow Regression

"Progessive" approves of Duceppe's extremism out of anti-Conservative fervour

Despite the extraordinary measures taken to evade criticism by the most dedicated of the Chickenwankers, it isn't all that difficult to keep tabs on what that particular lunatic is up to.

In the most recent amusing dispatch from Sister Sage's Musings, CK blogs that recent remarks by Gilles Duceppe comparing Quebec separatists to the Free French of World War II are absolutely fantastic -- mostly because conservatives don't like it, and even accusing Stephen Harper of being a separatist:

"'Squabble and Divisiveness'? Really? He’s attempting to unite Quebecers. As for squabble and divisiveness that you refer to; well, where’s the problem? Afraid that perhaps Gilles might play it better than Steve? Oh, like Steve never made any anti-Quebec statements in his career.

This is classic Steve calling the kettle black here; not only because of his games of divide and conquer against the opposition parties and with Canadians in general, but, what many seem to forget is that ol’ Stevie himself attempted to engineer the break-up of Canada. I seem to remember a letter written by Stevie to Ralph Klein in 2001, all about creating a firewall around Alberta. I suggest you click on the link and read this firewall letter to remind us of how much Stevie loves Canada to remain all together in love and singin’ 'Coombaya'."

Apparently, CK's standard for "anti-Quebec statements" is Stephen Harper factually pointing out that the 2008 Liberal-NDP-BQ coalition agreement represented a deal with separatists. (Some comically accused Harper of "Quebec bashing" for that.)

As for Stephen Harper's "firewall letter" being an attempt to "engineer the break-up of Canada", few claims could possibly be more comical. Among the recommendations in the famed letter were instituting a provincial police force, setting up an Albertan pension fund, and reassert provincial jurisdiction over health care policy.

Astute Canadians would recognize these recommendations very quickly. They are the same powers already asserted by Quebec and (in the case of a provincial police force) by Ontario.

The letter also recommended using the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on the matter of Quebec Secession Reference to force Senate Reform onto the federal agenda. The only remotely radical proposal in the letter was for the province to collect at least the provincial portion of income tax revenue. Again, this is a power that Quebec already exercises.

Interestingly, Quebec's use of such powers has yet to precipitate the break-up of Canada -- something perfectly apparent to all Canadians, including the signatories of the firewall letter.

This is for good reason. These measures all significantly increase the level of provincial autonomy, but they stop far short of full sovereignty. In short, provincial autonomy doesn't equal provincial separation, and CK could stand to hear it if she wasn't so busy trying to evade criticism and debate.

If the firewall letter doesn't provide sufficient evidence for rampant separatism in Alberta, CK insists that many conservatives have mused about separating from Alberta. She's even heard them:

"In addition to that firewall letter, I have heard many an Albertan conservative musing about themselves pulling out of Canada as they feel the rest of Canada (mainly Quebec) are thieves. Wonder why that never makes the headlines of so-called mainstream media? Oh yeah! It’s Harpercon media. Wonder why Stevie never condemns them for their misanthropic behavior?

Oh and Stevie, Soudas and the rest of the Harpercons: I want to thank you for succeeding, yet again, in alienating Quebecers. Remember Stevie, it ain’t just separatists who endorse and vote for the Bloc."

Of course, anyone who cared to look would have serious difficulty locating a separatist party in Alberta that polls at a level even approaching political relevance in Alberta. It certainly isn't anything like in Quebec where separatists have formed the government on a number of occasions and held referendums.

Alberta separatists have largely been ignored by the media because they're marginal and irrelevant. In Alberta's political history, Albertan separatists can boast the election of one (1) single-term MLA.

Nothing at all like Quebec.

Moreover, CK once again parrots the line that criticizing the Bloc Quebecois alienates Qubeckers, noting that not all of the Bloc's voters are separatists.

Which is true enough. A portion of the Bloc's voters are individuals like CK who seem to have deluded themselves into believing that the BQ is a "progressive" political party, despite the vile, pervasive, and quite undeniable racial ideology that forms the basis of the party's political culture.

The Conservative Party could, of course, waste its energy trying to accomodate such fools. But considering the amount of mental energy they've expended ignoring what every other Canadian who has cared to look recognizes as plainly as the nose on their face, that wouldn't merely be a waste of energy, but a colossal waste of time.

Regressive Separatists, Not "Resistance Fighters"

Bloc Quebecois has very little to "resist"

Many Canadians must remember 2008's infamous coalition crisis, when then-Liberal leader Stephane Dion hatched a plot that he insisted during an election that he wouldn't -- a plot that involved, essentially, a deal with the devil himself.

When Dion concluded a coalition agreement with Jack Layton and the NDP, they included the Bloc Quebecois as a silent partner -- they wouldn't receive any cabinet seats (granting plausible deniability to the affair), but would support the government.

Many supporters of the coalition even insisted that the Boc isn't actually a separatist party.

But BQ leader Gilles Duceppe has been more vocal on the matter of separatism recently, and it should be incredibly difficult to make that argument.

Speaking to a general council meeting over the weekend, Duceppe declared that the Bloc Quebecois is a "resistance movement".

"For now, we're members of a resistance movement," Duceppe announced. "But members of today's resistance movement are tomorrow's victors. Long live a sovereign Quebec!"

Considering how much Canada has given to Quebec -- la belle province has been a net recipient of transfer payments from the other provinces -- one may wonder precisely what it is that Quebec has been "resisting".

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon certainly seems to wonder.

"It happens to be the most ludicrous and ridiculous statement I've heard a sovereigntist make in 20 years," said Cannon. "I would hope he would indeed take the first opportunity to clarify his positions."

In some other recent comments that should make any ethnic minority in Quebec significantly uncomfortable, Duceppe made it fairly clear.

"Canada can continue to impose its multicultural ideology, the old Trudeau ideology, on Quebec," Duceppe recently told the House of Commons. "Canadian federalism has nothing to offer Quebec."

There's been no question that there's a regressive racial ideology underlying the Bloc Quebecois -- Duceppe is merely the most recent to let that cat out of the bag.

Only when the Bloc was providing the Liberal Party with an easy path to party would they dare ignore Duceppe frantically trying to stuff the feline back in again -- and the next time the Bloc may help the Liberals get back to the government, they'll very likely ignore it again.

As for the rest of Canada, the racial radicalism of the Quebec separatist movement can never be ignored again.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Luke Savage - "A Possible Turning Point"

Chrystal Ocean - "Dmitri Soudas: Non-Critical Thinker"

Confidence

Opposition's fiscal support of Harper could paint them into a corner

Michael Ignatieff may be disappointed in a few days' time when he watches his fellow opposition parties vote on the ways and means measure being introduced by the Conservative party.

NDP leader Jack Layton has tenuously voiced his support for the motion -- although he's noted that "the problem with the Conservatives [is that] the press release comes out, but then the devil is in the details."

Now Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe has followed Layton's lead and announced that he will support the bill -- the last fiscal bill the Conservatives will introduce before the Liberals' planned confidence motion at the end of this month (or early in October).

The Conservative party will remain secure in office for at least that time, pushing the time for a possible election back to mid-November or early December.

But there is one thing that even Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff will have to admit when he watches the BQ and NDP prop up the government to fight another day: it undermines any credibility for Ignatieff's own promised non-confidence motion.

In Parliamentary terms, there tends to be a word reserved for the sentiments of the opposition whose fiscal bills they support:

Confidence.

It would be hard for the NDP or Bloc to jump behind a Liberal non-confidence motion when they've been helping that government advance its fiscal agenda -- in this case, extending additional Employment Insurance coverage to long-tenure workers and supplying funds to pay for the Home Renovation Tax Credit.

Regardless of whatever campaign strategy-related goals are actually motivating the Bloc and NDP -- and speculation has been all the rage for weeks -- this dilemma is particularly distressing for Michael Ignatieff.

As Margaret Wente speculates in the Globe and Mail, Ignatieff himself is facing a severe crisis of political identity.

Ignatieff needs to establish himself as a "warrior king" before he gets saddled with the wimpy label applied to his predecessor, Stephane Dion.

Ignatieff once seemed to think that being a warrior king was a lot like being a philosopher king, just with tougher words.

But, as Wente notes, "The trouble is that up till now it's been all talk. You can only bluff and bluster so many times without looking silly."

"It's not hard not to conclude that Canada is a stage set for Mr Ignatieff's fantasy life," Wente continues. "He has always been torn between being a man of letters and a man of action, pulled between the ivory tower and the battlefield. He has spent time in nasty war zones."

Wente notes that Ignatieff lacks the political instincts and the killer instinct to defeat Stephen Harper in an election.

"Stephen Harper does not deserve such luck," she concludes. "His opponent is yet another man who vastly overestimates his own abilities. Mr Ignatieff is looking more and more like Mr. Dion, without the accent."

Like Dion, Ignatieff seemingly cannot only not command the confidence of his fellow oppositon leaders, but is seemingly losing the confidence of his caucus as well.

If the opposition parties cannot muster enough confidence in Michael Ignatieff to support his non-confidence motion they'll essentially be painting themselves into a confidence corner.

If they aren't willing to pull the plug on Harper sooner by voting down his fiscal bills, it will take a matter of substantive consequence later to convince them to vote him down at all.

In the meantime, it seems that Stephen Harper may enjoy greater confidence than Michael Ignatieff does as opposition leader.

That bodes all kinds of troublesome for the would-be philosopher king.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Dan Shields - "The BQ Blinks First"

Counterweights - "'Separatists' will keep Harper minority government alive (once again, with feeling?)"

Chuckman's Choice of Words - "Ignatieff: Can You Trust This Guy?"

Stay Classy Gilles, Pauline

PQ, BQ leaders to attend reading of FLQ Manifesto

Admittedly, the Canadian attitude toward history can often seem a little peculiar.

While in most countries, being seen at an event at which terrorist literature will be recited would be political suicide, in Canada is can be A-OK. So long as you're a Quebec separatist.

The Government of Quebec recently withdrew its support for "Le Moulin a Paroles", an outdoor poetry and spoken-word reading after a recital of the Front du Liberation du Quebec Manifesto was added to the program.

“Our government doesn’t want to have anything to do with this event. At first, it was supposed to be about poetry, but now with the FLQ manifesto, we are closer to bombs and assassinations,” said Employmen Minister Sam Hamad.

“This brings us back to the October Crisis and we don’t think it’s a good idea,” Hamad added.

This isn't to say that the October Crisis should never be commemorated, but the event in question is intended to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

“Now it’s become a political issue more than an historical event,” Hamad concluded.

The addition of the Manifesto reading is simply an attempt by Pequistes to hijack the event in favour of their political cause -- no wonder Gilles Duceppe and Pauline Marois are so eager to attend!

Sadly, their attendance at this event will likely do very to harm their political fortunes, even if it only goes further to show the rest of Canada who, precisely, these Quebec separatists truly are -- self-interested demagogues, adhering to a racial ideology and sympathizing with yesteryear's terrorists.

Duceppe Rumours Not Going Away Quietly

Nor will Gilles Duceppe

Writing in a blog post on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Adam Daifallah addresses the rumour that Gilles Duceppe may resign as leader of the Bloc Quebecois.

A meeting Duceppe has scheduled with his aides for August 13th has fuelled rumours that Duceppe may step down as BQ leader. Naturally, the BQ has denied that Duceppe is planning to resign.

Daifallah draws an interesting conclusion from these rumours: if Duceppe decides to leave the Bloc, the Conservatives could break through in Quebec in a future election.

That such a "breakthrough" would, in Daifallah's words, merely be a "respectable" showing in Quebec still speaks volumes about the current state of the Conservative party. In the wake of a backlash against Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Quebec over arts funding, a Mulroney- or Diefenbaker-style Quebec landslide is clearly out of the question.

But Daifallah is right about a great many things: the Canadian electorate's honeymoon with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff seems to be coming to a conclusion, and there may be room for the Conservatives to grow in Quebec.

Duceppe's departure from the Bloc Quebecois could only help the Tories in that regard.

As Daifallah notes, Duceppe may be for the Bloc Quebecois what Elizabeth May publicly fantasizes about being for the Green party -- it's greatest asset:

"Duceppe is the Bloc's best asset by a country mile. He's universally respected, even outside Quebec. He has now fought five elections as party leader and knows the ins and outs of campaigning. He performs well in debates and has shown a knack for pushing the right buttons at the right time. Quebecers are comfortable with him -- they know what they are getting. Predictions that his and the Bloc's support would suffer after his embarrassing botched attempt to leave Ottawa and run for the Parti Quebecois leadership proved to be utterly wrong."

Daifallah also notes that the Bloc lacks a credible successor to Duceppe:

"What's worse for the Bloc is that there is no obvious successor to Duceppe with the credibility to keep the party strong. The most likely next chief is Pierre Paquette, a socialist economist whose profile has steadily increased in the last couple of years. But Paquette has nothing close the same level of charisma as the current leader."

With the well-liked and well-respected Duceppe out of the picture, Daifallah muses, Quebecers would likely reconsider the Harper Conservatives.

But Gerry Nicholls disagrees. He notes that many had predicted the BQ's political demise after Lucien Bouchard left the party. More than ten years later, the Bloc remains as strong as ever.

Nicholls surmises that the Bloc endures simply because its supporters don't consider themselves to be Canadian, and thus have "have no emotional connection to either the Liberals or Conservatives" who, he notes, are viewed as being "led by outsiders".

For the hardened Quebec separatist, this may certainly be true. Even Stephane Dion could be viewed by such individuals as an "outsider", being allegedly tainted by his authoring of the Clarity Act (or, rather, his re-authoring of Stephen Harper's similar proposed legislation).

But Quebec's provincial political climate seems to put the lie to Nicholls' sentiments. In the 2008 federal election, the Bloc won 49 of 75 seats in the Province -- a disheartening 65% of its ridings.

Yet in the Quebec Provincial election held later that year, the Bloc's provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, won only 51 of 125 seats in the National Assembly -- the 41% of ridings won is still less than encouraging, but not as bad as the federal results.

If Stephane Dion could be branded an outsider for the clarity act, Jean Charest could be viewed as every bit the outsider for his involvement with the Charlottetown Accord -- which was rejected by 56% of Quebecers. Yet Jean Charest has not only not been branded an outsider, he's been Premier of Quebec since 2003.

And even as rumours that Duceppe is preparing to resign the leadership of the Bloc Quebecois, rumours also abide that Jean Charest is planning a return to federal politics. The combination of a Duceppe departure and Charest return would certainly make for some intriguing results.

But even in the here and now, a Duceppe departure would have tremendous implications for Canadian politics. As Gerry Nicholls admitts, Adam Daifallah may be right to predict big gains for the Conservative party should such an event transpire.

But, as it remains, the rumour of Duceppe's impending departure is precisely that -- a rumour. It isn't going away quietly. Nor would Gilles Duceppe.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Far and Wide - "Duceppe Leaving?"

Chucker Canuck - "The 24-Hour Retirement of Gilles Duceppe"

You Say "Redneck" As If It's a Bad Thing

Gilles Duceppe helps rehabilitate an old slur

In the wake of Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois' recent four-point plan for Quebec sovereignty, only Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe would dare criticize opponents of Quebec sovereignty for not agreeing to stick their heads in a noose.

As some may recall, one of Marois' plan points was to accrue extra power to Quebec over language policies.

Speaking at a St Jean Baptiste day event, Duceppe decried the Grit and Tory leaders' unwillingness to do precisely that by extending the powers of Bill 101 over federally-regulated industries in Quebec.

"They acted like rednecks," Duceppe complained.

"[Ignatieff and Harper], two leaders of the most important political parties in Canada, refused to admit that French should be the working language for institutions under the federal jurisdiction," he sniffed.

Of course, nothing could factually be further from the truth. In fact, Harper and Ignatieff have actually remembered what Duceppe has forgotten: that Canada has two official languages, French and English, from coast-to-coast, and that Quebec is no exception to this.

This is a point that likely isn't lost on Duceppe, but merely one that he chooses to overlook.

"They should take the example of the political leaders in Quebec who stand up for the rights instead of playing rednecks in Ottawa like they did a few days ago," Duceppe would later add.

Although Duceppe would decline to add what he really seems to be thinking -- that the federal government should decline to stand up for the rights of Canadians in Quebec if they should just so happen to be English-speaking Canadians.

Seriously, fuck them.

If standing up for the rights of all Qubeckers, French- and English-speaking alike, makes Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff rednecks, then Duceppe clearly has a skewed image of that stereotype: not of rednecks as ignorant or racist, but as individuals who don't pick and choose whose rights they stand up for. It's a label that they can wear with pride.

The racist ideology that lays at the heart of Duceppe's party, meanwhile, is a wart that he doesn't display with much pride, even on St Jean Baptiste Day. Unshockingly, Duceppe wants that to remain one of Quebec's better-kept secrets.




Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Chucker Canuck 2.0 - "Gilles Duceppe is a Sour, Old Geezer Who Needs the Pastures"

A Newer, More Dangerous Parti Quebecois

"Incremental" separatism on PQ agenda

In its fight to cleave Quebec loose from the rest of Canada, the Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois have often shot themselves in the foot by relentlessly pursuing the goal of separating from Canada in one fell swoop.

Quebeckers have proven themselves on two previous occasions -- in 1980 and again in 1995 -- unwilling to opt in to abruptly leaving the country.

After years of following an all-or-nothing approach, the Parti Quebecois has finally decided to pursue an incremental sovereigntist agenda.

PQ leader Pauline Marois outlined a four-point plan to incrementally pursue Quebec sovereignty. That plan called for minimalizing the federal government's involvement in areas of provincial jurisdiction -- such as education and health care -- exercising more authority over issues related to culture and language, extend the power of the French Language Charter, and continue to "encourage" immigrants to Quebec to speak French.

"It shows our resolution to take up the fight and focus on Quebec sovereignty," Marois said of the plan. "We will use all of our abilities to advance the interests of Quebec."

"There are great things we can do right now," Marois added. "And I hope this dynamism will help revive the flame of sovereignty so we can hold a referendum as soon as possible."

Portions of this plan are already in play. Some may recall that Marlene Jennings, one of the Liberal negotiators of the Liberal-NDP-BQ coalition government -- had previously spilled the beans that strengthening Bill 101 to apply to federally-regulated firms in Quebec had been rejected in the course of those negotiations.

(Canadians still don't know what Jennings and her fellow Liberals had given the BQ in exchange for their support, but that is another matter entirely.)

Yet it seems that Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe has not seen fit to let that particular issue go. Duceppe has been campaigning to strengthen Bill 101 so it will apply to industries regulated by federal labour laws in Quebec, something that the Liberal party has steadfastly refused to support.

"[Michael Ignatieff] said it would impede business," Duceppe complained. "There's no justification for him saying this. The fact [the Liberals] voted against Bill 101 being applied to the Canadian Labour Code is a clear illustration that recognizing Quebec as a nation is nothing more than a symbol."

The extent to which Ignatieff is embracing Quebec nationhood -- and one should add that recognizing Quebec as a nation is not the same as recognizing it as a nation-state -- aside, one thing Ignatieff is certainly doing is something that his predecessor wouldn't when it really mattered: fight separatists.

Rather, Stephane Dion was more than willing to hatch a secret deal with the Bloc when it would deliver him a government -- and certainly saw fit not to tell Canadians what he had given the Bloc in return.

Michael Ignatieff, at least, isn't playing into the hands of the PQ and BQ on their new four-point plan on Quebec sovereignty -- one that will certainly make for a more dangerous Parti Quebecois and Bloc Quebecois.

Quebeckers have proven unwilling to separate from Canada in a single spasm of nationalistic fervour. A slower, more deliberate process of seeking sovereignty will likely yield better results for Quebec's sovereigntist movement, and will require all Canadian federalists -- Liberal and Conservative alike -- to be much more careful in how they handle the issue of Quebec separatism.

Like It Or Not, There's More to Canada Than Just Quebec

Nicolas Sarkozy stands by his pro-unity stance

Even in the wake of criticism from Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, Nicolas Sarkozy is standing his ground.

Sarkozy has offered no apologies to Duceppe and Marois in the face of feined outrage at recent comments in which he denounced "sectarianism" and "self-confinement". Sarkozy reportedly did not mention Quebec separatists, but it's fairly clear what he meant.

In typical fashion, Marois and Duceppe responded with an angry letter to Sarkozy.

"Never has a head of state shown such a lack of respect towards the more than two million Quebecers who consider themselves sovereigntists," the two complained. "Would France agree to stay in a European Union that imposed a treaty that unilaterally reduces their sovereignty on questions of identity without even putting it to a referendum?"

Of course Duceppe and Marois may want to double check their definition of the word "unilateral". Their insistence that the Constitution was imposed unilaterally on Quebec treats the rest of Canada as a monolithic entity, as opposed to what it actually is -- 11 separate provinces.

"We don't know where you got the idea that we detest Canada," they continued. "Despite our important differences, we respect this country, their values and their population. We think an independent Quebec will put to rest the bitterness and the exhaustive debate that has marked our history here in Canada."

Except that it won't. There remains marked division within Quebec around the separatist issue. As during the 1995 sovereignty referendum, a future referendum would inevitably bring the question regarding whether or not Quebec itself is divisible. Certainly, many federalist, aboriginal, anglophone and ethnic regions would hastily separate from Quebec given the option.

"We are not sectarian, we are not closed in on ourselves, we do not detest Canada," Marois would later elaborate. "We want to live in better harmony, and sovereignty would allow us to establish links and a better relationship with the rest of Canada."

Of course, however Marois believes Quebec could live in better harmony with Canada by leaving Canada is likely a matter for further quetioning.

Furthermore, one simply has to consider that there would be differing roles for separatists and federalists within a sovereign Quebec. No one expects the separatists to try to make another play for Quebec sovereignty until they firmly hold the reins of power and have reason to believe that they can expect to keep hold.

This is before one even considers the highly questionable relationship between the Quebec separatist movement and ethnic, anglophone, and aboriginal communities.

If Duceppe and Marois are truly so troubled by Sarkozy's remarks it's likely because they come too close to the truth for comfort.

Nicolas Sarkozy owes Quebec separatists no apologies.

So What Changed?

Duceppe calls for renewed sovereignty push

In the wake of Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff's rejection of the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition, Bloc Quebecois -- the thinly-veiled third partner in the proposed government -- leader Gilles Duceppe has decided that it's time to renew the Bloc Quebecois' efforts toward Quebec sovereignty.

Reportedly the BQ had offered to take sovereignty off the agenda for 18 months as part of their agreement to prop up the coalition in confidence votes.

Now that the coalition is firmly off the table, Duceppe is in favour of renewing efforts toward Quebec sovereignty.

"Our goal is as pertinent as ever," Duceppe told a party meeting in St Hycainthe.

"In 2008, Bloc and Parti Quebecois victories brought hope to sovereigntists," Duceppe explained. "It's up to us now to translate this hope into action."

This announcement comes after the BQ and their provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, were victims of several "friendly fire" incidents in which prominent members denounced the sovereignty program as impractical.

But as Duceppe calls for renewed efforts towards Quebec sovereignty, some people may wonder: what, precisely, has changed?

That is, aside from the obvious. Clearly, Ignatieff's rejection of the coalition agreement has changed the political landscape amongst the opposition in Ottawa. But other than that, what, precisely could have changed to precipitate this change in Duceppe's plans?

Clearly, the electoral fortunes of the BQ and PQ in 2008 haven't changed.

Reportedly Duceppe also noted the Liberal party's support for multiculturalism as a factor in his decision to push the party back toward the sovereignty agenda. Presumably, this hasn't changed over the past few months either.

The question of what changed over the past week to change Duceppe's plans so has just become startingly relevant.

It's hard to think of anything other than two possibilities. One is that Duceppe never intended to honour his commitment to the no-sovereignty-for-18-months promise. The second is that multiculturalism somehow factored into the promises the Liberal party and the NDP had to offer up in order to secure the Bloc within their coalition fold.

One thing is for certain: as a partner in the coalition government, the BQ never would have been able to put the interests of Canada ahead of Quebec's own parochial demands.

"For those who may not have noticed, no matter what party is in power in Ottawa, Liberal or Conservative, no matter who's in charge, the interests of Canada take precedence over the values and interests of Quebec," Duceppe mused.

Which can only mean that devotion to anything the BQ defines as "Quebec's interests" would have come before the country as a whole's -- especially likely issues related to national unity -- in order for the coalition to survive.

This is only one more reason why Canadians should be thankful that the spectre of the proposed coalition government has been dispelled for the immediate future.

Maybe next time the Liberals and NDP will wait until they don't have to rely on an unreliable and untrustworthy political bloc in order to accomplish this particular goal.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

My Corner of the Universe - "The Definitive Sign That the Economy is on the Skids"

The Squid Zone - "Survivor - Canadian Style"

This is the Hour

Time for Canadians to show where they stand

Today, I attended a rally of approximately 1,000 people at the Alberta Legislature.

It was a heart warming show of concern for the perilous direction in which Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe would take this country's democratic institutions.

Edmonton-area Conservative MPs Laurie Hawn and Tim Uppal were in attendance, as well as former Reform party MP Deborah Grey.

While the rallies taking part across the country today are an encouraging demonstration that Canadians do indeed care about what will become of Canadian democracy, they also serve as an opportunity to do some serious soul-searching.

For those attending the anti-Coalition rallies today, we need to ask ourselves an important question:

Were we rallying today merely in support for a Conservative government?

Or were we rallying today because we understand the utter folly of Dion and Layton attempting to forge a Coalition government with the Bloc Quebecois as an ad hoc member?

Wrapping ourselves in the flag while defending our own narrow partisan and ideological interests is unequivocally not what Canada needs at this time.

If indeed those rallying across the country today can say the latter -- that the proposed Coalition risks perilously mortgaging the country to Separatists than those Canadians can hold their signs -- and their heads -- up in pride.

Not all Canadians can say the same.

Pro-Coalition rallies were, likewise, held across the country today. But it's hard to credit them with anything other than narrow partisan and ideological fervour. Not if one understands the consequences of this agreement with the Bloc Quebecois.

Of course, they believe they have all the answers. They insist that the Bloc won't be part of that government, and has merely promised to support the Coalition on confidence motions. They insist that the Bloc has promised to take sovereignty off the agenda for a period of 18 months.

But those of us who haven't chosen to forget Canadian history know very, very different.

After all, these are people who, during the 1995 sovereignty referendum, posed a question to Quebeckers that was ambiguous by design. They intended to mislead and confuse Quebeckers into separating from Canada. Suddenly, the pro-Coalition crowd insists, we're supposed to trust them now.

We're supposed to trust people who lied to their own people to suddenly do the right thing for people with whom they feel no bond.

It is the apex of farce and folly.

Those who legitimately love and care for this country unconditionally cannot allow this to come to pass, and certainly not unopposed or unanswered.

At this moment in Canadian history, it is up to each and every Canadian to show where they stand. Not merely for their fellow citizens today, but for all of Canadian history.

Those who cannot -- those who will not -- put this country before their narrow partisan and ideological demands will be remembered. Those who understand the stakes will make them famous, and history will know their names.

History will know the name of Stephane Dion, and it will know him as a man who not only betrayed national unity in exchange for a brief interlude with political power, but ultimately betrayed himself and his own legacy. This is the man who gave us the Clarity Act -- a piece of legislation that was necessary because Quebec separatists could not be trusted to be honest with their own people -- suddenly insisting that Canadians can trust the Bloc so long as it's to help him govern.

History will know the name of Jack Layton, and it will know him as a man who wanted to mortgage the government to separatists so he could pursue a few baubles for the auto industry. History will remember him as a man who couldn't stand by his own demands -- the vanishing elimination of $50 billion in corporate tax cuts -- while making a deal with separatists. Who hatched this deal for power, and nothing else.

History will know the name of Gilles Duceppe, and it will know him as a man who procured for his movement the ultimate trump card: the ability to bring down a federal government from within, and the opportunity to make all kinds of demands that were previously inconceivable.

But history will learn the names of many individual Canadians as well: the only question is how.

This is the hour in which Canadians will show Canadian history where they stand: for a united Canada that does not give Separatists the pry bar with which they can tear the country apart, or for a Canada in which we betray the demands of national unity for political party.

This is the hour in which we will choose our Canada.

Defining the Role of the Fringe

"Fringe" parties can play a vital role in Canadian politics

In an op/ed article appearing in the Winnipeg Sun, Paul Rutherford has a message for Canada's fringe political players:

Go away.

In the course of the column, Rutherford describes Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Reform party founder Preston Manning as "the worst thing to happen to Canadian politics in the last 20 years".

Rutherford accuses these parties of stealing votes from "legitimate parties" and insists that "they play no role in the democratic health of our country".

Unfortunately for Rutherford, he couldn't possibly be further from the truth.

The truth is that not only are fringe parties necessary, but sometimes they're inevitable, even when one would, as Rutherford, just as soon not even have them.

Manning's Reform party and Lucien Bouchard's Bloc Quebecois may well be the greatest example of each of these two scenarios.

A common grievance held by many members of the former Progressive Conservative party elite -- among them Joe Clark -- is that the Reform party undermined conservative politics in Canada by undermining the Progressive Conservative party. Not only did the party supplant the PCs in the west, but vote-splitting between Reform and PC candidates in Eastern Canada robbed the PCs of Parliamentary seats, and allowing the Jean Chretien Liberals to come up the middle in dozens of ridings on route to forming a majority government.

If Preston Manning had never founded the Reform party, many of them reason, Kim Campbell could have fended off near annihilation, and possibly even won.

This would almost seem reasonable. One very well could assume that the 19% of Canadian voters who supported the Reform party would support the Progressive Conservatives over the Liberals. But that would be making a fatal assumption in assuming that those voters -- particularly in the west -- would have been willing to continue supporting the PCs.

Many of them would just have likely stayed home on election day.

Many western voters had long tired of holding their noses and voting for a party that, all too often, didn't represent their interests. The 1984 election of Brian Mulroney via what Chantale Hebert describes as an Alberta-Quebec coalition turned out to be a rude awakening for many western conservatives.

Disillusioned with numerous episodes of the Mulroney government -- most notably the Meech Lake Accord, Charlottetown Accord and the F-18 Maintenance Contract fiasco -- western conservatives were ready to support a new option. They held on just long enough to help Brian Mulroney secure a victory in the 1988 election (on the strength of their desire to see NAFTA negotiated), then promptly elected a Reform candidate -- Beaver River MP Deborah Grey -- at their next opportunity.

The lesson for politicians was a simple one, but one that many politicians did not understand: voters expect their elected representatives to represent them. It's the same lesson re-played in the recent reelection of former Conservative MP Bill Casey.

The leadership of the Progressive Conservative party had lost sight of a political tradition in western Canada: the tradition of populism. Particularly on the prairies, populism was at the root of nearly every political movement to emerge out of western Canada: Social Credit, Tommy Douglas' CCF (later the NDP), the Progressives and Preston Manning's Reform party were all born out of this tradition.

The PC leadership, meanwhile, had turned their back on this tradition when they attempted twice to ram through constitutional special treatment for Quebec that western Canadians overwhelmingly opposed.

With the rise of the Reform party in the 1993 election and the crash of the Progressive Conservative party, Brian Mulroney's chickens came home to roost. Unfortunately, Mulroney himself had vacated the party leadership, and never had to fully face up to the consequences of his actions.

Western Canadians weren't prepared to support the PCs any longer. Whether one dismisses the Reform party as a protest party or not, the Reform party forced the PCs to eventually get back in touch with that forgotten tradition -- the tradition previously honoured by leaders such as John Diefenbaker.

Until the PCs did so -- which they did, via a merger with the Canadian Alliance, the successor party to Reform, which had been forged out of a coalition with provincial Progressive Conservative parties in Alberta and Ontario -- it was not, and could not be, whole.

In merging with the Canadian Alliance, the Conservative party finally reconciled its party elite with grassroots conservatism.

Some accuse Preston Manning of destroying Canadian conservatism for 11 years. The truth is quite different. Canadian conservatism had already long been on a course toward its own self-destruction. If anything, Preston Manning put Canadian conservatism on the road to what it needed most desperately -- renewal.

And just as fringe political parties can be instrumental to such political renewal within a party, they can be instrumental renewal across Canadian politics as a whole.

Sometimes, the development of a fringe party reminds us of the breadth and depth of a political problem. Such was the case with the Bloc Quebecois.

Formed as a party intent on serving the cause of Quebec sovereingtism at the federal level, the Bloc has been equally a Quebecois protest party and a disruptive force in Canadian politics (how else could one legitimately regard a party formed with the intention of separating a region of the country from within that country's own federal legislature?).

The Bloc, like the Reform party, emerged out of disillusionment over the Mulroney government's constitutional misadventures. The Bloc, however, emerged out of protest of the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord -- a feat accomplished very narrowly through the noncompliance of Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells.

Many Quebeckers interpreted the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord as a rejection of Quebec itself. This perceived rejection would lend strength to the sovereigntist movement for the next 20 years.

Bouchard himself had actually left Mulroney's government -- in which he had served as Minister of the Environment -- after a commission chaired by Jean Charest suggested changes to the accord that Bouchard couldn't accept.

The rise of the Bloc Quebecois, and its continuing existence, should only continue to remind to remind Canadians that the puzzle of Quebec's place in confederation has yet to be solved. Until it is solved, Canada's leaders cannot be content to rest on the laurels of two referendum victories.

Some commentators argue that the days of the Bloc Quebecois -- and its provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois -- are numbered. They frequently cite the rapidly diversifying Quebec population, the aging of the pure laine Quebecois population, and strengthening sentiments in favour of Canada as evidence that the BQ is already on its way into the long night.

They point to Stephane Dion's Clarity Act as having handcuffed the Pequiste leadership from posing the sovereignty question to Quebeckers under deceptive terms.

This may well be so. But it doesn't solve the problems underlying Quebec separatism, and the existence of the Bloc Quebecois stands as a reminder that, despite the near cataclysm that resulted from Mulroney's attempts to renegotiate the Constitution, some Canadian leader will eventually need to be brave enough to try once more.

The very existence of fringe parties speaks to us, if we listen closely enough. These parties are all too often riding the edge of a wave of pervasive discontents. Ignoring such discontents does a disservice to Canadians everywhere, as it allows these problems to fester.

Once, ignorance of these problems destroyed one of Canada's traditional political parties. On another occasion, it almost destroyed the country.

Paul Rutherford may be content so simply wish these problems away by wishing away their political representatives.

Those of us with an eye on the bigger picture, however, know much, much better.

Well, Stephen, I Hope That Was Worth It

Conservatives reelected with minority government

As Canada heads into the dying hours of October 14, 2008, Stephen Harper's Conservative party has claimed a second straight minority government -- the third straight minority for the country.

This is exactly what Harper predicted when he called the election, even if it isn't quite what he simply must have been hoping for.

Preliminary results -- a few races across the country will almost certainly go into recount -- have the Conservatives holding 145 seats, the Liberals with 76 and the NDP with 37. The Bloc Quebecois have 48 seats and the Green party came up empty.

Harper had to work very hard to justify this election, considering that he had to violate his own fixed election date legislation to even call it. He'll still have some work to do yet. Even Harper's stronger mandate is rather thin justification.

And Harper would, quite frankly, be foolish to even try to offer up another fixed election date law in order to pay lip service to demands for electoral reform. Canadians aren't likely to fall for that one twice.

Stephane Dion will have some very difficult questions to answer considering the defeat his party absorbed during this election. As of this writing, the Liberals have lost 26 seats.

For Jack Layton, any lingering questions about his leadership should have been dispelled by this outing for the NDP -- an additional nine seats over their 2006 total.

Gilles Duceppe and his Bloc Quebecois lost three seats in Quebec. Not quite the federalist triumph that appeared to be imminent as the election began, but still a positive result for federalism.

Harper has his government -- one stronger than the government that preceded it. One can only hope that this lesson on the current status of Canadian politics: no party clearly has the support of Canadians. Even as some commentators will trot out the myth of Canadian left-of-centre solidarity, the country is not as firmly united against Stephen Harper as some will pretend.

The coming months should be interesting, if nothing else.

Waitaminit, I Thought It Was the Other Guys Who Hate Canada...

How little Lindsay Stewart thinks of our country

When judging the current state of Canadian politics, few people could be faulted for looking at the leadership being made available for Canadians and wishing for a little better.

On that note, it's hard to say that the best of Canada's political leaders on offer is the one who would happily dismember it. Well, hard for most people. Not so much for Canadian Cynic colleague and bloglodyte Lindsay Stewart:

"On the debates featuring the five hideous trogs being foisted off on a poor, hapless Canada, I'd rather watch a dog eat its own vomit than sit through the spectacle of these substandard leaders trying to best one another. Spin the bottle, no matter where it lands, we all lose. From this piss puddle deep pool, who would make the best PM? Duceppe, sad but true."

It would be hard to distort Stewart's comments even to make them take on the slightest resemblance to saying anything positive.

The Canadian blogosphere's maitre d' extraordinaire has just anointed a separatist leader as the best possible Prime Minister out of Canada's available candidates.

Interestingly, however, it turns out not to be so much any particular quality of Duceppe's that has Stewart to this conclusion, but rather his seething hatred for Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

"For the leader almost sure to form the next government I feel only contempt, distrust and a creeping patina of fear, given the damage that his ideological bedmates down south have caused. And since Harper is at best a copyist, there is reason to fear. Grave dancing asshole Gerry Ritz made the prediction so I don't have to, wait 'til the Cons have their majority, then all bets are off."

Apparently, the one thing Stewart fears most in the world is another conservative government. And apparently, he fears it more than the dissolution of Canada that would occur if Duceppe got his way:

"Stephen Harper is the worst thing that's going to happen to this country for the next four years. He is a true believer and what he believes in is Stephen Harper. That is also the name of what he loves best and when things go against the grain of Stephen Harper, he will act with all the petty wrath of a self centered narcissist, drunk on power. Harper is a man with many swords, just ready for others to fall upon, as nothing will ever be his fault. Canada will vote for this wretched little king because we are stupid."

Moreover, not only does Stewart not fear the destruction of this country more than he fears a Conservative government, he believes that other Canadians are stupid for not sharing that hysteric fear.

"We have allowed these creatures to gull us into believing that they are the capable, stable and secure choice to lead us in a frightening world. They achieved this conviction through a non-stop campaign of character assassination, manipulation and juvenile bull shit. And they let us pay for the millions of ten per centers that they shipped with our own money, to help do it."

For Lindsay Stewart to accuse anyone of "character assassination, manipulation and juvenile bull shit" is, in and of itself, pure comedy that really need not be commented on here.

Stewart's ramblings get even more bizarre, frantic and Mallick-esque as his increasingly monotonous invective continues. But it does end with a very telling statement:

"When it comes time to vote, vote against the Steve Harper Party, don't let Gerry Ritz become a prophetic voice."

Apparently, in Stewart's mind, all Canadians should vote not for something, but rather against Stephen Harper.

In various Quebec ridings where the choice is increasingly becoming a choice between a Conservative (federalist) candidate or a Bloc Quebecois (separatist) candidate? Vote BQ. Duceppe would make the best Prime Minister anyway.

It's shades of Buzz Hargrove all over again. We all remember how that turned out.

But the irony in this particular little online tantrum is frankly so thick that even Lindsay Stewart -- however wracked by cognitive dissonance his psyche may be -- should be able to grasp it.

After all, Stewart has indulged himself of accusing Stephen Harper of "hating Canada". His notorious blogmate has also gotten into the act -- as well as lead the charge in denouncing Canadians as "stupid".

Yet when it comes down to the fate of Canada, Stewart seems to find the destruction of Canada via Quebec separatism favourable to a Conservative moderation of the escalating statism that has swept our country over the last thirty years.

Given the choice between Harper and the Conservatives and the ascension of Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois -- one that could only end with the destruction of Canada -- Stewart apparently isn't able to put his derision for Harper aside.

Stewart wouldn't be willing to put aside his hatred of Harper -- a federalist leader -- in order to save Canada.

To accuse a political opponent of hating Canada is typically a very small-minded thing to do. But if Stewart's unwillingness to choose the survival of the country over his own petty hatreds doesn't qualify as unbridled hatred of Canada, one may be forgiven for wondering what does.

Canadians Thinking Less of Our Leaders

Election costs party leaders in public regard

As the 2008 federal election progresses, each party leader is hoping to make a positive impression on Canadians and improve their party's standings in the House of Commons.

Almost inevitably, some parties will accomplish the latter. But a poll released yesterday reveals that none have yet accomplished the latter. In fact, Canada's political leaders have done the precise opposite.

Stephen Harper's sweater vest and lack-lustre campaign ads couldn't save him from being the leader losing the most -- 36% of polled Canadians hold him in lesser regard, likely due to an unprincipled election call and a pair of serious campaign gaffes on the part of his Conservative Party.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion suffered as well. 32% of Canadians hold him in lower regard following a week in which he claimed he wanted an open debate about his Green Shift plan, but instead settled for calling his Conservative opponents liars.

Jack Layton tried to emulate Barack Obama, but 15% of Canadians found him to be considerably less appealing than that.

23% of polled Canadians found Gilles Duceppe less appealing. Picking at the religious beliefs of a Conservative candidate probably didn't help him much, but then again the only numbers that are really applicable to Duceppe are the ones collected in Quebec.

Hopefully, Canada's political leaders will avert the course they've been following and give Canadians a little less reason to feel cynical and discouraged about our politics.

Separatism in ICU

Bloc Quebecois wounded by 'friendly fire'

Two days after criticizng the religious beliefs of a Conservative candidate as "out of touch with Quebec values", Gilles Duceppe is facing down a critical identity crisis within his party, as some senior Pequistes are wondering precisely what "Quebec values" really are.

"The leftist, ideological bric-a-brac (state interventionism, egalitarianism, pacifism, environmentalism, anti-Americanism) transforms itself, as if by alchemy, into ‘Quebec values' that we must defend furiously," wrote Jacques Brassard, a former Parti Quebecois minister. "The Bloc has thus become the twin of the NDP, that archaic Canadian socialist party."

"Sovereignty has more or less been put on the back burner. It's not discussed any more. The circumstances aren't suitable. But the fact remains that that's why the Bloc exists," Brassard wrote. "I'm sorry, but this does not suit me. I don't recognize myself in this party."

For his own part, Duceppe naturally disagrees with Brassard's assertions. "In a democracy there are people who belong to a family who do not necessarily agree with what happens in that family," Duceppe replied.

However, with Conservative party support rising in Quebec, Conservative trade minister Michael Fortier naturally rushed to take advantage of the situation, pointing out the Bloc's dismal record in Ottawa.

"Mr Duceppe cannot mention in all honesty a single achievement, a single real gain for Quebecers, which is attributable to the Bloc," Fortier announced. "Any municipal council accomplishes more in one year than the Bloc has in 18 years."

The Bloc's poor record and effective abandonment of the sovereignty issue may be to blame for the party's decreasing support. In the January 2006 federal election, they claimed 42% of the Quebec vote. With the 2008 balloting just over a month away, the party is poised to claim a mere 30%.

Brassard's comments come less than a month after an internal kerfuffle within the Bloc's provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, as Francois Legault noted that the separatist cause in Quebec has suffered a significant setback.

All this being said, it would be premature to start writing off separatism as "dead", as Pierre Trudeau once did (to his own and nearly the entire country's chagrin), as University of Montreal political scientist Pierre Martin notes.

"All journalists should take the stories about the death of the Bloc and bury them. This is not going to happen as long as you have anywhere between a third and half of the electorate who claim to be 'sovereigntist' -- there will be a voice for that electorate," Martin said.

Separatism is far from dead. However, it's certainly in intensive care for at least the short term.

The Duceppe Code

Duceppe declares witch hunt in St Bruno-St Hubert

Where's Sir Leigh Teabing when you need him?

Gilles Duceppe raised the alarm about a Conservative candidate in St Bruno-St Hubert, after La Presse of Montreal revealed that Nicole Charbonneau Barron is a member of Opus Dei.

Described by many as an ultra-Conservative Catholic Order, Opus Dei was portrayed -- and villainized -- in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. Ever since the publication of the book, and especially since the release of the movie, Opus Dei has effectively become the Catholic Church's answer to Scientology -- villainized by those who despise it and defended ardently by its adherents. A fierce propaganda war has been waged between its opponents and proponents to the point where truth is entirely indistinguishable from spin.

As justification for his envokation of the controversial order, Duceppe claimed that Opus Dei's teachings "do not correspond to Quebec's modern mentality."

"Those people are certainly sharing a kind of ideology that doesn't correspond at all to modern times in Quebec," he announced. "I'm not saying they don't have the right to do so. [But] those people are against a lot of things that are allowed in Quebec."

Of course the right of Barron to hold her religious beliefs didn't dissuade Duceppe from steering his party's election campaign toward base religious intolerance. The general expectation in Canada is that political candidates will be judged not by their gender, ethnicity or religion, but by their policy platform -- or at the very least that of their party.

With his move today, Duceppe has turned away from criticizing the policy platform of the Conservatives and toward encouraging bigotry.

One wonders if perhaps there's some reason why Duceppe so desperately wants to debate something other than policy in this election campaign. With the BQ's provincial counterpart, the Parti Quebecois, reduced to a shambles of its former separatist glory and his own party's share of the popular vote precipitously dropping throughout a recent round of by-elections, Duceppe may be coming face to face with the reality that separatism has been rendered a spent force in Quebec -- currently capable of offering little more than empty promises and shameless fear mongering.

No wise man should rule out a future reenergizing of Quebec's sovereigntist movement -- Pierre Trudeau learned that the hard way. But at least in the present, and for the near future, Gilles Duceppe needs something to campaign on other than rendering Canada unto the ash heap of history.

Apparently, the spectre of religious bogeymen is the Holy Grail that Duceppe thinks will secure his party against a potential drubbing at the hands of a seemingly resurgent Conservative party in Quebec. Which just so happens to say a lot more about the BQ and its leader than it does about Nicole Charbonneau Barron.

However, Duceppe may actually be taking even a bigger risk than simply appearing bigoted. If conservatism in Quebec truly is as resurgent as recent polls have suggested it may be, Duceppe may have a lot to lose by taking aim at its traditional handmaiden in Quebec, the Catholic Church.

Few politicians have gotten ahead in Quebec by directly attacking the Church, and given the direct historical links between Catholicism and the embers of nationalist sentiment his party has always sought to fan into separatist flame, Dion may find himself getting burned by the fire he's choosing to play with.

Or, Duceppe could just call up Dr Robert Langdon for a good-old-fashioned Grail quest -- that is, if he wasn't a fictional character.

Conservatives Take One For the Team

Tories decline to run candidate in Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier

With Quebec seemingly poised to grant the Conservative party a few more seats (depending upon whom you ask), one would think that the Conservatives would be going for broke in La Belle Province.

Apparently not so, as Independent MP Andre Arthur will find the task of being reelected in Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier a little easier. The Conservatives have decided not to run a candidate there.

The rationale behind this decision is reportedly deciding not to split the federalist vote in the riding, allowing the BQ to pick up a seat. Even with the sovereigntist movement in Quebec splintering, a federalist candidate like Arthur can use every bit of help he can get.

"I'm like a kid who wakes up on Christmas morning and finds something under the tree," Arthur said. "Who am I to say it's not a good idea to make a gift like that to me."

It probably helps that Arthur is at least sympathetic to the Conservatives. "I think Harper has given us something that we haven't seen in Canada in the last 50 years," he said. "For the first time we've had a government that says what it does and does what it says."

Deciding not to run a candidate against Arthur may also be indirect retaliation against Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, who echoed increasingly typically Liberal calls for left-of-centre voters to vote strategically in order to prevent a Conservative majority.

The message in Portneuf-Jacques-Cartier is cystal clear: vote for Andre Arthur to prevent a Bloc MP.

For his own part, Gilles Duceppe has sunk to the lowest common denominator in his quest to deny the Conservative party additional seats, dropping the B-word (Bush) in a campaign stop in Montreal.

"The Conservatives of Stephen Harper have an ideological vision inspired by that of George W Bush," Duceppe insisted, then actually tried to dig deeper in his quest to equate the Conservatives with what he considers to be a vile ideological figure. "The Reform party is there, hiding under the skirts of the Conservative Party, but more and more it is showing itself."

Of course, the Reform party has never tried to break up Canada with a racially divisive ideology as its foundation, unlike some other parties in Canada...

As the campaign gears up, there remain serious questions about whether or not the Bloc can really stop a Conservative majority.

In the meantime, however, the Conservatives have put the federalist cause in Quebec ahead of their own interests. It isn't that surprising -- it's what Stephen Harper has done ever since he took office.