SeparaTories and the Bloc NDP

On whether there's any difference at all between what was in the wallets of Denis Lebel and Nycole Turmel, and why it doesn't really matter if there is.

Yesterday's not-at-all-surprising revelation that Transport Minister Denis Lebel was a Bloc Québécois member during the 1990s has, somehow, led to more condemnation of NDP interim Leader Nycole Turmel's past associations with the sovereigntist party. Such are the travails when your party doesn't have a rolodex full of apologists writing columns in the nation's newspapers. CBC's Janyce McGregor lays out a comparison between the two politician's previous allegiances and, shockingly, they're... not that different at all, really. Both shacked up with the Bloc more for career reasons than any personal beliefs, both weren't at all active in the party, both only contributed a small chunk of change to the Bloc, and both are now avowed federalists (Turmel even revealed that she voted against separation in both referendums). So can we call it a draw and move on to more pressing items on the agenda, such as the upcoming vote on the war in Libya?

If Lorne Gunter of the National Post has anything to say about it, nope, we're going to be hung up on this matter All. Summer. Long. Gunter says there are material differences between the two cases, mainly that Lebel “made a conscious choice to eschew his sovereigntist past and seek election to the House of Commons as a federalist,” whereas Turmel “quit the Bloc only seven months ago, just weeks before she was nominated as an NDP candidate, and never fully renounced her support for the separatists.” So it comes down to a matter of openly recanting their support of separatism, even if, as Turmel has stated, she never supported it in the first place. (And maybe Lebel did – after all, being a Bloquiste in 1995 really makes it likely that he voted for separation. Not that it matters at all to us.) We hate to bring up Senator Joe McCarthy again, but hounding people to disavow beliefs they never held in the first place sure takes a page out of his playbook.

The Globe and Mail's editorialists and CTV's Don Martin both bring up the Lebel case as a means of criticizing Turmel, with Martin calling Lebel's switch “worth commending” and the Globe demanding that party leaders be “unequivocally federalist.” The Globe, at least, notes that “Canadians want, and need, former sovereigntists to join the ranks of federalist parties.” Which is, by and large, exactly what the NDP has done with much of Quebec, and certainly much more so than the supposedly more federalist parties (and heck, we give credit where credit is due to the Tories in bringing Lebel onside). Yet the tarring continues for the NDP, despite all their work in killing off the Bloc and bringing those sovereigntists on board. Sure, there will be birth pangs among the motley caucus, but incessantly arguing that every member of the NDP must pass a federalist smell test surely won't bring more sovereigntists their way. If it's good enough for their constituents, it ought to be good enough for the rest of us. Besides, it's not like we make every Tory MP who supported the Alberta firewall swear an oath to upholding confederation.