Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

‘Profound unease’

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, August 5, 2011 3:31pm - 40 Comments

An anonymous NDP staffer claims deep concern within the party over Nycole Turmel’s political past.

“The profound unease that’s taken over the party is that there was a large number of people, the majority of people, who voted didn’t know then. And that’s a very, very serious unease, because it’s a crisis of confidence. When we take a party membership, it’s not a sign of friendship…. It’s a commitment, it’s an adherence to a philosophy,” he said. ”You can’t lead a federalist party when you were sufficiently involved in a separatist party or parties.”

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  • Anonymous

    Oh lordy, not this again…

    An ‘anonymous NDP staffer???

    Well, here’s an article that says it best….

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/the-medias-game-of-gotcha-can-teach-the-ndp-some-lessons/article2120882/

    • Anonymous

      May as well get used to it. As Official Opposition, they’ve inherited that big bull’s eye that Harper & Co used to put on each new Liberal leader. Any weakness will be emphasized and magnified. Jack was around long enough that he was hard to target (not that they didn’t try), but Turmel is fresh meat; they’ll do what they can to pin a negative label before anyone can get ther own read on who she is.

      • Anonymous

        Well, that’s pretty much what the article said…..I’m just bored with this obsession over trivia…especially when important things are going on.

  • Anonymous

    I’m sure that many in the NDP feel uneasy about this.  If the NDP had been open and transparent about their leader’s separatist party membership from the beginning, they could have avoided a lot of the attention they’re getting.  Turmel was a poor choice for interim leader, and the NDP compounded the error with their disingenuous response after the sh*t hit the fan.

    The NDP’s credibility has been damaged, and the Turmel Turmoil has raised serious questions about the competence of party leadership.

    • Anonymous

      Rubbish.

      • Anonymous

        Hey – this is good for another week.  Then a week of who really benefits – the Cons or the Libs – should get us through to Labour Day. 

        • Anonymous

          True….meanwhile all of Harp’s comments go by without scrutiny….and then we’ll be back to the horse-race.

        • Anonymous

          This is about Quebec’s provincial politics.  Obviously the PC  is comfortably installed in government and the NDP in the official opposition..  This is not meant for them.   This is about the next Quebec election, only a year and a half away,  the mediocre performance of Pauline Marois vs the stellar performance of Amir Khadir and the evolutioin of the left vs right discourse.  Sovereignists didn’t like finding themselves wiped out from Ottawa and don’t want to find themselves in third place again in the QC legislature.  They’re punching early. And hard.

    • Anonymous

      Nice regurgitation of the talking points.  How many more times will be hearing them?

      • Anonymous

        Sometimes I can’t even tell the difference between JanBC and Emily anymore.  Their trollish one-liners are indistinguishable.

        • Anonymous

          I feel the same about the Harper devotees – they all sound the same to me. 

          • Anonymous

            Yup, Conbots use all the same talking points….and apparently can’t read either.

          • Anonymous

            Thank you both for proving my point.

          • Anonymous

            @Crit_Reasoning:disqus 

            You don’t have a point….do you know how many times Cons have tried this gimmick?

            You never have a counter-argument, you just use the same old tired lines.  LOL

  • TonyAdams

    Interesting next few years for NDP, that’s for sure.

    Trying to find balance and harmony between French poseurs and everyone else. Shouldn’t be too difficult, left wing types are famous for getting along with one another. 

    PJ O’Rourke ~ At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.

    • Anonymous

      LOL this from a right-wing socialist!

  • http://twitter.com/TurboLiberal Turbo Liberal

    Welcome to the Official Opposition NDP!

    • AVR

      With an opposition like this, Natural Governing Party 2.0 seems more and more likely.

      • Anonymous

        Yes, the Libs will be back

        • Anonymous

          The sovereignists certainly prefer the Libs to the NDP.

          • Anonymous

            No, they’re just bitter about the election.  LOL

          • Anonymous

            Yes, they are bitter about the election – and that’s because the NDP beat them fair and square.  The Libs are a much easier target for the Bloc.   

        • Anonymous

          Actually, they are already at the back!

  • Ottawa_Centrist

    So we have a federalist opposition leader who supports/supported separatist-based parties and a past-separatist prime minister who’s turned staunchly federalist after leaving opposition.

    How on earth did voters turn so cynical?

    • Anonymous

      You’re not suggesting politicians are opportunists, are you?  Now that would be cynical. 

    • Anonymous

      It’s cute how Harper-haters describe the PM as a former separatist.  Hatred trumps logic, apparently.

      • Anonymous

        He still is a separatist.

      • Anonymous

        And now the whining – from the ones who call anyone who disagrees with them haters, socialists, and communists.  Please.

      • Ottawa_Centrist

        It wasn’t his raison d’être, but his past pro-separatist sentiments are always cute. Faith redefines history, apparently.

        • Anonymous

          Past pro-separatist sentiments? Like what? Let me guess: You’ll link to the firewall letter and pretend that it’s “pro-separatist”.

          • Ottawa_Centrist

            The firewall letter has its sentiments. As does http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/02/09/stephen-harper-and-canada-a-love-story-iv/. You can also read his old quotes to get that lovely feel of disdain and condescension if these sentiments aren’t strong enough for you.

          • Anonymous

            I hope you realize that you’re basically objecting to the Prime Minister’s tone.

          • Ottawa_Centrist

            Crit, i’m not objecting to anything. 

            Your label of Harper-hater is objectionable, but its use by someone who is ‘reasoning’ makes objection unnecessary.

          • Ottawa_Centrist

            Crit, i’m not objecting to anything. 

            Your label of Harper-hater is objectionable, but its use by someone who is ‘reasoning’ makes objection unnecessary.

          • Anonymous

            The Belgian Solution.

          • Anonymous

            I’d NEVER call this “pro-separatist” but the old “Whether Canada ends up as o­ne national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion” line of Harper’s is hardly a full-throated defense of Canada’s unity and indivisibility.

          • Anonymous

            IMHO, the cherry-picking thing is lame.  Harper has literally thousands of statements supporting national unity in the public record, yet Harper opponents will seize on a single decades-old, cherry-picked, out-of-context quote to claim otherwise.

            When 99.9% of your evidence supports one interpretation, and 0.1% of your evidence supports a different interpretation, it’s probably best to go with the 99.9%.

          • Anonymous

            IMHO, the cherry-picking thing is lame.  Harper has literally thousands of statements supporting national unity in the public record, yet Harper opponents will seize on a single decades-old, cherry-picked, out-of-context quote to claim otherwise.

            When 99.9% of your evidence supports one interpretation, and 0.1% of your evidence supports a different interpretation, it’s probably best to go with the 99.9%.

          • Anonymous

            @Crit_Reasoning:disqus 

            I’m not sure that my cherry-picked example, added to Leroy’s cherry-picked example, added to Ottawa Centrist’s cherry-picked example exactly adds up to just 0.1%, but fair point.

  • Anonymous

    NEVER – EVER would a French-speaking politician who had written such a public letter be able to become prime minister of Canada.  The firewall letter is an encouragement to pave the way for secession of Alberta, as Quebec politicians have done there, to be ready to secede when the time is ripe. His claim that Alberta was built on American and British values is the epitomy of waspish intolerence.  He completely ignores the contributions of those who settled in the Lac LaBiche area and whose rights were violated, those who were there for centuries before my ancestors and whose rights were violated, and those who came from Eastern Europe and elsewhere at the beginning of the 20th century.  The only acceptable value is the wasp value.  Everything else is second-rate.  Mr. Harper’s claim that a strategy by Ottawa to pull up every prejudice about the West existed is the evidence of a delusional mind.  He would have been closer to the truth had he said that the West was ignored. In fact, Harper completely ignores the real, documented strategy of Alberta politicians of the past to use every prejudice about the Frenchies and the East that they could dredge.   I am old enough to remember vividly the Caouette era, and the Manning (père) era and his claim that Alberta would never accept a catholic and French-Canadian as a leader. I was an Albertan for many years, including those when the Let Those Eastern Bastards Freeze In The Dark stickers were paraded everywhere. This strategy is used to this day, and by Mr. Harper.   

    There has been and will ever be a zero tolerance for the kind of opinions expressed in the firewall letter when they come out of the mouth of a French-speaking Canadian.   I don’t share your prejudice and will apply the same measure when such sentiments are expressed by a wasp.

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