Finger To The Wind

For someone who has been involved in and with politics as a career, Nycole Turmel is doing her utmost to portray herself as innocent of sentiments and sympathies that have led her to support political parties with an obvious and definite agenda which she now denies having any truck with. It's hard to believe that she could be that naive about how her long-time membership with the Bloc would be construed, as an interim leader of the federal NDP.

But then, why should she have been concerned? After all, the elected, respected leader of the NDP himself was certainly fully aware that his star candidate for election in Quebec during the last federal election had membership in both a provincial and a federal political party whose major contention and focus is sovereignty. And Jack Layton had no problem with that. In fact, his own sympathies were called into question with his support for a simple majority for secession from Confederation.

The leader of the federal NDP was fully cognizant and obviously comfortable with the facts that have now been brought into the open that have brought the question of Nycole Turmel's choice as interim leader of his party into question, putting it mildly. Jack Layton thought it was to his party's advantage to embrace Nycole Turmel and her politics. And Nycole Turmel feels it is to her advantage to present herself as the candidate to fit the bill.

The party has been irremediably tainted by choices happily made by Jack Layton resulting in his triumph in Quebec. Canada has not been particularly well served in its political leaders. Elizabeth May of the Green Party is advancing the theory debunked so far by science that the electromagnetic radiation from Wi-Fi poses a health menace to our young.

Jack Layton is all for French-language primacy in all federally mandated government business conducted in Quebec. And casts himself as prepared to introduce legislation in the House of Commons to further that initiative. It's his contention that all Supreme Court Judges should be functionally bilingual; language trumping professionalism.

And Nycole Turmel insists she is a federalist, despite being a card-carrying member of the sovereigntist Bloc, supporting them through donations, and belonging as well to the separatist Quebec Solidaire. While being at the same time a long-time member of the NDP. Covering all her political bases, while president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

The irony of supporting political parties insistent on separation while being gainfully employed by the federal government appears lost on Ms. Turmel, equating well with Quebec feeling comfortable blackmailing the rest of Canada into ongoing financial support, while agitating for independence.

It's a Quebec cultural thing, obviously; aggrievement and entitlement.