If the stock market were not giving the national media new red meat to gorge on, they would still be crunching the bones of NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel. It hasn’t helped her cause that she appears to be hapless during news conferences.
The Turmel teapot tempest also draws attention to staff work in the leader’s office. One assumes that most of what she says is calibrated and parsed before she heads out for a prime-time appearance. If that is so, the script needs work.
There were two progressive federal political parties in Quebec – the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, or Jack and Gilles, were seen at many of the same political events in support of many of the same demands. That is until May 2, when the Bloc was decimated, leaving only four right-wing Bloc MPs in the House.
The NDP took almost all of the Bloc’s seats, riding into Ottawa on the popularity of Jack Layton. You’d think that the political class would be pleased that Quebecers went from the separatist Bloc to the federalist NDP in one fell swoop. But no.
Why are they all piling on Turmel? To call it hypocritical is an understatement.
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