Turmel Appointment Is Strategically Brilliant
As nearly as I can gather, the entire punditocracy has missed the subtle reasoning behind Jack Layton’s appointment of Nycole Turmel as interim leader. At first, I also wrote this decision off as a blunder of epic proportions, but then I took some time to actually think past the obvious.
A rookie MP with a modest political acumen and sovereigntist ties is an odd choice, especially given the number of solid performers and rising stars within the party, who have contributed far more to the party’s recent success than has Turmel. This list would include such names as Libby Davies, Thomas Mulcair, Charlie Angus, Pat Martin, and Megan Leslie,… to name but a few.
Upon initial consideration, the move seems like a tip of the cap to Quebec where the NDP has enjoyed a remarkable breakthrough, and on that level it makes sense. However, as was immediately revealed to the public, Turmel either was a separatist, or at the very least appears to have been a separatist, up until very recently. This information led many to write her off, and question the wisdom behind the decision to make her leader.
The Conservatives have enjoyed great success in terms of tarring both the NDP and Liberals with the separatist brush ever since his previous government was almost replaced by a coalition that included the Bloc Quebecois.
Harper, having conveniently forgotten his past overtures to the Bloc, and having succeeded in bullying a weak Governor General into proroguing Parliament, proceeded to spend a lot of money on attack ads to condition the collective Canadian consciousness to equate any association with separatists to some kind of betrayal of Canada. National unity has always been a political tinderbox, but never has it been entirely impossible to talk to a sovereigntist, or include someone with a separatist past in your party.
For better or worse, Brian Mulroney was able to include active separatists in his government, even going so far as making one, Lucien Bouchard, the Canadian Ambassador to France. There was no hue and cry from other parties that a sovereigntist could never change his mind and decide to co-operate with federalists. No one accused the Progressive Conservatives of betraying Canada. It is different now, and a lot of Conservative money was spent to make it so.
People should not forget that the sovereigntist movement had its origins in left wing / progressive ideology. The Bloc Quebecois as a party, and Gilles Duceppe himself are not that different from the NDP and Jack Layton if you remove the sovereignty issue from the equation. The fact that Layton and the NDP were able to score such huge gains at the expense of the Bloc is directly attributable to the fact that many sovereigntists changed their minds about Quebec separation and supported the remaining party that was the best fit.
The NDP success in Quebec was a success for federalism, and the NDP should therefore be celebrated as champions of national unity.
The Conservatives cannot let this perception settle into the minds of Canadians. They need to create some kind of equivalency between the Bloc and the NDP if they are to be assured of containing a surging NDP in the next election. It is entirely foreseeable that the Conservatives will spend a lot of money and negative energy in creating this identity factor to poison the NDP in the rest of Canada.
Jack Layton, has probably gamed out a likely scenario in the next five years in which the NDP accepts many former Bloc members, operatives, and candidates into the fold. In so doing he runs the risk of having the NDP “exposed” as having separatist ties at every turn. he would be foolish not to include former separatists in future plans, given their organization and extreme numbers, but it could turn into a slow death from a thousand tiny cuts. By the time the Conservative propaganda machine would be done with the NDP, no sane Canadian would even consider the party to be Canadian.
Instead of suffering this fate, Jack Layton has instead put the kindest gentlest face he can on the inevitable association between the NDP and the movement formerly known as Quebec separatism. Nycole Turmel is a former Quebec sovereigntist, and she is now the interim leader of the NDP. Canada has five years to get used to the fact that sovereigntists have changed their minds, and that it is a good thing.
In making Turmel leader, Layton has removed an important offensive weapon from the Conservatives’ strategic arsenal. In the future, if they happen to discover that a former Bloc operative is now working for the NDP, it is no longer a news story. If they dig up some separatist dirt on an NDP candidate in the next election, no one will care. None of that will seem significant after the NDP is led by a former sovereigntist, and is proud to be led by her.
Nice move Jack!!
- by Tony Loeffen
