Separatists in Quebec are a slightly happier bunch this week. Courtesy of the Bloc Québécois' clever leaking of NDP Interim Leader Nycole Turmel's correspondence to the Globe and Mail, they have learned how much the eastern English-Canadian establishment really, really misses them.
This is so for two good reasons.
First, from the perspective of Canada's two conservative parties (the blue real one and the reserve red one), if they can't make any headway in Quebec -- and they likely can't -- then the best possible victor in Quebec is the Bloc Québécois. For all practical purposes, a strong Bloc removes French-speaking Quebec from the Canadian political calculus. Toronto- and Calgary-based parties can then focus on competing in English Canada without any inconvenient need to compete in, think about, or build in Quebec. Perfect!
Second, a strong Bloc keeps those Quebec seats away from a competitor. As modern Canadian history shows, winning big in Quebec can provide a federal party with an excellent base for future national victory. If our blue and red teams can't have that advantage, they don't want a competitor to have it.
In particular, they don't want the New Democrats to have that advantage.
This largely explains the vicious press campaign waged against the NDP's new Quebec MPs when they were elected in May, in my view.
And it is, in my view, the underlying political agenda behind the current fun around Ms. Turmel, so eagerly leapt on by all the usual suspects.
Certainly, none of the current noise has anything to do with the unity of the country.
Because if the unity of the country were the issue, then the recruitment of an articulate, effective, high-profile female Francophone Quebec labour leader to the cause of Canada would be widely celebrated -- not subjected to buckets of obsessive anger.
But "anger" is another word for "fear." And the voices of the past fear change -- including the arrival on the federal scene of a federal New Democratic team one step away from victory.
In the long game, all of these buckets of obsessive anger represent opportunity as well as trouble for Ms. Turmel. They represent a peg -- like all the demonization aimed at Stephen Harper early in his career -- that might ultimately serve her well.
Ms. Turmel is no stranger to Canada, having headed a large national Canadian union. She can play against all of this week's heat by talking about why she supports Canada, loves Canada, feels at home as a Francophone Quebecker at Vancouver's Pride Parade and the Regatta in Newfoundland (where she's been this week). The people of Canada like the idea that Canada is healing, I'd warrant. They might well therefore come to find themselves liking this new French-speaking national leader from Quebec, and her offer to be part of a better future for their families and for our country.