The current confusion over the political loyalties of Quebecer Nycole Turmel, the new interim leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) threatens to become a cancer inside the NDP itself from which the party might not fully recover; just as, sadly, its leader, Jack Layton takes time off to fight another battle with a new real cancer in his personal life. For five years, until January 2011, Turmel was a card-carrying member of the Quebec-based separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois. She cancelled her Bloc membership in January this year so she could run for the NDP in last spring’s federal election.
Turmel’s history as a Bloc member is noteworthy, because, as one newspaper editorial said, “The Bloc was created for the explicit purpose of helping to bring into being a sovereign Quebec” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011). In other words, by being a Bloc member, Turmel implied for five years she supported the Bloc’s aim of breaking up Canada and having Quebec become a separate country. Now she’s temporary leader of a federalist party, the NDP, as the Official Opposition in Parliament.
This situation suggests at least four possible scenarios, but I don’t know if any of them is actually applicable. Yet, they merit considering:
1) NDP Leader Jack Layton didn’t know the full extent of Turmel’s former but recent affiliation with the Bloc before recommending her as interim NDP leader while he fights another battle with cancer—which raises questions about why he didn’t know; or
2) Layton did know all the details but miscalculated politically—perhaps because he was preoccupied with his own illness--and might’ve wrongly assumed Turmel’s Bloc history wouldn’t pose serious problems in or out of his own party; or
3) In touting Turmel as interim NDP leader, Layton knew the details about her Bloc past but didn’t tell the NDP caucus or the public about it—perhaps to protect Turmel; or
4) Layton, a former professor with a Ph.D. and an intelligent and skilled politician, learned about Turmel’s Bloc past after the spring election and realized it was problematic for the NDP; unbeknownst to Turmel he offered her up as a sacrificial lamb as interim NDP leader, hoping her Bloc history would come out, and she’d be history.
Turmel seems to dismiss her Bloc membership as irrelevant, claiming she joined the separatists only as a favor to her friend and then-Bloc MP Carole Lavallée (Saint-Bruno-Saint-Hubert). Turmel says she’s always been a federalist, and claims she didn’t realize being a Bloc member would prevent her from running for the NDP until she filled out a questionnaire during the candidate-vetting process (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011). But would an avowed federalist—as Turmel claims she is—join a party that wants to break up Canada?
Why did Turmel feel compelled to join the Bloc as a favor to her friend, Lavallee? Did Lavallee want Turmel on-board because of Turmel’s union background and contacts? As one who’d been president of one of the country’s largest labor and public service unions, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Turmel knew first-hand about politics in at least that union context, since big unions can be intensely political—officially or unofficially. The PSAC has members in every province and territory, and is the largest union in the Canadian Federal Public Sector (federal government). After Turmel joined the Bloc was there a verbal or tacit understanding, at least among some people in the Bloc, that she'd then try to deliver some of her friends and business contacts to the Bloc fold? Did Turmel receive some kind of gift, status, or promise from Lavallee or the Bloc for doing her friend the personal favor of becoming a card-carrying separatist?
Turmel’s alleged naïveté about joining the Bloc is baffling, since she’s from Quebec where the Bloc’s goal of becoming a separate country from Canada was so prevalent for so long; and because she was no stranger to politics. So, she would’ve been familiar with the Bloc’s intentions. Lately, she’s been publicly dismissing criticism over her past Bloc membership, as though joining the Bloc was a meaningless whim and not significant, even though she kept her membership for five years; returning her membership card only a few months before running as a federalist NDP candidate in last May's federal election. In that context alone, some might wonder if Turmel is actually a separatist disguised as a federalist for her own duplicitous reasons.
A Toronto Star editorial said "The issue isn’t whether Turmel has changed parties or political views over the years. Lots of people do that...Rather, it’s the nature of the party and how recently she was involved...Turmel cancelled her Bloc membership card only weeks before running for the NDP" (Aug. 2, 2011). The paper also claims she has kept her previous membership in “the provincial Québec Solidaire party, a far-left group that is also sovereignist, as well as one with the New Democrats” and “doesn’t seem to have seen any contradiction in these overlapping loyalties” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011).
In fairness, Turmel reportedly says she’s never voted for the Bloc; voted against separation during the 1980 and 1995 referendums; and refused overtures in the past two elections from Gilles Duceppe, the former Bloc leader who resigned after he lost his own seat in the May 2011 election, because she disagreed with the Bloc’s quest for sovereignty (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011). Turmel has apologized for going to the Bloc party: “I’m sorry. I signed a (Bloc membership) card, but at the same time, I’m here now,” she reportedly told QMI Agency (Kristy Kirkup, Sun Media, Aug. 2, 2011).
In Turmel’s brief resignation letter to the Bloc—dated Jan. 19, 2011 and published in The Globe and Mail—the English translation quotes Turmel saying that returning her membership card “has nothing to do with the party's policies, I am doing this for personal reasons" (Aug. 1, 2011). What does that mean? Although, as noted above, Turmel said she previously wouldn’t run for the Bloc because she disagreed with its “quest for sovereignty” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011), she suggests otherwise, in claiming that retracting her Bloc membership “has nothing to do with the party’s policies…”
In this context, is Turmel is just an opportunist? Did she renounce her Bloc membership in January 2011 because she sensed the separatist Bloc would be trounced in the spring federal election in her province of Quebec? Did she sense the NDP would do well in Quebec in the election and she would do well to be an NDP candidate? Did she then decide to run for the NDP, because it seemed convenient and she wanted in on the NDP gravy train as an elected MP? Were these the “personal reasons” to which Turmel referred in returning her Bloc membership card?
The Toronto Star claims Turmel said she never discussed the Bloc membership with Layton directly, but did tell him the Bloc and Liberals both approached her about running…“She said the issue never came up again, not even when Layton informed her he would recommend she become interim leader while he undergoes treatment for a new kind of cancer” (Aug. 2, 2011). In that story Turmel said she didn’t know if her NDP caucus knew she’d been a Bloc member when they voted unanimously last week for her as interim leader. “I cannot say 100 per cent knew, but a lot of them knew that I had worked with the Bloc…I didn’t hide anything. It just happened that it did not come up” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011).
Despite Turmel's reported claim, above, that she "didn't hide anything" (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011), she did seem to hide things: specifically, for five years she was a card-carrying member of the Quebec-based separatist party whose aim is to break up Canada, with Quebec becoming a separate country. Saying “It just happened that it did not come up” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011) seems a convenient way for Turmel to explain away her lack of openness and implicit dishonesty about her political past with the Bloc.
And I believe something that notable doesn’t just ‘happen to not come up.’ Turmel had to decide to not bring it up, perhaps because she sensed the potential negative repercussions for her if she did. If she’d acknowledged her Bloc background as an NDP candidate last spring, voters might’ve doubted her political loyalties and intentions and not elected her; and if she’d revealed the details, unambiguously, to Jack Layton and the NDP caucus, they might not have endorsed her candidacy, or not supported her as interim leader in Layton’s absence.
Overall, Turmel has been, no doubt inadvertently, dragging the NDP, her leader, and herself through the mud in a very public way. In doing so, she has created a perceived conflict of interest and has put the NDP, its leader, and herself in a compromising situation; and she simply seems deceptive or unbelievably naïve for apparently thinking nobody would learn she was a card-carrying separatist for five years until just a few months ago.
Turmel also suggests too many people are fussing over her perceived mistakes, and implies the public and media should be focusing on the NDP’s goals, not on her. “It’s not the person. It is about the issue and the issue in the NDP is to make sure that we advance the agenda of Canadians…It’s not about Nycole Turmel. It’s about…doing a great job” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011). Here, Turmel is just wrong and implies she’s trying to minimize her responsibility in this mess; or she really doesn’t understand the potential severity of the problem she helped create--by not being fully open, long ago, about her Bloc history. In fact, contrary to Turmel’s claim, above, that this matter “is not about Nycole Turmel” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011), this issue is about Nycole Turmel. She had a huge hand in creating these present problems because she didn’t disclose, clearly, that she was a card-carrying separatist party member for five years--and gave it up only a few months ago so she could run for the NDP.
But despite Turmel’s perceived missteps in her brief elected life thus far, her leader and other NDP officials also seem to have helped create the predicament. To this end, two of Canada’s major newspapers savaged Turmel, Jack Layton and the NDP in their editorials. The Globe and Mail argued that if Layton, “who publicly declared for Ms. Turmel when he announced his leave for cancer treatment, and the party's council, knew of her history and still backed her for the interim leader's job, then they are reckless with the trust given them by Canadians. If they did not, then they are incompetent” (Globe and Mail, Aug. 2, 2011). The Toronto Star suggests Turmel doesn’t have the moral authority to lead the NDP, even temporarily: “Canada needs a strong official opposition, and Turmel has left herself too vulnerable to attacks on her credibility and, ultimately, her dedication to national unity” (Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 2011).
To borrow a religious notion, Turmel, Jack Layton, and the NDP executive don’t seem to realize or remember the concepts of ‘sins of omission’ (leaving out important information to protect oneself or others; or doing something without thinking or considering it might be wrong), and ‘sins of commission’ (knowingly and willingly doing something and knowing it’s wrong; a conscious decision, being aware of the pros and cons of performing the act and doing it anyway). Were Turmel’s five-year affair with the Bloc Quebecois until just a few months ago, and Layton’s and the NDP’s knowledge or lack thereof about Turmel’s separatist history and their action-lack of action in that regard, acts of omission, or of commission?
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