NDP Running Separatist Candidate in Montreal

Marching with 'Uncle' Thom Muclair & radio bore Anne Lagacé Dowson

As I said a couple of posts back, I'll be writing about local candidates running in the federal election and I hope to bring to your attention a perspective you'll never see in the mainstream press.

A recent article in Le Devoir. discussing a Quebec Solidaire weekend convention, caught my eye because of a paragraph buried at the tail-end of the story.

"A Québec solidaire militant, Alexandre Boulerice, also a spokesperson for CUPE, is the NDP candidate in the constituency Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie. In an email exchange, Mr. Boulerice  underlined that he was still a member of the Québec solidaire and a separatist. "Anyone who supports the NDP program can be a member. We can place in the forefront, social and environmental issues before the national question." Le Devoir

I'll gently remind readers that the Quebec Solidaire, is a much more radical and sovereignist political party than the Parti Quebecois. It's the party of Amir Khadir and the happy home of Quebec's Communist Party, which is an officially recognized wing of the party. At a weekend convention last week, the party called for raising the minimum wage to $16 an hour and the party's leader, Françoise David, called for deliberately slowing down our economic growth because it's bad for the health of citizens. LINK{FR}

That the NDP would run a communist socialist is perhaps understandable, but a separatist is a little much to expect, even from the NDP. It should be noted it's the second time around for the sovereignist who also ran under the NDP banner back in 2008, where he finished third with 8,500 votes.
His official NDP NPD website

Here from his blog is part of an incredible letter written in rebuttal to a collegue in Quebec Solidaire who is arguing that members of the party should vote for Gilles Duceppe's Bloc Quebecois

Reply to Francois Cyr, Quebec Solidaire activist who encourages people to vote strategicly for the Bloc
Dear Francis, 

I have a series of questions for you:
What is the the story behind  this text on pressegauche.org over the need to vote for the Bloc? Since when does an activist in Quebec Solidaire promote the concept of "strategic voting?" Is it a question of  promoting the "best of the worst?" Is this the new strategy for the Quebec election?  Is that what you'll tell people in the face of the dangers of a majority Charest government? And so we should all vote for the PQ, in order to stop the evil Liberals (or ADQ)?
Don't you realize that the Bloc is the little brother of the Parti Quebecois that you battle? Comprised essentially of the same activists, the same people who finance and make the decisions? Don't you see that the Bloc may appear more progressive because it will never be able  to exercise power, unlike its PQ sponsor in Quebec?
What is this mania to peddle the same old Bloc cliches that say that  the NDP is centralist? You've read the Sherbrooke Declaration adopted at the 2006 convention? What do you think of the possibility for Quebec to withdraw from a federal program with compensation? Is it centralizing?
Do you remember that Jack Layton, as a young student in Montreal, militated in favour of McGill University becoming French? Have you considered that Mulcair worked for the Council of the French language in the first term of Levesque? No, you push this under the carpet. Do you counter the Bloc arguments by pointing out that the NDP caucus supported - last spring - a motion that Bill 101 applies to federally regulated companies in Quebec .     No. A strange silence suddenly prevails  ... LINK TO THE NDP CANDIDATE'S OFFICIAL BLOG

Layton +separatist = NDP NPD

What is completely stunning about all this is that Alexandre Boulerice writes to his confrere, another Bloc solidaire militant, Francois Cyr, on an official NDP website.

For Layton and the NDP, their new-found strength in Quebec hasn't led to an avalanche of people lining up to run for office.
With so many elections so closely bunched over the last few years, NDP candidates have been essentially cannon fodder and few want to re-live the experience of taking a month and a half off of their life, working the shopping centres and street corners, just to get their ass kicked in the election.

In The Lac-St-Jean region, the NDP has found just one person to represent them so far, a retired unionist. Link{FR}

The party is hard put to find enough poteaus to fill the ranks.
In case you didn't know, a 'Poteau' is a disparaging insider political term that refers to a candidate who has zero chance to win and runs only to show the party colours. The candidate is usually a young idealist and his or her campaign consists largely of just placing election posters on city light poles, and thus the term 'poteau' (pole.)

Here's a classic example of a POTEAU;

Nicholas Thibodeau, is running in Mont-
Royal, a riding that consists in part with one of Quebec's wealthier  Anglo/Jewish communities of Hampstead/Cote Saint Luc, coupled with an across the railroad tracks working ethnic community in Snowdon.
The Liberal party has had a stranglehold on the riding all the way back to Pierre-Elliot Trudeau and it is presently held by Irwin Cotler the ex-justice  Minister, who is running once again,  this time challenged by another high-profile Jew, Saulie Zajdel.

Mr. Thibodeau is an environmentalist who dreams of spending 2 billion dollars to cover the Decarie Expressway, a big issue in a riding that probably has more BMWs and Mercedes than anywhere else in Quebec. He has run unsuccessfully before, winning an amazing 7.7% of the vote. GOOD LUCK!!!

By the way, Mr Thibodeau's campaign poster omits the English version of the riding's name, 'Mount Royal' and actually has different messages in English and in French, which is, I guess, a neat metaphor for NDP policy.