The Separatist NDP Quebec Caucus

Jean-Louis Fortin of QMI concern trolls the NDP's Quebec caucus:

MONTREAL - Quebecers elected a good number of separatists when they voted en masse for NDP candidates in the May 2 federal election - perhaps without even knowing it. 

Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP's new MP for Montreal's Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie riding, proudly confessed to QMI Agency he continues to campaign for Quebec Solidaire, the provincial leftist party that promotes independence.

Apparently the running definition of a 'separatist' in Quebec is someone who has at any time in their lives supported the cause of or voted for a separatist party, regardless of current opinions:

Gilles Rheaume, Quebec independence activist and spokesman for a group that claims to fight "Canadian francophobia," said he isn't surprised by the number of Quebec NDP MPs who are separatists or who had professed support for sovereignty. 

"(The NDP) was infiltrated by sovereigntists since the beginning of the 1990s," Rheaume said.

Rheaume estimated at least a dozen new NDP MPs voted yes in the 1995 referendum, or had supported the sovereigntist movement in some way.

Rheaume believes that the NDP has been 'infiltrated' by separatists; maybe akin to how the party was 'infiltrated' by the democratic socialist wing of the party, "The Waffle", during the 1970s?  How well did that work out for that particular entryist group?

During the 1995 referendum on independence 49.4% of Quebeckers who voted did so in favour of independence.  I suppose that these individuals should be discounted then from federalist politics forever for the future?  Painted and smeared by the broad brush of supporting Quebec's national aspirations at a time when it seemed as if the bruised relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada could never be mended again.  Shouldn't it then be viewed as a significant good sign for Canadian national unity that Quebeckers who once voted to separate from the country are now embracing a federalist party over a sovereigntist one?

As pogge noted the other day, there will be a lot of journalists aiming to undermine the NDP by conjuring up all sorts of 'tid bits' on whatever these new NDP MPs from Quebec might have said or did say sixteen years ago.  However, there's also a tinge of elitist condensation from the two establishment parties (the Conservatives and the Liberals) that the NDP with all of its new 'brat pack' MPs cannot possibly expect to be capable and competent enough of 'managing Quebec' when they themselves failed with almost catastrophic consequences for the country.  They're the new players to Quebec federal politics who have had no electoral success in the past, let alone traction amongst the Quebec public.  Now after a single election the party now holds 59 of Quebec's 75 seats in the House of Commons.

Many have and will say that the inclusion of former separatists into the NDP's Quebec big tent is going to cause chaos within the party.  I believe though that it's possible that the Quebec caucus as well as the grassroots that the NDP is going to be working hard to development, could become a source of policy development in the future on the political left in this country; in addition to acting as a sort of forge for the construction of a consensus for the task of bringing Quebec into the Constitution.