The Shotgun Blog
« What Does He Know? | Main | Understanding The Enemy »
Saturday, May 22, 2004
The Anything-but-Liberals Bloc
The Bloc Québécois is probably set to sweep most of Québec's seats in the upcoming elections. But as I've written here, the Bloc of 2004 is not really the separatist party of 1993 but more of a left-leaning regional populist party. And the Bloc has been getting pretty strange endorsements as reported by the Montreal Gazette.
On May 20, Bill Curry wrote:
The Canadian Auto Workers, led by Buzz Hargrove, will back the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec instead of the New Democrats, because of the separatist party's fight for workers' rights in Parliament, says the head of the union's Quebec wing.[...] "Buzz has never hidden the fact that he would meet with the Bloc Quebecois, that he had the support of the Bloc."
Desnoyers [head of CAW's Quebec wing] and a Bloc MP, who were in attendance, said Hargrove told the crowd of about 75 union members: "In Quebec, it's the Bloc, and in the rest of the country, it's the NDP."
Then Josée Legault reports on May 21:
Sovereignty is hardly mentioned in the platform with the main themes being integrity and the more traditional defence of Quebec's interests. That makes it safe even for diehard federalists to support it.Coupled with the anybody-but-the-Liberals feeling, it prompted Action democratique du Quebec president Guy Laforest to make quite a sortie. First, he said, get the Liberals out. Second, get the Conservatives in. Third, the only way to achieve this in Quebec is to vote Bloc. End of story.
Leaders of a major labour union and a right-wing party agreeing to throw their support behind the Bloc? What is the world coming to?
[Edited on 5:12 PM EST to provide additional context in the second quote]
Posted by Laurent Moss on May 22, 2004 in Canadian Politics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d8345ae11b69e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Anything-but-Liberals Bloc:
» Buzz Hargrove, the Bloc and endorsements from Le blog de Polyscopique
In response to my preceding post pointing out that not only is Gilles Duceppe's official curriculum vitae on the Bloc Québécois website silent on his communist past, but also sports an obvious hole for the 1971-1983 period, the blog This... [Read More]
Tracked on 2006-01-20 5:23:31 PM
Comments
The comments to this entry are closed.