Toronto Star Confirms My Previous Post Was Accurate...

My most recent blog post was in reference to a Bloc MP accusing the PM of propaganda for sending students in Quebec, as well as the rest of the country, letters encouraging them to visit our National Parks. I mentioned the silence of all the opposition leaders, as well as the MSM on the outrageous statements made by the separatist MP. Well, it turns out the Toronto Star has finally ran an editorial on it, but just bashes the PM rather than call any of the other federalist politicians on their silence.

"When Quebec separatists stumble and provide a political gift to the federalist cause, it’s part of the Prime Minister’s job description to make the most of it — not for himself, but for Canada.

So when Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavalée put her foot in it this week by accusing Ottawa of mounting a federalist propaganda campaign with invitations to students to visit Canada’s national parks for free, Stephen Harper should have been able to hit a home run for the cause of national unity.

Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau would have stepped up to the plate, regardless of their partisan stripes. Separatism may be quiescent in Quebec these days, but this is also a time of political tumult in the province, where the federalist banner is in retreat because of recent stumbles by Liberal Premier Jean Charest. The Parti Québécois seems poised to regain power after the next provincial election.

Against that backdrop, any Canadian PM would move in for the kill and belittle the Bloc for displaying such paranoia over the attraction that Banff’s rugged beauty might hold for the malleable minds of young Quebecers seduced by free admission into national parks.

Harper’s killer instinct, however, is more partisan than patriotic. To be sure, he beat up on the Bloc — but only enough to make the larger, improbable point that Canada’s opposition parties can never be trusted with national unity. The Liberals and New Democrats, Harper argued, have been and always will be in bed with the Bloc and should thus be disqualified from ever wielding power.

The PM seems unable to resist dredging up the abortive Liberal-NDP coalition plan of late 2008, in which the BQ merely agreed not to vote to bring down the government for a specified period — even though Harper had sought a similar understanding when he was opposition leader.

Apart from the partisan pettiness, this is the equivalent of scoring an own goal in soccer. Rather than trying to drag down the opposition, Harper should be using this BQ gift to talk up Canada in Quebec."

As for the Star's praise of Mulroney and Chretien, and their supposed superhero powers against the separatists, I suggest the Star look up the origins of the Bloc, particularly one Lucienne Bouchard for the Mulroney connection. And Chretien's dismissive attitude in the 1995 referendum almost split the country up forever.