Another alert follower of the Gaffeometer has let me know about BQ incumbent Yvon Levesque's racist nonsense. Actually, he was only saying that his constituents are racist, but let's not split hairs:
Yvon Levesque, the incumbent MP for the riding of Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, had to apologize Friday after he said "certain voters won’t choose the NDP anymore because they are fielding a First Nations candidate."Wow! That's pretty stupid, especially in a riding that contains much of Quebec's north. It's pretty stupid, from a party that represents themselves as left-wing, but appeals to a certain pure laine cohort whose Quebec nationalism doesn't include immigrants or Quebec's first peoples. It's pretty stupid.
Actually, I will split hairs. Levesque is probably right, in that some of his constituents are precisely the sorts of ethnic nationalists Mordecai Richler wrote about nearly twenty years ago. But unless the context of his remarks (which I haven't really found) was "They won't vote for the NDP candidate because he's Cree, and that's a terrible reason to vote against someone," it doesn't get a pass.
I'm uncertain how prominent Leveque is around Quebec, but he seems from here like a bit of an invisible backbencher, so I'm going to tentatively say (Prom)1 x (Sig)2 = 2 more for the BQ.
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In a campaign where I still expect them to gain seats, the Bloc are setting a theme of running a brutal campaign. This morning their event was for Duceppe and the local candidate "to go for a walk along a pier", with the media waiting with the Bloc campaign bus parked "in front of a cemetery". These terrible optics prompted a gloomy article on their prospects from the CBC.
In contrast to the smooth campaign last time, their organizers seem adrift. I'm not sure this can be spun as a gaffe but it seems like another red flag for decision-making and a hint at what else may come.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/04/the-blocs-downhill-battle.html
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