Hebert is at it again...
Jack Layton's sliding into irrelevance
Jun 01, 2009 04:30
Chantal Hébert
MONTREAL
Three days after the Conservatives drew 2,000 supporters to a Montreal fundraiser last month, barely a hundred people showed up for a general meeting of the Quebec wing of the federal New Democratic Party in the same city.
While the two exercises were fundamentally different in nature, the high profile of the first versus the non-existent one of the second highlight the reality that, in politics, it is better to be powerful and despised than to be inconsequential and ignored.
These days, the Conservatives and the New Democrats are being squeezed out of the Quebec scene by a resurgent Liberal party. But in contrast with Harper, Jack Layton and the NDP are not so much being rejected by Quebecers as being declared redundant.
In fact, while Layton was gamely telling his sparse audience that the New Democrats were on the move in Quebec, Michael Ignatieff's lieutenant, Denis Coderre, was busy networking at a weekend meeting of the provincial Liberals.
It is virtually a done deal that the two organizations will unite behind a star candidate in the Montreal riding of Outremont in a joint bid to beat the NDP's Thomas Mulcair in the next election.
Campaigning for the first time against a strong pro-Liberal tide, Layton's lone Quebec MP will have his toughest federal fight ever on his hands.