Anyone supporting a non-Quebec candidate for the NDP leadership will need to wrestle with this question.
There is a real danger of the party, if it chooses a leader from someplace else, facing the same backlash that the Diefenbaker Tories faced in the early 60's. In the 1958 election, the Tories swept Quebec for the first time in decades...but then Dief pissed away Quebec support by not naming any Quebec MP's to any important ministries(possibly because of Dief's personal prejudices against francophones and Catholics, both of which are well-documented.) This was interpreted by Quebecers as a declaration that THAT party had no intention of rewarding them for their support. Result: Tory support collapsed in Quebec in 1962, and didn't recover until 1984-22 years later.
I think there's a real danger that if the NDP, after the massive Quebec gains of 2010, chooses a new leader from somewhere else, Quebec voters will take that as a slap in the face(and probably go straight back to the Bloc). And it's likely that it would take at least as long for the NDP to recover as it did for the PC's.
Which non-Quebec NDP leadership candidate, as you folks see it, has the best chance of keeping Quebec in the NDP column, and, regardless of who you support, what do you think the NDP will have to do to prevent mass Quebec defections in the event of the election of a non-Quebec leader? And which such candidate has enough strong points that they're actually worth taking the risk of losing dozens of Quebec seats? If you're backing a non-Quebec candidate, that's a question that candidate will have to answer and answer extremely convincingly.
And one final question...
I know some people have argued that the NDP also has to make gains in the West to win next time(and of course this is true)but won't those gains be meaningless if their accompanied with heavy Quebec losses?