Nycole Turmel is the newly minted interim leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. She has stepped in while Jack Layton fights another round with cancer. Much was made about Turmel’s past (present?) associations with Quebec political parties including the separatist/communist Quebec Solidaire.
But what of the people with whom Turmel surrounds herself?
Meet Melisa Ferreira, special assistant to Turmel, according to her Twitter profile. What can we learn from Melisa’s tweets? One, that she supported the Bloc Quebecois, not years ago but during the last federal election!
On April 10th, she retweets Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe’s plea for the Twitterverse to vote for the BQ:
Voter pour le BQ, c’est voter pour les intérêts du Québec, pour des députés qui parlent pour les Québécois. #tlmep #fed2011
She herself questioned the ability of non-Bloc MPs when elected, wondering if they’d support Quebec or fold,
Que font les députés du Québec (non députés du BLOC), ils appuient ou ils plient? #fed2011 #tlmep
She was very much excited to see the Bloc leader on Tout le monde en Parle,
Bien hâte de voir Gilles Duceppe à #tlmep ! Prête à twitter!
Ferreira also writes about the Bloc’s appeal in other regions of Canada (?),
Le BLOC est admiré par les autres régions canadiennes ! #tlmep #fed2011
Regarding Quebec as a country,
2 grands courants : des nations et des peuples qui se dotent d’un pays et les pays qui se réunissent: Pour s’unir il faut exister #tlmep #BQ
She also retweets another regarding Quebec sovereignty,
La famille souverainiste unie, la marche vers un 3e référendum est amorcée, selon Duceppe. http://bit.ly/h1YnKB #congresPQ
Let’s hope that Ferreira has turned over a new leaf and has joined the federalist NDP with a commitment to Canadian unity. If she has, I’d welcome her with open arms to pan-partisan project of making Canada a better place. However, this example may illustrate how the NDP became a different party the night of May 2nd.