Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Gerald Caplan calls out the non-stop and substance-free gotcha politics facing the NDP since the public started recognizing that it had a legitimate chance to form government:

It never stops and never will. The moment the NDP seems even close to power, the knives come out.

The election was May 2. The NDP's rise began barely two weeks prior. Here's what it faced in these past three months:

"MassageGate." Suddenly, just before the election, it became necessary for the Sun media to smear Jack Layton over a massage he had 15 years earlier, and for Christie Blatchford to repeat the smear, even agreeing it was a smear.

"LasVegasGate." The NDP makes history in the election. It sweeps Quebec and emerges as Official Opposition. But its new MPs are immediately dismissed as a joke. Like a gang of bullies picking on someone who can't defend herself, reporters fall all over themselves to mock a candidate who spent part of the election in Las Vegas. She becomes a symbol of the immaturity of the new NDP MPs, even though few reporters had ever spoken to a single one of them. Having finally met them, these stories abruptly ceased.

"Jack'sCancerGate." Within seconds of Mr. Layton's announcement that he was temporarily stepping aside because of a new cancer but intended to return in the fall, the burial of the NDP began. The NDP was finished without Mr. Layton, even though he hadn't resigned. He was irreplaceable. Day after day for an entire week, the rhetorical question got asked and re-asked: Can the NDP make it Jack-less? The answer was seen to be self-evident.

"ComeCleanAboutCancerGate." Out of nowhere, the cry goes up that Mr. Layton must divulge everything about his cancer. What was he hiding? The world had a right and a need to know every single detail. Soon the rest of the pack picked it up. Everyone wanted to know something that was none of their business and of no conceivable use if they did know.

And now, finally, "TurmelGate"...

It's only a matter of time until Quebec realizes the province and its interests are no longer a priority for much of Canada, especially for a right-wing government that Québécois repudiated and where the west and Ontario dominate. For all of us who can't envision a Canada sans Quebec, there is dangerous potential here. Unexpectedly, the NDP has emerged as the best federalist bridge between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Jack Layton and Nycole Turmel are the embodiment of that bridge.

- And T.C. Norris also weighs in on Turmel:

(N)ot only did Turmel spurn the Bloc, she did so to run for a party that historically had never had much electoral success in Quebec. So she supported a federalist party in a circumstance where she might have reasonably expected that to be a political liability.

The fact that many in Quebec such as Turmel spurned the pro-independence party for a federalist party should be celebrated not mocked. Turmel is a long-time NDP member and supporter, her true allegiance. Her opponents in any case include many with previous sovereignist backgrounds: Liberal Jean Lapierre, who served in Martin's cabinet, was a co-founder of the Bloc, and Maxime Bernier, who is now back in Harper's cabinet, worked for PQ Premier Bernard Landry, a very serious supporter of Quebec independence.

Turmel represents exactly what we want to see Quebecers do about federalism, Mr. Rae, embrace it.

- Meanwhile, Caplan's list takes on an even darker tone when juxtaposed with the Cons' latest abuse of Abousfian Abdelrazik - as the declaration that Canadians should mindlessly trust their government's spin as to which undesirables should be arbitrarily stripped of all rights seems far too easily transferable to the Cons' willingness to play up any issue they can for political gain.

- Finally, as Aaron Wherry notes, Canadians for Tax Fairness are making the case as to why we should feel good about paying the reasonable price of civilization.