Yesterday a story appeared in La Presse about Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc misusing funds and paying a Bloc staffer with money out of their parliamentary Budget.Today the National Post followed up with an English version of the story.
Mr.Duceppe,has subsequently said he is stepping away from politics to defend his integrity.
I can only imagine most people reading these stories and discussing the events debating about whether he/they did it or not.
That is exactly the question whoever released the story to the press wants you to ask. However,it is not the one you should be asking.
What you should be debating is this: If this has been going on for 7 years why is the story being released now. Surely,somebody inside the Bloc or PQ knew.They could have let this slip out sooner,why now?
The answer of course is that Duceppe has been throwing up trial balloons about the executive of the Bloc deciding the fate of the PQ’s current leader,Pauline Marois.
There has been speculation that Mr.Duceppe has been trying to push her out and take over the leadership himself.
Could this story have been slipped to La Presse by a Marois sympathizer in an attempt to thwart Duceppe from making a come back? Of course!
However the PQ are not the only one with something at stake here. Right now the party is not polling well.If Duceppe had have forced Marois out and brought the PQ back into prominence then their sister party,the Bloc may have also made a comeback federally.
This would have hurt the NDP who is already smarting from a recent defection and it also would have hurt the Liberals who are trying to make a comeback( on the backs of the NDP) of their own.
Remember the interim leader of the NDP is a former Bloc member as are numerous members of the NDP caucus. The NDP defector was of course also privy to all of this and quite likely now so is her new party.
So any of these people could have leaked this to La Presse.
You can speculate all you want,but this is politics at its dirtiest!