It's often said that a people usually gets the leaders it deserves. I'd say this applies very well to the Québécois people these days. Gilles Duceppe, the runaway kid, seems to be the perfect guy to represent us. Nobody runs away from a fight faster than him. Just think of how fast he ran away, back to Ottawa with his tail between his legs, as soon as Pauline Marois decided to run against him for the Parti Québécois leadership. With 2/3 of Quebec ready to run away from Afghanistan now, who better to represent us? Quebecers are not cowards, they're just "pacifists". At least that's the argument some use, to claim the moral high ground while running to hide under the bed. Why fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda when we can let them massacre those people in Afghanistan who trusted us to help them rejoin the community of nations with dignity? Why fight these killers when we can let them recreate their terrorists training camps and eventually, when they're good and ready, follow us here to slaughter us like sheeps? I guess we were just "pacifists" as well when we voted massively against fighting the Nazis during WWII. If it were only for us, our French cousins would all speak German today; they owe English Canada, who voted massively for, a big debt of gratitude. No doubt about it, what's left of the Québécois people truly inherited plenty from the French! Are we going to continue to live in denial and ignore the terrorist threat until we get hit hard? The French ignored the Nazi threat until the day they woke up to the sound of Nazi boots marching on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris, didn't they?
Yet, Duceppe was holding a much different discourse not so long ago.
Speaking about Sept 11th, 2001 in front of the MCFR in Montreal on June 3rd, 2004 (translation by me):
"Let's be perfectly clear: nothing, absolutely nothing, at no time and in no way, justifies the deliberate killing of innocent civilians. We must steadfastly hunt down and judge those responsible for these barbaric acts.
That's why the Bloc Québécois didn't hesitate an instant to support a multilateral armed intervention, under Nato command and based on a United Nations Security Council resolution, to seek out those who planned these operations and were hiding in Afghanistan and remove from power the Taliban government that was harboring them."
I guess the ability to flip-flop and do 180s is another one of our great attributes, perfectly reflected in the BQ leader. I just wonder exactly when Gilles Duceppe and Stéphane Dion got the memo telling them that beyond 2009, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will suddenly stop hating and wanting to kill us, allowing us to be on our merry way home. Somehow, i didn't get that memo. As far as i'm concerned, should we leave and let those killers reorganize, we will die to regret it.
Better listen to Gilles Duceppe, he's a man of his most recent word. If you think what he's saying today is not popular enough, don't worry; he'll do better tomorrow! Good thing he stayed in Ottawa, he really is the best man for the job of leader for a go nowhere aimless Party like the BQ. Way to go Gilles, do us proud!
Lightspeed.