Sovereignty Silence Bites Bloc

From The Toronto Star:

PQ stalwart calls party irrelevant NDP clone for ducking independence.

MONTREAL–To an ardent sovereignist, hearing a high-profile compatriot publicly savage the Bloc Québécois as basically irrelevant and a "twin" of the New Democrats is like a bitter pill.

But 64-year-old Gerald Paquette, reading on a street-side bench outside the party's campaign office in its east Montreal stronghold of Hochelaga, is not angry about former Parti Québécois minister Jacques Brassard's critique. In fact, he says, it might be good medicine.

"At this moment, he's right," Paquette said. "They're not pushing sovereignty, it's true. And they're down in the dumps. They may have to change some things."

Brassard, a minister in the provincial Parti Québécois government between 1994 and 2002, caused a stir yesterday after he wrote in his column in the Chicoutimi newspaper Le Quotidien that the Bloc had forgotten its roots and "become the twin of the NDP, that archaic Canadian socialist party."

The 68-year-old Brassard, whom some refer to as the "loose cannon" of the sovereignty movement, blasted the Bloc for its pretense in claiming that it's representing "Quebec values," as if those were homogenous.

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