Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe waits for the start of a meeting with community groups while campaigning Tuesday in Montreal. An Angus Reid-Toronto Star poll conducted after the televised leaders’ debates revealed high levels of antipathy toward Duceppe. (April 19, 2011)
Ryan Remiorz/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Susan Delacourt Ottawa Bureau OTTAWA—The current election campaign appears to be opening up a deep vein of anger in English Canada toward the Bloc Québécois — which could turn into outright Quebec-bashing, some fear.
An Angus Reid-Toronto Star poll conducted after the televised leaders’ debates last week revealed high levels of antipathy toward Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe.
The survey measured viewers’ reactions in real time as they watched selected clips from the TV debates, chosen by the Star after the debates.
Virtually every utterance from Duceppe prompted viewers to press buttons registering their annoyance, especially when he said “Quebec must become a country.”
“It really does show how negatively English Canadians view Gilles Duceppe,” said Jaideep Mukerji, a vice-president with Angus Reid.
There is some speculation that the spike in antipathy toward the Bloc has its roots in the so-called “coalition crisis” of late 2008, when Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and the newly elected government were nearly toppled by an agreement between the Liberals and New Democrats to govern together.
But Conservatives fought off that challenge by alleging that the arrangement included the Bloc Québécois in the coalition, slamming it as a “deal with the separatists.” (The Bloc had agreed to support, not participate, in the proposed Liberal-NDP government.)
More than two years later, Harper has been campaigning hard against the coalition theme again — and separatists — as have other Conservative candidates.
Brian Jean, a Conservative incumbent running in Alberta, recently drew fire in his Fort McMurray-Athabasca riding for telling people on Twitter that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was going to put Duceppe in his cabinet, perhaps in charge of defence, environment or intergovernmental affairs.
Jean also said that a vote for the Liberals would be a vote for the Bloc and that only Conservatives would keep Canada together — a remark that prompted his Liberal opponent, Karen Young, to denounce the rhetoric in a formal statement.
The Bloc antipathy has even attracted notice beyond Canada’s borders. Johannes Wheeldon, a professor and post-doctoral fellow doing work in Washington State, set up an experiment in Bloc-bashing on social networks earlier this month.
Setting up a fake identity as “Gord Tory” on Facebook, Wheeldon and some academic associates from Canada posted increasingly incendiary remarks about the BQ on the Facebook page to see how many friends “Gord” could attract.
The Facebook postings talked about the Bloc as distinct from “real Canadians” and then, over the next few days, called for an end to “special treatment” for Quebec and eventually for Duceppe to be tried for treason. The Facebook experiment then approached near satire, calling for separatists to be required to wear a big “Q” on their clothing.
Still, the fictional character Gord Tory managed to attract more than 160 Facebook friends before the experiment was ended. Wheeldon is not publicizing the content or identities behind the comments.
In a press release announcing the end of the study, Wheeldon noted his uneasiness with what the experiment revealed.
“The results of this experiment expose the myth of multicultural and bilingual tolerance in Canada,” Wheeldon argued, saying that many of the comments had veered into hatred and rage toward Quebecers.
“What cannot be doubted is that the power of anti-BQ language quickly morphs, among some, to broader anti-Quebec sentiment,” Wheeldon writes. “This experiment suggests the demonization of the BQ as expressed by our political leaders in 2008 has been internalized by many Conservative supporters. It continues online and may threaten the basis for the reasonable compromises required to govern a diverse country like Canada.”