Flags and Such

newmarketfollower has left a new comment on your post "Mulcair in Macleans":

I haven't read the article. But Mulcair and his caucus silence after the PQ election in Quebec and lack of comment on the removal of the Canadian flag from the Quebec swearing-in ceremony all ironically speak volumes to me.

I want my PM to stand up to separatists. Mulcair is not that man. Broadbent and Lewis would have done it.
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 Mr. Broadbent finished an election in 1989, winning more seats than anyone  had before. He resigned shortly after.
There was a hint of bitterness. 
Likely from the perennial betrayal of the UAW on  election eve.
Separatism was not an issue when Mr. Lewis was party leader.  I'm sure his approach would have been measured and carefully calculated. Mr. Lewis had an incredibly focused and orderly mind 
It was during his time the party accepted financial support from organized labour and  unknowingly exchanged their birthright for a mess of potage.
While Mr. Lewis was across Canada campaigning, his riding was   slipped out from under  him by a woman named Ursula Appoloni. No-one had  heard of her before and she was never heard of after. 
David Lewis exercised independent judgement as a leader of the NDP.  He was thrown under the bus..
I gave up on the NDP as a political party long ago.I concluded they was no interest in forming a government. The party's elite  wanted nothing more than an arm for organised labour.. 
The Canadian Union of Public Service Employees, Sid Ryan at the head, did it to Bob Rae as well. 
Tom Mulcair, with seats in Quebec, young people with fresh, open  minds, has the best chance yet  to make the party more than it has been.
The last epic political struggle  in Canada was when Pierre Trudeau. brought home the  Canadian Constitution and marshaled into law the Canadian Charter of Rights. He was said to have disdain for politics. He stayed focused long enough to accomplish his objective. 
My grandfather  helped  send the first Labour Party member,Keir Hardie, also a coal miner,to the UK Parliament.
My mother, passionate lifetime labour member,voted for Margaret Thatcher when hospital workers went on strike .The dead could not be buried  until the strike ended.
I was  always far more Scottish than I was British. I signed every home rule petition I saw .
They said it couldn't be done. 
Tony Blair, a new breed of politician, did it.
He had the greatest promise. But he made the deadly mistake of joining in the invasion of Iraq. He didn't have the  forefathers knowledge of the Middle East.
He didn't know the  years of struggle and  terrible atrocities it took for  colonial countries to extricate themselves.
Terrorism in Britain, France and Algiers was not a foreign concept.It didn't happen first in New York City.   
I hear of  few complaints  in Scotland about having independence. 
It hasn't brought the UK government to its knees.
I don't profess to  expertise about the aspirations of the people of Quebec.
But I'll tell you what, I think there's a lot to be said for protecting one's culture. Everybody  needs to feel they belong.That they have proprietary rights in their own community.