Have you noticed this growing obsession for purity tests in politics? This mania for sorting elected officials, chiefs and even ideas, depending on their degree of conformity with an increasingly narrow ideology? Forget openness, diversity of thought, widening the tent. The doctrine of the moment is ideological hygiene.
The federal conservatives have given a good example by serving everything that could look closely or far from a progressive current. Exit the nuances. Make way for the apostles of pure and hard dogma.
Left and right
Same scenario on the left: Quebec Solidaire, this party which claims to embody pluralism, did not hesitate to suspect Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of high betrayal to have flirted with a bit of pragmatism. Moderation is now suspect.
And what about Paul St-Pierre Plamondon? The day after the federal race, he did not hesitate to shoot red balls on the Bloc Québécois, guilty of wanting, according to him, to operate the Federation instead of brandishing the flag of sovereignty with each comma. In this climate, any compromise is a compromise.
Police d’assurance
But the best is to come: this idea, repeated as a mantra by certain columnists, according to which only the deputies of the block can “really” represent Quebec. As if being Quebecers were no longer enough, you have to be the good kind of Quebecers. This is to wonder what the other elected officials in the province in Ottawa become. Should we make them pass a political DNA test to validate their Quebecitude?
Political sectarianism excludes, divides and above all moves away from power. The voter is not fooled, whatever some platform managers say that are scandalizing the results of the last elections. The voter is looking for the one who will add rather than subtract, include rather than excluding and the one who will adapt his position to the need for the moment rather than to the most extremist dogma of his supporters.
