Last week, Ottawa was rocked by revelations that Nycole Turmel, interim leader of the NDP and current leader of the opposition, had been a member of the separatist Bloc Quebecois and had worked with the sovereigntist provincial party, Quebec Solidaire.

A media frenzy followed, as reporters dogged Turmel with questions about her loyalty to Canada, and pundits speculated on the damage done to the party. Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself could not stay out of this act, and is quoted as saying, “I do think Canadians will find this disappointing. I think Canadians expect that any political party that wants to govern the country be unequivocally committed to this country.”

The Conservatives got a bit of sauce for the goose earlier this week, when similar revelations surfaced around their Minister of Transportation, Denis Lebel. Now Conservatives are scrambling, defending Lebel’s loyalty to this country.

Neither of these politicians should have been put through this wringer. In looking through the directory of MPs from the province of Quebec, it’s probably easier to ask who wasn’t a member of a sovereigntist organization at some point in their political lives. Even the Liberals have skeletons in their closet. They were the ones who took one of the founders of the Bloc Quebecois, Jean Lapierre, and practically made him into Paul Martin’s Quebec lieutenant. They even tried to defend Lapierre’s earlier work with the BQ as the founding of a “rainbow coalition.”

But here’s the thing: Lapierre, Turmel and Lebel all did nothing wrong. Yes, they may have belonged to organizations that, at one point, campaigned for the break-up of Canada, but at no point did they deviate from the democratic process. They remained committed to working within the law to achieve their goals — something that every Canadian and every Quebecker has a right to do. Whether we like it or not, sovereigntists from any province who commit to the democratic process are still Canadians with democratic rights.

You may not agree with the suggestion that Quebec should leave Canada (I certainly don’t), but I am a democrat before I am a patriot. We are all entitled to our opinions, and working to silence those opinions rather than just argue against them is undemocratic. Canadians have a right to know about a politician’s political history and to say whether they agree or disagree with it, but it is short-sighted to dismiss everything a politician says or does based on a single political opinion or a single membership taken up by the politician years before.

It should be noted that the Bloc Quebecois has not actively worked for separatism since 1997. For the past six elections, a vote for the BQ was not a serious vote for separation, but a vote for regional interest. If that’s to be disqualified — if politicians are to be asked if they are now or have ever been a member of a party of regional interest — then votes for the Reform Party can be similarly dismissed as a vote for western Canadian independence. What’s to be made of Harper’s earlier declaration that Alberta should build a “firewall” to protect itself from the political and economic influence of the rest of the country?

It’s by our actions that we should be judged. Harper is now prime minister of Canada. Turmel has committed to lead the official opposition while Jack Layton takes time off to fight his cancer. Lebel is working hard on an important ministry with influence across the country. Whatever they may have thought before, they’ve all stepped forward and are now working for Canada. That should tell us where their true loyalties lie.

• • •
James Bow is a writer and father of two in Kitchener.
You can read more about him at http://bowjamesbow.ca/