Angry in the Great White North

When Francis Chartrand was dropped as an NDP candidate in Quebec, he was quite upset, as he declared on his blog this past Sunday:

Je déplore le manque de transparence de la part du Comite Planification Electorale (CPE) et du chef du parti, Jack Layton, qui a déclaré que ces décisions sur le sort de ma candidature ont été prises dans l’intérêt du parti au nom des principes démocratiques.

Je demande pourquoi est-ce que j’ai eu le privilège de prendre connaissance de cette information auprès des medias.

Je demande que le parti rendre publiques les raisons pour avoir évincer ma candidature lors des prochaines élections fédérales.

Je tiens à rappeler que lors de mon investiture le 24 février dernier à St-Eustache, la présidente de la section québécoise Piper Huggins et le conseiller du chef au Québec, Pierre Ducasse, a soutenu ma candidature. Qu’en pensent-ils aujourd’hui?

Here is a translation:

I deplore the lack of transparency on the part of the Planning Committee for Elections (CPE) and the party leader, Jack Layton, who said that such decisions on the fate of my application had been taken in the interest of the party in the name of democratic principles.

I ask why is it that I had the privilege to hear this information from the media.

I ask that the party make public the reasons for ousting my candidacy in the forthcoming federal election.

I wish to recall that during my inauguration on February 24 this year in St-Eustache, the president of the Quebec branch Piper Huggins and adviser to the head in Quebec, Pierre Ducasse, supported my candidacy. What do they think now?

I will wait for those answers to the questions that persist, and to have light in this case before I decide at a press conference shortly.

Why was Francis Chartrand dropped as an NDP candidate?  It's a bit vague:

[Raymond Guardia, co-chair of the party’s Quebec election planning committee,] says Riviere-des-Milles-Iles NDP candidate Francis Chartrand was also recently removed from his post for making statements that did not coincide with the goals of the party.

Whatever those statements were, Francis Chartrand certainly seemed to feel that Jack Layton was treating him both unfairly and rudely.  Chartrand had to hear about the decision from the media?  That's cold.

On Sunday, it looked like a very angry Francis Chartrand was going to make trouble for the NDP by having a press conference.

Not the sort of thing to make Jack Layton a happy man.

Then something happened and no press conference was held.

Two days after his angry reaction to the news of being dropped, Chartrand posted a follow-up.  It has not been cached in full, but we can spot the tone in the title and segments recovered from search results pages:

Sometimes, it’s important to take a step back, to step forward in ...

Over the past few hours, I found myself at the centre of a controversy on the web which would simply not have been...

It was then that I realized I had to put my candidacy "for later" time to reflect on the form that I wanted to give my contribution...

So I decided to stop and ask myself the question: does continue to play a role merely as a candidate in NDP...

 

In my opinion, the NDP is still the only party with a strong vision of what the true social democracy and it is in our interest...

This is why given current circumstances, I decided to pull my candidacy in the next election and why I hope to play an active role in organizing the campaign in Rivières-des-Mille-Isle in the coming months. In solidarity, Francis Chartrand.

[Update: This post is back in.  Did I miss it the first time?  No, because I have the screenshot from my visit earlier today.  More added to the end of this post.]

What the circumstances were, it's not clear.  Nor is it clear how Chartrand came to be personally responsible for pulling his candidacy when on Sunday he was claiming that his candidacy was spiked by the party without his consent.  Indeed, without his knowledge.

Now he doesn't want to be a candidate.  Or to be more precise, he doesn't want to be merely a candidate.  Merely a candidate?  Jack Layton is merely a candidate too. 

Now he seemed to be surprised to be at the centre of a controversy?  But on Sunday he was preparing to call a press conference, so how surprised could he really be?

Given the confusion, I can see why Chartrand might have been pressured to pull both posts and pretend none of this happened.

An example of historical revisionism?  This isn't the sort of revisionism that happens when someone changes a date.  The entire tone has been turned 180 degrees, and the facts seem to have changed completely.

But even worse, there was an attempt to erase the historical record in its entirety.  Both posts, the angry one from Sunday and the conciliatory one from this past day, have been deleted from his blog.  If it wasn't for the caching function of Google, we might never have known about Chartrand's initial reaction and strange retraction. 

Who made the decision to change the record by deleting the posts?

Between Sunday and today there must have been a discussion with NDP officials.  As a result of this conversation, Chartrand posted a new version of events that tried to reflect well on the party.  Then someone figured it still looked bad, and that silence was the best policy rather than honesty.  As a result, all of Chartrand's posts for December have been deleted, including these two posts that give very different views of the end of his candidacy.  His blog now ends on November 18, and is filled NDP press releases.

I think the NDP has some explaining to do, but unless Francis Chartrand recovers from his amnesia, we might never know what really happened.

Let's give Micheline Montreuil some credit.  She seems to be sticking to her guns.  The funny thing is that I was leaning towards giving the NDP the benefit of the doubt in deciding between the conflicting stories being told about the circumstances of Montreuil's candidacy being spiked.  But now I'm not so sure. 

Update: Chartrand's blog has changed once again.  Here is how the homepage of the blog appeared this morning:

As you'll notice, the top story in the blog was dated November 18.  There are two blog posts missing.  The first is the angry blog post from Sunday.  The second was the conciliatory blog post from the last 24 hours.

This is how the blog looks now:

The homepage of the blog has a new story, dated yesterday.  It is the conciliatory post of which I had been able to retrieve segments previously.  For some reason it has been restored, and we can now read the full text of the post, in Chartrand's own English translation:

Sometimes, it’s important to take a step back, to step forward in the right direction

Over the course of the last few hours, I have found myself caught in the midst of a web controversy which simply should never have begun. In reality, it is true that several weeks ago, party officials contacted me to discuss my involvement as an active member of the party. I came to understand the necessity of putting my candidacy aside, and to reflect on the best possible way for me to contrbute to the development of the NDP.

I have become increasingly involved within the party over the last while. It was time to stop and ask the following question: is continuing on as NDP candidate in Rivières-des-Mille-Isle the best choice for me at this time?

To be forced to ask the question is to know the answer. I understand that at this time, I can bring much more to the party as an active member within the organization and that in this role, I have the support of the party and many of its officers. I beleive [sic] that the NDP remains and continues to be the only party with a solid social-democratic vision and that it is in our interest to spread the word of the NDP to as many people as possible.

This is why given current circumstances, I decided to pull my candidacy in the next election and why I hope to play an active role in organizing the campaign in Rivières-des-Mille-Isle in the coming months.

In solidarity,
Francis Chartrand

Look at the second paragraph:

I have become increasingly involved within the party over the last while. It was time to stop and ask the following question: is continuing on as NDP candidate in Rivières-des-Mille-Isle the best choice for me at this time?

Here is the French version posted by Chartrand:

Depuis quelque temps, j’ai été appelé à jouer un rôle beaucoup plus large au sein du parti. C’est pourquoi j’ai décidé de m’arrêter et de me poser la question suivante : est-ce que continuer à jouer un rôle simplement en tant que candidat NPD dans Rivière-des-Mille-Iles est le meilleur choix pour moi?

In English, we have "is continuing on as NDP candidate in Rivières-des-Mille-Isle the best choice for me at this time" but in French we have "est-ce que continuer à jouer un rôle simplement en tant que candidat NPD dans Rivière-des-Mille-Iles est le meilleur choix pour moi", with "un rôle simplement" which can be translated as "just" or "merely".

Why does the French text qualify the role as NDP candidate with a phrase like "merely", while the English text does not?  Maybe an innocuous difference in translation.  Or maybe more fun and games from Francis Chartrand.

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