Jack and Tommy

I am no great friend of the NDP or of Jack Layton, but the recent slanders against the leader of the NDP for his opposition to the Afghan adventure in sucking up to the US Empire have jogged my memory. Back in 1970, PM Trudeau imposed the War Measures Act against the dozen or so FLQ members who had kidnapped Cross and Laporte. Tommy Douglas stood up in Parliament and loudly criticized the imposition of the act and voted against it. For this he was castigated, and if memory serves me correctly, even some of his own party members did not vote with him. Well, 35 years later, all but the most died-in-th-wool Trudeau apologists see the use of the War Measures Act as a major error, something that did more to inflame nationalist passions and create lasting resentment among Quebec's intellectuals than anything since the Conscription Crisis of WW2. Tommy has been totally vindicated. I suspect 35 years from now, if we are still here, we will look at Jack in the same way. (Not to imply he is cut from the same cloth as Douglas, by the way.)