On limited options

Denis Lessard reports on an impending Bloc ad campaign targeting both Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff as indistinguishable from each other, and focuses largely on what it may say about Gilles Duceppe's current confidence level. But it's worth wondering what impact that type of ad blitz might have among the federalist parties in Quebec:

Selon ce qu'a appris La Presse, la publicité du Bloc présentera côte à côte les photos de Stephen Harper et Michael Ignatieff. Une moitié de visage seulement, avec des images peu flatteuses. Le message martèlera que les deux hommes portent «le même regard» sur le Québec.

La publicité, qui sera aussi diffusée à la radio, assimilera les positions de MM. Harper et Ignatieff sur l'environnement, la TPS, la foresterie et même la «nation québécoise».

Now, it's not hard to see how the Bloc could see some significant potential in that strategy in weakening both the Cons and the Libs in Quebec.

But the list of issues is one where there's relatively little disagreement between the NDP and the Bloc - which means that to the extent the Bloc succeeds in painting Harper and Ignatieff as adverse to Quebec's interests on each point, it may only help to drive voters toward the federal leader whose popularity already outstrips that of his federalist competitors. And that may be particularly important given that the Bloc would seem to be severely narrowing the type of arrangement it can reasonably reach with Canada's national parties.

In the past, Duceppe has left some obvious potential for cooperation by focusing his party's attention on only one of its national competitors (attacking the Libs up to '06 and the Cons in '08). But the more time the Bloc spends declaring that both are entirely off base, the stronger the argument the NDP can mount to the effect that voters in Quebec and across the country need to put their support behind a governing alternative.