Ottawa

Did they hand out surveys in Salem?

The Toronto Star attempts to survey the NDP’s Quebec caucus.

They were also asked if they had ever held a membership in another political party at the provincial or federal level, how they voted in the Quebec referendums, whether they ever cast a ballot for the Bloc Québécois and whether they considered themselves federalists, sovereigntists or believed another term would best describe their beliefs. The Star asked them to explain their choices and noted the goal of the questionnaire was to learn more about their perspectives in the hope of sparking a greater discussion on these issues outside Quebec.

One week later, not a single NDP MP from Quebec had agreed to participate. Someone did forward the questionnaire to Manon Cornellier, an Ottawa-based columnist for Le Devoir newspaper in Montreal, who then wrote about it Wednesday as evidence of a “witch hunt” among English-speaking media, noting the survey was not translated into French.

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