Lapierre has decided

Good for Gary Doer. The premier of Manitoba, the province that saved the country in 1990, has ridden to the defence of Stephane Dion, the man who saved the country in 2000 as the intellectual progenitor of the Clarity Act. Doer warns the Prime Minister not to let his henchmen do to Dion what they have done to everyone else who crosses them, or even, as in Dion's case, remains neutral. It's enough that Dion has been turfed from Cabinet, but Martin organizers also want to take the nomination away from him in his own riding. A defeat for Dion, Doer warns, would be read as a repudiation of the Clarity Act in the West. Combined with Martin's embrace of former Bloquiste Jean Lapierre, his new Quebec lieutenant, who calls the Act "useless," it would doom whatever flickering hopes the Grits retain in the region. (And check this quote from John Manley, in the same piece: "If I had my way, we'd build a monument to Stephane Dion.") But hold on: didn't Martin say that nomination fights were a local matter? That, in the name of democracy, all races must be open? Yes, but that was when the subject was Sheila Copps. That's so hier. Today's news is that Steven Hogue, another Chretienite who has crossed Lapierre in the past, has been told he cannot run in Chretien's old riding, because, according to a spokeswoman quoted in the CP story, 'Lapierre has decided "some ridings will be reserved specifically for women." ' [Emphasis added] Well, that didn't take long. He hasn't even been elected yet, and already Lapierre is deciding who gets to run where. So much for local democracy. So much for representative democracy, for that matter: if some seats are to be "reserved specifically for women," can we expect some to be reserved for certain races? Some for the disabled, some for gays and/or lesbians, and so on? Is that where the Liberal party is going, at least in Quebec? Or is the only quota to be imposed on those who supported the Clarity Act? MORE: Paul Wells is all over this one. And check the incriminating quotes from Lapierre lower down. POSSIBLY PREMATURE CONCLUSION: Chretien was a thug who beat up separatists. Martin is a thug who beats up federalists.