Even in the rough and tumble world of politics, it is saddening to see a politician sidelined by illness rather than by the voters. This is particularly the case with New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton who is personally responsible for taking a marginal party, whose leadership he assumed in 2003, and transforming it into Canada's center-left party by displacing the Liberals - the perennial contenders for governmental power.
In less than ten years Layton quadrupled the party's support. Under his leadership, the NDP also marginalized the Quebec separatists in the last election and became the dominant party in the French-speaking province.
Layton has now announced a leave of absence from politics to fight a new outbreak of cancer.
The Conservatives in May won a majority in Parliament that will suffice for four years, so Layton has time to make a recovery, and when he returns, as the party hopes, the NDP interim leader will gladly step aside. .
Layton has constantly polled better than his party. He has also been skilled in welding together the party's various factions. There are members who still consider the NDP to be a socialist party, while the pragmatists would like to move into the space left vacant by the defeat of the Liberals and display a more business-friendly side.
Layton hopes to be back in time for the opening of the parliamentary session on September 19, but he recommended the selection of Nycole Turmel as interim leader. Ms. Turmel is a newcomer to Parliament, was the first female head of the Public Service Alliance union and joined the NDP after supporting French nationalist parties in the province of Quebec.
This was another challenge that Layton hoped to manage - solidifying the party's tremendous breakthrough in the French-speaking province. The success was so astounding that 58 members of the NDP's 109 parliamentarians come from Quebec.
As Turmel's career indicates, just because these parliamentarians were elected as NDP candidates, it does not necessarily mean that they are averse to French-Canadian nationalism. The trick is to maintain dominance in Quebec without offending English speaking Canadians, many of whom feel that their politicians have babied the French speakers. Layton, who grew up in Quebec but represents a district in Ontario, was deemed capable of mastering that challenge.