Conservative Transport Minister Denis Lebel confirms former ties to the Bloc

After a week of attacking the NDP for choosing a former member of the Bloc Quebecois as its interim leader, it has emerged that the federal Conservatives also have a high-level member with former ties to the separatist party.

Tory transport minister Denis Lebel was a member of the Bloc during his time working for various civic-minded organizations in his home town of Roberval, a small town on Lac Saint-Jean, about 260 kilometres north of Quebec City.

His office confirmed his past association with the party Monday evening, but released few other details. It did not respond to a query as to why Mr. Lebel joined the Bloc, and if he had been a separatist.

In a statement to Radio Canada he said he took out the membership in part to ingratiate himself with Michel Gauthier, a former Bloc leader who served as the area's MP. SRC reported that Mr. Lebel was a member of the Bloc from July 1993 to April 2001 and that he also donated hundreds of dollars to the party during the 1990s.

Mr. Lebel went on to serve as mayor of Roberval from 2000 to 2007, stepping down to succeed Mr. Gauthier as MP following a by-election. He served as a junior minister starting in 2008 and was elevated to the transport and infrastructure portfolio following the last federal election.

The revelation comes after days in which the Tories heaped scorn on interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel, who was a member of the Bloc for four years and still has a membership in Quebec Solidaire, a separatist provincial party, which she has said she will cancel. The former president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada was named to helm the party while leader Jack Layton is away battling cancer.

The NDP alluded to Mr. Lebel's association with the Bloc in a press release last week, in which the party also took aim at junior cabinet minister Maxime Bernier for serving as an aide to separatist Quebec premier Bernard Landry, arguing that the Tories were being hypocritical in criticizing Ms. Turmel.

“We wonder why politicians who live in glass houses are throwing stones,” the party wrote.

Mr. Lebel's spokeswoman wrote in an email Monday that Mr. Lebel “has been transparent with his constituents” about his Bloc past. She said he joined the Conservative Party in 2007 because of Stephen Harper's vision for the economy.

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Source: Globe&Mail