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One of Gilles Duceppe's candidates is contradicting the Bloc leader's longstanding assertion the party is a legitimate opposition party which serves parliament in the same way as all the other parties.

Political Bytes

Tim Duboyce

Duceppe often challenges his critics who say the Bloc's usefulness in the Commons is limited, since the party only runs candidates in 75 ridings, all in Quebec.

He says voters in the province have chosen Bloc candidates on nearly eight million ballots in the last six elections.

Today, confronted by a reporter, Laval candidate Nicole Demers, described the Bloc more as a kind of lobby group in Parliament.

"I think pressure groups (like the BQ) are essential in Parliament. I think a pressure group, like us, the Bloc caucus, is free to express its opinions," Demers said in French in a brief interview.

Demers says it is such pressure which has prodded governing parties — Liberal and Conservative — to act as they have on issues such as fixing the fiscal imbalance and ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

Tim Duboyce