UPDATED AGAIN - NDPWatch: Newly minted interim leader Nycole Turmel was an "interim" Bloc Quebecois member too?

Largely overlooked, however  -- well, except in this corner, where the fine print is always fascination fodder -- is the fact that Turmel simply could not have been "a member of the NDP for more than twenty years," as stated by party spokesperson Karl Belanger to CBC.ca earlier today. 

Since at least 2001, the NDP constitution has barred its members from being "a member or supporter of any other federal political party," or, indeed, of any provincial or territorial party where an NDP option exists, and must attest to that fact when agreeing to the membership declaration. If that's the case, Turmel's NDP membership would have been nullified between December 2006, when she reportedly took out a Bloc Quebecois membership to "support a friend," and January 19th, 2011, when she cancelled it for "personal reasons" just weeks before being named as the NDP candidate in Hull Aylmer. 

UPDATE: Well, this is an interesting bit of possibly unintended inconsistency: The English version of the online NDP membership form requires applicants to tick a box confirming that they "have read and [...] agree with the NDP Member Declaration" -- which specifies that one cannot hold a membership in another federal political party. That line is curiously absent from the French version. Just an administrative oversight, or a telling omission? 

 For his part, Belanger has confirmed that an NDP member is "not supposed to be a member of another political party," although he didn't offer an explanation for why that was apparently permitted to occur in this case. Also, as far as I can tell, both parties require members to pay dues annually -- in other words, it's not a lifetime membership that persists until explicitly canceled, which means that Turmel would, in theory, have been sending cheques to both the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois for five years without being struck by any sort of profound sense of partisan cognitive dissonance.

Now, it's worth noting that the rule against dual memberships is, fundamentally, based on an honour system; it's not like there's a central registry of political party memberships that can be consulted before approving a membership application. But even so, you'd think that would be the sort of thing that would have come up during the candidate vetting process, at the very least. It certainly arose during the last election, courtesy of the Liberal incumbent Marcel Proulx, who would eventually go down to defeat, who deemed her past support for Bloc Quebecois candidates "incompatible" with her ostensible support for federal public service jobs in the region.

In any case, if Turmel's tenure as interim leader is as fleeting as the tentative schedule for Jack Layton's return would suggest that it will be, this is likely much ado about -- well, not nothing, exactly, but likely less of a something than Liberal and Conservative summer-shift spinners would have us believe, and will be all but forgotten when the next election cycle rolls around. 

If, however, she does end up leading the charge on behalf of Her Majesty's Official Opposition when the House returns this fall, it seems all but inevitable that Turmel's past dalliance with the Bloc Quebecois -- as well as any seeming separatist sympathies, past or present, on the part of other rookie NDP MPs -- will be dredged up whenever the opportunity presents itself. 

In the meantime, perhaps the NDP research office could spend a few days double-checking with every other newly elected Quebec MP that they do not currently hold a membership in a rival political party, if only to avoid a steady stream of similar stories surfacing in the press between now and September.

UPDATE: Courtesy of CBC.ca Colleague Janyce McGregor, a list of newly elected Quebec NDP MPs who have been reported to have "some degree of support/sympathy for the sovereigntist cause, and/or support for parties that champion Quebec independence." 

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Toronto Star, Turmel claims to have 'fessed up to her Bloc Quebecois cardholder status during the candidate vetting process last January: