A sin too far?
Any political leader with skeletons rattling around in his closet runs the risk of a sudden career change. Even more so if the party he wants to lead is dedicated to a radical reshaping of the political landscape. Pity, then, Andre Boisclair.
He is young, handsome, smart and a compelling speaker in French and English. He is also gay, and was obliged to publicly admit this week that he was using cocaine while he was serving as a minister in the Quebec government. Unlike model Kate Moss, there were no lurid photos of him snorting coke, but he was smart enough not to deny what was evidently well known within his social circles.
Mr Boisclair is running for the leadership of the Parti Quebecois, which is dedicated to the independence of Quebec. With a population of 6 million and Canada's second-largest province, Quebec is the historic home of the French in North America. Its struggle for independence has become an enduring fact of Canadian life.
Now 39, Mr Boisclair was born in Montreal, became a member of the party in his late teens and was first elected to the Quebec legislature at the tender age of 23. The party, in power then, has twice lost referendums that it organised on Quebec independence, the last time by a whisker. Party militants are a persistent lot, though. They say they will keep putting the question to Quebecers. Sooner or later, they reckon, they will win the vote.
At the moment, the party is in opposition, but Quebec's Liberal government is thoroughly unpopular, and the separatist option is back on the political agenda. So the party leadership race is being hotly contested. And Mr Boisclair was, until earlier this week, the top contender.
When the story of his cocaine use broke in the Montreal papers, Mr Boisclair took a deep breath and told the truth: yes, he had had some reckless moments while serving as minister of citizenship and immigration.
Historically, Quebecers have prided themselves on their open-minded attitudes towards sex (Mr Boisclair is frank about his homosexuality and comfortable enough that he has joked about it on television), gambling and smoking (tobacco as well as pot). But the use of cocaine while holding high public office is proving to be a real test of the limits of public tolerance.
And even if Mr Boisclair wins the leadership, those who oppose his separatist political agenda and the social moralists will beat him with this stick at every electoral opportunity.
'I believe in rehabilitation,' he told reporters this week. On November 15, he will learn whether his top comrades agree.
