It appears absolutely no one believed Ruth Ellen Brosseau would ever win her riding, but now that she has, the assistant bar manager from Gatineau has completely overshadowed the remarkable Quebec sweep for the NDP in Monday's federal election.

None of the party's 58 seats in the province are as important as Berthier-Maskinongé, a riding that lies between the northeastern suburbs of Montreal and Trois-Rivières where Brosseau won by about 4,600 votes despite speaking very little French and hardly campaigning at all.

She did not put up a single campaign poster in the 98 per cent Francophone riding, and even took off for a vacation in Las Vegas towards the end of the five-week campaign.

Brosseau was not seen in the riding during the campaign and has not been heard from since her surprise victory, which is being contested by both the Conservative and Liberal candidates in the riding because of alleged irregularities with her nomination papers.

Thomas Mulcair, previously the NDP's lone Quebec MP who is suddenly in charge of an army of them as Jack Layton's chief lieutenant in the province, admitted Thursday that Brosseau's victory caught just about everyone off guard.

"It's been a whirlwind around a young woman," Mulcair told CTV Montreal's Cindy Sherwin in an interview. "Frankly, of the list of ridings, it wasn't at the top of the ridings that the NDP thought we'd be taking."

But Brosseau did take the riding after five straight victories for the Bloc Québécois and instantly became the poster child for a raw group of NDP winners in Quebec that also includes four McGill University students and 19-year-old Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the new MP for Sherbrooke who will be the youngest person ever to sit in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament.

The NDP has shielded Brosseau from the massive firestorm of media attention, but Mulcair concedes they can't hide her forever.

"Well there's certainly going to be a swearing in ceremony in the next couple of weeks," he said with a smile, "you'll get to see her then."

Another party contests nomination papers

On Wednesday, defeated Berthier-Maskinongé Conservative candidate Marie-Claude Godue – who finished a distant fourth – called on Elections Canada to set a date for a byelection in light of evidence emerging that one of the signatures on Brosseau's nomination papers may have been given under false pretences.

Denis Simard, from the Liberal Party's riding association, added more fuel to that fire Thursday by speaking out as well on behalf of his candidate Francine Gaudet, who finished third, more than 14,000 votes behind Brosseau.

"The name of Madame Brosseau was not on the top of the list when the people signed that list," Simard said. "The name of Madame Brosseau was placed on the top of the list after the majority of people signed."

Simard, like Godue before him, says the Liberal Party is consulting lawyers to see what action can be taken.

But Mulcair says he isn't concerned, largely because Elections Canada was charged with verifying the names on the list to make sure the minimum 100 signatures were valid.

"There were more than a 110 signatures on that document just in case there was such an incident," Mulcair said.

Sovereignty sympathizers in a federalist party

The headaches for the NDP and Mulcair don't end there, however, as a number of candidates have expressed sympathy for the sovereignty movement in the past few days.

But again, Mulcair was not surprised.

"A lot of our candidates were former sovereigntists," Mulcair said. "A great deal of the people who voted for the NDP in this election used to vote for the Bloc. That's how we got elected."

But the divergent leanings within the NDP caucus on such a fundamental issue raise questions about how Layton plans to maintain peace within his own party, let alone the federation, when divisive issues inevitably pop up.

The freshly minted NDP MP from Laurentides-Labelle, Marc-Andre Morin, paused for about 10 seconds when asked whether he had been a supporter of Quebec independence.

"I supported the Bloc for a long time," said Morin, whose riding is northwest of Montreal.

"I saw that in a certain context it could have been justified," he added. "But I think that things have changed in Canada and Quebec, and it is perhaps not as pertinent now as it was in the past."

One promising rookie MP sent an email during the campaign explaining that he was still a Quebec sovereigntist and still supported the sovereigntist left-wing provincial party Quebec solidaire.

"Anyone can be in the NDP as long as they defend the program," wrote Alexandre Boulerice, who is likely to play a prominent role, in the late-March email to Montreal's Le Devoir.

"We can also prioritize social and environmental questions before the national question."

The party's youngest MP, Dusseault, raised eyebrows Thursday with a less than ringing endorsement of Canadian unity in a radio interview.

"Sovereignty will be done in Quebec. And Quebecers will decide if they want to be a country," he told Toronto radio host John Oakley.

"(While) awaiting this moment, I've said why not give us a real government that is good for us…We will respect sovereignty with the NDP."

The comment appeared to be interpreted by the host as a prediction that Quebec would become independent.

But Dusseault, who has said he wants to improve his English, simply seemed to be repeating a common mantra in the province that the issue of sovereignty would be decided by the people of Quebec.

After being pressed by the host, Dusseault explained: "Yeah, I'm a federalist. But I respect sovereignty."

National unity could become divisive issue

The openness of such MPs to talk about their sovereigntist sympathies may be disconcerting to some in the rest of Canada, no matter how commonplace it is in Quebec.

"The problem with the NDP candidates who are going to Ottawa who are unknown is we don't know where they stand in that line," said McGill professor and Quebec political analyst Antonia Maioni. "I think that's going to have to come forward and it's going to be a challenge for the party as well."

There is also the possibility that the NDP will take up the role played by the Bloc, making repeated demands on behalf of Quebec, and that such a stance will create discord inside and outside its caucus.

The last federalist party to contain so many nationalist Quebecers -- the Mulroney Tories of the 1980s and early '90s -- blew up into regional factions and led to the creation of the Bloc and Reform parties.

Westerners believed the party had betrayed its base, and prominent sovereigntists like Lucien Bouchard bolted to create the Bloc.

Those battles led to years of unity disputes that have lingered, to varying degrees, to the present day.

The NDP's eclectic mix of new Quebec MPs now professes a desire to advance Quebec's interests within the federalist mould.

Much has been made of the party's less experienced candidates but some, including Boulerice, have used public interviews to list all the talented rookies with varied CVs now entering Parliament.

Sources within the party told The Canadian Press they haven't yet had time to craft a detailed position on the Quebec question.

Officials have been busy getting ready for the return of Parliament, which is slated for mid-May.

They hope to use the party's upcoming convention in Vancouver this June to formalize a position on national unity.

The new 103-member caucus held its first meeting on Thursday by teleconference. Officials say plans are in the works for a similar meeting in person to take place "shortly."

The party is also making plans for training sessions for the new MPs. Typically, experienced members will mentor new members on a one-on-one basis, but this time will have to be different because most of the caucus is new.

Both the House of Commons staff and the NDP research bureau will be available to teach the newcomers the ropes, and the party will likely hire some experts on contract as well.

With files from The Canadian Press