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Guilty Pleasure: Quebec Politics


Until recently Quebec politics had fallen into a predictable funk, where politicians could recycle 20 year old speeches with impunity since the debate had become kabuki theater (set in stone).  There is a new sheriff in town and Quebec politics is now exiting!  First, was long in coming wake up of the "non-separatist" segment of the population.  For us, Quebec's problems have nothing to do with the independence discussion, but everything to do with the societal choices that we must make today.


It started a decade ago with the "lucides" ex-politicians stating frankly the critical challenges that face Quebec, which will define us as a society; these challenges have nothing to do with our place in or out of Canada.  The process moved along with an ex-PQ MNA forming a "movement" to recast the discussion away from separation, and the final element was the destruction of the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa.  

Since then, both main Quebec parties: Liberals and Partie Quebecois have been having difficulties.  Focusing on the PQ the unpopularity of  its leader has dominated the press for some time, she has been battling party apparatchik who dislike here and want to replace her with a more radical leader (very much like the U.S. Republican -- when the message fails double down on the radical).

That's the set-up to my comment (I can be long winded):

This morning on the french radio network of CBC  two supporters of Pauline Marois attempted to demonstrate that their cause was valid, and that their leader was had the unconditional support of the caucus.  If these guys are the best Marois could field, she's in much deeper trouble that even the press indicates.  I surprised as to the Journalist's docility, either out of conviction (my guess he is a PQ supporter) or maybe he perceived that these guys were more than able to destroy their own message, because these were two bozos!

(1) That Marois knows what she is doing: This cannot be proved, but she had proven strangely ineffective over the past two years.  She has been involved in politics for 30 years, and has been head of the party for nearly 2 years.  How much longer does she need -- and the polls are brutal toward her party and her leadership -- the PQ could be wiped off the map in the next general elections!

(2) The concept of independence is not "history" because the Scots will have a referendum on "separation" from the United Kingdom within the next 60 months, after all "the Scots have fewer grievances and don't have their own language"  -- this is so bad its like the morons never even saw the movie Brave heart, or have never heard of Gaelic -- stunning lack of knowledge.  Moreover, the Scots were very keen to separate until about two years ago (they wanted to join the Euro Zone -- my guess is that they are probably less keen today).

(3) The party supports Marois: Not so much since there has been a number of "discussions"  and some very high profile resignations.  The fact that these two morons were being interviewed disproves this very comment.

(4) My favorite, these cretins stated that since no one was authorized to speak for these caucuses (but for these two Dbags) the comments heard by the press were at the very least exaggerated, but more likely false.  Mme Marois has the broad support of here party.  That's why they have these meetings every other week...

The ship is sinking, they gave terrible examples and were terrible spokesmen -- my "gut impression" is that no one else wanted to be there, Mme. Marois was scraping the bottom of the barrel with these two incompetents.  They were so bad, that I listened to the entire interview in disbelief, I can only assume that the journalist was not listening to what they were saying because in the space of 5 minutes they did more damage to the brand than I thought possible.

Good times







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