PQ, please pick this guy as your leader!

November 2, 2005
Gov. Gen. blasted for coke joke

SAGUENAY, Que. (CP) - Andre Boisclair, the front-runner in the Parti Quebecois
leadership campaign, says he is upset by comments made about him by Gov. Gen.
Michaelle Jean.
Jean referred to Boisclair in a speech she gave at the annual Parliamentary
Press Gallery dinner on Oct. 22. In her speech, Jean cracked several jokes about
Boisclair, including one that played on the dual meaning of the word coke, and
saying that Boisclair always follows the party "line."
The event was broadcast on a cable television network.
In mid-September, Boisclair admitted to using cocaine in the 1990s while he was
a minister in the cabinet of the provincial government. But he has revealed few
details.
Speaking prior to a debate between PQ leadership hopefuls on Wednesday,
Boisclair said he was shocked at Jean's behaviour before the 600 invited guests,
including Prime Minister Paul Martin.
"The images speak for themselves and everyone who saw those images understand
that they're out of place," Boisclair said.
"Mrs. Jean was not participating in a private event. Mrs. Jean was participating
in a public event, televised, taped."
Jean's speech, in which she also joked the only reason she was appointed to her
vice-regal post is because she is "hot," has drawn the ire of other PQ members.
Interim party leader Louise Harel and the party's intergovernmental affair
critic Jonathan Valois both criticized Jean's comments as inappropriate earlier
this week.
Boisclair's past has been an issue in the leadership campaign and it was again
before and after Wednesday's debate.
Four of his rivals stated publicly before the debate that the former cabinet
minister should come clean about his past.
"I invite him to stop running away and to answer the questions. He answers or he
withdraws," Pierre Dubuc told reporters. "We can't continue like this."
Another candidate, Jean Ouimet, expressed concerns about what other revelations
about Boisclair's past might come out during an election campaign against the
Liberals.
Boisclair's main rivals, Pauline Marois and Richard Legendre, were not among the
group.
Following the debate Boisclair was confronted with the question yet again at a
news conference.
He told reporters he did cocaine "a few times."
When pressed for more details on the time frame of his use, he replied "seven or
eight years ago."
"Listen, I made a mistake and I regret it very much. But it's a mistake of the
past. A long time ago. I never had a dependence problem," he said.
Boisclair also declined to say who supplied him with the drug and became visibly
frustrated when a reporter asked him if that person had ties to organized crime.
"Honestly, do we ask Jean Charest where he bought his pot from? If the person
who sold him pot had links to criminals," Boisclair said before cutting the news
conference short.

Pure douchebaggery!

Gomery

Here is the comment I would have written on the Canada.com sound off board, if only I had not been at work....

Bravo Allan Cutler!

Remember folks, one honest man helped start the avalanche... More than ever,
Canadians should see the value of a strong public service, governed by ethics
and in the public interest, and politically neutral. The alternative is more
unethical scumbag bureaucrats like Chuck Guité. Guité facilitated the operation of a
parallel unaccountable bureaucracy run by PMO for the benefit of filthy bastards
like the sorry parade of Quebec operatives and politicos that we saw at the
Gomery inquiry.

Even after 13 years of uninterrupted Liberal Government, it is worth the effort
for public servants to remind themselves that they while may work for the
Government, but they don't work for the LIBERALS.

The Liberals are finished in Quebec for a while, I think.

If people are looking for real reasons to fret about the Middle East, I submit for your consideration:

Exhibit A: The first stirrings of civil war in Iraq, and perhaps eventually, in the islamic world between Shia and Sunni

An increasingly Bellicose Iran

Iran has a long term strategic interest in supporting the Shia majority in Iraq, particularly once the yanks are gone, against the Sunni insurgency. However, just about every other neighbouring arab nation is Sunni. Will Iraq be the battleground for islam's version of the Thirty Years' War? With recent sectarian violence, are we witnessing a prelude to the start of a major war within islam?