Election Notebook

>> Emotions get high, gaffes
are aired and Fennario runs again

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Week 2, and things are getting emotional. Especially for poor André Boisclair, who’s had to face questions about his sexuality after a right-wing tool of a radio host in the Saguenay said a few weeks ago that factory workers would never vote for a fif, and that the PQ looks like “un club de tapettes.” (Sylvain Gaudreault, the PQ candidate for the Sag, is also gay, although he only discussed his sexuality openly last week.) Both Liberal leader Jean Charest and the ADQ’s Mario Dumont denounced the remarks, but Boisclair still had to choke back a tear or two at a press conference last Sunday. It was a moving, Kumbaya moment: as Boisclair took an awkward moment to compose himself, the crowd, made up largely of ethnic voters, spontaneously burst into applause.

Meanwhile, Mario Dumont’s impassioned, lengthy and feisty speech in his hometown of Rivière-du-Loup on Sunday, not to mention his surge in the polls, has Charest and Boisclair falling over themselves beating down a party that normally returns a distant third. Dumont’s a demagogue, says Boisclair. A one-man party, says Charest. While campaigning in Gatineau Monday, Charest listed off a series of gaffes committed by ADQ candidates around the province, to much laughter: Claude Roy, the ADQ candidate in Montmagny-l’Islet, and a reportedly avid hunter, criticized the federal gun registry, which is popular in Quebec; another said Quebec’s education system should be more like Cuba’s; a third said he hadn’t read the party’s platform before becoming a candidate.

The nastiest, though, belongs to Jean-François Plante, the ADQ’s man in Deux-Montagnes and a host of radioxtrm.com. Plante was found to have been bragging on his conservative talk show that he doesn’t wear a white ribbon on December 6, the anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre, because it “encourages sexism against men.” Plante apologized for the remarks on Monday, after Charest said he should resign. Dumont said he’d maintain discipline in his party.

Andy Srougi, meanwhile, has announced he’ll run as an independent. The Fathers-4-Justice activist and quarrelsome litigant announced his candidacy Tuesday morning in order to protect our interests—“interests which the current politicians have refused to respect, have lied about, and who continue to defraud the population while treating us all like imbeciles as they fill their pockets with our money and our future,” according to an e-mail release.

Some, but not much, talk has been made about the environment this campaign. But that doesn’t mean at least some parties aren’t willing to put their money where their mouths are. Sujata Day, the Outremont candidate for upstart lefty party Québec solidaire, called Election Notebook on Monday to talk about what she’s been doing to make the province greener, and it starts on the campaign trail. She pointed out that she only takes public transportation when canvassing. And when the printers screwed up her campaign posters by misspelling her name—“for some reason they put a ‘Y’ where the “J” should go,” she says—she opted to put a green “J” sticker over the “Y” rather than send the 500 plastic posters back.

The only other party with green on their logo is the PQ, which replaced the red tail in the “Q” with a green one.

Playwright David Fennario will be running in this election, as the Verdun candidate for Québec solidaire. This is the second election in a row Fennario’s tossed his hat into the ring—the last time around, he ran for the QS’s precursor, the Union des forces progressistes, in Westmount (he lost). This time, he’s hoping his familiar name and longtime residence in the scrappy southwest borough will bring home the electoral bacon. His health is better—five years ago, he was diagnosed with a rare nervous disorder that confined him to a wheelchair. Today, he says, “I’m out of the chair, onto a Johnny Walker and in the fast lane with a cane.” Fennario says he’s got some work to do, especially brushing up on his French—“I’m doing okay,” he says. “I’ve gotten past the swear words.” In fact, he isn’t too worried about how his deficiencies in la langue de Molière will play among local francos because, he says, “I’m their favourite maudit bloke.” He’ll be pushing for environmental protection, rent control and rolling back anti-union legislation. On the independence issue, he’s more or less ambivalent. “I’m okay with it as long as it benefits the people down here, not in Outremont.” His words of wisdom to voters: “Don’t vote for anyone wearing a suit or tie.”