Election Notebook

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Oh joy. With posters from the federal election still strapped to lamp-posts in some ridings, and spilled booze and bodily fluids from Obama parties still staining clothes and furniture across the city, another election is upon us. Quebecers will decide whether or not to give Premier Jean Charest the majority he craves—or, if he messes things up royally, as he’s quite capable of doing, elect Parti Québécois battleaxe Pauline Marois—on Monday, December 8, the 18th anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination, incidentally. (Imagine: no election.)

If you find yourself delirious with political fever (or fatigue), the cure could come, in lieu of more cowbell, in the form of comic relief.

• This year’s party slogans and posters range from ballsy to dubious to larger than life. The Liberals seem to be mounting a campaign of confusion, with the word “Oui” featured prominently on their placards (kids, Google “Quebec referendum 1995” if you’re unclear on the significance) and the word “Liberal” nowhere to be found. Perhaps the “L” between “P” and “Q” should be lower case? Charest’s poll numbers are slipping, in part because he had the audacity to call an election, so Quebec may very well vote “No” once again.

• Meanwhile, the Action Démocratique du Québec is going with “Give yourself power”—whether or not that involves drinking the blood of heathens and infidels is, at press time, unclear. But party leader Mario Dumont has come out against a new, mandatory ethics and religious culture school course, saying it may confuse Quebec kids’ sense of identity. This despite the course’s emphasis on Christianity over other religions, and the fact that an alarming number of the province’s schoolchildren are not “pure laine.” Dumont went on to slam “Trudeau multiculturalism” and the people who want to banish Christmas trees and “words like Easter.” The irony is that Dumont had been trying to sell himself as the change candidate, borrowing a slogan from a black man—sure, it worked for Obama, but will it help a borderline xenophobe with, as a friend once put it, all the charisma of a bowling alley waiter?

• After a resounding flop in last year’s provincial election, under the leadership of hapless André Boisclair, the PQ has decided to go big, and go personal. PAULINE is the star of the party’s massive campaign posters, but blondes are not having more fun this time around. Green Party leader Scott McKay was parachuted into L’Assomption on the weekend, drawing supporters of the riding’s shut-out hardline separatist Jean-Claude St-André, whose nomination bid was rejected. PQ leader Pauline Marois’s bodyguards whisked her away as the protest turned into a violent shoving match—fellow Péquiste Jean St-Louis coined a snappy term to describe the behaviour of the radical splinter group (the Parti indépendantiste, backed by junior sovereignists les Jeunes patriotes, who are backed by la Société St-Jean Baptiste): “bummery.” Then the PQ lost its longtime supporter, the Quebec Federation of Labour, which refused to endorse any party this time around, and protestors continued to tail Marois, albeit peacefully, at a Petite-Patrie rally. Desperate measures.

• Marois took another hit this week, but this one bounced back and stuck to one of her rivals. The ADQ’s Web site featured a video calling Marois “a snob,” echoing a PQ internal memo that leaked last week. Set to the tune of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” the highly manoeuvred video features Marois fondling jewellery and sipping champagne.

• But it was Dumont who was caught hitting the sauce for real in Mirabel on Monday, when he visited a maple winery and pledged to force the SAQ to stock terroir booze. This unusual photo op was hastily arranged, after a scheduled trip to an aerospace training centre was called off at the last minute because the director didn’t want politicians on his property. And understandably so.

• Our Premier may find himself under the proverbial table any day now, what with his surging unpopularity, but he refuses to sit behind one. Charest has made a stink about the prospect of sitting at a table during the leaders’ debates, as suggested by the French TV networks, preferring to stand behind a podium. And it’s his way or the highway—if the networks don’t agree to podiums, and his proposed date (Nov. 25, rather than Nov. 21 or 22), he says he’ll relegate the debates to the CPAC cable channel. Or maybe TQS can take on a horizontal debate, Bleu Nuit style? Watch this space for updates.