I would like to start today with an observation on the “state” of the PQ (pun intended) – both for now and for the conceivable future: I watched that “vendue” (“sell-out”) Marois, applauding that dick Paledeau as she unveiled that anti-union media mogul and full time snake in the grass as the PQ candidate in St. Jerome. Paledeau will run in the riding represented in the National Assembly – for the moment at least – by the CAQ’s “star” candidate in the last election, Jacques Duchesneau, who has stated that he does not plan to seek re-election on April 7th when the province goes to the polls for the second time in about eighteen months.
Pierre Karl Paladeau or PKP as he is known, is the majority shareholder in Videotron Corporation (with over seven hundred million shares) and has a history of extremely bad labour relations with the unions representing the thousands of workers who toil for Quebecor run until recently by Paladeau.[1] Just seeing him there with Marois represented – for yours truly at least – a further rupture – and possibly the final one – between Marois’ brand on the one hand, and that of the social activist, leftist founder of the Parti Quebecois, Rene Levesque, who must be turning in his grave as they say, on the other. At first glance, this final straw is hard to wrap one’s mind around given the past progressive orientation of the PQ with it’s moderately leftist approach.
[1] Paladeau resigned as head of Quebecor and thus also of its subsidiaries including VT when he decided to accept Marois’ offer in order to avoid allegations of conflict of interest.
However, and this is scary, this could be a changing of the guard. It would appear that times have undergone enough moderation over the years to perhaps provide the impetus to finally and permanently eliminate the last vestiges of the hard line PQ. For example, Parizeau, Bouchard and Bernard Landry, all hard core sovereigntists, each a Premier of Quebec, have all taken shots at Marois since she was elected in 2012, most recently over Bill 60, the so-called values charter and in Parizeau’s case, over the present health of the Quebec economy as this portends for the future.
Parizeau, a one-time finance minister as well as Premier, has actually come right out and said, fairly recently, that for the first time he is worried about Quebec’s financial future.
It is entirely possible that the present PQ leadership – Marois, Lysee and Bernard Drainville – have decided that they are on their own road and they can’t spend the time or the energy dealing with snipes from people like Parizeau, Bouchard and Landry which they believe offer nothing positive to the very public debate on the national question. According to the present brain trust of the PQ, Bouchard, Landry and Parizeau are moving increasingly towards the periphery of the political scene in Quebec
And now Peter Tosh, reggae artist, philosopher and political commentator offers the cure.
Have a listen to our featured video for today.
Peace Out.