Monday, January 23, 2012

Pauline Marois Destroys Gilles Duceppe

My least favorite politician in Canada is the thoroughly dislikeable Gilles Duceppe, a weasel of a politician and a poster boy representing everything we Anglos hate about separatists who look to cynically fleece Canada, while plotting its destruction.

Whoever invented the word "smarmy,' must have been thinking of Gilles Duceppe, it describes his character perfectly;
(smarmy- sleazy, self-centered and insincere. One who has his own agenda which conflicts with the interests of others. Very fake and/or two-faced.)

One of the worst things I hate about Mr Duceppe is his manifest glee in fleecing Canadians for his own personal and political benefit, seeing no contradiction in collecting a $140,000, while working to destroy the country that pays it.

Would he have become leader of the PQ and get elected to the National Assembly, I've no doubt that he would have continued collecting his pension, with no compunction or embarrassment over the double dipping, as long as it is the federal government was paying for it.

As of late Mr. Duceppe has embarked upon a behind the scene campaign to destabilize the leadership of Pauline Marois, all the while smiling before the cameras and professing his love and support for the separatist leader.

A few months ago, Duceppe was very public in his support of Pauline, but recent events, especially  the continued defections from the PQ ranks, has moved him to go after the Marois' job, once and for all.

Mr. Duceppe is not one to do the dirty work himself and so has delegated responsibility to his minions (Pierre-Paul Roy, Bob  Dufour and François Leblanc) to organize and carry out a back room putsch against Madame Marois.
It's the nature of the rat that he is, to let others do for him, what he is not prepared to do openly.

Madame Marois called on him to take responsibility for his actions and demanded point blank that he declare his intentions and whether he would respect his word given months ago, not to destabilize her leadership.
In response Mr. Duceppe made a wishy-washy statement when interviewed on the radio.; 
"I trust that the PQ leader and  members will make the right decisions .."

For Marois it was the last straw.

"NO I DIDN'T"     "YES YOU DID!!"
And so, on Friday, La Presse published an extremely damaging ethics story about Duceppe, which is being widely quoted by newspapers across the country.

But here's an important fact that nobody has yet to report.

An ultra reliable source has told me that it was the Marois camp that leaked the information to La Presse, in an effort to harm Duceppe and check his advance on her leadership.
It makes sense if you think about it, especially the timing.
It seems that the information had been held in reserve by Marois just in case Duceppe went back on his word (which he did) and so she decided that she had no other option but to unload on him with any or all pretenses of separatist solidarity tossed aside.

It's a story that really came as no surprise to me, a further account of Duceppe's dishonest and cavalier abuse of public money for personal and political benefit. Read the original article in French 
Read the National Post recapitulation
"The former leader of the Bloc Quebecois, Gilles Duceppe paid the salary of the Chief of his party, Gilbert Gardner, for seven years from the budget provided by the House of Commons for the operation of his office in Ottawa, La Presse has learned.

This practice violates the rules of the House of Commons since the funds provided elected officials must be used to finance the activities of Parliament and not partisan activities. The other parties have confirmed to the press that their CEO is paid by the respective funds of the party, not money received from the House of Commons.

Mr. Gardner, who worked at the headquarters of the Bloc in Montreal and  occupied himself with the management and organization of the party, was hired in 2004 by Mr. Duceppe. He pocketed a salary that exceeded $ 100, 000 in the last years of his term.
.....

La Presse has also learned that Marie-France Charbonneau, the  significant other of his chief of staff, François LeBlanc, was paid by the Bloc leader's office as a consultant while she was pursuing a master's degree. She was also paid during the time she was writing a book on the 20th anniversary of the Bloc Quebecois with Professor Guy Lachapelle, Concordia University.
Although Marie-France Charbonneau was officially a councilor to Gilles Duceppe, she rarely set her feet down in the House of Commons. "We did not know what she was doing apart from writing this book,"  said the Bloc Quebecois. Ms. Charbonneau received an annual salary of more than $ 90,000, according to our information
The article elicited comments from Maxime Bernier of the Conservatives and Marc Garneau of the Liberals who both blasted the former Bloc leader as a hypocrite for wrongfully spending Parliamentary money on partisan politics, while complaining about the ethics of others.

When Duceppe lost his seat, all the aforementioned 'employees' lost their jobs as well, but all were eligible for six months severance pay, courtesy of Canadian taxpayers.
All three were immediately rehired by the Bloc Quebcois office in Montreal at essentially the same salaries, something that caused a certain uneasiness among Bloc members.

When Daniel Paillé, the new Bloc leader assumed his position in December, the first order of business was to fire them all, so clearly there were forces in the Bloc that were unhappy with Duceppe's arrangements.
Someone within the Bloc, an enemy of Duceppe, leaked the story about the wrongful use of Parliamentary funds, to Marois.

As to the issue of paying those salaries with taxpayer money, Mr. Duceppe doesn't deny the facts, but dismisses the complaint about the spending as a partisan political attack, nothing else.

It remains to be seen what will happen.
Those who wanted to see Mr. Duceppe succeed Pauline Marois as leader of the PQ  worked overtime to spin the story as nothing but politics, rather than ethics.

Le Devoir, a nationalist newspaper, reported on the La Presse story rather dryly, but what is more interesting are the comments under the story where about eight out of ten readers supported Mr. Duceppe and proposed that the so-called scandal was a hatchet job cooked up by federalists.  See the comments here.
But one reader remained unconvinced of Duceppe's innocence.
"Typical PQ reaction...
When a newspaper exposes a scandal against the Quebec Liberal Party, they applaud wildly.
When the same newspaper denounces the mismanagement of the PQ or Bloc, they talk about propaganda, revenge, political operation, etc ...
And they believe themselves to be credible?"
So readers, I'm not so sure those defending Duceppe will be entirely successful.
The fact that he paid his chief of staff's girlfriend out of taxpayer money will be not be easily forgiven by the public.

Voters may be simple and not understand the intricacies over whether Duceppe did something wrong in using House of Commons money to pay the salaries of those involved in partisan politics, but providing someone a 'No-show job' is something even the uninitiated understand to be graft.

Look for the lovely Marie-France Charbonneau to  come under a fierce attack by journalists sensing a juicy scandal.
I look forward to hear her denials. I'm not sure that the Bloc, which has already cleaned house of all these Duceppe cronies is ready to defend her.
Who knows, she could be thrown under the bus. It could be interesting.

It also remains to be seen what the legal opinion ordered by Joe Comartin (Ndp), chair of the Parliamentary committee responsible for overseeing these expenditures, will reveal.
In a worst case scenario the Bloc would have to refund up to a million dollars to the government.
It's also been reported that other Bloc members are also being investigated for similar abuses.


Daniel Paillé, the current leader of the Bloc, refused comment, distancing himself from the story by saying that the affair predated his leadership.

We could be in for a scandal on a par with the Sponsorship affair that destroyed the Liberals.

And so the battle between Marois and Duceppe has exploded into open warfare, a drag'em out brawl that ended with a devastating second round knockout counterpunch by Marois. 

Yesterday Duceppe admitted defeat and announced that he was withdrawing from politics.

Well played  Madame Marois.  Game....Set......Match...  


For federalists, it's also Christmas in January! 

Keep on truckin', Pauline, the longer you remain at the helm, the happier we federalists remain!

Stay tuned....

***************UPDATE***************
In a television report, late last night,  Jean Lapierre (an Liberal ex-politician and star pundit) reported that every MP is furnished with a manual explaining the rules and that if they misspent money, they, not the party are personally responsible for reimbursement.
He also intimated that Duceppe is clearly guilty of violating the rules, which according to him, are pretty clear.

SWEET!

18 comments:

  1. Oh, Editor, for the love of God, come now! As if Premier John James Charest (screw that "Goldilocks " moniker, the point has been made) isn't going to double-dip? As if ANY politician who gets both won't double-dip. Who the hell do you think you're kidding? You think ex-Ontario politicans like John Baird, Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty won't take every freakin' red sent they'll get their hands on? Didn't Bouchard? Who's kidding who here?

    The separatists have been acting cannibalistic since Lévesque stepped down, and even he was getting jaws snapping at him when he chose "le beau risque"! I'm only surprised Parasite didn't yank Bouchard's cane out of his hands and beat him to death with it after that fat-assed one-trick-pony lost the 1995 Referendum and get his power utterly and completely usurped by a man who only had one leg to stand on!!!

    Then he rad out of gas (translation: Bouchard stayed exactly the five years he needed to qualify for his premium premier's pension).

    Editor, while I'm for dissing any and all separatists, including Douchebag Duceppe, it's not as if he should be singled out against other separatists, but opportunistic federalists as well who stick their snouts in two troughs, maybe even more. I'm sure Michael Wilson, Mulroney's right-hand finance minister back in the day, who is our embassador to the the U.S., as well as other ex politicians who get cinchy high-paying positions in government.

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  2. Wasn't Duceppe the last Great White Hope for the aging and increasingly irrelevant Separatist movement? I guess they'll have to hitch their wagons to that rising star, Pauline Marois come the next Quebec election.

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    1. Love your nick, but it was René Lévesque who was drunk... I've had people actually claim that this never happened when I drive by that stretch of road!

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  3. Editor,

    "My least favorite politician in Canada is the thoroughly dislikeable Gilles Duceppe..."

    I thought it was Thomas Mulcair?

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  4. Regarding this Duceppe affair, look at the headline on Vigile.net. It is Gesca (publisher of La Presse owned by Paul Desmarais) who declares war against Duceppe.

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    1. Some of these are pure gold, although frankly I'm surprised this struck such a chord with Vigile. To paraphrase the immortal Shakespeare... methinks the website doth protest too much.

      Ah the schadenfreude.

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  5. I have a huge distrust of Oncle Tom, more then Gilles Duceppe or even Jauque Parizean.

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  6. Mr. Sauga,
    I believe what the editor is getting at is the double dipping of Duceppe or even the fact that he is making 140k a year from a country he apparently hs so much disdain for is the height of hyprocricy. I don't see John Baird or Jean Charest openly calling for the destruction of Canada. Duceppe and Mulcair are the lowest of the lows.
    Great post Editor, I've found this guy slimey and smarmy for years now. He's just plain gross as a human being.

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    1. It always surprises me how many of these idiots with skeletons in the closet think that they'll never come to light.

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    2. Ghost, OK, so what's new? Mulroney had a plenitude of separatists in his cabinet, such as Lucien Bouchard, his friend he loved like a brother who became the renegade that founded the BQ, and Marcel Masse, amongst others! Think they're not taking their platinum plated pensions fo federal money? DREAM ON! Think the seppie PQ politicians who turned 65 missed one dollar of their OAS entitlements, a federal program? Not in a billion years--a trillion years!

      With very, very few exceptions, these politicians, no matter what their political stripe or country where they lived off other people's taxes, but according to the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, we're paying $23 for every dollar they put into the program, and yet they charge the rest of us higher and higher CPP/QPP premiums every year for less and less benefits. Gilles Dufuss is just another page in the book of politicians who are very generousto themselves with your tax dollars and mine.

      Evne Harper talked a good fight when he was the President of the National Citizens' Coalition about the MP's pension, and now he's collecting the thing, or will when his time comes. Same for the senate's big salaries, perks and cinchy jobs. Dufuss is just another page in the very, very, very thick book!

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  7. Our resident separatist troll has been completely absent today. He must be heartbroken over the demise of Gilles Duceppe, lol.

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  8. Police Brutality with a 10 year old native girl and her father at hotel in winnipeg.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-KCmeCcCWA&feature=related

    Les anglos seraient des racistes?Je n'en crois pas mes oreilles...

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  9. hey editor! will you apologize to M. Duceppe now that we know he was framed? or will you do like la presse and pretend nothing happened?

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  10. Tu dis n'importe quoi, épais!

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  11. Haïti chérie dit : Putain, qu’elle a un beau cul sur cette photo, la belle Pauline

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  12. I have noticed more and more French folks commenting on the Gazette articles with their convoluted statistics and opinions. Please join Le Devoir (seperatist mainstream newspaper) and help me correct them!

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