Jean Lapierre: Axe to Grind with his Former Party or Harpercon Shill?

Which is it? Either? Or both? Maybe neither of the above. If so, why would you tell Andrew Carter, morning man on CJAD, that Canadians don’t care about Harper flying the coup, torturegate, employment insurance and of course, climate change? C’mon Jean, just because you may not care for these things doesn’t mean the rest of the population don’t.  No, wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.

What’s even more eerie is that Lapierre pretty much regurgitated what he spewed on Question Period before Christmas Holidays.  Almost like Deja-Vu.

As a matter of fact, I had noticed that he hasn’t had much of anything positive to say about the Liberals. He is more positive of the Bloc and his former foe, Gilles Duceppe. I have also noticed that while somewhat critical, he has more praise for the Harpercons as of late. 

During last November’s by-election, it almost seemed like Lapierre was rooting for Bernard Genereux over the Bloc candidate, Nancy Gagnon in Montmagny-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere du Loup, although he did predict, incorrectly, that Gagnon would win.

For those who don’t know or don’t remember, Jean Lapierre was a Liberal MP under Trudeau and John Turner for the Quebec riding of Shefford between 1979 – 1993; at which time he resigned due to the win of the Liberal leadership of Jean Chretien.

He did help  found of the Bloc Quebecois, although, he would not stay long.

He left to work  in the media, for CKAC radio.

He would later come back in 2004 to the Federal Liberals to succeed Martin Cauchon in the riding of Outremont and become Paul Martin’s Transport minister.  His political career has been not without controversy; a love hate/relationship depending who the leader would be at any given time.  He would win his seat in the 2006 election, but Paul Martin, as we all know, did not.  Lapierre would resign in 2007, which led to the by-election victory of the N.D.P.’s Thomas Mulcair.

He has been accused of being a separatist largely in part because of his past with the Bloc Quebecois. However, there was also some bad blood with Gilles Duceppe.

Lapierre has gone back to the media business. He does political commentary for CTV, CJAD and some other radio and TV outlets. He currently has a political show, Laroque et Lapierre,  on TVA, a French language TV station belonging to Quebecor. So, yeah, he has joined the ranks of corporate media.

You can read more about him and his sometimes controversial tenure with the Liberals.  Perhaps it will help understand what may be motivating him to trash his old party at every turn.

That same episode of Question Period where he spewed that Canadians didn’t care about climate change or Afghan Detainees, he also annoyed me when he slammed Charest and McGinty for showing up to embarrass Stevie in Copenhagen. While critical of Stevie for miscalculating some of his premiers, Lapierre was way more critical of the premiers for embarrassing Stevie on the world stage.

Just a quick comment, Jean,  Stevie didn’t need the premiers to embarrass him at climate change talks; he succeeded at that all by his lonesome. The premiers only showed up because unlike King Stevie, they might actually care about the environment. Is that such a stretch?

Every morning, Jean Lapierre comes on the CJAD morning show with Andrew Carter to talk about political happenings.

This morning, Andrew Carter specifically asked for Lapierre’s comments regarding the Liberals’ new ad campaign.  To say the least, he had nothing positive to say about his former brethren. He jeered them for running ads specifically attacking Stevie and the Harpercons. He liked nothing about them; right down to the spooky music. He didn’t like that the ads accused Stevie of a hidden agenda. He expressed all of this before he mentioned that Canadians don’t care about prorogation, torturegate or  climate change.

Today, he annoyed me more. To the point where I had to read up a little bit more about him. I can’t simply dismiss him as simply another minion of the Corporate media. TVA (as mentioned, owned by Quebecor) is his main employer. Yes, corporate, but I always believed that Quebecor has separatist leanings, and therefore, not necessarily one of the right arms of the Harpercons.

So what is motivating this kind of  partisan commentary on his part? Is it because he still has an axe to grind with his former brethren?

Or is he a shill for the Harpercons? Is he looking to get back into politics and trying to lobby Stevie for a post in his kingdom? Or is he looking for King Stevie to appoint him to the senate?

I, for one, would  like to know.