Jean Charest Takes Back a Former Government House Leader and Iggy’s Aid, Making Him An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse & Jane Taber & the Harpercons are Already Pointing Their Daggers at Iggy

Yes, we all knew this day was coming; Jean Charest would shuffle the cabinet. With his Quebec Liberals polling at all time lows given the last budget was chock full of user fees and the party is still mired in scandals, Charest is doing what many are calling  “shuffling the lawn chairs on the Titanic”.  Sadly for him, that is exactly what he is doing,  as it won’t likely help him or the Quebec Liberal Party.

That last budget of Raymond Bachand was probably the last straw that broke the camel’s back, though.

The scandals are nothing more than a distraction. Particularly the construction industry and whatever links they may (or may not) have to organized crime and the contracts awarded to ‘em. Pauline Marois of the Parti Quebecois can shriek all she likes about a public inquiry which she and the other opposition parties are pressuring Charest to have, but the truth is the Parti Quebecois’s hands wouldn’t be that clean neither.   Construction-organized crime-kickbacks: Bienvenue a notre belle province! Hell, I used to make jokes when folks asked me if I watched “The Sopranos”; to which I would I answer something like, “why watch them on TV when you can get the live show on the 6 o’clock news?”  But I digress.

Anyhow, amidst all that shuffle talk, Jacques Dupuis who was the government house leader until he recently resigned, citing ‘personal reasons’ (Sure, whatever. More like he probably knew what was coming and left before bossman Charest could can him; publicly) is now going to be replaced by Jean-Marc Fournier who held that same post in 2007 during the time Charest had a minority with the Mario Dumont show in opposition. Fournier was also appointed justice minister, replacing Kathleen Weil who now moves to immigration.

Well, well, well. Somebody is desperate and ain’t afraid to hide it and is chanelling it through none other than Jane Taber it would seem. Fournier,  up until recently, was Iggy’s advisor and principle secretary.  The Harpercons haven’t wasted any time preparing the attack ads regarding Iggy and Quebec; speculation that Fournier couldn’t escape Iggy fast enough.

“Fournier saw first hand that Ignatieff doesn’t respect Quebeckers,” the Conservative memo says. “For example, he saw that Ignatieff doesn’t acknowledge Quebec’s distinctiveness, that he can’t differentiate Quebec from Minnesota, that he was firmly opposed to Quebec getting a seat at UNESCO, and so forth.”

Oh there is more, but you get the idea. Sure didn’t take ‘em long, dinnit? Couldn’t be further from the truth. Odds are if Charest is bumping the current  minister of Justice, Kathleen Weil, a sitting MNA to make way for the incoming Fournier, who has not yet a seat in the National Assembly, something tells me Charest asked Fournier to come aboard his sinking ship and not Fournier desperately running away from Iggy.  According to an interview the CBC’s Nick Gamache had with Fournier not long ago, one gets the sense that he misses being on the front lines of Quebec politics in spite of his rather dismissive answers with Gamache.

In spite of Taber and the Harpercon’s best efforts, as well as the upcoming efforts of  the Kory Klan and Natty Po’s Tasha Kheirridin who is their  (self) designated Quebec ‘expert’ (she told me that in an email once) to start pumping their Harpercon sunshine no doubt on this debacle no doubt, it appears that Fournier is leaving Iggy’s office on good terms.

Iggy, you may want to hold off on filling Fournier’s position in a hurry, though. Fournier still has to win a by-election. While he will be running in Jacques Dupuis’s old riding of St-Laurent, normally a ‘safe’ Liberal seat, something tells it’s not going to be quite the lock Charest and Fournier think it will be.  Many folks are pissed with the Liberals and the Parti-Quebecois is gaining.  The Liberals would do well to learn from that 2009 federal by-election in Montmagny-l’Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere du Loup when everyone thought the Bloc Quebecois would still manage to squeak past Stevie spiteful’s ‘star’ candidate, Bernard Genereux. If the Parti-Quebecois find a ‘star’ of their own to run against Fournier, it could get pretty interesting.  I wonder if Charest  has a plan B?

As for Iggy, while the loss was something he could do without, he didn’t lose an MP. With all due respect to Mr. Fournier, he wasn’t really helping Iggy make traction in Quebec. Sadly, I don’t think any federal Liberal could at this time.  For the same reason Charest’s scandals are blown more than they should be (I pointed out earlier that the Parti-Quebecois would have the exact same problems when awarding construction contracts; nature of the beast in La Belle province), no federal liberal leader will make any traction in Quebec while the sovereignty movement is in vogue. 

It’s rich for the Harpercons to accuse Iggy of not understanding Quebec when recent pollsters have been predicting bloodshed for them in Quebec; that they would lose most if not all their seats in La Belle Province.  Funny how Harpercons choose to care about our “distinct” society now when it conveniences them.

Sadly, most will only believe the Harpercon attack ads over actual facts.