Tag Archives: Jack Layton

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Lise St-Denis switching parties is just like how we used to draw swastikas on ourselves… Wait, WTF!?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/10/quebec-mp-lise-st-denis-defects-from-ndp-to-liberals/

In a move that makes about as much sense as winning the lottery and giving it all to charity—but is a lot less altruistic—Saint-Maurice-Champlain MP Lise St-Denis announced today that she’ll be shuffling along the opposition benches from the NDP to the Liberals, thus reducing any chance of her getting re-elected.  Although this appears to be a puzzling political move, it makes more sense when you consider that St-Denis is 71 and battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  Chances are she wouldn’t want to commit to sitting in parliament until she was 80.  Hey, doesn’t the Senate force people to step down by then, or was that one of those promised reforms that never saw the light of day?

Mind you, despite the fact that St-Denis won the riding by well over 4,000 votes in the NDP’s Boot out the Bloc movement, you could say that Saint-Maurice-Champlain is somewhat of a Liberal stronghold, having been held for many years by none other than le petit gars de Shawinigan, M. Jean Chrétien.  Not saying he had any undue influence, but they were seated together on a plane heading back from Jack Layton’s funeral a few months back.  Incidentally, St-Denis has angered some by saying at today’s press conference “Les électeurs ont voté pour Jack Layton. Jack Layton est mort.” — “Voters voted for Jack Layton. Jack Layton is dead.”

All this, I suppose, is a lengthy run up to one of the most astonishingly, laugh-out-loud idiotic comments I’ve seen in some time.  Any point this National Post pundit might have had was lost within his shockingly awful message…

 

Although I’m not sure I share his belief that St-Denis’ only doing this for attention—so she can go out and party afterwards—we do agree on one thing.  Buddy, you’re a moron!

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Jack Layton and Greek PM George Papandreou – separated at birth!?

Posted by gruesomegreg on

You know, I’d been reading a lot about Greece lately, but it wasn’t until the country’s prime minster, George Papandreou, called for a referendum concerning the country’s financial future—a first in Greece since 1974—that I saw a picture of the guy for the first time, after which I couldn’t help thinking that I’d seen him somewhere before…

 

Like Layton, Papandreou is the leader of a so-called socialist party, though he’s achieved something that Jack never managed to do—become prime minister.  That said, he currently clings to a narrow two-seat majority in parliament, putting him on the hot seat to keep his party in line.  The socialists in PASOK, Papandreou’s party, aren’t thrilled about cutting spending, so they’re leaving it to the people to decide.  Naturally, the European stock markets ont mangé une tabarnak upon news of this announcement.  Will the Greeks put saving their own bacon ahead of the well-being of the European—if not global—economy?  Stay tuned…

COMMENT OF THE DAY: Communist history fail!

Posted by gruesomegreg on

From: http://www.torontosun.com/2011/10/13/ndp-calls-on-ethics-boss-to-investigate-raitt

The plot thickens in the Air Canada dispute, with the NDP revealing that Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, she of the back-to-work legislation, had her tickets upgraded to business class by Duncan Dee himself.  You remember Duncan, he had that man with a gun show up outside his heavily fortified castle the other night.  Suffice to say that the anti-unionist commentors on the Toronto Sun would have a field day with this.  But wait, is that an anti-Harper comment I see!?

 

(I’d point out to richcom that calling the Harper government Bolsheviks is kinda like saying Jack Layton was a Nazi, but it looks like someone already beat me to the punch.)

Brosseau to replace Layton as NDP leader?

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In his Journal de Montréal column, Christopher Hall suggests that a certain “Hélène Brosseau” could become the new leader of the NDP—as long as she spends the leadership campaign in Vegas.  Very funny, buddy, but her name’s Ruth Ellen, and she prefers R.E..  BTW, the media seems to have missed the fact that she has five tattoos and a lip-ring, as Justin Kingsley discovered for Ottawa Magazine.  How long till we find out she used to be a Suicide Girl?  In the meantime, you can check out her feet tats in this CBC video.

Hall’s column, which is purely satirical, also suggests some other potential candidates for NDP leadership, such as Lucien Bouchard—who now charges 800 dollars an hour in the private sector—Gilles Duceppe—who has experience leading 50 deputies from Quebec—and himself, noting that he only charges half as much as Bouchard.  An entertaining read, if you speak the language.  (Google Translate for the rest of ya!)

Hey, if an Anglophone whose last name starts with a hard H can be a humour columnist for Le Journal, I might actually have a future in La Belle Province.  (Quebec, that is, not the restaurant chain…)

You don’t say…

Posted by gruesomegreg on

Excerpt from an interview with Ruth Ellen Brosseau, from Quebec newspaper l’action D’Autray:

Quel rôle a joué monsieur Layton dans votre implication politique ?

(R.E.B.) En trente ans de vie publique, monsieur Layton s’est dévoué à améliorer la vie des gens qui l’entouraient. Si j’ai été élue le deux mai dernier, c’est en très grande partie le résultat de ce travail acharné.

The second sentence, translated: If I was elected on May 2nd, it was in very large part the result of his (Jack Layton’s) hard work.

Full text (en français) here: http://www.lactiondautray.com/Actualites/MRC-de-DAutray/2011-08-26/article-2728459/Deces-de-Jack-Layton-%3A-Ruth-Ellen-Brosseau-sous-le-choc/1

UPDATE 1:40 PM: La Presse columnist Vincent Marissal happened to be on the same return flight from Jack Layton’s funeral as Jean Chrétien and the NDP MP for Chrétien’s former riding, Lise Saint-Denis.  Apparently, the former said “If you had listened to me before the elections (re Liberal/NDP merger), Stephen Harper wouldn’t be in power today.”

À suivre…

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/chroniqueurs/vincent-marissal/201108/28/01-4429641-apres-les-funerailles-un-mariage.php