You didn't need a crystal ball to see this one coming.
The ultra-nationalist Societe St. Jean Baptiste is blaming the English media for creating a climate of fear in Quebec.
In other words, for creating the conditions that could trigger a murderous attack like the one at the Metropolis Tuesday night.
Here's the thing.
Time and time again, after many so-called political acts of violence, people run try to find reasons. 'He didn't like this or that' or it was a protest against something.
Most often you find you are dealing with very ill individuals who use what's in the news as some sort of twisted justification when all the time the sickness comes from deep within.
So it is astounding how these apostles of exclusion at the SSJB could turn the tables and turn themselves into the victims.
We did not wage a campaign of identity politics.
We did not talk about two classes of citizens.
We did not promote one language and one religion.
Yes, the Parti Quebecois campaign went way overboard at times. Pauline Marois pushed some buttons that should have been left alone in an attempt to win hardline support.
Don't blame us.
And don't dare suggest -- even by inference -- that this community or our media voices were somehow even remotely responsible for the dreadful attack of a deranged gunman.
Students win -- or did they?
If you thought students would be happy now, think again.
Of course they are pleased with a PQ victory.
Their springtime of discontent was in many ways a joint PQ-union operation.
Pauline Marois has announced that the tuition hikes are to be scrapped by ministerial fiat.
But it goes further than that.
They want the PQ to keep the improvements to the student aid program offered up by the Liberals last spring.
In other words they want it both ways. I guess the Liberal ideas weren't all bad.
But the militant group CLASSE tells us this week that it doesn't end there.
The ultimate goal, as we knew all along, is free post-secondary education for everyone.
That is the next phase of the protest and it was planned that way all along.
Pauline Marois was hoping her unwavering support of the students could propel her to a huge win but it didn't quite work out that way.
My guess is that it even denied her a majority.
In fact, Marois didn't deliver. A few hundred votes the other way in a handful of key ridings and the Liberals would be in power today.
Less than one percentage point separated the PQ and one of the most unpopular governments in history.
Because the sound heard across Quebec on election night was not the clanging of pots and pans, but the voice of the majority saying no, the voice of the majority of right-thinking people saying they've had enough.
