Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and yes, Montrealers can celebrate a historic hockey win without trashing the town.
Beating those nasty Bruins was one of those feel-good moments that sports can give us, but the fact that 20,000 jubilant and lubricated fans can file out of the Bell Centre and the barflies can roll out of the clubs and not break things is remarkable and encouraging.
You have to give credit to Montreal police; it seems they have learned a thing or two about riots and how to prevent them.
After the longest winter in years, after the darkness of 18 months of Pauline Marois, after the angst of the Quebec election, we so need this.
Here’s the thing: the Habs are now Canada’s team.
From St Johns to Victoria it’s time for the entire country to get behind Les Glorieux, including perhaps some of the folks at our so-called national broadcaster who seem to take joy in taking shots at the Habs.
Memo to the CBC: there is a reason why Anglos in Quebec watch hockey games on RDS.
The only Canadian team in the playoffs, the last Canadian team to win the Cup, and if the hockey gods are kind, the next one to win it.
Canada’s team with the best fans in the league in the greatest city in the country.
Boulet the blind
It was kind of hard trying to keep a straight face this week watching Quebec’s former Transportation Minister at the Charbonneau Commission.
Julie Boulet denied knowing anything about Liberal fundraising targets.
Under Jean Charest the Liberals were a fundraising machine. Every MNA had a target.
More money was expected from rich ridings, less from poorer ones.
Cabinet ministers were required to raise the most.
Caucus meetings could be like revival-style sales meetings with the greatest applause reserved for the ones who raised the most for the party.
With all this pressure to raise money came the temptation to trade donations for favours and that’s exactly what Charbonneau is getting at.
Julie Boulet just managed to look silly, incompetent and less than forthcoming.
Partisan report straight to the shredder
You knew the fix was in right from the get-go.
The PQ commission on the student riots was a partisan operation from the start, with Serge Menard, a former PQ minister heading the inquiry.
Guess what was the main conclusion?
All those months of student unrest were largely the fault of the Liberal government because of what the commission said was its refusal to negotiate with the students when they were staging their illegal strikes.
It was a political manoeuvre to create the commission and a political report it was.
What it should have addressed is how the PQ donned red squares and got in bed with the student protesters for electoral gain.
The report was actually ready weeks ago but the government chose to release at 6:45 Wednesday night, 15 minutes before the puck dropped in game 7.
It was meant to be ignored and ignored it will be.
Rightfully so.
Another spectacular waste of your money.
It’s time to turn the page, time to move on and time to bring on those boys from Broadway.
