They say in politics it Is best to keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
In welcoming Bernard Drainville into his camp, Pierre Karl Peladeau, the MNA for Quebecor and soon to be anointed savior of the PQ, had better keep an close eye on his rival.
Just last week Drainville was hammering Peladeau , saying “beware of this idea that there will be a saviour coming down from the sky.”
Then his about-face this week: “It has become very clear to us that Pierre Karl is going to win on the first ballot.”
Nice touch. Pierre Karl. First-name buddies.
Can you spell the word “opportunist” Mr Drainville?
One day he is saying PKP is a man without a plan, a false prophet for the PQ and the next day he is in Peladeau’s corner, touting the wisdom and vision of the next messiah.
Coronation assured
Now, more than ever, the coronation of the PKP is assured.
He will become the new leader next month despite his very best attempts to lose it.
PKP: the man who brought back all those warm and fuzzy memories of Jacques Parizeau with his attack on immigrants who oppose Quebec separation.
PKP: the boob who yelled out “en francais” at a concert of an Anglo band playing in Abitibi.
PKP: the man who perhaps singlehandedly lost the last election for the PQ with his infamous fist pump.
PKP: the son of privilege who has refused to put aside his media holdings because he doesn't see any conflict of interest in leading a province and owning the most important television and newspaper voices in Quebec.
PKP: the union buster who holds a record for locking out employees in Quebec.
Desperation, thy name is Parti Quebecois
PKP has become the chosen one because the PQ is so desperate to survive after the shellacking it received a year ago, when it received just 25.4 percent of the popular vote. (The only time it was lower was its first election in 1970.)
The main reason all hands are supporting PKP is because party members see him not as a political trailblazer, not as a man of principle, and not even as someone who can lead Quebec to the promised land of independence.
They support him because he is a Quebec vedette.
He’s an A-lister in the firmament of the Quebec Star System with an A-list wife in Julie Synder.
Bernard Drainville, well he seems motivated entirely by self-interest and his own political survival.
Who knows, maybe a future cabinet post or a post-political career at Quebecor…
Politics and principles, all too often they don’t mix.
There is little wonder voters become hardened and cynical.
Writing on the wall
When Jean Francois Lisée dropped out of the leadership race in January he said the writing was on the wall. The PQ, he said, wanted to live its Pierre Karl Peladeau moment.
Indeed it will.
And if what we have seen so far is any indication of what is to come, they are welcome to it.
I suspect the infatuation will be short-lived. Remember the PQ’s Andre Boisclair moment?
The latest survey of public opinion has the PQ losing support under PKP, and the Liberals actually holding their own despite their efforts to bring sanity to Quebec finances and the dislike of ‘austerity measures’.
Maybe a majority of Quebecers are slowly coming to the obvious conclusion that this emperor has no clothes.
