Meet your new Quebec NDP caucus.
The jokes write themselves. Will they vote for a national nap time program? Will Jack Layton implement the buddy system to get them to work? And how can they talk to Canadians when they’re not allowed to talk to strangers?
Among the NDP’s 57 new MPs, nine are baby-faced graduates, some of whom are just out of University and one who probably still belongs in high school.
The dissolution of the Bloc Quebecois gave way to what appears to be a rather mindless shift to the NDP, as evidenced by the fact residents in Quebec did not even bother to check what candidates they were voting for.
Pierre-Luc Dusseault, who captured 43 per cent of the vote in the riding of Sherbrooke, is a month shy of his twentieth birthday, having only just completed his first year of University. He becomes the youngest MP in Canadian history and the new centrefold for Barely Legal Canadian Politician Magazine.
More bizarre still is the story about Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who decided to go to Las Vegas during her own campaign in Berthier-Maskinoge, a region of the country she doesn’t live. Even worse, Brosseau can not parle Francais, but it didn’t stop her from defeating incumbent Bloc Quebecois MP by 6,000 votes.
There are other stories similar to the above, with NDP candidates winning in Quebec despite having no political experience, never mind very little life experience. The sudden changes in fortune for the party appear to be more a philosophical change of heart than one rooted in the campaign efforts of the challengers.
I’m not sure what this says about our democracy, when a group of neophyte nobodies can win jobs that pay a base compensation of $157,000 by simply entering their names on a campaign form. As noted by others, Dusseault can qualify for his pension in six years, giving new life to the term “Freedom 25.”
Prime minister Stephen Harper wants to call the House back into session by mid-May, but the NDP said they aren’t ready with 57 new MPs to train. I assume they mean potty train. As I said, the jokes write themselves, good and bad.
I don’t really feel so bad any more about not voting. After all, I could have done worse. I could have elected a 19-year-old.
All jokes aside, it’s just as well Jack’s newly minted MPs are as green as their favourite Sesame Street puppet, since the four years they will serve in opposition voting on bills of no consequence will be invaluable experience.
The greater fear would have been 57 rookies expected to lead a minority government, something the province of Quebec doesn’t seem to have cared much about when they cast caution into the wind and stabbed blindly in the polling booth.
This really puts paid to the myth that in order to attract the best and brightest talent to politics we have to compensate people with exorbitant salaries and generous benefits.
But so long as Ottawa is looking for young people with no practical political experience, I humbly offer my services. After all, unlike Dusseault, I can actually legally drink if I need to visit the United States.
In various other posts it was stated that the NDP had very little organisation on the ground in la belle province.
Consequently I doubt that the NDP delivered much campaign literature and that most voters were swayed by what they saw on TV.
Had they seen pictures of some of the candidates and read their CV’s I cannot believe they would have voted for them.
Berlesconi missed a trick here.
“…Dusseault can qualify for his pension in six years…”
Technically true that he can “qualify” but he won’t be able to actually get his snout into the trough until he turns 55.
Quebec believed in the coalition and wanted Jack, who had promised everything the Bloc did, to lead that coalition. PM Harper getting a majority screwed their plans and now they are stuck with 40 unknown, and inexperienced MP’s who have no idea what Quebec really wants. Quebec influence is dead.
I’m happy the Bloc is dead, and watching Jack trying to herd his Quebec cats for the next 4 years will be too funny.
All right, tough guy; it’s easy to mock the McGill Caucus of fairly startled new NDP Members of Parliament. What amuses me more than their undergraduate programs (Islamic studies; diversity studies; sociology; karate; French)is the fact that where they ain’t students, they’re civil servants. It’s like a dirigiste utopia over there, bien sur! Chris Selley called some of ‘em “seat-moisteners” — maybe that’s accurate…
For all that, they’re regular citizens, Adrian; and a truly functional democracy is governed by same. I could wish for a few more grocers, miners and waitresses in the House, sure; but let it be said of this lot, they don’t belong to any governing class, and they ain’t pundits, professors or lawyers. Any free-born or naturalised Canadian can help run this country, right? Everyone can rise. The point of the enterprise, really.
I intend to disagree with the NDP’s idealistic new Quebec representatives. They’re in for a rough ride. Federal politics will batter and quickly age them, and they may not be up to snuff. But to call ‘em “amateurs” should be a compliment. What did lifelong politicals like Duceppe and Ignatieff have to say to the Canadian people, after all?
So let the Orange Crush kids take their seats and do their best, Adrian. Some will bollocks it up horribly — in fact, the whole NDP will doubtlessly bungle its unexpected Opposition task — but, you know, free societies aren’t run by professionals. I welcome the extremely normal youths of the Quebec NDP to the grownup world; may they rise to their weird occasion.
All the entertainment value aside, these kids, who I am certain did not expect to actually win have turfed the mighty Bloc. Next time the nominations will be actually contested. God bless democracy.
I have already posted elsewhere about the N.D.P. winner in Montreal West Island riding Pierrefonds-Dollar who lives and works (part-time) in Trois Rivieres. I forgot to mention that she didn’t turn up for the one debate between candidates in the riding at a local synagogue (neither did the Bloc candidate).
Is this the new National Daycare Program.
“This really puts paid to the myth that in order to attract the best and brightest talent to politics we have to compensate people with exorbitant salaries and generous benefits”
Touche!!!!
Something stinks about this whole thing…
1. These placeholders never campaigned – some never set foot in the riding.
2. E.C. gives money for the number of candidates you run for campaign funds..were these money makers for the NDP?
3. There is a nomination fee – who paid that? Was the Vegas vacation planned to keep this girl out of the media eye? Were travel funds given to her.
4. Are all of the nomination signatures of these kids being checked out.
All jokes aside, I am sure that those candidates and their volunteers all over the country look at this with disgust given the exhausting work necessary to get elected(well, except in Quebec obviously – although I am sure other candidates worked just as hard.
My last question has to do with how this is being handled in the media – most pundits like Susan Delacourt are writing and tweeting about how we need young people in parliment. Others are blissfully ignoring this.
I would ask our Main Stream Media to subsitute Blue for Orange and ask themselves how they would be handling this!
Quick call Candid Camera – somebody got punked!!! lol So much for the sophisticated voters of Quebec. Cheers.
Waiting for Rick Mercer to rant on new kids on the block:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnmgL5CZqfs
Hey, you never know. The “kids” could surprise you. Undoubtedly, it’s going to be a term of surprises.
The first shock these youngsters will get is the deductions from their paycheques. They might change their minds about those who are rich should be taxed more.
The liberals and Bloc were decimated on May 1st, and the ndp will implode during the next 4 yrs. Jack probably needs more time to get officials appointed in those ridings to complete all the forms necessary for EC. Will be interesting going over the expense stmts at EC and discover all the evidence of in and out.
Nevermind Ruth Ellen “Vegas” Brousseau, when we’ve got :
Jacques “The Crotch” Layton (or simply, “Crotch” Layton)
Thomas “UFO” Mulcair (as in, unidentified-flying-Osama)
This is gonna be fun!
Scott Feschuk
From Mr. Feschuk’s caption contest :
Jacques “The Crotch” Layton : “You know Baby, now that we’re the Official Opposition, all of you NDP Chicks — and Lizzie — will have to begin shaving your bums.”
Orivia : “You mean shaving our butts, or our husbands and boyfriends?”
“Crotch” Layton : “Yes … both.”
*
I know you’re watching, Gayle….
Cheers, and congrats on Quebec! The expression “Be careful what you wish for in Quebec”, comes to mind. 
From the National Post link in Adrian’s post (slightly paraphrased):
The party said none of its candidates was available for interviews Tuesday beyond an afternoon news conference with the NDP’s only experienced Quebec MP, Thomas “UFO” Mulcair. The National Post’s Tamsin McMahon takes a look at some of the unexpected wins….
The jokes certainly do write themselves but I’m wondering where are the editorial cartoons? The local interviews? The YouTube celebrations? The Facebook postings? The New Kids from the Bloc didn’t all go to Vegas. Are they is some kind of “lockdown” until the media forgets about them?
Also, this being the NDP, you just knew that Star Trek was going to enter into it at some point:
Ms. Borg, a 20-year-old political science student and McGill labour relations officer, won by more than 10,000 votes in Terrebonne-Blainville. She told Le Trait d’Union newspaper that she was “a bit surprised” at her win and had been absent from the local campaign because she had promised to work on Mr. Mulcair’s re-election campaign. She said she was considering putting her studies on hold or staying in school part-time while working in Ottawa and was planning on opening a constituency office.
Good thing we got that Majority ; Quebec may have fallen to The Borg, but the rest of us will not be assimilated!
Long Live Emperor Harper !
Long Live The Empire !
Ka’Pla !
Quote. Adrian: ” The greater fear would have been 57 rookies expected to lead a minority government, something the province of Quebec doesn’t seem to have cared much about when they cast caution into the wind and stabbed blindly in the polling booth. ”
OMG I hadn’t even though of that ! Now just imagine how good and effective P.M. Layton would have been with this crew running Canada into the ground ! If we could have predicted this it would have been a great argument against the Coalition.
I in part blame very sloppy journalism: If they had done their real job and looked at NDP candidates before the vote and informed people maybe ” The People ” wouldn’t have made such stupid choices.
We just had ” A Canadian Idol ” election as far as the quality of reporting and some candidates are concerned !
Adrian, I hope you remember this at the next election and that other News People also remember it and look closely at all candidates backgrounds and make sure that the information is out there for voters to make better choices. I think it should become SOP for Media and think of the ” SCOOP ” a reporter could have had finding digging into this stuff before the election.
The MSM too busy trying to sink Harper to look and investigate anything else as well as the obsession for Polls and ” The Horse Race ”
The real significance of the federal election–a Globe and Mail story, “Canada’s new electoral divide: It’s about the money” (May 4), states that “The true divide, the new reality of Canadian politics, is between the economic heartlands that the Conservatives now dominate throughout the country and the economic hinterlands won by the NDP.” I differ.
The true divide, as it was in the 2008 election but ever more so now, is between Québec and the Rest of Canada (RoC, once quaintly known as English Canada). The Conservatives in Québec this year won 16.5 per cent of the popular vote and only six seats out of 75, that is eight per cent of them.
In the RoC the Conservatives won 48 per cent of the vote (almost a majority, in a contest with three other serious parties) and 167 of 233 seats, that is a whopping 72 per cent of them. The difference with Québec could hardly be more pronounced.
The clear fact is that the Conservatives are dominant at this point in the RoC while barely a force in la belle province. Moreover Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are in line to receive significant numbers of new seats to reflect their increase in population. Most of those seats will be suburban ones, just the sort of seat very likely to be picked up by the Conservatives. So it seem probable that their dominance in the RoC will increase; meanwhile it is hard to see any great breakthrough for them in Québec in light of the three most recent federal election results there.
So the true great Canadian political divide looks well set only to widen further.
Mark
Ottawa
I think the media should look into the fact that so many of these “candidates” we subsidy grabbers. The only reason that the NDP ran some of them was to ensure that they received their $2.00 per vote, and you can’t get money if you don’t have a candidate getting votes. That these folks actually won seats is the Best Thing Evar! (copyright 2011) as the Bloq was decimated because of it.
To me, one more reason to remove the federal subsidy of political parties and let them drum up cash on their own. With the rules just the way Chretien left them too, serves the Liberals right!
He sure helped the Liberals EH! He must be some
big shot TV star EH!Thinks the world revolves
around him EH!..Now everyone knows how much of an
idiot this guy is EH!Vote stampede EH!Did not work
EH!Pretty sick guy this Mercer fellow EH!They
cancel corner gas and keep Strombolous & Mercer.
And you wonder why people want to cancel CBC.
While I appreciate your name “Jacques “The Crotch” Layton” it is an understandable thus maybe forgivable name. His former name that was just as well earned to me is not at all forgivable and I will remember him forever as TALIBAN JACK LAYTON.
Jack made sure he was front and center in pretty well all ridings. Quebec voted for Jack irregardless of the candidate in the riding. Many ridings could have run a fire hydrant with Layton stamped on it and still won. Jack seemed to have 10 signs with his name for every generic NDP sign. His vanity will cause him a lot of grief over the next four years but it should be very entertaining.