Category: La Belle Province

From the London Parachute Club to the ‘burbs of Montreal, the hooting seems to have begun in ernest. I seem to be living in the only riding that I can ever remember that has all six electoral candidates stuck with the “parachute” label (the front page of today’s Freeps kind of sums it up nicely). Does anybody else out there remember anything even remotely like that? I sure don’t. Sure, Haskett has a lease here now, but before the byelection was called, not a damned one of ’em lived here.

But you sure hear the P-word popping out of all their pieholes, don’t you? Face it, kids, each of them has some connection or other to the riding (hell, Haskett’s family roots here go back two centuries), so can we please get on to the real issues now? All this parachute prattle is gettin’ on my nerves.

The Freeps
Byelection Battle
Do drop in
Campaign notebook
Haskett touted as prudent

And, here we go yet again. Pretty scant stuff this time, I must confess. Where the heck is all the excitement, anyway? Things should be getting all ugly by now, accusations should be flying, somebody should have been caught with a dimebag/hooker/gerbil or some damn thing by now, and where the hell are the attack ads!?!??

[Memo to me: STOP watching so much American television. That stuff has a creepy way of seeping into the skull after a while…]

Okay, okay; here we go with today’s stuff (all two of ’em so far):

Freeps
Fact Check
Byelection war heats up

Yeah, I know this should have been posted yesterday but what can I say; I don’t blog when I’m sick as a dog. Flingin’ fluids fore and aft is not conducive to the production of readworthy materiel. 🙄 You’re welcome. But I’m back up and about, more or less, and it’s time to fire off what should have come out last night. Leading the list, from the “gee, what a big surprise” department, it turns out that Blochead Raymond Gravel didn’t have permission from the Vatican to run in the byelection in Repentigny after all, and has been “relieved of the exercise of sacramental duties,” according to Joliette Bishop Gilles Lussier. Seems that Church has some sort of thickheaded rules about the mingling of secular and clerical responsibilities. Seriously now; I’m not the only one that saw that coming, am I?

Catholic Online
Priest’s political candidacy ‘painful’ for Catholic Church

The Suburban
Rotrand urges Fortier to run for office

Freeps
Loner parachutes into race

Ah, it begins. The Great Poop Typhoon of ’06 is beginning to build up steam, right on schedule, with the also-rans and Garth “outside lookin’ in” Turner accusing the Tories of salacious skullduggery of paleolithic proportions. The first volley of caterwauling comes over accusations that Tories are (EEK!) … encouraging some people to help out the Tory candidate! 😯 Oh… my… GOD!! Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing (and I’ve read Orwell).

Clearly, this is yet more proof that the Tories are just a bunch of conniving, underhanded miscreants bent on nothing less than breaking up the country, destroying health care, forcing women to get pregnant so they can deny them abortions, and passing legislation requiring that all poutine gravy be made from the fat rendered from murdered babies. And turning Canada into Jesusland; don’t forget about that one. 🙄

Apparently a friend of Haskett’s sent a letter to some friends of his asking them to ask some friends of theirs to help out with Haskett’s campaign. Yup, that’s it. But listen to the Chicken Littles, and you’d think that the Tories were getting set to strap civil servants to oars and go at ’em with a cat o’ nine tails to get them tooting from the Haskett bandwagon. Look to see more of this. Lots more.

The Freeps
Conservatives criticized for byelection attack plan

And it continues. Now that we finally have a Grit in the race (Glen Pearson, elected at a meeting with a piddling turnout of “about 175 party faithful … that failed to fill a quarter of the auditorium at Lucas secondary school,” with a mere “124 ballots cast,” according to the Freeps), Bob Ede has parachuted in from Thornhill to throw his hat into the ring as well. Dang, but it’s startin’ to get kinda crowded around here.

And, make some sense of this if you can, Pearson seems to be the most fired-up of the bunch so far, firing broadsides at literally everyone else in the race (except Ede, who technically isn’t even in the running yet) during his speech last night:

May, he said, can’t say she represents the grassroots because she, too, is an outsider.

And Layton, who asked voters to “lend” his party support, should realize “your time is up. We want that vote back.”

But the normally mild- mannered food bank director and organizer of humanitarian aid for Sudan, saved his harshest comments for Haskett…

Look to see a lot more of that. “Saving the harshest comments for Haskett,” that is. Everybody with any grey matter at all knows damned well that she’s the candidate to beat in this race, no matter what the MSM might bleat about London North Centre being a “Liberano$ bastion.”

Look for plenty bellyaching of all sorts from the MSM, including stabs at her choice of religion (as if Jesus was the bogeyman) and doleful warnings about her “devisiveness.” I’m not too worried, though. Remember that the last time the harping handwringers labelled Hasket an intolerant, fundamentalist, divisive nutjob, she won by a margin of two to one, without even opening her mouth for most of the campaign! Think on that. 😉

So, for those wondering, here’s where the slate stands right now in London North Centre:

• Dianne Haskett (Tories)
• Elizabeth May (Greenies)
• Glen Pearson (Fiberals)
• Megan Walker (Dippers)
• Robert Ede (ind. & pending 100 signatures)
• Steve Hunder (Progressive Canadian Party)

Meanwhile, here’s what else is floating around out there:

The Freeps
Federal byelection clouds city vote

Catholic Online
‘I’m priest first,’ says Catholic cleric running for political office

Well, there really hasn’t been much buzz over this weekend, has there? Nope, not much at all. Nada from the NDP, nary a trifle from the Tories, and the Greens seem to have gagged themselves (okay, so the weekend wasn’t a total writeoff…). The Grits, however, did finally manage to corral some poor bastard into running for them in London North Centre. So, without any further ado, adon’t or whatevertheheckhaveyou, here we go with what I’ve got for ya. Grab a coffee and have yourself a read. But make it a small one; there ain’t much here…:

The Freeps
Second round for Ross, Pearson
Pearson to carry Liberal banner