Duceppe finds Justin Trudeau too much like dad

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe turned his attention on Justin Trudeau this afternoon, saying the young Liberal candidate in the Montreal riding of Papineau will not defend the French language and is too close in thinking to his father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

"Justin Trudeau represents the past. Vivian Barbot represents the future of the Quebec nation," said Duceppe, referring to the incumbent Bloc candidate and Trudeau's main competition this election.

Duceppe said Trudeau wants to promote bilingualism like his father, instead of defending the French fact in Quebec, leading to the "assimilation of Francophones."

Polls have put Trudeau ahead of Barbot in the working-class riding, which is highly multicultural with a large core of Quebec francophones.

-Andrew Chung

The 22-Minute Handmaid's Tale

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe has a way with women - at least when he comes to Toronto.

Duceppe, here today to attack Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, sat at lunch with Margaret Atwood and had the world-famous writer swooning.

Atwood, who blasted Harper for cutting $45 million from the arts, said if she lived in la belle province she would be voting for the Bloc.

Noting the arts contribute $86 billion to Canada's economy and employ 1.1 million people, she urged people outside Quebec to vote strategically to defeat Tories.

MARK BLINCH/REUTERS

Comedian Geri Hall of 'This Hour Has 22 Minutes' dances with Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe after ambushing him to film an improvised segment for the show.

"I'm here because M. Duceppe understands the contribution that culture makes to our economy," said the Annex-dwelling Atwood.

"If Mr. Harper doesn't understand $86 billion and 1.1 million jobs, what else does he not understand?" she said. 

Duceppe also had an effect on Geri Hall, who plays the "single female voter" on CBC TV's This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Hall crashed the BQ boss's scrum and he didn't miss a beat, asking the comely faux-reporter to dance.

"You're a 'chef', does that mean you cook?" she asked him.

"Yes, I cook, what do you like to eat," the suave separatist chef du parti said suggestively. 

"What I don't like is scorched nation in a separatist reduction. I'm just teasing you," she said. "I wish sometimes I could give you my ballot, but I kind of know that I'd wake up the next day and there'd be an awkward note on my pillow saying 'sorry, I've got to go be my own nation now.'"

-Robert Benzie

Many voices, one message

Another expertly-produced anti-Stephen Harper video has hit the Internet in Quebec and is rapidly garnering attention in a fashion similar to the wildly-popular video featuring singer Michel Rivard called "Culture in Danger," which has been viewed over 500,000 times on YouTube.

This time, dozens of people in the field of culture and film are again featured protesting cuts to arts and culture. But so too are those in education, agriculture, health, and other domains expressing worry over Harper's policies, creating the appearance of a front with one thing in common: an interest in defeating the Conservatives.

The videos can be viewed at the web site unissonsnosvoix.ca, which also links to another site (voterpourlenvironnement.org) that allows voters anywhere in Canada to figure out how to vote strategically to defeat Harper in their own ridings.

In the wake of this kind of pressure in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois in the last week has been surging in the polls, very much at the expense of the Tories.

- Andrew Chung

Sounding off on arts cuts

Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe continued to attack the Conservatives' cuts to arts and culture today in a speech to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.

The cuts have become an important issue in Quebec, if only because the province's artists have been increasingly vocal about them. A major concert and protest took place last night in Montreal, attended by Duceppe and NDP leader Jack Layton, who promised to reverse the $45 million in program cuts.

In his speech, Duceppe told the business leaders arts and culture generated $1.4 billion for Montreal's economy alone.

Then he had a bit of fun. He reminded the audience of California governor and former Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's criticism of Ottawa and Washington for inaction on the environment.

"We're sending a strong message to our federal governments that states and provinces are moving forward in the absence of federal action," Schwarzenegger said yesterday  during an announcement of a regional market among 11 provinces and states to trade carbon emissions and lower greenhouse gases.

But for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, "Schwarzenegger isn't credible," Duceppe said.

"He's an artist!"

- Andrew Chung

You win some, you lose some

When politicians go out to press the flesh with average folk, you never know what you’re going to get.

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, a congenial man when you're not on his bad side, had a few awkward moments along Ste. Catherine St. in downtown Montreal today.

With cameras and reporters following, he would greet anyone who met his sky-blue-eyed gaze. Some quickly turned away, embarrassed at the attention. Some pleasantly shook his hand and moved on.

But Duceppe’s experience with Westmount resident Denis Delaney gives a new twist to that old axiom that you can’t trust a politician. In fact, politicians might do well not to trust their "supporters."

Delaney darted through the crowd to have his picture taken with Duceppe and told the leader, "You have my vote!" Duceppe was delighted. (Westmount, an anglophone enclave, is not a sovereignist bastion.)

Except that in an interview later, Delaney looked sheepish and admitted, "You know, if it was the leader of the Liberals, I’d probably tell him the same thing."

- Andrew Chung

 

With 'supporters' like this ...

When politicians go out to press the flesh with average folk, you never know what you’re going to get. Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, a congenial man when you're not on his bad side, had few awkward moments yesterday along St. Catherine St. in downtown Montreal. With cameras and reporters following, he would greet anyone who met his sky-blue eyed gaze. Some quickly turned away, embarrassed at the attention. Some pleasantly shook his hand and moved on.

But Duceppe’s experience with Westmount resident Denis Delaney gives a new twist to that old axiom that you can’t trust a politician. In fact, politicians might do well not to trust their "supporters."

Delaney darted through the crowd to take a picture with Duceppe and told the leader, "You have my vote!" Duceppe was delighted. (Westmount, an anglophone enclave is not a sovereigntist bastion.)

Except that in an interview later, Delaney looked sheepish and admitted, "You know, if it was the leader of the Liberals, I’d probably tell him the same thing."

-Andrew Chung

 

When election lawn signs just don't cut it

There are conspicuous ways to show your support, and then there are conspicuous ways of showing your support.

Surely to the delight of the faltering Bloc Québécois, partisans in Quebec City haven’t merely put up a lawn sign in front of a house, but rather, turned the house into a lawn sign.

Hemmed in between other homes on Rue Saint-Anselme, the house has been entirely wrapped in Bloc-blue plastic, and covered in Bloc placards and the name of Christiane Gagnon, the only MP the Bloc sent to Ottawa after the 2006 debacle in which is lost eight seats in the region to Conservatives.

And on the roof of the house, just in case you weren’t sure of the partisan intentions, in giant letters: Le Bloc.

Neighbours are already complaining about the big blue eyesore, but city officials say there’s nothing they can do unless it poses a fire risk.

- Andrew Chung

The Bloc's more savvy web campaign

The Bloc Quebecois should start paying more attention to their website domain names.

Its current site, presentpourlequebec.org, named after its campaign slogan, "Here! For Quebec," is online and active. But if someone types in the, perhaps more intuitive, presentpourlequebec.com, they'll reach the site for the, get this, Marijuana Party.

If you dig a little you'll found that the site is hosted on computers based in Utah and administered by a man living in New York State. He is reportedly the same man who, during the 2006 federal election, squatted on the domain blocquebecois.com — sending those who clicked on it to the federal Liberals — while the Bloc used its preferred blocquebecois.org.

At the time the man, a Quebec native, told Quebec media that he was just having fun and had nothing against the party or Gilles Duceppe.

Getting in some licks

The Bloc Quebecois has produced perhaps the most appealing campaign song of all the parties, while not forgetting to include some of its trademark separatist themes.

A rock ballad in the way of modern artists like Daughtry or Good Charlotte, the song, by Matt Laurent, includes the Bloc's campaign slogan: "Here! For Quebec."

For example: "I've had enough of being a renter / I rather be a landlord / Take back my land," it says. (It works better, and at least rhymes, in French.)

The song makes sure to call Quebecers "one people, one spirit, one nation," and is being played, loudly, at every appearance by leader Gilles Duceppe.

"With courage and strength / For a cause to defend / Without fear or reproach," the chorus goes, "The Bloc responds, Here!"

Click here to listen to it now

- Andrew Chung