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Devil And The Deep Blue "C" It is true what they say; sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils. And it takes a whole hell of a lot for me to cheer for corrupt and weak-willed Liberals. But tonight, after Pauline Marois got her derriere kicked, she can console herself with the notion that she is the only person thus far to make Liberals, Quebec Liberals, who don't deserve to have been returned to office but still were, look like the better option as far as I'm concerned. I want all of the self-professed oppression fighters to...

Quebec’s separatist government is betting on broad popular support with a proposal that prohibits public workers from wearing headscarves, skullcaps and other religious symbols, yet it is dividing the movement that advocates independence from Canada. The proposal, unveiled by the ruling Parti Quebecois last week, plays with the explosive issue of minority rights in a part of Canada, a country that prides itself as being a tapestry of immigrants rather than a U.S.-style melting pot. The government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values would ban teachers, doctors and other public workers from wearing highly visible religious symbols, including yarmulkes, headscarves and...

Anyone wanting to run for public office in a Quebec led by Pauline Marois will have to prove they can speak French first, the Parti Quebecois leader said as she announced her latest language-related campaign promise Tuesday. The PQ leader said anglophones, allophones and aboriginal people will be forbidden from seeking municipal or provincial office unless they have an appropriate knowledge of French. Marois said the idea is reasonable, given that French is the official language of Quebec. "We will present this bill but it is not just for new Quebecers — it is for everyone," Marois said during a...

He was just a third-place leader in the Quebec National Assembly. His party was tumbling into the teens in public approval, its independence raison d'etre more popular than the crumbling separatists leading the campaign. Given those grim circumstances, Andre Boisclair, leader of the Parti Quebecois, could have slipped from national politics with all the rippling impact of an ocean-plunked pebble. Yet it was the federal Conservatives whose faces were in full beam yesterday, viewing Mr. Boisclair's departure as a potential pick-me-up for their sagging poll fortunes and future election prospects. "It's an OK day," said a grinning senior government official,...

QUEBEC (CP) - Andre Boisclair is the new leader of the Parti Quebecois. Boisclair has become the head of the Quebec sovereignty movement with a first-ballot victory after a leadership vote by PQ members. Boisclair received 53.7 per cent of first-round choices, while Marois had 30.6 per cent and Richard Legendre 7.5 per cent. Boisclair will likely have to wait until 2007 before getting a crack at defeating the governing Liberals, although Premier Jean Charest can wait until the spring of 2008 before calling the election. The PQ leadership race was launched after Bernard Landry quit suddenly in June following...

I wrote last week that it would take Canada's Liberal Party about two months to live down the disclosure by the Gomery inquiry that its Montreal members had siphoned many millions of dollars in government money into the party's coffers and into their own pockets. I was wrong. It took less than a week. Three days after the Gomery Report documented the party's lavish looting of the funds in the government's "sponsorship program," a poll showed that the party's national support had slipped from 38 percent to 31 percent, only a single percentage point over the Conservatives, who had risen...

Better with coke Why Quebecers love their gay, drug-snorting PQ leadership hopeful BENOIT AUBIN He's got the looks of a matinee idol, a grin that could melt icebergs, and, at 39, in a political formation made up mostly of white-haired veterans, André Boisclair still passes for young. So what better than a little political striptease to sex up his campaign for the Parti Québécois leadership even more? At the onset, he admitted he is gay, and "proud of living in such a tolerant society." Two weeks ago, he went on Tout le monde en parle, the province's hippest talkshow, and...

PQ got kickbacks, too EXEC: AD FIRM ALSO PAID GRITS By GREG WESTON, NATIONAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST A MONTREAL advertising firm that received more than $40 million in AdScam sponsorship contracts paid huge kickbacks to both the federal Liberal party and the Quebec separatists, senior executives of the company have told Sun Media. "I remember seeing the cheques," one former Groupaction executive said of payments to the federal Liberal party in Quebec. The man spoke on condition that he not be identified until he testifies at the Gomery inquiry sometime over the coming weeks. The exec said the president of Groupaction,...

CBC just projected a Liberal majority government in Quebec elections, Jean Charest premier-designate unseating separatist Parti Quebecois government of Bernard Landry. More later