And then Boisclair's popularity shot up double digits.
Smear campaign thus backfired, it was time for Boisclair's detractors to regroup, rethink and realize they had... nothing. Except maybe a grumpy, growly sleeping dog of a campaign issue lying at their feet. So last week, at the general behest of fellow contender, former PQ multi-minister and Deputy Premier Pauline Marois, Boisclair's adversaries up and punted the pooch. Hostilities thus renewed, Marois and gang made it clear that atonement would not be enough (especially if they were to gain any kind of political mileage) and nothing short of humiliation would suffice.
On Nov. 3, the Journal de Montréal reported that several opposition candidates were saying, "Without clarification of the current situation," i.e., his drug use, "the election of André Boisclair is equivalent to nothing less than political suicide." Moreover,
In other words, they want to know where he got it, for how much, was it Peruvian Flake, was the count any good, could you sleep on it, and did they deliver?
Personally, I don't think Boisclair needs to clarify a damn thing. In fact, I'll even save him the trouble - I'll clarify it for him.
Interestingly, the other PQ leadership aspirants claim that Boisclair's druggin', despite evidently not being a liability now, will suddenly become so should he be at the wheel when the PQ squares off against the Jean Charest Liberals - that Boisclair himself, at a time when some polls have the yes vote running at above 50 per cent, may be the gravest threat facing sovereignty at this time.
Fair enough. We can all take a moment to savour that. Decide if we care.
While we're considering that, I'd like to point out an interesting thing about our enormous neighbour to the south: They don't appreciate the polvo.
Truth be told, they actually loooove the cocaine, consuming up to 350 metric tons per year, accounting for more than a third of the world's total consumption with an estimated 4 to 4.5 million hardcore users. But, in public at least, the U.S. government, she no love the cocaine, and that could be a problem. Or maybe not...
Follow me here, because I have a plan: If and when Quebec finally gains its independence, we're going to be dealing with a United States that, as things stand now, is 39.3 times bigger than we are in terms of population (with Quebec's comparatively non-existent birth rate, and extremely low immigration rate, it has been recently estimated that the population of Quebec will remain roughly the same as it is now for decades), never mind economic output and various other well-known forms of muscle.
We will be kings, of course, but only in Pipsqueakdom. In the grand scheme of things, we will be roughly equivalent to, say, Panama. Okay, granted, Panama doesn't have our natural resources, technology base or hydroelectric incentives, but they do have this little canal-type thing through which passes 14.3 per cent of American trade, and which is also critical to the United States' ever expanding concept of national security. Americans pay attention to Panama. To Quebec, not so much.
President Bush's brief tour of Panama last Monday, at the tail end of his failed attempt to re-interest Latin America in his Free Trade Area of the Americas pipe dream, was notable for his entreaties - however disingenuous and desperate - to the government for discussions related to trade, power sharing and the drug trade, as well as a proposed $10-billion investment in the upgrading and widening of the Panama Canal, which has become too skinny for some of their more bloated boats.
Right now Canada can't interest the U.S. in our concerns about softwood lumber, cross border beef trade, drilling in the Alaska reserve, new passport requirements, basically anything, and they're supposed to be our best friends. Here's where Boisclair comes in and puts an independent Quebec on the map.
You may remember the case of one Manuel Noriega, Panamanian general, despot, puppet, fickle CIA operative, and wholesale cocaine dealer and user in his spare time. None of which was a problem for the U.S. government until innumerable other problems got in the way, and then they seized upon his connection to Colombian marching powder and voila! Instant scapegoat. And the U.S. hasn't turned its back on Panama since.
The cocaine-associated Boisclair may be just the kind of scapegoat - or perhaps more appropriately, sacrificial lamb - an independent Quebec needs. (And with Noriega, imprisoned since his ouster in 1990, coming up for parole next year, the Americans too.) And should he decide to hole up in St-Joseph's Oratory the way Noriega did in the Panama City Vatican nunciature, it won't take the Marines blasting Metallica to shake him loose. A little Cher, Patti LaBelle, or something he finds equally distasteful should do.
Hell, Boisclair may prove to be the best long-term strategy for Quebec independence yet. Because if we can't goad the U.S. into having a reason to notice us, we will risk being squashed in our sleep every time this enormous economic elephant rolls over.
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