Marois Embarrasses Canada Abroad

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You'd think that with her government reeling after just a few short weeks in power, Pauline Marois would be hard at work behind her desk in Quebec, trying to figure out how to get things back on track, this while minister after minster continues to make a mockery of the concept of competence.

But to Pauline, driving around Paris in a fancy limousine, decorated with a little Quebec flag flapping about in the wind and being received by the President of France with all the trappings of a head of state, is her definition of success, a personal dream come true.

Notwithstanding, it is a fantasy, no different than Joe Sixpack going to fantasy baseball camp, donning the uniform of his favourite baseball team and pretending for just a few days that he is, what clearly he is not, a big leaguer.

Perhaps one should pardon her enthusiasm, like a trip to fantasy baseball camp it is usually a once in a lifetime affair and the way things are going, it is likely that this was her one golden opportunity, certainly not something to be passed up.
After this, there is no where else to to go, nowhere else to visit where she will be received as a head of state with all the related pomp and circumstance.

And so it was now or never for Pauline, an opportunity to trash talk Canada internationally and even though the speech was an embarrassment for all professional diplomats, for Pauline and her supporters at home, it was supremely delicious and like hitting a home run off a forty year-old pot-bellied accountant at fantasy camp, she can pretend it mattered.
 
For those who are unaware, and I assume it is most of you (the story was just that important) Pauline gave a speech in France where she took pot shots at Canada's foreign policy;

"Pauline Marois continued her first official visit to France Tuesday as Quebec premier, criticizing the direction Canada’s diplomacy has taken under the Harper government....
...The present foreign policy of Canada does not correspond to our values or our interests,” Marois said, citing differences between Quebec and Canada on climate change....." Link

 Once again, YGRECK, Quebec's Canada's most talented political cartoonist, has hit the nail on the head with a satirical, biting and so on the point cartoon, mocking Pauline and French president François Hollande;

Marois meets Hollande... "We've got so much in common.

So good for Pauline!
She has crossed the number two and number three items off her bucket list, and considering that with zero likelihood that her number one goal, that of being president of an independent Quebec can ever be achieved, she has done pretty well, on a personal level, at least.

As for the rest of  Quebecers, I can't say we are doing so well and so it is hard to match Pauline's enthusiasm.
Back at home, far away from Pauline's fantasy world, Quebecers have been rocked by more devastating testimony at the Charbonneau inquiry, which if the allegations are to be believed, confirms that ;

• The PQ, the ADQ,  as well as the Liberaals all took illegal campaign contributions.
• The mayor of the provinces second largest city Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt was getting a two and a half percent kickback on construction projects within his city
• Another half a dozen towns were named as corrupt, including Mascouche, Boisbriand and St. Jerome.
• An investigator from the DGE (the office that is in charge of enforcing campaign financing laws) advised Lino Zambito to rewrite his deposition because he was implicating himself in election financing fraud. Link
• That almost all the consulting-engineering firms, charged with the responsibility to monitor construction projects on behalf of the government, were they themselves corrupt and served as the go-between between construction companies and the political parties who were being funneled illegal contributions..

All this in a couple of days of testimony!

If we are to believe Mr, Zambito, just about  every level of Quebec society that deals with public finances is  corrupt and almost all Quebecers, regardless of political stripe are convinced this to be true.
Who can blame us, we've been subject to the most distressing stories of public corruption for over three years.

The only saving grace for the Liberal party is that everyone else is being tarred with the same dirty brush, but it is cold comfort to taxpayers who now understand the depth of the betrayal..

As Pauline gallivants around Europe on her Cinderella trip, she is in for a rude awakening.
Her clock is about to strike twelve and she is about to turn back into the sad sack she was before she left.

The Press is waiting for her and like sharks smelling blood in the water, they are about to take a serious bite out of her.

On Friday readers, I will be telling you a few things about the corruption inquiry that haven't been mentioned in the press and I promise it will be interesting...