Poor Ruth Ellen “Vegas” Brosseau – she just can’t get a break. Now it seems that she embellished her credentials by claiming that she had a diploma (claim cached here). Apparently, “overzealous staff” “inadvertently embellished” her CV and have now apologized. Hey, remember when the NDP was demanding that a Liberal candidate in Quebec be sacked after a few less-than-shining things turned up in his background? Glass houses, right? And while Brosseau has yet to visit the riding, she and Layton sent out a phone blast to thank the voters for putting their trust in her and the NDP team (with emphasis on the latter, I’m sure). Awww, bless!
Aaron Wherry offers a bit of a defence for Brosseau: he gives a broader condemnation of the decline of our political system and explains how the role of an individual MP has become meaningless.
Incidentally, you can listen to Brosseau’s first newspaper interview (mostly in English). It’s both awkward and revealing: aside from a heavy reliance on party lines, one gets the sense that she is very much a piece of the party machinery. She says that she put her name on the ballot out of loyalty to the party, talks about how the party did the work for her during the campaign and speaks constantly about looking forward to working with both the party and the leader and his team. Oh, did she also mention that she was excited to be working for the party? If there were a more damning indictment about the growing irrelevancy of individual MPs (per Wherry’s thesis), this would be it.
A number of unions are looking to help staff those NDP offices (whose employees are unionized, unlike other Hill staffers, incidentally).
On the subject of the NDP, polling data shows that it was the top choice of youth in every region except Alberta (although Linda Duncan’s riding is a university one, and there is little doubt of a correlation there) and that the big gains in Quebec were not caused by an ideological shift among voters.
The politics surrounding the choice of a Liberal interim leader continue to evolve. It now looks like the rules have been narrowed to allow only those candidates who are bilingual and won’t run for permanent leadership.
The Bloc wants to ensure that it retains official party status, despite winning only four seats (the cutoff is 12), because Quebec was recognized as a nation. Err, I’m not sure about the logic, but good luck with that.
Here’s a piece about the limited orientation new MPs are given after they win an election.
It looks like there will be a few changes in the budget because of more data! Really!
And here’s another condemning look at portions of the upcoming omnibus crime bill dealing with the internet. The bill would make it a crime even to link to a “hate” website. Seriously.
Why you can trust Xtra
