Tag Archives: BQ

Orange Crush Becomes NDP Crushed: David Krayden

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By David Krayden

Members of the decidedly withering Bloc Quebecois caucus would probably be the first to acknowledge, with exuberant pride, their Gaullist ancestry, meaning a family tree with its roots in present-day France.  But what the BQ has never lacked – and what really has fuelled its political history – is just plain gall.  The report this week from La Presse, that former BQ leader and defeated Member of Parliament Gilles Duceppe paid his party’s general manager with House of Commons funds – up to $100,000 annually for seven years – is just another example of how this traitorous party has no business conducting the nation’s business; no reason to occupy seats in the House of Commons except to advance a separatist agenda while collecting a pay cheque and furnishing a pension that are provided by the very country that they are so desperately trying to destroy.

It is difficult to imagine another country where a separatist party can not only sit in the federal legislature but has the mind boggling nerve to spend public money on its private agenda.

There are still four of these misplaced Quebec MPPs taking up space in the House of Commons – one less member than required for official party status – so they will not be paying anyone 100 grand a year with public funds but we will be better off when the last of Bloc head is retired.

Writing the cheerless history of the Bloc is a journey through outrageous entitlement.  Let this latest installment in the BQ Story be the final chapter.

At least there was unanimous party condemnation of the arrangement, with the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP agreeing that this was not public money well spent.  When it comes to criticizing the Bloc, it has been difficult in the past to rouse any sort of emotion approaching outrage, disgust or disapproval from the NDP.  For left-thinking socialists, the trough of tolerance for “progressive,” language-embattled Quebec is deep.  The NDP reserves its contempt for anything or anybody standing in the way of its social reengineering project; it could never quite accept the existence of the Reform Party for instance, as if Preston Manning and his fellow MPs should never have shaken up the ideological status quo in Ottawa.

Perhaps the NDP has discovered a growing antagonism towards the BQ because the effervescence of the “Orange Crush” that seemed so perky in Quebec in the last election has gone flat.  According to a CROP poll this week, this post-election burp has reduced the NDP from 53 per cent support last June to just 29 per cent today.  Though the Conservatives are in second place with 24 per cent, the Bloc is not far behind with 22.  Thus the fight for the hard left vote in Quebec has been defined and, if these numbers remain relatively constant, the next election contest should prove to be a tightly contested four-way fight.

Surely, the NDP did not really believe that it could reelect the entirety of its Quebec caucus, this curious assortment of MPs, many of whom never dreamed of sitting in the House of Commons, and at least one of whom never even bothered to campaign. But it will certainly aspire to repeat this electoral phenomenon and it will strive to outdo the separatists in promising Quebec all manner of special status in Confederation and increased protection of its language, culture and way of life – one that includes massive government spending, higher unemployment than the rest of Canada, low productivity and the highest percentage of part-time workers and absentee employees on the continent.

Whether Quebec votes for soft or hard separatism, it is time that the province joined the rest of the country in the economic realities of the twenty-first century.  Many in Quebec are cognizant of this reality and some of the best conservative thinking resides in that province.  Listen to the economic thinking of Quebec MP  (and former foreign affairs minister) Maxime Bernier and you might be listening to one vying for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.  Hopefully, in the next election, instead of sending 59 MPs to warm the seats in Parliament, they will choose free-enterprise alternatives who have come to Ottawa to get on with the nation’s business and work for a Quebec that is free, prosperous and equal with every other province.

David Krayden is the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies, an independent, not-for-profit institution dedicated to the advancement of freedom and prosperity through the development and promotion of good public policy.

BQ’s terrorist/Islam sympathies contrasted with Christian politics

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The Edmonton Sun – February 17, 2011
Why right-wingers aren’t the scary ones
By Eric Duhaime

Enquete is a great French CBC-TV show that has an unbelievable team of researchers and usually offers an informative perspective on public affairs. Unfortunately, as often happens with the Crown corporation, it betrays a leftist bias and demonizes the political right. Last week, Enquete journalist Brigitte Bureau tried to scare us with her report about the privileged access some evangelical Christians might have to Ottawa’s inner circle of power. Opposition to abortion and gay marriage are presented as proof of the progress made by some obscure religious leaders. The report implies a Conservative majority would recriminalize the first and abolish the second, but it does not mention that a strong contingent of Conservative MPs are clearly opposed to going back to both issues. …

Given his participation in a rally under the Hezbollah flag in August 2006, it is not surprising to see Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe come back to that Radio-Canada story during his General Council last weekend while his party was officially reopening the door to a coalition with the Liberals and the NDP. Duceppe attacked the alleged association of Conservatives and evangelists by saying, “This ideological bias of religious fundamentalists is dangerous in a society.”

Where was Duceppe when his own MP, Meili Faille, had to reimburse the Muslim Association of Canada $6,000 for one of her trips to the United Arab Emirates. Very embarrassing for Faille, who at the same time supported the help this association gave the Muslim Brothers to build a mosque in Montreal. He probably does not remember, either, that in October 2008 former Bloc MP Marcel Lussier argued in favour of the abolition of the anti-terrorism law and the recognition of Hamas, another Islamic organization classified as terrorist. …

It flabbergasts me to see how ready Bloc MPs – and to an even greater extent federal Liberals – are to denounce people of Christian faith in the Conservative party and use them to scare those of us who do not believe in God by telling us how they do not share our values and have a social conservative agenda, while at the same time they are caving in to the most radical elements of the Islamists in the name of political correctness, Trudeau’s multiculturalism or – less openly – a few thousand Muslim votes. …

Read the complete article here.

Pro-abortion Quebec Separatists target Christians with bigoted smears

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House of Commons Hansard – May 6, 2010
Oral Questions

Status of Women

Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, it is just one surprise after another with the Conservative government. Yesterday we learned that it slashed funding for at least a dozen women’s groups whose opinions on abortion differ from those of the Conservative Party. Today we learned that the government decided to fund religious groups that believe in the imminent return of the Messiah and translate the Bible into African and Asian dialects. Will the government admit that the decision to finance religious groups or sects is an ideological decision along the same line as the decision to cut funding for pro-choice women’s groups?

Hon. Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation, CPC): Mr. Speaker, this government wants to ensure that when we help women in Canada and women abroad, we will do it responsibly and we will make a difference in their lives. This is why we have taken on responsibility for hard-earned taxpayer dollars to help women, and we will do this so they can see that they can have a better life wherever they may live.

Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, it will really help women to send preachers such as themselves to Africa or to have the Bible translated. What a huge help and so essential. Meanwhile, the government has justified cuts to the Department of Status of Women—it irritates them, does it not?—by saying that it was a financial decision. How can the government explain that it is spending up to $800,000 on religious groups or sects—because that is what they are—while cutting funding for organizations that are helping women battle poverty on the ground?

Hon. Rona Ambrose (Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is completely incorrect. This government has increased funding for women’s groups across Canada to record levels. We are very proud of that. In fact, we are supporting projects in every province and territory in Canada now. These programs are working so well that we are oversubscribed. In fact, we have more women’s groups applying than ever before. All of these groups have merit and are doing great work across the country but we cannot fund everyone. However, I am very proud that 42% of our funding this year will go to groups that are working to end violence against women.

Ms. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, according to the director of MATCH International, bureaucrats were telling women’s groups right up until the last minute that they would get their funding. Now the government claims that the funding was cut because of administrative deficiencies. In fact, this decision, which was made by the minister’s office, smacks of ideological revenge, given that the bureaucrats were satisfied with the work of the organizations. Is the government’s decision not more readily explained by its desire to advance its religious and ideological agenda at the expense of women?

Hon. Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I will put the facts on the record. It was CIDA officials, based on an independent evaluation, that deemed the project ineligible due to poor accountability. This is not about ideology or entitlement. This is about how we best use taxpayer dollars so that we can make a difference in developing countries. We are helping women in developing countries so they can better feed their children, keep them healthy and ensure they have a safe and productive life.

Ms. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, this terrible decision to cut funding for women’s groups was made arbitrarily and based on ideology. The government is pursuing its path and cutting funding for anyone who does not think like it does. Will the government admit that the lack of warning from bureaucrats to justify these cuts demonstrates that the party’s religious base, and that alone, is what has guided its decisions?

Hon. Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as we have said, this is not about ideology. This is not about entitlement. This is about getting the best value out of taxpayer dollars. This means that for every one of our international dollars we provide, we want to get more health, more education, more economy and more people out of poverty. That is how this government will use our international assistance dollars.