Pubdate: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU) Copyright: 2005 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc. Contact: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274 Author: Don MacPherson Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) THINGS GO BETTER WITH COKE This week's sign that we're going to hell in a handcart: Andre Boisclair admitted to using cocaine while he was a member of the National Assembly and a cabinet minister - and his popularity among Parti Quebecois supporters reached new heights. Boisclair gained 11 points in a survey conducted by Leger Marketing for the TVA network the day after his admission, giving him the support of 64 per cent of declared PQ voters. Where else would an admission of cocaine use in office boost a political career rather than end it? But it is not true that shortly after the results were reported, Boisclair's increasingly distant rival was seen going from bar to bar on the Main, loudly asking, "Anybody know where I, Pauline Marois, can score some blow?" Or that, in order to give their images some of that bad-boy edge the kids seem to like so much, Pierre Pettigrew would claim to have done time for the drive-by shooting of a rival rapper, or that Jean Charest would claim to have been co-captain of the McGill football team? Not everyone was so indulgent toward Boisclair. Ace crime reporter Michel Auger pointed out in yesterday's Le Journal de Montreal that Boisclair should have known he was contributing to the profits of either the Hell's Angels or the Mafia, the only two distributors of cocaine. He also noted 160 people, some of them innocent bystanders, died in the "bikers' war" for control of the market for the drug Boisclair was using. Auger almost joined them. He survived an attempted hit five years ago by a gunman, believed to be working for the Angels, who shot Auger six times in t he back. Maybe that's why he seems to take Boisclair's patronage of the Angels and the easy forgiveness of it so personally. As Boisclair knows, however, the coke high doesn't last long, and is followed by a crash. The next poll results, taken once the dust has settled and people have time to sort out what they think of his coke use, will be more significant than the ones broadcast this week. Journalists are usually influenced by poll results, but this week's didn't silence their questions about precisely when Boisclair used cocaine, and other details he has refused to divulge. The poll might actually turn out to be bad for Boisclair because it encouraged him to continue to stonewall in the face of the questions about his coke use that many editorialists have urged him to answer. But if Boisclair still has something to hide, as he has given the impression to some, then he has left himself vulnerable to exposure at the time and on the terms of someone else's choosing rather than his own. At least the poll calmed his jangly nerves in time for the first of the seven all-candidates' "platforms" in the PQ leadership campaign. Even so, he maintained his increasingly bizarre refusal to say "no comment" in English to questions about his coke use. And he lost his temper with Jean-Claude St-Andre, a nuisance candidate so bent on damaging his party's likely next leader that before future meetings, he probably should be patted down for a bomb vest. Boisclair won the "debate," if you could call it that, but only because he was still the front-runner when it was over. And he did get the news lead with his steal of Mario Dumont's 2003 campaign promise to reduce the public debt, previously not a priority of the PQ. But Boisclair fell well short of expectations that might have been raised by the polls putting him well ahead of his rivals. In fact, of the four serious candidates, he wasn't even the one who made the best use of the 12 minutes of speaking time to which each candidate was limited. In that sense, the winner of the debate was Pauline Marois. And Boisclair has yet to show he is more than only the third-most-qualified candidate to be premier, after Marois and Louis Bernard. But Bernard is unknown to most PQ members and Marois is unwanted by them, so much so that Boisclair immediately shot into the lead simply by offering himself as an alternative to her. The rigidity of PQ dogma makes this a contest of personalities and image rather than ideas. Boisclair has novelty and youth on his side, and his appeal to usually apathetic young voters verges on the phenomenal. The leadership is still his to lose. - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman