Pubdate: Tue, 15 Nov 2005
Source: Mcgill Tribune (CN QU Edu)
Copyright: 2005 The McGill Tribune
Contact:  http://www.mcgilltribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2672
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

COKE SHOULD BLOW BOISCLAIR'S CHANCES

By the time this hits newsstands, the majority of Parti Quebecois
party members will have voted for their choice to succeed Bernard
Landry as leader of the PQ, and it has been widely forecast that Andre
Boisclair, a 39-year-old former PQ cabinet minister in Lucien
Bouchard's government, will win a plurality of his party's support.
Boisclair is young, vibrant and personable, and he could be a valuable
resource for the PQ, a party that has long attempted to break through
to younger voters and ethnic communities.

Nonetheless, it is an outrage that Boisclair has been able to garner
so much support, given the admission he was forced to make in
September during the leadership campaign: In the 1990s, as a
provincial cabinet minister, he was a cocaine user. He did it not as a
student in university (well, he probably did, he just hasn't been
forced to talk about it), so this is not merely some bad decision made
in his early 20s. And he did it not as a private citizen, but as a
Cabinet minister.

When did it become acceptable to snort lines off briefing books in the
National Assembly? How is this man even still in the race, let alone
leading it?

Had Boisclair admitted to doing exactly the same thing before his time
in the legislature, this would be far less of an issue. But once
someone decides to enter public life, they must naturally be held to a
higher standard. The fact that he was entrusted by the people of
Quebec to undertake a high-profile job and still considered it
acceptable to be doing blow in his spare time is a telling statement
about his personality. Furthermore, his refusal to give a
justification for his actions-and the manner in which he has avoided
providing details and answering hard questions-raises even more doubt
about his potential leadership abilities.

How much of a right do people have to know about their politicians'
private lives? Very little, if any, so long as the information stays
behind closed doors. But the bottom line is that Boisclair's highly
illegal past actions entered into the public domain, so the electorate
is entitled to pass judgment; politicians have spent time in jail or
lost election bids for far less. It remains to be seen whether
Boisclair will capture the race, but if he does-as good as it may be
for the federalist cause and the fortunes of Quebec's other provincial
parties-it will be a disgrace to Quebec and the voters who put him in
office.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin