08 April 2010

From the ridiculous to the absurd: national news quickies

1.  A Harris-Decima poll for Canadian Press confirms what most Canadians have known for a couple of years:  neither of the federal political parties is persuading Canadians that it has the stuff to govern with a majority in Parliament.

2.  Gilles Duceppe gets a few headlines by discovering there is life outside the Queensway.  He didn’t really have anything to say – new or otherwise -  mind you, but Duceppe got a few headlines largely for showing up.

3.  As others have noted, former Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau may have thought that the ethnic vote cost him the referendum in 1995 but he was still willing to let a few “ethnics” look after his health at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital.

As the Gazette notes in a more serious vein, though:

So we owe Parizeau not only our good wishes for a full and speedy recovery, but also our thanks for the wisdom of his choice. It serves us almost as well as we're sure it will serve him.

4.  Putting Rahim Jaffer’s name and the word “absurd” in the same headline is redundant.  Access is related to power and influence.  People who really have them don’t talk about them.