Ten-thousand. That’s the number of flyers Simon-Pierre Diamond had left at about noon Saturday.
They were stacked and spread out on a table at the back of his campaign headquarters in Ste-Julie.
Diamond was the youngest member of the ADQ elected last March. He’s one of almost a dozen ADQ candidates under 30. One of the 5 who are under 25.
Mario Dumont proudly started his day on Thursday with the announcement that he was about to embark on the ‘final swing of the ADQ.’
A campaign blitz of 24 ridings in 72 hours had been planned and about to be executed.
We were told we’d be on a tight schedule. No lollygagging allowed.
Jean Charest says despite a flood of responses from cbc.ca readers who think he would help resolve the power struggle in Ottawa by returning to federal politics, the Quebec premier says he will stay where he is.
Many cbc.ca readers are expressing frustration over the events on Parliament Hill this week. Some have written to suggest Charest -- who is in the final days of a campaign to become Quebec's first three-peat premier in decades - could do more good in the House of Commons than Quebec's provincial legislature.
Sometimes, in the most dire of circumstances, the oddest of political bedfellows come together.
Diametrical opposites. Matter and anti-matter. Oil and water.
Sovereigntist and federalist.
A funny thing happened at a computer gaming company in Montreal today.
A man by the name of Marc Beaudoin introduced himself to Jean Charest.
“I’m the one who created your hair for Laflaque,” said Beaudoin, a technical director at the company.
"Et Dieu créa…Laflaque", for those who don’t know, is 3-D animated political satire that runs on Sunday nights on Radio-Canada. The original cartoons were created by well-known cartoonist Serge Chapleau whose work is found in La Presse.
A stalwart of northwestern Quebec's sports scene was visibly delighted to encounter one of the Three Stars of the Quebec election campaign at a junior hockey game on Tuesday night.
Lappy, the bouncy, canine mascot of the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, appeared to nearly faint as he fawned over PQ leader, Pauline Marois, who came to watch the home team face off against the Gatineau Olympiques, at Dave Keon Arena.
There was a somewhat surreal scene at a banquet hall in the Crémazie riding in Montreal Monday night.
A roomful of Liberals, Anglophones, Jews, Greeks, Italians, Francophones ... All presumably federalist, shouting “OUI! OUI! OUI!” in sort of a callout game with Jean Charest.
It’s easy to imagine these same Liberals in 1995, or 1980…. Screaming NON! NON! NON! to a sovereign Quebec. But tonight, it’s OUI.
A separatist faction of the Parti Québécois says the deal struck in Ottawa between the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc to usurp power from the minority Conservatives could set the stage for an anti-Quebec backlash from the rest of Canada.
The group SPQ Libre, which is a hardline independence "club" within the PQ, is urging party supporters to do everything in their power to ensure Pauline Marois is elected premier next Monday. In a communiqué, SPQ Libre says it is critical for the independence movement to be ready to hold a snap referendum should the Yes side gain steam.
The memo cites the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord, and the anger that sparked in Quebec, vaulting support for sovereignty to as high as 60 %. At the time, Liberal premier Robert Bourassa was in power, putting any hopes of a snap referendum on ice. By the time the PQ retook power in 1994, and held a referendum in 1995, Yes support had ebbed.
One impressive factoid about this election campaign hits you like a ton of bricks if for no other reason than irony.
The key planks in the platforms of the Quebec Liberal Party, and the Parti Québécois, are strikingly similar. I won't go on the record calling them identical, because I don't want detail-oriented partisans from the two parties overwhelming my email account.
Nevertheless, slogans and constitution futures aside, Jean Charest and Pauline Marois are promising virtually the same things: more government-backed loan guarantees for business, smaller class sizes, a boost for the residential housing industry, and enhanced service on Montreal's suburban trains.
Last night in Quebec City, about 100 rather vocal and pushy public sector workers made their way into a Liberal campaign office in the riding of Vanier.
They blared electronic noisemakers and plastered the windows with stickers.
Jean Charest missed the whole thing – showing up half an hour after the last of the Transport Quebec workers had gone back to their orange school bus to drive off into the night.
My colleague from the Montreal Gazette astutely noticed there had also been orange school buses the previous night at a massive rally in Laval.
