Kelly McParland - It makes perfect sense that Gilles Duceppe should get a job as a regular commentator on Radio-Canada, the CBC’s Quebec wing.
Talk radio has become a popular and convenient new career for ex-politicians, defeated politicians and politicians-in-transition. B.C. Premier Christy Clark hosted a popular radio program after leaving the government of Gordon Campbell, and before replacing him as Liberal leader. John Tory, former Progressive Conservative opposition leader in Ontario, hosts a similarly-popular drive-time program in Toronto.
So why shouldn’t Duceppe get a chance to share his theories on Canada’s failure to live up to his expectations?
Well, there is one difference. Clark and Tory both work(ed) for privately-owned stations. Radio-Canada is part of the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. Which means that Canadian taxpayers are paying Duceppe’s salary.
But, again… so what? Duceppe has made a career out of living off Canadian taxpayers. For 20 years as an MP and party leader in Ottawa he earned a healthy living by telling the people who paid him that they were part of an inferior country that wasn’t worthy of Quebec’s membership.
He headed the Bloc Quebecois in election after election in which party expenses were paid for from public subsidies provided by the people he’d rather not share a country with.
His retirement pension, which is better than yours and mine, is coming out of your pocket and my pocket. Pretty much everything Gilles Duceppe has was paid for by Canada, even though he’s never quit beefing about it.
So why wouldn’t we give him another chance to share his separatist opinions, and pad his pension, even after the voters in his own province dumped him from office, reducing his party to four seats from 47? Why would we think it was strange to keep paying the guy to tell us how little he thinks of us?
It’s Canada. Insult us. We’ll pick up the tab.
National Post