Rick Blue - As I watched the speeches after the municipal election I noticed that Mayor Tremblay was sporting a poppy, as well as most of the other politicians and journalists. But Louise Harel was not. Neither were any of the twenty or so people around her. Imagine, even though Quebec boys are dying in Afghanistan they couldn’t manage one poppy between them.
I also looked for any visible minorities in the crowd. It seemed that among her supporters there wasn’t a single visible ethnic to be rounded up to symbolize her willingness to reach out beyond the linguistic/pure-laine divide.
Surely with the money her campaign paid a public relations consultant someone would have caught that. Perception is everything in politics. The only conclusion we can make is that either she didn’t have one single ethnic supporter or she just doesn’t care.
She certainly didn’t have many Anglophone supporters.
The French press noticed this and joked that Anglophones, by supporting Mayor Tremblay, prefer the Mafia to the Separatists. And even though that was meant to be an insult, like all good shots it has a core of truth.
In many ways the two are similar. Wikipedia defines the Mafia as: “a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct.” That’s the way many Anglos view the Separatists.
Roughly translated, Mafia means "swagger", but can also be translated as "boldness and bravado". In reference to a man, mafiusu in 19th century Sicily could signify an arrogant and proud bully. Many Anglos would agree that this is an accurate description of Bernard Landry or Jacques Parizeau.
In reference to a woman, however, the adjective "mafiusa" means beautiful and attractive. It would, of course, accurately describe Pauline Marois and Louise Harel.
The Mafia will only accept men of Italian descent as members of their organization. Separatists will only accept Quebeckers of French descent as Real Quebecois.
The Mafia forces businesses to pay “protection money” to keep the social peace. Separatists force governments to abrogate basic rights to “keep the social peace”.
The Mafia has “Omerta” – the code of silence. Separatists have Referendums – the code of noise.
Here are a number of reasons why Anglos prefer the Mafia to the Separatists:
1) The Mafia only wants control over drugs, prostitution and … construction. Separatists want control over everything

2) The Mafia doesn't force everyone to speak Italian

3) The Mafia doesn’t depress housing prices

4) The Mafia isn’t the reason our children move to Toronto and Calgary and Vancouver.

5) You can reason with the Mafia.
With all of this in the background, is it any wonder Anglos voted for Tremblay?