QUEBEC, November 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) –
The leader of the Parti Québécois, Andre Boisclair, has come under fire for his appearance in a television parody skit portraying US President George Bush and Prime Minister Harper as the homosexual cowboy couple in the film Brokeback Mountain.
After an outcry from his own party, the charismatic leader of the provincial separatists said he would probably think twice about doing such a thing again.
In the sketch, Bush and Harper, routinely portrayed in the media as extreme social conservatives, are depicted as homosexuals by semi-nude actors, in the midst of sexual play in a tent; a smiling Boisclair peeks through the tent flap and pretends to admonish them with the line, “Quebec won’t get mixed up in something like that.”
Elected a year ago as head of the party founded in 1968 by René Lévesque, Boisclair, an open homosexual, told reporters in Quebec City “I didn’t see the entirety of the sketch. I did it in good faith and I think that people will judge for themselves. But now that I see how much of a debate all of this has triggered, it’s quite obvious I wouldn’t do it again.”
The Globe and Mail reports that the sketch will air next month on MusiMax channel but it has already been posted on the popular video website, YouTube and the site indicates it has been viewed over 15,000 times.
The episode has embarrassed some party members and supporters. The Globe and Mail quotes an anonymous PQ member of the National Assembly who said, “A lot of the caucus members were ill at ease with the whole thing. We don’t need this.”
Boisclair’s blunder is typical of the open anti-Americanism and anti-conservative sentiment of Canada’s leftist political elite that has become a common theme in much political commentary on both sides of the border.
In 2004 Carolyn Parrish a Liberal party MP, appeared in a sketch on the CBC’s political satire program, This Hour has 22 Minutes, in which she stomped on a doll in the shape of President Bush. That incident has become emblematic of Canadian political antipathy for both the US and social conservatism.
A year before, while in Jean Chretien’s caucus, Parrish was overheard saying “Damn Americans; I hate the bastards.” Then-Prime Minister Chretien declined to reprimand her despite possibly serious damage to US/Canada relations.
The federal Liberals’ anti-Americanism has been tempered recently, however, with US Democrat Howard Dean giving the keynote address at this week’s Liberal Party leadership convention.
Dean, the Democratic National Committee Chairman who epitomizes his party’s solid alliance with the abortion industry and with the homosexual and feminist movements, was disparaged by some delegates for being an American.
“I as a Canadian am appalled to have an American loser address a keynote convention that will choose Canada’s next prime minister,” Ray Heard, former Liberal Party communications director, told CTV television on Thursday, referring to Dean’s third-place finish for Democrat Presidential nominee.
Others, however, recognizing an essential political rapport between the strongly “progressive” Canadian Liberal party and the US Democrats, pointed to Dean’s pivotal role in the Democrat sweep in the recent mid-term election and said they would welcome his appearance.
Steven MacKinnon, national director of the Liberal Party, was quoted by the Boston Globe saying, “Who better than the guy who humbled George Bush to come talk about how to do the same with George Bush’s favourite politician, Stephen Harper?”
In his speech at the convention, Dean called the Harper government one that “feeds on fear, depends on differences and ultimately, conquers by dividing.”
Self-Proclaimed Homosexual Elected Head of Quebec Separatist Party
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05111707.html