One of the things we were wondering about last night is who exactly is Philippe Couillard? Does he have a family? A wife? All was made clear this morning in the paper. He has three children, was divorced and remarried his present wife Suzanne in 2002. He comes by his intelligence honestly. His father had a PhD in biology and was a university professor and his mother has advanced degrees in law and political science. All of which speaks volumes about how he ran his campaign. He refused to stoop down to the lowlife tactics of the PQ. He kept himself and his integrity intact.
Blanche has a theory which applies in life: people who bully and can only express themselves by putting other people down think they are fooling everyone around them. They are not. People see right through them. They are usually also not very bright as they cannot think past the present nor do they really understand the repercussions of their words and actions. Wait till the PQ starts the infighting to find a new leader and re-brand themselves.
Marois and her missives, Drainville, Lisee (who is touted as being very smart) and PKP fall into this category. Negativity, bullying and racism make work in the short term, but in the long term it will come back to bite you – you know where.
Couillard is obviously in another league of intelligence compared to his opponents. But he must beware of something that plagues the Liberal party. Arrogance. They have a tendency to take power and in a very short time become arrogant, thinking themselves above the fray. That’s what happened to Charest and company.
Couillard should pick his cabinet carefully and stay away from the old guard. He’s new and fresh and he should surround himself with new, fresh and clean people.
The Charbonneau commission is beginning again today and it seems that there are some Liberals who are about to get nailed. Watching how Couillard reacts will be very interesting.
And finally we sincerely hope that the mayors of Montreal and Quebec City keep up their pressure to give those cities special status. This will ensure that if we ever go through what we just did vis-a-vis the charter poop, those cities will be spared economical punishment.
We’ll talk later…