The race for who's going to lead the Liberal Party of Canada is about more than just picking somebody to clean up the place, it's also about who's going to lead the party that's dominated Canada for the past hundred years. And as we all know by now, one of the frontrunners is Scott Brison, who's run for the leadership before--the Tory leadership. Of course, this very point is one of the issues his many critics both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media have been insisting will do him in, along with his ties to the income trusts scandal and his stumbled falsehoods about his emails to his banker friend. This criticism has been coming fast and furious, left, right, and centre.
And perhaps it's true--perhaps Brison does have too much baggage to win. I find it fascinating, though, that not a single one of these critics--from anywhere on the political spectrum--is citing another characteristic of Brison's which would be regarded as baggage in many other countries: the fact that he's gay, out, and in a committed relationship. Floor-crossings, money scandals, and snippy emails might prevent someone from becoming the leader of the most successful political party in the western world, but being queer...what does that have to do with anything?
Oh, Canada.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Today's reason why I'm loving living in Canada
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11 comments:
Opps you failed to read my missive on this...Gay Liberal Leader
Eugene,
In fact I had failed to read that (I don't tend to go to your blog because your popups do weird things to my browser, if you must know). But even so, I hardly think your post treats Brison's sexuality as baggage that would prevent him from winning the race--which is precisely my point.
Lets face it, most Canadians are prejudice against homosexuals. Brison almost lost his own riding because he was talking about his homosexuality, the last thing you need is EVERYONE talking about it.
Eugene's site has popups because he failed to read my missive on this... Webstats4U.
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Brison is gay?
Well...that could work to our advantage if he became PM. Just think of it...he could say "Mr. Bush, you are being unfair about softwood lumber-It's because I'm gay, isn't it?" or "you countries not respecting our arctic sovereignty, quit picking on me for being gay!" Howzabout "Spain, if you encroach on our fishing waters again, I will charge you with hate crime!"
It might be an advantage...
How do we know hes even gay? he could be just lying to us, again!! He's probably just trying to cover up the fact that he once dated Belinda, no one will suspect him of that now.
JM
Brison did not almost lose his riding because "he was talking about his homosexuality." Why do I know this? Well, (a) Kings-Hants is my riding and (b) Brison was several thousand votes ahead of his Conservative opponent, Bob Mullan, in both the 2004 and 2006 elections.
I'm not a Brison supporter by any means, but he's not a bad guy at all. He'd make a poor Liberal leader though.
Oh, I forgot to mention, IP. Pretty much everytime I've talked to Brison I've mentioned PR, to the point that I gave him a Fair Vote Canada pamphlet as he was emerging from an all candidates' debate. Suffice it to say, he's not a PR supporter.
Josh,
Thanks for checking that out--I'm not surprised, but still a little chagrined. What were his arguments against?
He didn't have a particularly substantive argument against PR, just the usual status quo nonsense about things being just fine the way they are.
Brison's in a committed relationship?
Didn't know that one.
Gayness, though -- what a man does on his own time, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, is his own darned business.
He's got a decent shot at the leadership, though. That would create an interesting dynamic, if he's as pro-business as he was when he was a Tory. We'll see.
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