Tag Archives: Marc Garneau

| On the Net, Opinion, Technology

By-election politicians on Facebook

As a follow-up to my overview of the candidates in the Sept. 8 by-election in Westmount Ville-Marie, here’s a quick rundown of the campaigns’ Facebook strategies (sorted by number of supporters):

(UPDATE Aug. 19: Mr. Larivée has joined the club, so I’ve updated the list as of today)

Anne Lagacé-Dowson (NDP)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 511
  • Personal page: NO

Marc Garneau (Liberal)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 370
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: NO

Claude William Genest (Green)

  • Fan page: YES
  • Supporters: 178
  • Personal page: YES (Though his profile pic is of a chimp hugging a bird)
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Open wall, “flirt” box on his profile page, and photos of him dressed as a pimp. Does that count?

Charles Larivée (Bloc Québécois)

  • Fan page: YES (though it’s actually a group, not a fan page)
  • Supporters: 120
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Nope, it’s wiped clean

Judith Vienneau (Rhino)

  • Fan page: YES (but no photo)
  • Supporters: 8 (ouch)
  • Personal page: YES
  • Embarrassing personal information on personal page: Plenty of TMI boxes on the profile page. Also, apparently wanted to be leader of the Libertarian Party. Maybe Rhino was her second choice?

Guy Dufort (Conservative)

  • Fan page: NO
  • Personal page: YES (private)

Many politicians have fake “personal” profiles setup, which I think is largely irrelevant since Facebook invented the fan page. So I won’t take any marks away from Lagacé Dowson for that. But Dufort and Larivée not having any Facebook exposure at all? That’s just not right.

| In the news, Montreal, On the Net

The by-election campaign has begun

From Shatnerian

From Shatnerian

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it official Friday, announcing that three federal by-elections would be held on Sept. 8 in Westmount-Ville-Marie, St. Lambert and Guelph, Ontario.

Westmount-Ville-Marie features the big race for us Montrealers, as the Liberals and NDP both have star candidates. Perhaps coincidentally, they are the only ones with campaign posters or websites as of this writing.

The candidates are (essentially in order of the likelihood of them getting the seat):

  • LIB: Marc Garneau, former astronaut, who failed in a bid for the Vaudreuil riding in the last election. His biggest advantage here is not so much his star quality, but the fact that Westmount used to be a Liberal stronghold.
  • NDP: Anne Lagacé Dowson, CBC radio host. I’m not sure if Jack Layton has a CBC Radio fetish he wants to play out or something, as two of the NDP’s three candidates come from the Mother Corp. (Tom King in Guelph is the other). She has some name recognition, but those who recognize her are people who listen religiously to the CBC and are likely to vote NDP anyway. And a lot of people who do listen to her don’t seem to like her. She has a way of presenting herself that makes her seem a tad pretentious and patronizing. Her political credentials are also pretty weak. (Full disclosure: I worked with Anne for about two weeks at CBC Radio – not long enough to develop an opinion, but long enough for her to have paid me off, theoretically)
  • CON: Guy Dufort, a lawyer with Heenan Blaikie specializing in labour law. No website. Website still hasn’t been indexed by Google, so a search for “Guy Dufort” won’t get you information about the candidate.
  • BQ: Charles Larivée, a former (current?) president of the McGill Political Science Students Association. No website, and no hope. (Top Google hit for the name is my previous post about this race)
  • GRN: Claude Genest, deputy Green Party leader and former cast member on TV’s Sirens.
| In the news, Montreal, Opinion, Video

ALD for NDP

The NDP has apparently chosen its candidate for its next most likely by-election pickup in Quebec: the downtown riding of Westmount-Ville-Marie. No, it’s not the guy in the above video (though he sounds like he’d be awesome), it’s CBC Radio Noon host Anne Lagacé Dowson:

(Note: May not be exactly as pictured)

I worked with Anne during my very brief stint at CBC Radio. Considering how incompetent I was, she seemed like a pretty nice person. The fact that she’s running for office under the NDP banner is hardly surprising (though I doubt she and Jack Layton agree on every issue)

Now the NDP seems to think that after their stunning win in Outremont, getting a broadcast journalist on board is the magic ticket to a second win in Quebec.

Unfortunately, it’s no guarantee. Just look at Peter Kent, former Global National anchor who lost for the Conservatives in Toronto (he’s trying his luck again in a much more affluent York riding). And he was at least on TV. (Get Mutsumi Takahashi or Nancy Wood to run and we’ll talk)

Even worse, her opponent is another star candidate (albeit another failed one), former astronaut Marc Garneau.

The riding, which mainly covers Westmount and western downtown (plus a bit of eastern NDG) could be hard to predict, with a mix of rich anglo Westmounters and poor hippie Concordia students. But the federal riding covering Westmount has been Liberal since 1962, and that’s a lot of history to overcome for a party that hasn’t done better than third with 15% of the vote.

Due to a conflict of interest, Lagacé Dowson has taken a leave of absence from CBC Radio, and the latter immediately scrubbed all mention of her from its website.

UPDATE (July 7): It’s “confirmed” apparently (as if there was doubt). Lagacé Dowson is, as usual, humble:

“I am not falling on my sword in Westmount,” she told a handful of supporters. “This liberal tradition isn’t serving us very well, and we don’t like what the Conservatives are doing to us. I am not running to make a good showing; I am running to win. If Barack Obama against all odds can capture the leadership of the Democratic party in the United States, who says a woman can’t capture the hearts and minds of Westmount for the NDP?”

I’m not quite sure how this relates to Barack Obama, nor being a woman (especially since the riding’s former MP, Lucienne Robillard, has two X chromosomes last time I checked), but don’t let that interfere with the historicness.

Meanwhile, the other parties have filled out their candidates. Just to show how confident the Bloc Québécois is at winning a seat in Westmount, they’ve nominated Charles Larivée, who according to Google is the president of the McGill Political Science Students Association.