From the start I suspected Mayor Tremblay's neurological workings. First there was that weird head bobbing that he does when he gets nervous. Then there was my first encounter with the guy. He was stumping for his first term at a youth event at the Jello Bar on Ontario. My question was simple enough: "are you going to give your salary to youth business grants as Mayor Bourque does?" Tremblay flew into a mini-rage, quite insulted at my question. Said he needed the money for his kids, who incidentally have been fully grown for a long time. He turned on his heel and walked away only to pivot back: "Good question though!" a sort of recognition that his wires weren't working right for a brief moment. A few weeks later my dim view was cemented when a toothless old woman at that church near the CBC building asked what he'd do for prostitutes like herself who wanted to troll the neighbourhood streets for business. Tremblay responded to the old crazy hooker as if she was the King of the Saudis. His reverence was absurd.
Now this Park Avenue nonsense explains why his top lieutenants have been ready to jump in to take over. Benoit Labonte and Frank "I've lost a lot of weight but still have no personality" Zampino have been long at work preparing their challenges to Tremblay, an ex-alcoholic member of the national assembly who used to get so hammered that he'd drive all over the lawn of the provincial legislature.
He has since found a new drug - Jesus! Being a Jesus freak stopped him from proposing the renaming of St. Joseph in Bourassa's honour, which is something La Presse had been lobbying for. So now not only is Tremblay toast, the previously unsullied Helen Fotopulos is surely history as well for going along with this silliness, (although she later recanted, hopefully as a result of my friendly email). As surely are several members of the Executive Committee who had initially voted unanimously in favour of the name change, proving that they are little more than a religious cult worshiping the leader and their hefty six figure paycheques. Good on my friends Warren Allmand and Marvin Rotrand for taking a stand against this slap on the face of the history of this city, the ethnic community, the English, the French, all city councillors should drink some of what these two are pouring.
Now this Park Avenue nonsense explains why his top lieutenants have been ready to jump in to take over. Benoit Labonte and Frank "I've lost a lot of weight but still have no personality" Zampino have been long at work preparing their challenges to Tremblay, an ex-alcoholic member of the national assembly who used to get so hammered that he'd drive all over the lawn of the provincial legislature.
He has since found a new drug - Jesus! Being a Jesus freak stopped him from proposing the renaming of St. Joseph in Bourassa's honour, which is something La Presse had been lobbying for. So now not only is Tremblay toast, the previously unsullied Helen Fotopulos is surely history as well for going along with this silliness, (although she later recanted, hopefully as a result of my friendly email). As surely are several members of the Executive Committee who had initially voted unanimously in favour of the name change, proving that they are little more than a religious cult worshiping the leader and their hefty six figure paycheques. Good on my friends Warren Allmand and Marvin Rotrand for taking a stand against this slap on the face of the history of this city, the ethnic community, the English, the French, all city councillors should drink some of what these two are pouring.
I was against the merger in 2000 (primarily because I prefer small things to big things), so I was against Bourque. But I wasn't "for Tremblay" either. I spotted him as a bit of a nutter even then. His never ending refrain "against" the mergers was something like "we'll do what's best for all Montrealers," which is a polite way to say "we'll do whatever the Hell we want to do."
ReplyDeleteNow he's got all of the mayors of the affected boroughs against the name change, plus what sounds like the majority of the people in those boroughs, yet he was on the radio yesterday yelling "what is the problem? This is democracy at its best!"
Democracy at its best? When the people who live in a place are against something, and their elected representatives are against it, but the Lord On High mayor just steamrolls the thing through anyway... That's democracy?