Green Party names Georges Laraque as Deputy Leader
July 31, 2010 - 3:05pm
The federal Green Party is hoping a former NHL tough guy will help beef up the party's presence in Quebec.
Green Leader Elizabeth May on Saturday named Georges Laraque as a deputy leader of the Green Party of Canada.
The 260-pound former Montreal Canadiens enforcer joined the Greens last February but his role has been undefined until now.
The announcement is part of an attempt to gain traction in the province.
Laraque joins Adriane Carr as a deputy leader of the Greens, replacing Jacques Rivard, who jumped to the Bloc Québécois in June.
Read more: CBC.ca
Seems like too nice a guy to last long.
Apparently he was not going to actually run though, at least not last February when he joined the party.
I'm getting the impression that after the implosion of the last Green "deputy leader for Quebec", all it takes to be named to the position is to register 98.6 on a rectal thermometer and be famous enough to get one days worth of news coverage. That's how desparate EMay is to find ANY living breathing person to represent her in Quebec. If Laraque hadn't agreed to take the job, i wonder if she would have offered the position to the first "clochard" she saw staggering around on Ste. Cartherine St. East?
I think this guy is spot on - http://reportongreens.blogspot.com/
"...Yet what are his political qualifications? Has he signed up members? Built a local campaign? Volunteered on a campaign? Doorknocked? Dropped flyers? Made a phone call to a party supporter to get out and vote? We all know Mr. Laraque joined the party roughly 5 months ago but is that enough to ascend to the role of Deputy Leader?..."
The only thing I've heard about Mr. Laraque has been in Green Party press releases and related news coverage. Without further information, I have to agree with the Report on Greens assessment.
What is this, the 3rd? 4th Deputy in the last couple of years?
Being Deputy Green Party Leader for Quebec reminds me of being drummer for Spinal Tap.
Maybe given May's pitiful French he could be her stand in for a debate with Duceppe, Layton, Ignatieff and Harper (pass the popcorn please) - that is if the networks haven't learned from the mistake of letting into the 2008 debate anyone from that minor fringe party which has never elected anyone to anything.
Celebrity endorsement is one thing, but a professional hockey player as deputy leader (and he's no Ken Dryden)... just makes the Greens look amateurish IMV.
Are you kidding? The Greens just added some much-needed truculence and testosterone to their lineup. Jackie Layton will think twice about going into the corners with E. May now.
I hear that Stevie-boy Harper is going to counter this move by trying to bring Tiger Williams out of retirement to take the place of Helena Guergis on the Reformatory roster
Son of a gun! Spinal Tap has three albums on Amazon. Not bad for a fictional band.
I have seen some commentary to the effect that having Laraque, based on his record in the NHL, was not actually a plus in Quebec. But of course I'm too clueless about hockey to understand the back story. I guess he played for another team than the Habs, and was an "enforcer" type of player, but what's the significance of those comments?
Oh, and here's some more grist for the mill on the Green Party's situation generally, from a Lemieux supporter:
http://greencanada.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/the-question-for-the-green-party-is-simple-leadership-contests-or-leader-for-life/
Son of a gun! Spinal Tap has three albums on Amazon. Not bad for a fictional band.
You think that's big news?
Plastic Bertrand admits: Ça n'etait pas moi
The Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand has admitted that the voice that gave the world the 1977 Euro-punk anthem Ça Plane Pour Moi was not his. Roger Jouret, the man behind the Plastic Bertrand persona, had previously denied that he was not the singer on the record. But in an interview with the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, he admitted it had been another singer - and laid the blame at the door of his former producer, Lou Deprijck. His admission came a day after a linguist commissioned by a judge concluded that the singer's accent did not match the voice on the record.
I didn't realize that someone had started a new thread, so I posted this to the old one
The new Quebec Deputy Leader of the Greens -- their third in the past year -- is... Georges Laraque.
At least one prominent Green is referring to Laraque as an "NHL star", but (as I told her) it would be more accurate to refer to him as a "former NHL fourth-line goon who played less than ten minutes a game for four different teams before being cut in mid-season by the Montreal Canadiens and left unsigned by the other twenty-nine teams in the league".
Besides being a vegan and speaking out on the need for Haitian earthquake relief, what is know about Laraque's political views?
Does the party consider it an asset or a liability that he had to publicly apologize for his off-ice conduct (filming a sexist commercial for an alcoholic "energy drink" in which he played street hockey with women in bikinis) and was frequently fined and suspended for his on-ice conduct (most recently a five-game suspension last December for kneeing)?
Any bets on whether Laraque will last any longer than the Green's last Quebec Deputy Leader? I'm thinking that his 2009/2010 hockey season is going to seem long by comparison.
I don't like to slag unknown quantities like laraque. Certainly the bar is none too high though. Maybe Elizabeth May thought it would be a good idea to prospect for supporters through the sports pages? lol
http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Former+tough+Laraque+named+Green+party+deputy+leader/3347377/story.html
Not belittling Laraque, but Elizabeth is peddling hard to head off Sylvie Lemieux. A strong criticism of May, and the current Leadership is their total failure in Quebec, which is obviously something that Lemieux is better suited to cope with. I mean, Sharon Labchuk, from PEI, and an anglophone was appointed Quebec Organiser. Now Sharon is an Animal rights activist first, and a Green second, so it is natural that she would hit it off with Laraque. May has not got a single supporter in the GPC in the province. Not one EDA exec, or candidate who would take such a post. May is very vulnerable on this point, and clearly knows it. Since she thinks that public profile is all there is to politics, it is a windfall that somebody with a profile of sorts, and too new to the Party to appreciate what a sacrificial lamb he is could be flattered into accepting the position. Again, I do NOT want to be patronising towards an unknown quantity, but I kind of feel bad for Laraque. He is in for a world of pain now, and probably doesn't have a clue what's coming.
I think this guy is spot on - http://reportongreens.blogspot.com/
"...Yet what are his political qualifications? Has he signed up members? Built a local campaign? Volunteered on a campaign? Doorknocked? Dropped flyers? Made a phone call to a party supporter to get out and vote? We all know Mr. Laraque joined the party roughly 5 months ago but is that enough to ascend to the role of Deputy Leader?..."
Does that apply for other parties too?
What other party has a deputy leader who has done ever performaed any of those elementary political tasks?
I always thought Georges Laraques biggest claim to fame was getting knocked out by Marty McSorley's swinging stick, which eventually led to the latter's forced retirement.
So far, Elizabeth May has been doing a lot of swinging, but this is the first time she's connected. The question is, will she end up like McSorley?
You're mixing up Georges Laraque and Donald Brashear. But don't worry, Yahoo! Sports made the same mistake when reporting on the sexism controversy (scroll to the bottom).
I know! I was thinking about that all day today: "damn it! It was Brashear, not Laraque." Thanks for taking it easy on me by referencing the Yahoo mistake.
Another jump the shark moment for Elizabeth May and the Greens. The go for the big ratings moment was in the last election when they were high in the polls, they had a floor crossing crooked MP, a spot in the leader's debate and a deal with the Liberals and, shit happens, there was no big breakthrough. The Greens have no seat now and no reasonable prospect of winning one now, the next election or any future election. Internal splits bode poorly for the survival of May as leader and for the survival of the Greens. This deputy leader move seems totally artificial and desperate and will not likely enable the Greens to survive as any sort of electoral force. or for May to hold on as leader.
God, I just read the funniest exchange on Camille Labchuks blog. Camille is an EMay loyalist, and council member for Ontario, running for re-election right now. Her mother is one of ERlizabeths inner circle, and has been receiving a salary from the GPC in rotating positions from about 3 minutes after Elizabeth won the leadership.
John Shavluk comments on Cammilles blog about the wonderful new Vegan star in the GPC firmament, Georges Laroque.
shavluk
August 1st, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Well maybe you to can be one of his "High Octane Girls" hahha
Camille responds:
Camille Labchuk
August 1st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Hi John, I feel that your "High Octane Girls" comment is extremely sexist. Please don't comment here anymore.
Camilles mother, currently Quebec organiser for the GPC, (despite being unilingual anglophone, who lives in PEI) presumably recruited Laroque. Obviously they did zero due diligence on laroque, not surprisingly. But they did not have a clue about the High Octane girls in bikinis that Laroque filmed the energy drink commercial with. Anyway, knowing all the people involved, i really did laugh out loud. Poor Georges, what an intro into politics.
Camille responds:
Camille Labchuk
August 1st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Hi John, I feel that your "High Octane Girls" comment is extremely sexist. Please don't comment here anymore.
She didn't seem to notice the comment he made about Elizabeth May's weight
Maybe someone should tell Camille Labchuk that what's "sexist" is Laraque doing that commercial with bikini clad girls in the first place - NOT someone making reference to it.
Does anyone else find it odd that Laraque has the title of deputy leader but also says he will not run for a seat in the next election? Who ever heard of a deputy leader not even running for anything? What's he expecting - to be appointed to the Senate? As I said before, the guy is basically just being a "mascot" to Elizabeth May in Quebec.
She's still referring to him as "an NHL star". That's sure to be met with laughter by anyone who knows anything about hockey -- particularly in Quebec. He had 1 goal and 2 assists in two seasons with the Canadiens. When he was cut, he was available to any NHL team that wanted him, but there were no takers.
And, yes, he does have baggage -- from his conduct on and off the ice. Besides the commercial, he made a laughingstock of himself by citing the Haitian earthquake as a reason why he shouldn't have been cut by the Canadiens.
Yes, it was Sharon Labchuk who wrote the infamous We'll take anyone memo during the 2008 election campaign. In most parties, that's the kind of thing that gets you fired.
Sent: Mon 9/1/2008 5:44 PM
To: gpc-members
Cc: gpc-candidates@googlegroups.com; gpc-ridings@googlegroups.com; gpc-oa@googlegroups.com; gpc-organizers@googlegroups.com
Subject: [GPC-RIDINGS] URGENT: help find GPC candidates
URGENT: WE NEED YOUR HELP TO FIND CANDIDATES
Okay everybody, time to pitch in. We need to get our candidates in place this week. With the announcement about our first Green MP, it should be a whole lot easier to find people who would love to run in the most exciting election we'll have had to date.
Think about who you know in the ridings listed below and send us names and ridings of people you think would be good Green MPs, even if you have no contact info. Could be your mother, your neighbour or someone you've seen in the newspaper. We'll take it.
We're interested in more women and other people not as well represented as they could be: aboriginal persons, persons of colour, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.
Send info to our regional organizers - their contacts are here http://greenparty.ca/en/contact/staff
If we all pitch in we can get our candidates in place now and have more time to help them prepare campaigns.
So that everyone in Canada has the opportunity to vote Green, we'll also take names of people willing to just put their names on the ballot in the event we do not find enough candidates.
Much appreciated
Sharon Labchuk
Director of Organizing
Geez, I forgot about that one, Scott. You've got a good memory.
They're going to have a lot more paper candidates this time around to fill the 308.
Scrambling harder to get them all in before the nomination deadline. And probably have to hire someone dedicated to scraping the barrel.
One of my friends was talking to Georges Laraque at the Vancouver Pride Parade yesterday. Laraque is apparently of Haitian origin, and is interested in signing the petition to demand that France repay the money it extorted from Haiti in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sounds like he could be good for the Green Party.
If, by good, you mean apart from not running for them or being involved in any meaningful way in their organizational effort.
ETA: One of the green bloggers I read last night wrote that after Laraque joined the party in February, he emailed him and asked him to come and help out in the Ontario by-election campaign going on at the time. No reply was received.
A Quebec deputy leader who can't travel the province, recruit candidates, build up the organizational machine, and generate daily media interest, is worth maximum one week's worth of news coverage in a slow summer news cycle. And that's about what he'll give them.
Green Party accolytes seem to be quite excited about the front page interview with Laraque that appears in today's National Post. I have to wonder why they would actually want people to read this.
Q Can you name three of your favourite Green party policies?
A I just got a big book about all the policies. If you ask me in a month, I'll be able to tell you. So far, the biggest policy is about promoting the environment. In the coming weeks, I will be studying and meeting and reading with Elizabeth [May] a lot more on those environmental policies to be more informed on the specific policies that they have.
But, Scott! The environment is good. You know that, right?
I hear that they are also in favour of adorable puppies.
Scott, that's two minutes for making my Greens look like a bunch of wankers, and a five minute misconduct! :)
More evidence that the Greens know nothing about hockey. There's no such thing as a five minute misconduct
Ah, I'm rusty on the hockey front. Never resumed watching after the strike a few years back. It was a habit really and that cured it. Hadn't heard of Laraque until the other day.
That's pretty priceless - the DEPUTY LEADER of the party needs a month or two to read the party policies before he can comment on them. Aren't we supposed to presume that a party's "deputy leader" would be Finance Minister or Government House Leader if the party forms a government?
Goddess, when they said they'd take anyone, they meant it, didn't they?
After reading that quote about how he will study the policies and get back to the media in a month's time, would it be wrong to make a Sarah Palin comparison?
After reading that quote about how he will study the policies and get back to the media in a month's time, would it be wrong to make a Sarah Palin comparison?
You betcha!
So, that would make Elizabeth May our John McCain, desperate to find a second-in-command who will distract from the fact that his(her) own campaign is going nowhere.
Tim Powers weighs in
From her co-operation deal with Stéphane Dion, to running against Peter MacKay, to her inclusion in the 2008 federal election debates, she has proven her capacity to generate headlines. But headlines don't always mean results. May appears to be sticking to form. By getting a high-profile celebrity deputy, who won't run, she has earned herself some summer ink and made many forget that her pugilist got in because the previous deputy, Jacques Rivard, punched out over his frustrations with the state of the Greens.
If Elizabeth May spent less time making noise and gave more effort to some smart strategy, her party's chances of success might improve...
Far be it for me to give the Greens advice, but I gotta believe May's noise strategy is wearing thin on many in her own party. Laraque could quickly find himself in role he is more accustomed to, as May's protector if her detractors get their dukes up over her won-lost record.
"...Yet what are his political qualifications? Has he signed up members? Built a local campaign? Volunteered on a campaign? Doorknocked? Dropped flyers? Made a phone call to a party supporter to get out and vote? We all know Mr. Laraque joined the party roughly 5 months ago but is that enough to ascend to the role of Deputy Leader?..."
There are people out there who live, breath, eat and shit politics and have done so since junior high. I went to law school with some of them. Does that make them qualified to be politicians? Sure. Does that make them qualified to do anything at all of worth, even once, in their entire political career?
Hardly.
Frankly, I don't think having a 'political rep' is all that flattering, or desirable.
True.
And I have no general comment on Laraque. But for politics, he doesn't just lack a rep. If you read what he says- nobobody is pushing him in interviews- in his own words, he sounds like he is willing to be a hood ornament.
Then, there was the little incident of his first news release as Deputy Leader being for an organic company he was promoting on the Nasdaq, rather than for the party itself. That's not sitting too well with some party members.
True.
And I have no general comment on Laraque. But for politics, he doesn't just lack a rep. If you read what he says- nobobody is pushing him in interviews- in his own words, he sounds like he is willing to be a hood ornament.
Ha, at least he's honest about it.
Sorry, I don't really have a high opinion of any politicians.
Like him or not, Laraque's moving from enforcer to green evangelist. (The "deputy leader" position in any party is pretty ornamental and more for the sake of identifying someone to address the media on occasion.)
For the Greens, he serves a much needed purpose which is to break the environmentalist stereotype which caps us at 10% in the polls.
Laugh if you like, but far more Canadians relate to hockey players, even role players, than to politicians and lawyers. Laraque is especially a good cross over, not a hot shot forward, but rather someone who seemed to be a role player who enjoyed relating to his community off the ice.
Last election, the Greens probably ran twice as many candidates with advanced degrees (doctors, environmental engineers, economists) as other parties and we've been running on much the same physical and social science backed policies for the last 20 years.
Getting rid of our stereotype is a needed step.
The comments on TSN are far more favourable, and that reflect the target voter far more than rabble :-)
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=329125
We shall see.
Elizabeth May has a finely honed intuitive sense of saying what a particular audience wants to hear. And her flair for self-promotion still trips her up frequently.
Georges seems to have the same inclination to self-promotion, without experience to channel that.
But I have to admitt that if he moves on to saying things that are potentially embarassing, it probably won't be noticed. And that being the kind of hood ornament that generically benefits the GPC as commended, will trump any embarrasing things he might do.
I wouldnt suggest that expecting more from politicians is going to get results. But I do know that expecting the least is guaranteed to be a self fulfilling prophecy.
The last guy who tried to mix hockey and stumping for the Green Party got ejected from the rink.
I just took the time to read the comments. There are a handful of favourable ones, but the predominant opinion seems to be that this appointment is "a joke" and "ridiculous".
In other words, I wouldn't be in a hurry to link to this story if I were trying to promote the Green Party (any more than the National Post interview was helpful to your cause).
Check out this blog posting at democratic space by Greg Morrow who is one of the many many many many people who got involved in the Green Party and then quickly bolted once he realized that Emay was totally nuts:
http://democraticspace.com/blog/2010/08/mays-mccain-moment/
He basically argues that May's publicity stunt with Laraque is comparable to John McCain's "hail Mary" attempt to get back into the game by making Sarah Palin his VP.
Gee, I wonder why.
"As a new deputy leader for the Green Party, I see TerraSphere as the truest form of self-sustaining economic development."
So, is the party making any other commercial endorsements?
Scott, I thought it was just free-market environmentalism in action …