people want to talk this up as a peggy nash/gerard kennedy deal, but i think that in today's riding, it may be that mulcair is the bigger name. obviously, it remains to be seen how this affects the dynamics in the riding, but mulcair had to know that he's had a pretty easy ride thus far - holding a riding like outremont virtually guarantees a strong liberal challenge each and every time, it's an entitlement riding.
as for the igg, it could be that the outremont calculation works out for him. of all three ridings (ahuntsic, jeanne-le ber and outremont), this will be the toughest one for the lpc to win back. in that sense, despite hacking off coderre (maybe), giving outremont to caucon is win-win: cauchon is basically staking his return to politics on beating a redoubtable mulcair, he loses he's out of everyone's hair and if he wins, iggy gets the seat, with no cabinet promises, nothing.