Liberals look to overturn results in Berthier-Maskinongé - Continue

I'm pretty sure educational institutions are allowed to verify enrollment and completion of programs of study for purposes of checking someone's resume, although they're probably limited in the amount of detail they can provide. I also imagine that there are a limited number of university employees who are allowed to disclose this information - a secretary in the Dean's office may not be allowed, but the vice-president for Student and External Affairs would have both the authority and the responsibility to do so. 

In any case this is the last thing the story needed - fresh blood in the water.  The diploma reference has now been removed from Brosseau's candidate page on the NDP website.

http://ruthellenbrosseau.ndp.ca/

Somebody really should have checked this earlier, at least when the other shit hit the fan. I feel bad for Brosseau, but this one's a self-inflicted wound.

I went to college some time ago but when I finished my education I had 72 credits for a 65 credit course. The reason was that we were required to take other supplementary courses ( to round out our design education) in four categories. The only problem was that the college kept changing the categories of the courses - so a student thought they had completed the humanities category only to find that the next semester the subject they had taken had now been placed in another category. I never did complete the 4 different categories although if the college administration had honoured the designations when the students had actually  taken the courses I would have qualified for my diploma and had enough courses to start another one.

I just showed my transcripts when applying for jobs in my field. To say that I had completed the design programme was not a lie because I had completed all of that programme but just not the extra courses.

Okay then lets start checking into the credentials on all the other newly elected MPs from the Conservatives too.  Or how about the current sitting MPs.  If you ever wanted an object lesson on media bias this is it.  I can't help but think if this was some old, fat white guy no one would have said boo.  But every time they run a story they get to put up a picture of a young, attractive woman and I am sure the calculation is that this is good for selling papers.

Goddess I am disgusted by the media more than I ever was. 

robbie_dee wrote:

The party needs to get a handle on this shitstorm asap.

Are you saying the party should disassociate itself from her? How else could they possibly "get a handle" on it, when (as Stockholm points out) the next predictable steps are interviews with her cats, her neighbours, her loan shark...

As well, it looks like a chunk of the "social media" in terms of comments, has been taken over by extreme right-wing propaganda, in the manner of Fox.

It would be interesting to find out, how many people have been hired by the Cons, and Corp interest groups, to sit around and post comments for a hourly wage?

There seems to be many posting from the US, from interest groups like Big Oil, or social media spin groups. As with Layton, some were talking about "Layton not pressing charges" and other concepts from the US. (we don't press charges in Canada, etc)

I guess we will never know. But it does seem that the Cons and others have hired a lot of people to post endless smears and propaganda. It wouldn't take much money, for them. 50 people at $10 a hour, cutting and pasting junk all over the place, would be enough.

Either that, or Canada seems to be turning to ratshit overnight.

The NDP has admitted they were the ones who incorrectly attributed a diploma to Brosseau when all she said was that she had attended the college. They screwed the pooch and didn't catch the error even when all of the other negative attention started coming.

Vansterdam Kid wrote:

It's quite possible that she nearly completed the diploma and is only a few credits away from it.

Quote:

A spokeswoman for the NDP says Brosseau told them she studied at the community college in Kingston, Ont., but never said she had a diploma.

"She never claimed to have this diploma, as she was two credits short of completion when she had to move back to Ottawa to be close to her family," Kathleen Monk wrote in an email.

"When her bio was posted on our website, a party staffer inadvertently changed the wording. We apologize for posting this information in error and regret any inconvenience this has caused Ms. Brosseau."

Exactly.

The party defiantly needs to beef up the communications department.

This may be a clue in how the "hounds" want to paint the NDP - Or were they looking for opportunistic, unstable, young, dishonest and inexperienced?

It was posted in the reply on CBC, and I found it interesting with the insertion of "unstable"!

tHIS IS THE MEME THEY WANT TO PLANT IN THE MINDS OF CANADIANS!

Vansterdam Kid wrote:

Well yeah, they were obviously overtaken by events. So no doubt they need to do a better job "spinning." This isn't surprising considering how the NDP was basically irrelevant in Quebec for the longest time, but I'd rather they learn this lesson now as opposed to later.

Its also good that this stuff is coming out AFTER the election and not before. If the NDP had started surging a week or two earlier - the scorched earth attacks would have been happened before election day and might have had an impact on support. Now, for all the nonsense we can always remind ourselves that the next election is in October of 2015!

That is exactly the meme they want.

Harper said NDP-Lib coalition = unstable.

They have picked this, as another smear to try and poison the perception of the "NDP" for next time, to try and make the unwashed masses think its only a bunch of kids, no experience to govern, etc.

You can see dozens screaming about that in every social media comment site, as well as the constant headlines.

If they can drive the NDP down a bit, and the Libs up a bit, Harper keeps winning.

They are putting this non-story top of the "news" over floods, AlQaeda threats, etc. Not one story about Harper or his policies, like the Crime superbill coming.

So yes, this is a magnified coordinated attack on the NDP to try and make them seem unable to govern, ever. Create a circus. Its the Us model, where they try to find a scandal of some sort, and that just keep the public away from looking at what is really going on.

You have to feel sorry for these folks, there are probably already private detectives building dossiers on them, to be used later. Same as the smear tried by SunTV on Layton, by the 'retired cop' using illegal info through a loophole, covered up by the OPP, who Fantino used to run.

Its a nightmare. Who could withstand that level of scrutiny? Almost no one.

Unionist wrote:

Are you saying the party should disassociate itself from her? How else could they possibly "get a handle" on it, when (as Stockholm points out) the next predictable steps are interviews with her cats, her neighbours, her loan shark...

The party should have anticipated the diploma challenge was coming and caught and corrected it before now. I have no idea what other skeletons there could possibly be but I sure hope the party does or is trying to find out. For example we haven't heard from the father of her children yet but since the two are no longer together that is the next logical place I would go for "dirt" (If I were a slimy Liberal or journalist that is). I agree that Brosseau's getting quite harshly treated right now (bordering on abusive and certainly reflecting a double standard compared to other male candidates from other parties) but it doesn't appear to be letting up. I don't know how the party "changes the channel" on this but they've got to figure something out.

I wonder if the college would let Brosseau count her intensive french lessons towards those last two credits?

Not only do I agree that the constant attacks on Ruth Ellen will back fire, mostly because it is about stuff no one cares about and that most people are sick of hearing about it, but that it is drawing all the venom from the NDPs critics, leaving little left over for any other NDP MP. She is kind of acting like airplane straff, drawing all enemy fire to herself so that no one else gets hit. Already she has stolen the attention away Mulcair's gaffe. The best part is it probably will not impact her career negitively at all as most of the attacks are pathetic and will gain her sympathy. Not that the NDP would use her this way on purpose it just an unexpected side effect of the NDP surge. It like how Naomi Klien said that the obsessive hatred of Bush made the left dumber. Obsessive hatred of Ruth Ellen is making her foes dumber.

Oh btw her foes are foolish for keeping on going on about the nominatiin papers. No one gives a shit about Nomination papers! They are trying to turn a buracratic issue into a democractic issue, but It still seems to be a buracractic issue and one the liberals are hypocritical about at that. You'd think they would have learned the price of spiteful attacks during the election. Now that they have opened pandora's box what is to stop the NDP from looking through everyones elses nomination papers and giving them a taste of thier own medicine. No one would blame the NDP for fighting back. Add this to the Rae/Alpps fight and the liberals appear to be self destructing.

[url=http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-canadienne/... elected in Alberta despite his refusal to campaign[/url]

Quote:

According to an NDP strategist, who preferred to remain anonymous, the case of Jim Hillyer isn't different from that of Mme Brosseau, 27-year-old single mother, but the national media aren't talking about it. "There's a double standard here. No one is talking about Jim Hillyer."

 

He also pointed out that Mme Brosseau, who speaks French adequately, will learn the basics of her role the same as all other newly elected MPs. "You have to put it in perspective. The future of Canada doesn't rest on the shoulders of Ruth Ellen Brosseau, after all!" he said.

 

He recalled, not without some humour, that the ex-Conservative prime minister John A. Macdonald, elected in Victoria on Sept. 17, 1878, never set foot there for some eight years - in summer of 1886.

"Mme Brosseau plans to visit her riding within the coming days", he concluded.

ETA: Should have mentioned, the above is from [i]La Presse[/i], and it's my translation.

the conservative Globe and Mail ran the Jim Hillyer story...once...below the NDP attacks. So they could claim they ran it.

But obviously, someone in the dirty-tricks campaign, will just keep running the NDP story. They probably have the next week planned out, of what to release each day.

It makes you think, these smears and jeers don't work on those who have a thoughtful position on a party. There are even some conservatives who are saying these attacks are now just beyond stupid.

But I think these attacks are targeted at the disinterested voter, who just glances at a headline, and almost randomly picks who they vote for. Its a few %, and they can sway that.

But this smear after smear, seems like a longer term strategy, just to try and "frame" the NDP as a circus in the disinterested voters mind. It works in the USA.

Any sane person sees she just put her name in, and got elected due to Jack's surge in the polls. I think she will win in the end, as the average person is not an rabid neo-con smear-artist.

Notice how the Con party has stayed out of it publically. Dirty tricks have to be done through proxies.

But this entire thing was framed from Day 2 after the election in the corp media. Attack the NDP like a circus, ignore Harper.

It also sets the frame of "all politicians are the same" which conservative voters don't really care about as long as their self serving position is, or at least given mouth srvice to. Should be interesting to see what Harper does with his majority. Long gun could be abolished on day 1 but what could he offer those people in 4 years? Hmmm just like liberals and day care, the cons have a lot of wedge issues that will bite them on the ass. They have no reason not to. They could claim no money, but that kind of goes againt the fiscal managers mantra.

The two most recent comments following the CBC "resume" story:

Quote:

The way people are giving her "the third degree", she'll have her doctorate in no time.

---

For the people, by the people, OF THE PEOPLE!

sorry if average canadian crashed your party of career elites but get over yourselves, this is democracy so the career con that lost in that riding will have to find another job and maybe become an average nameless canadian like the rest of us.

It's also a much more interesting read if you sort by ratings. A real mix of opinion.

Arthur Cramer, why respond? It would just fuel the frenzy. They are getting a better sense of the candidate, and figuring out the best way to support her and the big job she now has. Let them focus on the MP and her riding. That way, it will just naturally blow up in the faces of the cretins who are revealing themselves for what they are.

A clear sense that the party won't be distracted by this idiocy and is focused instead on the work to be done is a good response. Let's not get too worked up ourselves.

Stand strong.

Here's a GREAT piece in Maclean's (!!!): The House: The meaning of Ruth Ellen Brosseau

Quote:

Whether that powerlessness is real or imagined—whether a product of apathy, cynicism or careful study—the MP has become a very small figure in our democracy. You could expend thousands of words sorting out the public, press and parliamentary pressures that have so reduced the idea of the MP, but whatever the cause, it seems the reality is made fairly unavoidable by the election of Ruth Ellen Brosseau. Whatever balance the ballot is supposed to compel, the choice is fairly simple now: find the party you prefer and put an X beside whatever name happens to be there.

All of which is simply to suggest that laughing and fuming in Ms. Brosseau’s direction is perhaps a bit unjust when there’s an entire national political system to laugh and fume at.

Hah! This comment was just posted on the Facebook page supporting the new MPs:

Quote:

I am getting really angry at the way this young woman is beeing bullied by having her every move and word scrutinized under a microscope. I wonder what would happen if all the waiters and waitresses in this country put their customers (media types, politicos, 'fixers', etc.) under that kind of scrutiny and started leaking these things on the internet? A former waitress of 15 years, myself, I think they'd have lots to scrutinize. Wink wink!

I am sure it went something like this

"Hey Ruth Ellen we have a problem in a riding in Quebec.  We can't find a candidate.  Don't suppose you would mind putting your name on a ballot."

"I don't know I have this job here and a vacation already paid for and my kids to look after I can't really be campaigning so far from home."

"Oh don't worry no one will notice - but we need to have a name on the ballot, just like the Conservatives do in Toronto and the Liberals in Alberta.  We just need someone to put their name on the ballot so that folks there can have an alternative to the Bloc it isn't a big deal - we'll do all the campaign work."

"Okay, I guess I'll do it if it will help out the party.  It isn't like I would have a chance of winning or anything anyway."

Or something to that effect.

What happened in this riding is not all that unusual in Canadian political history- similar things have happened many times before.  But now the media can plaster this picture of this attractive young woman all over their sites to get interest and sell papers and attack the NDP at the same time.  It is a great two'fer.  The fact that they are ignoring all kinds of similar occurences, past and present, we are supposed to pretend we don't notice.

Stockholm wrote:

Apparently its not "self-inflicted" by her personally. The party says that she only claimed to have studied in the program and that someone working on the website was at fault for the embellishment.

That may be true but why wouldn't she have checked it?  If I were to allow some other party to post information about me, I'd certainly want to verify what they put there.

In case anyone gets a bit down about this ridiculous saga - cher up and watch this wonderful video of all the Quebec NDP candidates:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mh77h7MVpc