Louise Harel watch

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/look+Harel+record/1662995/story.html

anglo-basher (critics of megacities are anglo colonialists), ignoring Franco anti-mergerites

opportunist (took over established party without a leadership debate); but will be "coronated" later

borough powers are regulated by the province, not the city (as she wishes)

architect of the megacity by fiat, not referendum; refused consultation on the issue; her party (PQ) had not run on the issue, even disavowed it

set up commission to study megacity proposal; when it recommended against it, she ignored it

Her good examples:
* Boston: in reality, that area had many more munis than MTL
* Europe (34 countries had passed laws against forced mergers)
* Toronto (costs had risen, not fallen)
* would curb urban sprawl (has not)
* would redistribute wealth (was not the best way to do so)

supports super-majority requirements to leave the megacity (but leaving Canada requires a simple majority)

a centralist, says the boroughs are too powerful ["quasi-villes"]

a unilingualist in a cosmopolitan city

an "evil sovereignist" (selon Fagstein)

Trust a partisan (not) for a cheap shot.

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/national-news/quebec-solidaire-wins-seat-three-cheers-amir-khadir

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Trust toddsschneider to pull out of one more Montreal Gazette hate-laced Op-Ed[,] the paragraph were [sic] Don McPherson singles out the only Left politician in the Assemblée Nationale, eschewing MacPherson's critique of Mario Dumont and Monique Jérome-Forget's "transition allowances".

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I eschew nothing, besides the facile (and faulty) description that Macpherson is among the hate-mongers. One need not be a federalist to recognize a venal move among the Quebec political class, but it never hurts.

Besides, Macpherson spares no legislative party in this critique, left, right or centre, so he singles out no one in particular.

I posted the the link to the whole article for any interested (but fair-minded) readers to come to their own conclusions. I can't wait to see the Quebec solidaire press release on this one.