Quebec election night
April 14th, 2003
With most of the polls reporting, the fairly final election results are as follows:
- Liberals – 76 seats – 45.84% of popular vote
- Parti Québécois – 45 seats – 33.25% of popular vote
- Action Démocratique – 4 seats – 18.28% of popular vote
The race in this election was pretty close all along, with Charest and the Liberals really only gaining momentum after the debate, and pulling away in the past 3-4 days. Tonight, however, the biggest race was between the networks, to see who would predict the outcome the soonest after polls closed.
And all the candidates for Premier have really bad hair. Dumont’s isn’t all that bad, if a little stiff. But Charest’s still got the chia-pet thing going on, and Landry, oh that combover is painful!
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The only things I noticed on the networks is that global as usual is not up to par and that TQS really really need to hire someone that has a clue what “white balance” means.
Oh and at any rate, Radio-Canada was the network to watch in french. Everyone else is merely a rip-off.
(does the Homer Simpson dance on the floor) WOO WOO WOOO!!!!
Congratulations, Sari! (and I personally feel you are the greatest thing since the invention of chocolate, never mind chocolate-covered strawberries, which was only invented at a later date.
)
CBC Newsworld was the absolute worst. The male taling head could barely (if at all) pronounce a single word in French. An obvious handicap for a Quebec election.
Worse, he couldn’t even say the English words properly. “Rosemont” became “Rosemount”.
And the blatant cheerleading for the PLQ made even me sick. It was worse than Fox news.
Radio Canada had the best coverage. (And interesting how subdued Chantal Hebert is in French as compared to her English outings on the National).
Ikram, the English CBC, like most of the anglophone media around here, does cheer “blatantly” for the Liberal party. It’s been like that as long as I can remember. Media outlets have editorial policies and usually favour one political party or another. It’s not that unusual, and the English media’s listeners/viewers vote overwhelmingly Liberal too, so one can argue that they’re just playing to their audience.
The coverage wasn’t that bad. It was funny when early on they were trying to make predictions based on something like 500 votes counted. But after that, they just said a lot of useless filler and covered the speeches made by the three leaders, then I went to sleep.
Hang on, is that “male talking head” you’re talking about Dennis Trudeau (guy with white hair)?
If so, I guess he’s not too well-known outside Montreal — but he’s pretty famous here as the CBC Montreal lead news anchor. As far as I know, he speaks French fluently; hazy memories of him running an interview on Rad-Can at some point, but can’t really remember.
(Incidentally, Rosemont used to be called Rosemount; in Montreal English, it often still is. Not sure whether it is a historically English-speaking area or not — now, of course, it’s not — but Rosemount High School is still going strong on Beaubien St.)
Sari — I don’t mind a little cheerleading, but this was ridiculous. This election was not about soveriegnty. Aand the parties had the most interesting platforms of any in Canada. (Quebec is a very innovative jurisdiction these days). So they could have toned down their glee at Charest’s victory.
James — I call it Rosemont. But I also say Docteur Penfield, not “Macgregor”. Rosemount may be the traditional English-montrealer pronunciation.
I still don’t like the white-haired talking head. but I don’t much like Ottawa CBC affiliate anchor Rita Celli either. So I maybe it’s a bias against CBC local newsanchors.
Well, Ikram and James, it looks like Charest has answered your question:
But Charest stressed he did not want to reopen talks to integrate Quebec into the Canadian constitution, which Quebec has not signed. “The timing is not right,” he said.
From Reuters Canada.
Actually, I just wanted to say that you needn’t have worried about my voting ADQ (which I did), since I knew all along that I was in a “safe” Liberal riding, Vaudreuil, which isn’t quite “Darcy-McGee” safe (what- 96% of people voted Liberal there?) but still comfortable. If I ever seriously thought the PQ was a serious threat in my riding, I’d vote Liberal, but, since they aren’t, I can vote with my conscience…
I’d vote Equality, but I have a serious problem voting for single-issue parties.