The Quebec Election Call and Dirty Tricks

Charest called an election today, but what happened on Tuesday definitely foreshadowed what a dog fight this campaign will be.

The PQ's opening gambit in yesterday's special sitting of the National Assembly was to table documents suggesting Premier Jean Charest's top adviser was involved in an illegal 1995 Quebec referendum slush fund.

The Liberals angrily denied the link, and later in the day Deputy Premier Jacques Dupuis accused the PQ of doctoring a receipt as part of a deliberate smear campaign.

A PQ official conceded that information was edited from a document in the name of avoiding confusion, but said the fact remains that senior provincial Liberals were involved in illicit funding practices in 1995 – allegations the Liberals hotly deny.

That reminds me of this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

The Witch: I'm not a witch I'm not a witch!
Sir Bedevere: But you are dressed as one
The Witch: *They* dressed me up like this!
Crowd: We didn't! We didn't...
The Witch: And this isn't my nose. It's a false one.
Sir Bedevere: [lifts up her false nose] Well?
Peasant 1: Well, we did do the nose.
Sir Bedevere: The nose?
Peasant 1: And the hat, but she is a witch!
Crowd: Yeah! Burn her! Burn her!
Sir Bedevere: Did you dress her up like this?
Peasant 1: No!
Peasant 3, Peasant 2: No!
Peasant 3: No!
Peasant 1: No!
Peasant 3, Peasant 2: No!
Peasant 1: Yes!
Peasant 2: Yes!
Peasant 1: Yeah a bit.
Peasant 3: A bit!
Peasant 1, Peasant 2: A bit!
Peasant 2: a bit
Peasant 1: But she has got a wart!

But wait...there's more!

Last week, one of Charest's star candidates compared Action démocratique leader Mario Dumont to ultra-right-wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Dumont retorted by saying Charest was a "small" premier for not demanding a retraction.

PQ leader André Boisclair got into the act this week by calling Charest a "liar" because of his proposal to lift a university tuition freeze that has been in place since 1994.

Dupuis fielded all the questions on the documents during a stormy question period at the National Assembly, batting back the allegations from PQ House Leader Diane Lemieux as irresponsible slurs.

Then he went on the offensive.

"If the opposition House leader looks to her right and to her left, she will see people who have violated the electoral law and people who have violated the criminal law," he said, the latter a clear reference to past cocaine use by Boisclair, who sits beside Lemieux.

Grab your popcorn. This one should be fun.