OTTAWA – Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae asked the NDP party to merge while licking his lips in a suggestive manner, according to House of Commons sources.
Rae allegedly sat across from the NDP, unbuttoned the top of his shirt to reveal chest hairs, and sent a ‘flirtatious’ text message to the NDP while Commons was in session earlier today.
Witnesses say the 63-year-old Liberal leader was later waiting for the NDP on the front lawn of Parliament, shirtless and performing push-ups, where he offered to take the NDP out for lunch.
“I see you’re new around town,” Rae is reported to have told the NDP while patting off beads of sweat from his chest with his white collared shirt. “I should show you around the city.”
Rae also mentioned a “really good falafel” place in the Byward market and suggested they later “go for cocktails” someplace “very quiet and out of the way.”
”I know how hard it is being new in town,” he said. “It’s good to have someone older, ahem—more experienced—to show you the ropes.”
The NDP said it felt uncomfortable with Rae’s offer.
“He seems… nice,” the party told reporters. “But he kept licking his lips in this really creepy way.”
“And I think he was trying to look down my shirt.”
After the NDP told Rae it was busy and needed to think about it, Rae grinned, said he’d be waiting, and then pulled out a cigar which he lit by striking a match across his beard stubble.
“I just want to help the NDP through a tough time,” Rae said. “It’s a young and vulnerable party that’s still trying to figure itself out. But it just needs to know it’s okay to try new things. Things that seem scary but actually make a lot of sense. Maybe uh… Oh, I don’t know… A merger maybe.”
“I’m very experienced at that sort of thing,” Rae added. He then folded his arms and flexed his biceps. When asked by reporters why he was doing that, he replied, “they just do that by themselves.”
Since coming into power as the opposition party, the NDP has been assailed with offers for mergers and political partnerships. Rae’s offer is both the latest, and the most prominent. The party reports that it is flattered, but wishes to remain a solitary entity.
“This sketchy Big Oil company was offering money to do awful things for it,” the NDP also reported.
Although Rae’s ulterior motives were questioned, he assured that he only wants to help by sharing his many years of experience, which he claimed would be “beautiful” and “something [the NDP] would always remember.”
“I’m not like those smaller parties that just want a bit of fame,” Rae said. “I want to nurture the NDP. Take it under my wing. I want to see it grow. Who knows, maybe we could put the Cons out of power, and who doesn’t want that?”
The Canadian Federalist party – a small, centrist party with disparate support across the country – said that Rae behaved similarly four years ago. The Federalists caution the NDP to keep its guard up.
“After Rae got what he wanted, he never called again,” the party said.
