MONTREAL – Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois conceded yesterday that her party really only accused students of trying to steal Monday’s provincial election because they’d run out of new euphemisms for Jewish people.
“To be honest, we kind of peaked back in ‘95 with the whole ‘money and the ethnic vote’ thing. We’ve been racking our brains since then to find something equally transparent, but the fact that most of our caucus doesn’t speak English has been a real hindrance.”
Finally, she says, the party just gave up and decided to run with the student narrative instead.
“At first, it seemed kind of counter-intuitive, you know, what with them basically handing us the last election. But we’ve been trying to broaden the scope of our scapegoating all year and figured, ‘Ah screw it, why not?’”
Marois also admits that her party’s recent interest in Islamophobia played a role in diluting its dog whistle rhetoric.
“If I’m being totally honest,” confesses Quebec’s first female premier, “We got so caught up in finding code words for Muslims this year that we kind of phoned it in with the Jews. And you know what? That’s on me. That’s my bad. But I’m sure whomever winds up replacing me will find a great new way to describe the ‘Côte St. Luc vote,’ if you catch my drift.
…Oh shit! Is it too late for me to use that?”
