Forget the Star's outrageous headline, Duceppe does have a legitimate point.
Hockey officials' impassioned defence of Team Canada's captain left an unimpressed Bloc Quebecois leader comparing Shane Doan to a bank robber and accusing him of racial profiling.
Gilles Duceppe said it was wrong to make Doan captain of Canada's world championship team while the star forward remains embroiled in two defamation suits related to the alleged anti-French slur.
"When someone robs a bank he's presumed innocent until proven guilty – but I don't know many people who'd name them bank manager while the trial's still on," Duceppe said.
"They want to name him captain even before the verdict comes in. It makes no sense. It's an insult to Quebecers."
9 comments:
Finally, someone on Prog-Blogs who says something intelligent about this issue.
Except, robbing a bank is a crime. Calling someone a bad name isn't. Just as important, being an accused bank robber has a much greater connection to not getting a job as a bank manager than being accused of saying something mean (in the middle of a hockey game for Pete's sake!) has to not being made Captain of a hockey team almost two years later.
Doan's not on trial for anything, he's suing OTHER PEOPLE for defaming HIM . OK, he's being counter-sued too, but still that's kinda beside the point. Dion's not accused of a crime. He's not even accused of something for which he would be civilly liable (that is to say, the insult, even if he said it, which I HIGHLY doubt, wouldn't be actionable. He's being counter sued just because that's what you do when someone sues you for defaming them. He's being sued for calling people defamers, not for calling someone an "F*cking Frenchman").
Doan is simply accused of saying something mean. What's ironic is that Doan is known as a devout Christian who doesn't swear, I mean NEVER swears, so the notion that he'd call someone a "F*cking Frenchman" is undermine as much by the fact that he wouldn't say "f*cking" as it is by the fact that he's not the sort that would attack someone for being French.
Regardless of all of that though, the analogy to not putting an accused bank robber in charge of a bank is ludicrous on its face.
It's just silly.
I disagree ...
If a Tory backbencher were accused of calling an opposition member a F@$%^ing Frenchman, would you support her elevation to cabinet before her name was cleared?
If there was clear and established proof that he/she did? Of course I would not support this.
However, the Doan case is very ambiguous at best and it still does not excuse Mr. Duceppe's mendacity and disingenuous "hyperboling" ... would you not say?
Doan's name was cleared well over a year ago.
The only people left who think he said this are politicians who want to win seats in Quebec. And frankly, I don't think many of THEM even really believe he said it.
As for the cabinet analogy, again, that's pretty apples and oranges. Unless you meant to imply that the prospective cabinet minister made the comment during a heated hockey game between government and opposition MPs. In which case, I'm not certain what I'd think.
Well, why doesn't someone ask one of the French Quebecers on the team what they think. But there aren't any...
No wonder Duceppe can fire shots, there's no chance of one of Doan's team-mates firing back on Radio-Canada.
Also, if anyone's interested in hockey, Doan scored a hat trick today in Canada's 6-3 victory over Belarus.
They want to name him captain even before the verdict comes in.
But the verdict came in almost two years ago; he was cleared. There's nothing here.
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