Author: Emily Dee

Pushed to the Left and Loving It: When is a Dynasty Not a Dynasty?

There has been much talk during this election campaign, about Justin Trudeau’s famous father, and a notion that he believes that becoming prime minister is his birthright.  There were similar attacks on Michael Ignatieff, because he descended from Russian royalty on his father’s side and the famous Grant family of Canada on his mother’s.

Apparently being born into prominent families means that you cannot possibly lead this country.  You’re an “elite” and “out of touch”.

However, has anyone addressed the political dynasty of Thomas Mulcair?  He likes to portray himself as just a regular guy, one of ten children, in a family struggling to get by.    However, the reality is much different.  
Before pretending to be “middle class”, he loved reminding people that he was a descendant of Honore Mercier, a former premier of Quebec. (1)


He was right.  He is a descendant of the ninth premier, but the lineage goes much further and family connections, run much deeper.  


His mother was the daughter of Pierre Hurtubise and Jeanne Mercier.  Jeanne Mercier was the daughter of Paul-Emile Mercier and Marie-Louise Tache.  Paul-Emile Mercier was the son of Premier Honore Mercier and his second wife, Virginie St. Denis.

 These are the things named after Honore Mercier:

-The Mercier Bridge that links the western part of the Island of Montreal with the South Shore;
– The town of Mercier, Quebec;
– Avenue Mercier, located in downtown Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada;
– The provincial electoral district of Mercier.
– The Mercier neighbourhood in Montreal.
– An elementary school named Honoré-Mercier in Montreal
– A high school named Honoré-Mercier in Montreal
– A hospital in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec is named Hôpital Honoré-Mercier.
– Honoré Mercier Boulevard, located in the Quebec city center.

He also had a son Honore, who was the godfather of Tom Mulcair’s mother; a cabinet minister and multi-term MNA in the Quebec Assembly.  His son followed suit.
A daughter of Honore’s, Eliza Mercier, married Sir Jean Lomer Gouin, who became the 13th premier of Quebec and 15th Lietenant Governor. He also served as Justice Minister under William Lyon MacKenzie King.

He had these things named after him:

– Gouin Boulevard, the longest street on the Island of Montreal;
– Gouin Reservoir (In French: Réservoir Gouin), a man made collection of lakes in the center of the province of Quebec;
– Rue Gouin (Gouin Street) and Place Gouin, located in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada;
– Rue Gouin (Gouin Street), located in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada;- The provincial district of Gouin;
– Lomer-Gouin, intra-provincial ferry services between Levis to Quebec City operate by Société des traversiers du Québec.

Sir Jean and Eliza had a son Paul who would also join the Quebec Liberal Party before leaving and forming his own.  Mulcair also belongs to the Chaveau line, making him a great-great-great-grandson of Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, the 1st Premier of Quebec.

 The list goes on.  He was a member of the Quebec elite and as such had many doors opened for him, and he expected them to be.  One of his mentors, and a person who had a great deal to do with advancing Mulcair’s career, was Claude Ryan, former director of Le Devoir newspaper, and head of the Quebec Liberals.  He also knew how to use the press to his advantage.  Apparently, it was Ryan who got Thomas Mulcair his position with the Quebec Justice Department.

 Thomas Mulcair did not come from humble beginnings.  Politics were in his DNA, along with a sense of privilege  Below is a screen shot of a story that appeared in The Daily in 2005, describing the experience of a stakeholder who had requested a meeting with Mulcair, when he was Minister of Environment.  He speaks of Mulcair’s arrogance, demanding a clean limo and his continued sense of superiority.

When you watch those videos of Mulcair promoting private healthcare or espousing the virtues of Margaret Thatcher, he does not come off the smiling grandfather, but as someone  who clearly feels above his listeners.  Reading transcripts of debates in the NA, you also get that sense.  He was the closest thing to noble birth that you can get in this country, and he wanted to make sure that you never forgot that.

 So when is a dynasty, a dynasty?  I guess only when it’s linked to a Liberal leader. 

 1. Community Besieged: The Anglophone Minority and the Politics of Quebec, By Garth Stevenson,  1999, Mcgill-Queens University Press, 0773518398

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Pushed to the Left and Loving It: So Who’s the Dictator Now?

Recenty, former NDP MP, Bruce Hyer, has come out to the press about his former boss’s dictatorial style and problems he had with honesty; evident in the way that he is constantly contradicting himself.

When asked during his interview with Peter Mansbridge about this, Mulcair only said that Hyer did not want to vote with his colleagues.

In an email to HuffPost, however, Hyer called Mulcair’s statements “a total fabrication.”  “I always supported 95 per cent of the NDP party platform. I still support much of it! But I feel very strongly that my primary role is as the representative of my constituents,” Hyer wrote.  

“On some issues, an MP’s responsibility is to put … constituents ahead of the party line. It is interesting that Mulcair immediately contradicted himself and said that I was ‘someone who walked away from the party on a single issue.’ Again and again, I see and hear a man who in his pursuit of power will contradict himself.”

In fact as early as 2013, the Globe and Mail had already noticed the trend.

Much attention has been given to Conservative backbenchers who push socially conservative issues and are later overruled by cabinet. What is not well known is that Conservative MPs are far more likely to support motions from other parties – all of which are to the political left of the governing party. In contrast, the voting record of the official opposition under NDP leader Thomas Mulcair shows ironclad discipline. Not a single vote has been cast that is out of step.

This certainly lends credence to Hyer’s comments. One of Mulcair’s nicknames when he was in the Quebec legislature was objet immobile or immovable object.  He was very obstinate.  Recent analysis of voting patterns have shown that the NDP vote with their leader 100% of the time, while the Conservatives only 76%. So who’s the dictator now?

During the 2004 election campaign, many Canadians were concerned with Stephen Harper’s views on the Constitution, and fears that his platform would result in many court challenges.  It has.  But how is that any different from Mulcair’s platform?  He is also threatening the Constitution with his promise to abolish the Senate.

Harper was also antagonistic toward the Supreme Court, suggesting that they had too much power.  As a populist, he believed that all the power should rest in the hands of elected MPs.  Is this not exactly what Thomas Mulcair is suggesting today?

He claims that if elected the Senate will have to answer to him.  I find that rather frightening.  Yes, the Senate is wounded but it is not broken, and is a vital part of our democracy.  They are supposed to the sober second thought, that would protect us from leaders like Mulcair and Harper, who believe in an autocratic style of government.

Sadly, they have become little more than a partisan cesspool, but that is where we need change.  Senators should not belong to any party.  If they are caught campaigning for, or against, any political party, they can no longer be a senator.  We need them to represent us.  We are the ones paying the bills.

Both Harper and Mulcair want the Constitution reopened to push their own agendas.  It won’t happen because both Quebec and Ontario, have already said that they are not prepared to do that.

I have been accused recently of not being progressive because of my opposition to Thomas Mulcair. However, it is as a progressive, that I am sounding the alarm.

In November of 2009, Linda McQuaig wrote in the Toronto Star

If, as polls suggest, Stephen Harper is poised to win a majority, it’s largely due to the media notion that his past reputation for extremism no longer holds. In fact, apart from his reluctant embrace of economic stimulus, Harper has shown little of the “moderation” that supposedly now puts his government comfortably within the Canadian mainstream.

I feel as McQuaig did then.  The media is once again being blissfully ignorant, or intentionally misleading, by ignoring Mulcair’s past.  He was not an “extremist”,  but he was virulently right-wing.  Most progressive journalists warned of Harper’s devotion to the principles of Margaret Thatcher, yet most, including McQuaig, are now eerily silent on Mulcair’s.


 We can’t make the same mistake twice.  If Mulcair is re-elected it will be as a Member of Parliament. Depending on the outcome of the election, he could be prime minister, opposition leader, or leader of the third party.

 But under no circumstances will he be elected supreme being.  He will not dictate to the Senate.  He will not unilaterally change our constitution and he will not simply repeal anything, without the support of both Houses.

We’ve had a decade of this kind of government, and Canadians are weary of it.

Including this progressive.

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Pushed to the Left and Loving It: Why Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair Have Got it so Wrong on ISIS


 Recently the Toronto Star posted a piece on Thomas Mulcair and the fight against ISIS:  Mulcair Would Pull Canada From U.S. Led Mission in Mid-East if Elected.

 This is a big mistake, not only politically, but from a humanitarian angle.  There is no argument that George Bush’s ill-conceived war in Iraq, or in fact the decades of invasions in the region, gave rise to ISIS; but abandonment is not the answer.

 As part of his reasoning, Mulcair claims that this is neither a NATO nor a UN mission, but he is wrong. Nato is involved and were involved in most, if not all, engagements in the Middle East.  The United Nations has resolved to stop the flow of money and arms going to ISIS, but many of the arms they are using, are those left by the Americans

And the NATO missions that Mulcair is promoting, have destabilized regions, making them ripe for terrorist takeover.  You can be a pacifist and oppose war, but if you support any war, you are no longer a pacifist. His stand is a bit confusing.

As to stopping the flow of money going to ISIS that too will be difficult.  The west has been bombing oil refineries, one source of revenue, and some nations are refusing to pay ransoms, and yet the organization is still able to pay their bills, as well as provide money to run, according to the Economist, “services across the areas it controls, paying schoolteachers and providing for the poor and widowed.”

We run the risk of further alienating the occupied, if ISIS can blame the west for not being able to take care of the people.  We need to stop bombing, but we can’t just leave.  Humanitarian aid and training is still necessary.

Radicalization and NDP Naivete

When Stephen Harper announced that he would stop Canadians from travelling to countries engaged in “terrorist” activities, Mulcair said he would support the initiative, but questioned whether it would help in the fight against “terrorism”.  He went on to say that C-51 did not do enough to combat the “radicalization of youth”.

This was actually a topic for debate in the Commons, as the NDP tried to push through an amendment to C-51, reading in part, that the Bill “…does not include the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as providing support to communities that are struggling to counter radicalization.

What communities do they mean?

I rarely agree with anything Peter Van Loan says, but he did raise the issue that it was “ill defined”.  Do they mean Muslim communities?  Peter Julian had this to say:

The mosque that is in my riding in Burnaby—New Westminster was the mosque the man who murdered Cpl. Nathan Cirillo attended. I travelled to that mosque within a couple of days of what happened on October 22 here on the Hill. What the mosque members told me was quite stark. They said that they knew he had profound mental illness. They knew that he had a drug addiction. They tried to seek help, and there was nothing available. This is something we have heard from communities right across the country.

It sounds like the issue is more about mental illness and drug addiction, issues that are discussed in many places, and not confined to Mosques.  It would appear that the NDP believe, like the Conservatives, that terrorism is associated with Islam.  This is not only Xenophobic but incorrect.  While the Islamic State is using the religious angle, their motives are not religious, but political.

According to Huffington Post, Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, the two Brits who went to Syria to join the rebels, first purchased off Amazon, two books:  Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies  They were not devout Muslims.  Nor were the 9/11 hijackers who reportedly used cocaine, drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs, but never belonged to a mosque. 

 A 2008 report published in the Guardian, dispelled the stereotypes of those who become involved in terrorism:   “ They are mostly British nationals, not illegal immigrants and, far from being Islamist fundamentalists, most are religious novices. Nor, the analysis says, are they “mad and bad”. and “Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly.”

Didier François, a French journalist who was held by Isis in Syria for ten months before being released in April 2014, has provided some insight into the life of those fighting for ISIS, in a CNN interview.

“There was never really discussion about texts.  It was not a religious discussion. It was a political discussion.  It was more hammering what they were believing than teaching us about the Quran. Because it has nothing to do with the Quran. We didn’t even have the Quran. They didn’t want even to give us a Quran.”

This is a political movement, not a Jihad one.  President Obama has been trying to stress that, but his words are falling on deaf ears. I often learn a lot by reading the comments section of media reports, and in one, there is a debate between two readers.  One was trying to stress that all terrorists are Muslim but their opponent fired back by saying: “Christians are also terrorists.  They just call it ‘shock and awe'”.

It is not religion that is fuelling this war, it’s war itself.

The Radicalization of Youth Has Little to do With Communities

Al Jazeera also published the results of a study, defining the risk factors for  violent radicalization:  Youth, wealth and academia appear to predispose individuals to sympathizing with acts of terrorism.

Perhaps surprisingly, religious practice, mental health, social inequality and political engagement were not significant factors.

“We’re offering a new paradigm for sympathies as an early phase of radicalization that can be measured,” Kamaldeep Bhui, the study’s lead author and a cultural psychology professor at the university, told Al Jazeera. 

While just 2.4 percent of people expressed some sympathy for violence overall, researchers found that those under the age 20, those in full-time education rather than employment, and those with annual incomes above $125,000 were more prone to express sympathy for violent protests and “terrorism.”

The attack on Parliament Hill was perpetrated by a mentally ill, homeless man, but mental illness is a separate issue, just as drug addiction and homelessness are.

“One explanation for homegrown terrorism in high-income countries is that it’s about inequality-related grievances,” Bhui said in a phone interview. “We were surprised that [the] inequality paradigm seems not to be supported. The study essentially seemed to show that those born in the U.K. consistent with the radicalization paradigm are actually more affluent or well off.” 

Two other findings stood in conflict with prevailing stereotypes about so-called homegrown terrorism in the West: Immigrants and those who speak a non-English language at home, as well as those who reported suffering from anxiety or depression, were less likely to express sympathy for terrorist acts.

If we really want to “stop the flow”, we need to stop invading countries, and taking part in “regime changes”, simply because they are not willing to conduct business on our terms. Many of the sympathizers are well educated, and intelligent enough to know that there have been grave injustices committed, while society at large blames the victims.  Who are the “terrorists”?

I agree with supporting “at risk” communities, dealing with poverty and youth unemployment, but that will not stop terrorists.  As studies have found, they are not poor, uneducated or unemployed and rarely religious.  In fact, the stereotypical description of radicalized youth, are often the ones who believe that all terrorists are Muslims.

That’s where we have to “stop the flow”.  Misinformation.

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Pushed to the Left and Loving It: Why Thomas Mulcair Should Distance Himself From the CFIB and Why he Won’t

Recently, Justin Trudeau has come under fire for remarks he made suggesting that some small business owners used their concerns to avoid paying taxes.  He did not suggest all, but that didn’t stop the media and his opposition from jumping on the bandwagon.

However, leading the charge is a group called the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.  (Former president shown above with NDP members, including Brian Topp).

However, in 2011, David Climenhaga exposed this group for what they really are:

Why does the so-called Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses push a far-right agenda that benefits the country’s richest corporations and individuals at the expense of independent businesses? 

Well, it’s not that complicated, really. Like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which doesn’t represent the interests of Canadian taxpayers, it’s fair to say based on its actual behaviour that the CFIB is a typical example of pure, unadulterated AstroTurf pretending to serve the interests of one group while actually working against them.

In 2012,  CFIB’s president, Christine Swift (above with Topp),  was forced to step down because of her involvement in a group called Working Canadians.  Don’t let the name fool you.  This is actually another AstroTurf group, whose primary stated goal is to diminish the role of unions.

Since when were the NDP anti-union?  I know in Quebec that Mulcair was, and it is he who suggested that the party move away from them, but still.  It’s rather odd that they would be backed by an anti-union group, although everything about this party is odd these days.

That would certainly explain why most of their attacks have been against Justin Trudeau, despite the fact that it’s the NDP who actually benefit from union support.  The only anti-NDP  ad is against the B.C. Party, but they have left Mulcair alone.

Maybe it has something to do with this.

Their former president tried to explain here.

The Tories’ latest TV attack ad takes direct aim at Trudeau, ignoring Mulcair. Similarly, a group called Working Canadians, headed by former Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Catherine Swift, and funded mainly by donations from business owners, is airing radio ads attacking Trudeau’s “high-tax, big-government agenda,” but not taking aim at Mulcair—

She suggested that she didn’t think he would have electoral success, but given past polls, why are they still leaving Mulcair alone?

One of their television ads is eerily similar to those run by the Conservatives.  They use the cherry picked “budgets will balance themselves” and a short clip from Trudeau’s teaching days.

Swift’s replacement, Dan Kelly, is also right-wing and has even called on businesses to boycott the United Way and supports the use of temporary foreign workers.

The Proof is in … Well the Proof

Ok.  So you look at the above and might say that the links between the NDP and CFIB are weak, except that the NDP themselves have admitted to courting their influence.

Last week’s exchange in the House is just one small example of how the CFIB’s influence – with all parties – has grown substantially, particularly the NDP, one expert says.  From question period. 

“The political parties are looking at the CFIB as the only credible organization that deals with small and medium sized businesses. That’s an approach the NDP has been taking in the past few years,’’ says Gilles LeVasseur, a business and law professor with the Telfer School of Business in Ottawa. 

“They’ve been dealing with unions. So now they (the NDP) are shifting toward business people because they see that they’ve missed out on that opportunity. You have to understand that the NDP is doing that because they have to show they can govern the country, and by governing the country you also need to have business on your side,’’ said LeVasseur, who was a member of the CFIB for a year about a decade ago.

They’ve been dealing with unions alright.

So the CFIB and the offshoot Working Canadians are overtly attacking Justin Trudeau with money from “small businesses”, and CFIB has an NDP MP as a former member.  Did they draft Mulcair’s business tax strategy that benefits the rich?

They have set up Justin Trudeau and once again the media has become complicit.  Don’t you just love the state of our democracy?

Trudeau is right to challenge them.  He has heard the ads and he knows the players. He could pull an #NDPTruthTeam on them and ask why the NDP was being backed by a group that wants to stop money going to the United Way.  Or is a strong supporter of the Temporary Foreign Workers program.  Or wants to diminish the role of unions.

Wait a minute.  I think I just did that.  Yeah, me.  I’m for #RealChange.

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Pushed to the Left and Loving It: Bandwagons and the NDP. Could They Lose Quebec?

According to Wikipedia, the “bandwagon effect is a phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others. In other words, the bandwagon effect is characterized by the probability of individual adoption increasing with respect to the proportion who have already done so.  As more people come to believe in something, others also “hop on the bandwagon” regardless of the underlying evidence.”

The term originated with a circus clown, Dan Rice, who was a household name in the mid nineteenth century. He is credited with creating the modern day circus, though is now considered to be “the most famous man you’ve never heard of”.

 The notion of hopping on the bandwagon has become commonplace in politics and political polling; though not always as an affect, but often, a root cause.

 While pollsters reveal the results of their polling, the media gets to interpret those results, to create attention grabbing headlines.  “Surges” and “horse races”, sell papers or on-line memberships, but they can also have an affect on voting intentions,

 In 1994 Claude Emery, prepared a report for the Political and Social Affairs Division on Public Opinion Polling in Canada.

Because polls are generally perceived to be accurate and scientific, the debate on polling centres largely on whether it undermines the democratic process by influencing electoral behaviour and election results. Some political strategists and observers argue that the publication of polls gives an unfair advantage to parties or candidates whose fortunes are seen to be improving. The so-called “bandwagon” effect assumes that knowledge of a popular “tide” will likely change voting intentions in favour of the frontrunner, that many electors feel more comfortable supporting a popular choice.

This is especially true when headlines of “surges” are published near the end of a campaign, before people have had a chance to analyse what has caused the “surge”, or if it is even valid.


All summer we have heard of an NDP surge in Canada, especially in Quebec.  But what they don’t tell you is that at the beginning of the campaign, 70% of those called were undecided.  Even now it is about 50%.  So how accurate are those polls?  Not very.  And yet the headlines suggest otherwise.
Our local TV station reported last night, that the Conservatives had dropped to third place and the NDP had taken the lead.  But even that is misleading.  The NDP is polling higher in Quebec, skewing national results.  However, in Ontario, they are a distant third.  
Can They Hold Quebec?
There was a discussion on Twitter between the head of Leger Marketing, which has always come out strong for the NDP, and several Bloc supporters.  

Jean-Marc Leger was being criticized for what was deemed to be invalid results, and accused of thwarting democracy.  Leger accused his critics of not liking the results because their guy was not in the lead, but finally contended that the support for the NDP was based on emotion, and that anything could happen come October 19.
The feeling of those debating Leger, was that there was a stronger vibe in Quebec for the Bloc.  I have actually seen similar remarks on social media with many questioning what was creating the headlines.
If it is true that the corporate media is funding Thomas Mulcair, as a push back by the 1%, than the headlines makes sense.  But if not, what is the intent and either way, how fragile is the support?

In January of this year Chantel Hebert stated in a piece Mulcair needs Layton-style miracle to win election, she reminds us that while “no one is completely dismissing the party’s chances to stage a second consecutive spectacular surge in as many elections” that “lightning — even of the political kind — rarely strikes twice.” and “Nowhere are NDP roots more shallow than in Mulcair’s home province.”

I’m currently reading Social Democracy after the Cold War, Edited by Bryan Evans and Ingo Schmidt (2012 ISBN – 978-1-926836-88-1)  The authors also discuss the fragility of the NDP support in Quebec.

The massive success of the ndp in the 2011 federal election should not obscure the fact that it rests on an extremely weak organizational basis in Québec. While the fifty-nine federal seats gathered in the province represent close to 60 percent of the ndp caucus in Ottawa, its membership in the province was still a mere 2 percent of the total party membership four months after the election . Furthermore, prior to the May 2011 election, only a handful of ridings had local party chapters.  In many areas of the province, the ndp was simply absent or, at best, operated through regional committees. In contrast to other areas in Canada, the ndp had no support from organized labour, and none of Québec’s influential social movements endorsed the party. Most of the victorious candidates, with the notable exception of Mulcair and four or five others, were stand-ins, who had little if any roots in the community. In many cases, they did not even campaign locally. In short, in Québec the ndp is a topheavy party with no solid organizational roots.

Admittedly, things have changed somewhat since 2011, and several unions are now backing Mulcair, but only because they want Harper gone.  However, if the Quebec support wanes, or the NDP no longer look like the winning party, that will change.  No doubt, that is why the media moguls who funded Mulcair’s leadership bid, need to keep the headlines going,   Mulcair is not necessarily Quebec’s favourite son, but he is theirs.

They need to feed the emotions, so that the heads ignore the facts.

I believe that the Bloc will do much better this time, than in 2011, and that the Liberals will have a better showing.  We just need to find a way to take the wheels off the bandwagon, although the NDP might topple it beforehand.

The statements by a member of their communication team, against the Pope and RC priests, will not sit well in a province that is almost 85% Catholic.  The party is also experiencing conflicts from within.

And as Evans and Schmidt point out:

Not surprisingly, consolidating its breakthrough is presently the ndp’s main objective in Québec. Two strategies are possible.  The one championed by Mulcair and supported by a number of Québec caucus members is to keep to the political mainstream and avoid too close a relationship with organized labour or the social movements… The other possible strategy — put forward by trade unionist Alexandre Boulerice, a cupe staff rep newly elected in the Montreal riding of Rosemont — is to build the party from below by strengthening the party’s links with labour and the social movements while keeping a strong focus on defending Québec’s national rights, including the right to self-determination.

Mulcair is trying to do both, but is not doing either very well.  Saying one thing in French and the opposite in English; or one thing in Quebec and the opposite in the rest of Canada; while classic Mulcair; is being caught by social media, and even some members of the MSM.

As for Boulerice, an increasingly influential voice in the caucus, his identification with labour and militant resistance to the Harper Conservatives is definitely an asset. His refusal to cave in to public pressure from English-Canadian media and renounce his membership in Québec Solidaire (as interim ndp caucus leader Nycole Turmel was forced to do in August 2011) has won him considerable respect among activists. However, he was forced by the party leadership to backtrack on the Palestinian issue and withdraw his very public support for the “Canadian boat to Gaza” initiative. He has also remained silent on some errors committed by party leaders with regard to matters sensitive to Québecers, one example being the unexplained acceptance of a unilingual Supreme Court judge named to the bench by the Tory government. 

At this stage, the balance of forces within the party is far from favourable to a “grassroots left” strategy. At best, this strategy might coexist with a more dominant “social democracy from above” approach. … The late Jack Layton was very adept at navigating the treacherous waters of Québec. His background as a social activist and his public support for the right to self-determination gave him considerable leeway in the province. But that might not be the case with his successor Mulcair. (Evans/Schmidt 2012)

Anything top heavy, risks a collapse.  I think there is a very strong possibility that the NDP will lose Quebec. Pollsters can only hold them up for so long before the public cries foul.  They are already doing that.  Just ask Jean-Marc Leger.

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