Ottawa

From the magazine

By Aaron Wherry

From the most recent print edition, 900 words or so on the tax debate we might have to have. And, from a couple issues ago, 600 words or so on Ruth Ellen Brosseau and Parliament’s new arrivals.

If all had gone according to plan, the NDP candidate in the riding of Berthier-Maskinonge would have been noted little beyond the historical record. She would have been nothing more than an entry on the ballot that the majority of voters in that riding passed over as they marked an X beside the name of the incumbent, Guy André of the Bloc Québécois, or perhaps the Liberal candidate, Francine Gaudet, a former member of the national assembly of Quebec.

But then the polls changed and Ruth Ellen Brosseau became an example of democratic absurdity. And then our political hierarchy changed and Brosseau became a duly elected member of Parliament.