Hard to believe that I can agree with some Blocs and NDPer's.
Six Quebec MPs have returned their medals that celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee
MONTREAL—Not everyone is thrilled that the federal government is spending millions, at a time of deep budget cuts, to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee.
As might be predicted, such anti-monarchist sentiment is loudest in Quebec, where at least six MPs have returned their jubilee medals.
One nationalist group even says it’s planning counter-celebrations. That’s because, in the words of Mario Beaulieu, the head of Montreal’s Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the group doesn’t give a royal damn about celebrating the Queen’s anniversary.
As for the anti-monarchy group Citizens for a Canadian Republic, it says this kind of royal worship is absurd, and while it’s the kind of spectacle you’d expect from the personality-cult dynasties of North Korea or Syria, it doesn’t belong in Canada.
And at least six Quebec MPs — including all four Bloc Québécois members, and at least two New Democrats — are simply refusing to hand out medals created for the occasion.
Bloc MP Louis Plamondon calls the $7.5 million being spent overall on jubilee celebrations a waste of money at this time, when the government is talking about changing pensions and slashing department budgets up to 10 per cent.
He says the money being spent on the celebrations is more proof of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s total lack of understanding of Quebec.
Two Quebec New Democrats also are refusing the medals; however, the party’s interim leader, Nycole Turmel, says she and most MPs are thinking about how to best distribute them in their ridings.
The Canadian Press
