O'Coderre

Journalists are having a field day over the resignation of Michael Ignatieff's Quebec Lieutenant Denis Coderre. While these kinds of stories never look good from the outside, there is a pretty significant silver lining for the Liberals: the fact that Denis Coderre is out of the way.

Denis Coderre has long been my least favourite Liberal MP. He can usually be counted on to take populists positions (see Shane Doan affair) and to drag his party down the ethical ladder by behaving in the House in a way that would make John Baird proud.

Coderre was a key member of Ignatieff's Leadership team -though he was widely thought to have ambitions of his own- and this fact has always surprised me. Apparently, he was quite a good organiser, but the idea that Ignatieff, a former intellectual who is usually criticized for being aloof would ally himself with a hyper-partisan loudmouth struck me as bizarre.

Coderre resigned after Ignatieff overrode him by appointing former Justice Minister Martin Cauchon as Liberal candidate in Outremont (a formerly safe riding held by Cauchon now in the hands of Thomas Mulcair and the NDP) when Coderre wanted someone else. It is said that Coderre saw Cauchon as a possible rival in a future leadership race and wanted him out of the way. The mere fact that he did not want Cauchon to run in Outremont, when, as a former and well-liked MP for that riding, Cauchon obviously stood the best chance of dethroning Mulcair seems to confirm these suspicisons.

In other news, Michaëlle Jean and Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan apprently sang John Lennon's famous anthem 'Give Peace A Chance' during her most recent visit. I may be wrong, but I don't think Lennon would be pleased...