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Sunny and warm weather on the Fête de la St. Jean brought out a large number of residents, as well as the politicians, for celebrations held in Park Extension’s Athena Park. NDP leader Jack Layton, Outremont NDP MP Tom Mulcair, Borough Mayor Anie Samson, city councillor Mary Deros and Outremont Liberal candidate Sébastien Dhavernas all dropped by during the late afternoon as the festivities were getting underway. “This is a nice cultural exchange,” Deros said in an interview.
A multicultural St. Jean
As in recent years at Park Extension’s St. Jean festivities, the entertainment had a unique multicultural flavour. In addition to traditional Québécois performers, the stage acts opened with a sitar player and another instrumentalist with music from the Indian continent. Deros had been active attending events all day. During the morning, she was at a brunch held at Montreal city hall, before coming back to Park Extension where some of the other St. Jean events included an old timers’ soccer match between teams from Montreal and Athens.
“This is a nice family get-together,” said Borough Mayor Samson. “We have a lot of music. The sun is out, the people are here, and this is Montreal with all its diversity. That’s what I find wonderful, that people take this day to go out and mix with others and talk.” Samson had many stops to make in the borough, as major celebrations were being held in all the districts, including Villeray and Saint-Michel. “Everybody is celebrating and having fun today, which I think is a wonderful idea,” she said.
A tradition for Layton
For Layton, a native Montrealer, the St. Jean holiday in recent years has become an occasion to be in the city for Quebec’s annual celebration. The NDP has been trying to increase its base of support among Quebec voters with the help of its only elected member from the province and the leader of NDP forces here ― Mulcair. In an interview, Layton expressed disappointment that the NDP was unable to obtain more adequate changes to the country’s employment insurance system during the session of Parliament which just ended for the summer. “A lot of families have lost their jobs and they’re not able to get the EI help they need,” he said.
“We were disappointed that all they got was a blue ribbon and not real action on employment insurance. But what Tom and I and the other members are going to do is fan out across the country and try to highlight what families are facing these days, while also pointing out that the infrastructure money that they government keeps putting presses releases out about doesn’t seem to actually be arriving to create jobs this summer. Maybe next summer, but we needed that to happen this summer. So we’re going to be highlighting that particular problem in the Harper government’s approach.”
Mulcair’s Quebec strategy
What kind of strategy is Mulcair working on towards increasing the NDP’s support in Quebec? “One of the main strategies we have going right now is to take our 20 strongest ridings and turn them into wins,” he told NPEN. “For example, if you look at Outremont, which was our strongest riding in the 2006 general election, we had 16.4 per cent there.
“In the last general election, we had about 20 seats that had that as a base. So that’s a wonderful base to work from and we’re going to be creating four-way races. Most Quebecers have gone around the block one time too many. The NDP is the only party proposing something fresh with ideas and strong principled people who can lead the country with integrity and in a way that is close to people’s values.”