Sheila Copps has shot herself, not in the foot, but in the stomach. As news spreads about Charles Boyer, her executive assistant, and his rather huge appetite for expensive restaurants, her minimalist chances of becoming Liberal leader grow slimmer. It seems that his hospitality expenses exceed Radwanski's by a margin of 3:1. Radwanski got canned for his largesse; while Boyer managed to slip away into a lobbyist job before being forced to go on a diet. Still, his $31,000 expense claims over two years are miniscule compared to Copps's staggering $180,000. But then, keeping Fox News from reaching our tender ears—at least here--has to be worth a lot, eh Sheila!
Radwanski's firing didn't put a dent in Boyer's chowdown ways. According to CA MP, John Williams, Boyer spent during, and after, the Radwanski affair: $150 on dinner, $150 on lunch, and $242 on another dinner. Each time the CA digs up a profligate bureaucratic spender, the amount grows more alarming. Boyer's favourite expensive restaurant (visited 65 times) turns out to be Ottawa's Le pied de Cochon--The Foot of the Pig. Who would have credited such exquisite drollery in a bureaucrat? Copps personaly signed off on his expense accounts, so she cannot feign ignorance about this troughery (If there isn't such a word, there should be.). A final blow to her credibility came when she claimed she had not eaten at the Le Pied de Cochon since the "late 70s". However, The National Post Sept19 A-6 reported that that claim by Sheila does not jive with what the restaurant's employees told the Ottawa Citizen. "She used to come in here often, but she hasn't been here for a while (about six months), said one."
It has been a bad week for Sheila, as Saturday Night Magazine, Sept. 2003 gave her the Canadian culture content quiz. She only got 40% of the answers correct. When asked which one of these three programs is Canadian, she couldn't even get The Newsroom--which was gloriously Canadian in its content. She picked Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the kiddies' show category she picked, The Muppets instead of Fraggle Rock. Here we have a Heritage Minister whose claim is that Canadian kids must be fed a diet of 'Canadian' TV, or they will grow up to be like those boisterous Americans (maybe even starting to pack guns). However she could not discern the obvious differences herself. I mean, Sheila, you can't get it that Finkleman obsessively refers to Toronto and even federal politics? One of CBC's stellar sit-coms, that was on everybody's tongue—or everybody who mattered, anyway--and you sleep through it?
Well, Bud bids you goodbye, Sheila, as the few supporters you had for your leadership bid run and hide. They bought your far, far, lefty views, but seeing The Champion of the Poor and Downtrodden and her underlings feast so lavishly on the taxpayer dime is too much to bear. Makes it hard to play the empathy game down at the community soup kitchens, doesn't it? A tad of advice: when you start to spin this scandal, stick to the CBC and The Globe and Mail.
