Thank Fucking God

Buzz Hargrove not interested in federal politics

When it was suggested that Buzz Hargrove may enter politics after retiring as the President of the Canadian Auto Workers union, it was difficult to take him seriously.

After all, Hargrove had alredy been kicked out of the NDP after it was judged that his endorsement of various Liberal candidates had violated the party's constitution. Hargrove had also proven to be a liability for Liberal leader Paul Martin when he called on Quebeckers to vote for the Bloc Quebecois during a Liberal party press conference.

But apparently Hargrove did take the idea of running for Parliament seriously -- at least for a little while.

But what dissuaded Hargrove wasn't the notion that a great many Canadians wouldn't want to vote for him, but rather the idea that federal politics was simply too acrimonious.

"It seems like every day in the House and the legislatures across the country, political parties of all stripes are just trying to find a way that they can attack the personal side of individual members of Parliament or the prime minister or whoever," Hargrove explained. "And that's not the politics that I grew up with. You stuck with issues and you challenged people on issues and what they stood for. So I just didn't see standing up in the House and criticizing somebody for an expense sheet that they billed for a coffee or something as being very substantive or contributing much to the country."

Of course, one may wonder what issue Hargrove was really challenging Stephen Harper on when he suggested that Harper's view of Canada was a separatist vision of Canada.

Martin was left will little recourse but to interject, stating that he had never doubted Harper's patriotism.

Buzz Hargrove's previous forays into federal politics have uniformly proven to be trainwrecks for whatever hapless party happened to be involved with him at the time.

That's why a great many Canadians should breathe a sign of relief when they find out that Hargrove is uninterested in federal politics. At least the admittedly viperous nature of Canadian politics has turned out to be good for something.