Amidst a leadership race that rivals Hilary Clinton’s pseudo-campaign of the last 7 years, the Parti Québécois’s star candidate is in hot water. Pierre Karl-Péladeau, business magnate of Québécor and separatist homeboy, is known for doing the outlandish. There was that one time he yelled at a musician for singing in English. And that other time he compared Quebec’s absence in the 1982 constitutional repatriation to the imposition of communism in East Germany.
Let’s not forget he also single-handedly caused the PQ’s promising poll numbers to take a free fall when he declared his righteous quest to make Quebec a nation. The fist-pump and all that.
So what has our loveable little curmudgeon got himself into this time? It happened over two years ago, but it has recently surfaced with the usual candidate mudslinging.
Film pending OQLF approval.
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PKP turned on his Scarface mode and looked like he was going to eviscerate a former Quebecor colleague. They were both at a charity event in Montreal (where most physical altercations usually happen). Pierre Rodrigue, who had left Québecor to work at a rival company, walked up to the media mogul to say a quick hello.
According to witnesses, PKP refused to shake his hand. Instead, he channeled his inner Jean Chrétien and grabbed the man by his shirt. Switching from Jean Chrétien to a flamboyant Scarface, he yelled, “you’ve got a lot of balls coming over here to see me,” and, “you, mon tabarnac, I’m going to buy you. How much do you cost?”
Peladeau’s (ex)-partner tried to calm him down to no avail, bless her poor heart. PKP continued to unleash a string of profanities at his arch-nemesis, still gripping his shirt.
This is not the first time Emperor Peladius the Great has threatened to unleash his fiscal fortitude upon the peasantry. If owning a large chunk of Quebec’s media companies has taught him anything, it’s that buying a voice is much easier than having one.
All of this only adds to Pierre Karl-Péladeau’s reputation as a hotheaded, impulsive, stubborn individual. Between him as the PQ leader, and the FLQ slogan-invoking leader of the Bloc Québécois, Canadian federalism has never looked better. Thanks, guys.