10.07.2013 07:41 AM

Glen Pearson reviews reviews, and is thereby reviewed (updated)

Glen Pearson doesn’t like what I had to say about Michael Ignatieff.  He says I’m “vicious,” “cutthroat,” “shadowy,” “arrogant,” “repellant,” “brutal,” “maddening,” and a practicioner of the “old politics.”  Wow! And those are just some of the nice things he says.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to say, or even if I should, having no recollection whatsoever of meeting Glen Pearson.  The only time he registered on my consciousness (or the public’s), in fact, is when he went on and on – and on – at the 2006 Liberal leadership convention, talking endlessly about himself, to the point that he stomped all over the time allotted for Stephane Dion to speak.  Dion’s microphone was therefore cut off, thanks to supporter Glen, who thereby impressed us all as a self-absorbed ass.

Having spent ten minutes this morning trying (vainly) to locate any evidence that Glen left behind any Parliamentary initiatives of note, I think he’s a bit upset that most of us didn’t really think about Glen that much.  To us, he recalled Pierre Trudeau’s famous maxim – you know the one.

In the end, to quote Himself, Glen was a loser, one who admitted that he and politics “never fit together.”

On that, we’d all agree.

UPDATE: From a commenter, who knows Glen well: “When Dion was elected leader, Pearson talked like he was Dion’s point man. When things started turning sour for Dion, we had an EDA meeting in which Pearson lamented that they couldn’t get rid of Dion fast enough, and had some rather nasty things to say about Dion’s character. He was Iggy’s man now.”

23 Comments

  1. doconnor says:

    Glen Pearson had a blog when he was an MP and I would often comment. I often sparred with him about how he would thoroughly condemn the Conservatives while his Liberals supported the government in confidence votes unconditionally. His arguments often boiled down to saying things don’t work that way, without explaining how things work.

    • Warren says:

      One Liberal – who was senior – told me this morning that he was “a nice guy who usually had his head up his ass.” Sounds about right.

      • Ty says:

        Met him, seemed nice enough, and has done quite a bit of good in his life, but the strategy of playing up his supposed naivete in politics to make him sound like the “good guy” was silly. Every few months there would be some “CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?” thing he would publish. I remember him publishing 3 blog entries because a child at an elementary school quoted the “Just Visiting” ad to him.

        He kinda ran into the problem Iggy ran in to: treating every little thing like it’s Watergate means people 1) tune you out 2) wonder why you’d think it wouldn’t happen and 3) wonder why you haven’t really proposed anything yourself.

  2. Mark says:

    When Dion was elected leader, Pearson talked like he was Dion’s point man. When things started turning sour for Dion, we had an EDA meeting in which Pearson lamented that they couldn’t get rid of Dion fast enough, and had some rather nasty things to say about Dion’s character. He was Iggy’s man now.

  3. Robin says:

    I supported Dion and still respect him as an honourable Parliamentarian. He has integrity (perhaps to a fault in politics) which is what the Liberal Party needed in a leader after the Sponsorship/Gomery debacle. Despite what many might believe, I think Dion’s Green Plan actually helped the Liberals retain over 70 seats in the 2008 election. Unfortunately, the attempt at a coalition government was poorly executed. To this day, I can’t understand who would have agreed to include Gilles Duceppe in the media conference. Then, after the national televised address by Harper, the amateurish video statement by Dion was delivered too late for broadcast on CTV and CBC thereby denying Dion the opportunity to get his message out about the Coalition option. At this point, even admirers of Dion started to question his abilities to lead. Then the next misstep was allowing Ignatieff to replace Dion instead of Bob Rae, a seasoned veteran of politics; however, too many insiders were spooked by the prospect that his tenure as Premier of Ontario was a liability even though Harper had already created a national deficit in 2008 (cutting taxes and the GST) prior to adding over $50 billion to finance the stimulus program.

    • doconnor says:

      “I can’t understand who would have agreed to include Gilles Duceppe in the media conference.”

      The last time this kind of thing happened was during the King–Byng Affair in 1925 when Mackenzie King facing losing a confidence vote asked Governor General Lord Byng to call an election. The GG turned him down and Arthur Meighen formed a government, but he quickly lost the confidence of the House.

      The point to including the Bloc was to show the GG that unlike the previous times the government was replaced without an election, this government would last for a while and not embarrass the Governor General.

      • Robin says:

        Gille Duceppe had provided a letter of support indicating that the BQ would support the Liberal/NDP coalition government but would not be part of it. Therefore, it was unnecessary for him to participate in the media conference since the BQ was not officially part of the coalition which would involve sharing Cabinet responsibilities. The letter would provide the GG with evidence of the BQ support.

  4. G. Babbitt says:

    Sorry Warren, but I have to suppress a smirk. A while back I took a shot at him on this blog where you described him as a “nice guy.” But I don’t begrudge that because I’m sure a brief meeting would elicit the same response from anyone. But as someone who lives in his riding — He is the worst. In politics an ego is like weight to a sumo wrestler, but this guy is so heavy he can’t move. He believes that he and really only he can turn the will of the people into action, the others “play politics.” And you are right to look at his legislative successes; He…he…oh wait he and conservative Ed Holder managed to get London a warehouse (which for two years lay empty and actual hosted a stag and doe for an airport executive)..that’s about it. And lo the people of London loved him, it was only defeated by our current star MPP Susan Truppe who was know to Londoners as an assistant manager at four points sheraton and the NDP candidate Guiterrez who although a nice enough guy, had run months earlier for a city council seat and managed to get 3% of his ward’s vote.

    • Warren says:

      Nice guys finish last.

      • G. Babbitt says:

        I sort of missed the punchline about the NDP candidate. Despite having no profile and the fact the NDP were placing their resources in London Fanshawe he increased the vote by 7.3%. And this is not a riding subject to NDP mania, Essentially Progressive voters could not stomach Glen Pearson’s weaseling, “I speak for the community nonsense” and parked their vote with a no-hoper even if the consequences would be a second rate Tory MP. Also as a side note, he talks about community and access etc., but unless you are an old friend, he is the most inaccessible politician I have encountered. A friend who had previously had meetings with when Bill Graham, Pierre Pettigrew, Ken Dryden Stockwell Day and Bev Oda couldn’t get meeting with his nibs despite being a constituent until another Liberal MP suggested it might be a good idea. This contrasts to my Liberal MPP Deb Matthews who when I called her office and said “I just want to register my support/complaint for xxx policy” I was put on hold and was surprised to b talking to the Minister in a minute. But then again I guess being Minister of Health in Ontario gives you a lot more free time than being a backbencher MP.

        • Mike Sloan says:

          Your assessment of Deb Matthews is dead on. I met her in the waiting room of the urgent care clinic a few years ago. She didn’t get any special favours, and frankly, couldn’t have been a more enjoyable and personable woman to talk to. I typically vote NDP, but I’ll support Deb Matthews because I respect her and she works damn hard. Glen, on the other hand; well, he didn’t deserve re-election.

  5. Mike Sloan says:

    If you want to more thoroughly understand what a narcissist Glen Pearson is, check out this You Tube video. He gave an interview to a vegan cult, and discussed his favourite subject: Glen Pearson! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er0SBXD0mF4

    • Susan Warner says:

      He eats burgers all the time…..he’s a fraud.

      • Mike Sloan says:

        On twitter for the last few minutes, I’ve been trying to get answers as to whether Glen is truly a volunteer as he says he is, at the London Food Bank. (He’s not.) He claims to be a Privy Councillor in this video, and he’s not. He claims to be a vegetarian, he’s not. He has a dozen or so sycophants in London that think he’s Jesus. That’s just the way he likes it. Others see the inconsistencies and look into it. He is a concious fraud.

        • G. Babbitt says:

          Obviously I share your distaste for Mr. Pearson, but be careful of overreaching. He definitely founded and worked very hard at London Food Bank and he deserves credit for its success. However he has an insatiable appetite for praise and instead of being happy at getting recognition, he demands that all Londoners listen to his every pronouncement and constantly say how great it would be if he ran things. His ego is boundless. In his reply to this blog he admits…no boasts about being an ineffectual MP. Yet he still expected the citizens of London North Centre to return him to office.

  6. Sam Wasserman says:

    Deconstructing Glen

    “They prefer the smell of the trenches over the messy work of the grassroots. Elections are their game, not engagement.”

    In fact, it’s the reverse: the “grassroots” is the Green Party, legalizing marijuana, veganism, Che Guevara tshirts, sovereignty associations, et al. – completely unrealistic idealism – turn on, tune in, drop out into blissful “engagement” (a thought terminating cliché if ever there was one) – actual, serious work, political, ideological or otherwise is anathema.

    The potentially disastrous outcome of all this is after idealists have trashed “elections,” the traditional political process (substituting gladiatorial rhetoric and backroom chess for blood feuds and vendettas was democracy’s triumph), “engagement” quickly degrades to the revolutionary program, the superiority of the bullet over the ballot – “Activism in our communities is inevitably filling the vacuum!” In that scenario, the Kinsellas and the Reids will appear as choir boys at the hands of the truly thuggish and violent.

    Ingatieff is a big boy. He was, after all, one of that strange hybrid, the liberal-hawk booster for the disastrous misadventure into Iraq – a venal disaster based on massively false intelligence (a/k/a lies). If that’s not the backroom game, I don’t what is.

  7. Susan Warner says:

    Everything Glen Pearson does is calculated. He knew you were going to react but he probably didn’t expect the backlash. The reason he lost the election is because he stabbed every last Liberal in the back, from Ignatieff to Dion to Ray. The Liberals hated him and rejoiced when he lost including those in his riding. He fakes that he’s this caring, thought filled non-politician politician but is currently trying all he can to snag a seat in the Senate. He disgusts most Londoners.

  8. Brandon says:

    To be fair to Glen Pearson, he has accomplished a significant number of meaningful things in his life. Far from the halls of politics, he was worked on the front lines to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate in his own community, and around the world.

    Many, many, many people live better lives because of his life and work, which is more than can probably be said for most of those bashing his character, and for most mainstream journalists.

    When one has built schools in warzones for illiterate orphans, or fed a city’s hungry, then perhaps they can justly critique his life’s work.

    He may not have been a star politician, but as the saying goes: it is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

    • G. Babbitt says:

      Oh give me a break. I acknowledge his work at the London Food Bank but his work in Africa is dubious at best. He was involved with a Christian organization that buys and frees slaves. This is highly controversial and most development workers ultimately reject that tack because it creates a market. He goes frequently to Africa with non experts (singers, constituency workers, houesewives, firefighters) to do some development work like building a school, because no one in the Sudan has the ability to build anything that will cost less than jetting and feeding some comfortable Canadians. Its called developmental tourism, and its fine, but it ain’t doctors without borders type humanitarian work.

  9. Robert says:

    We have included your post in our “Around the Blog” section at looniepolitics.com.

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