Canada: Hitler, Mussolini & Caouette

The surprise of Canada’s inconclusive national election in June was the emergence of a fiery back-country French Canadian politician named Real Caouette, 44, whose right-wing Social Credit Party unexpectedly won 26 House of Commons seats from Quebec. Since then he has been filling the air with eccentric, if not demagogic, remarks. His fellow Social Credit-ers in English Canada explain that what the French-speaking auto dealer says often gets lost in translation. But last week, Caouette came through loud and clear in an interview in Le Magazine Maclean.

“Who are your political heroes in history?” he was asked. Caouette’s brisk rejoinder: “Mussolini and Hitler.”

The storm broke, and it wasn’t helped any by what Caouette had gone on to say in the magazine: “I admire Mussolini’s qualities as a leader and I regret that he was a fascist. I admire in Hitler his economic reforms and I consider that he brought his people out of misery. I regret that he employed for war instead of for peace the ideas which he had.”