The newly crowned media darling Brigette DePape called “feisty” by CBC’s Evan Solomon after she brazenly appealed for employment on his show lists Senator Sharon Carstairs as her mentor on her University of Ottawa scholarship bio:
Brigette DePape, 2007 Loran scholar
Originally from Winnipeg, Brigette is a first-year international development and globalization student. Brigette has performed and written plays for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, was a member of her high school basketball team and president of its social justice committee. At uOttawa she is balancing studies in arts and theatre. Her mentor is Sharon Carstairs, a Liberal Senator representing the Province of Manitoba.
I’m trying my hardest not to judge her worthiness for a scholarship based on what I just heard and saw on Power and Politics but my faith in post secondary education has again been put to the test.
According to the Ottawa Citizen (see here), her political activism was well-known and this stunt came as no shock to Shauna MacKinnon, the director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives where DePape interned last year:
“She is a very gutsy young woman, so it is not entirely surprising. If someone (I knew) were to do this, it would be Brigette.”
As easily discovered yesterday, DePape had written about protesting at the G8/20 (see here) so whoever hired her had to know her background or looked the other way. Senate spokeswoman Karen Schwinghamer is not telling what the process is for these hires and DePape isn’t saying whether she was asked about her political biases and writings.
Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella said that DePape’s protest “constituted a contempt of Parliament.” and that “The incident raises serious security concerns, which the Senate will fully investigate.”
I highly doubt that a full investigation will occur and even if it does, we as the public will be kept in the dark if any embarrassment to a Senator is attached.
BC Blue: One BC Conservative's view on it all... 
June 4, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Contempt of parliament, isn’t that what Pat Martin and others were so outraged about during the election. lol
I hope she isn’t after a grant from the govt for her writing of plays. Maybe she was denied, or that is what she was talking about on tv, cuts to cultural things.
June 4, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Really, who cares?
Some imbecilic child has her 15 seconds of fame.
With media support maybe makes it an actual 15 minutes. Her moronic staements show her immaturity. Media doesn’t care if they can turn it into an attack against the adults that are actually in charge.
Think anyone will remember the name of a self-promoting bozo that breaks her pledge of honour?
Of course she would have to use her actual name, must make her parents proud.
June 4, 2011 at 2:52 PM
What a total douchebag you are Paul. Enjoy your fighter jets. Idiot.
June 4, 2011 at 3:12 PM
Paul moron you are the douchebag..And calling yourself Moron is high praise for an idiot like you.Your more of a child than the fool nutbar depape.
June 4, 2011 at 11:49 AM
Brigette DePape, Canadian Hero.
June 4, 2011 at 11:58 AM
There’s nothing heroic about the young woman’s action,she acted the fool in a totally safe Country where there is NO chance of her being punished,other than (rightly) being fired.
She sounds extremely naive,says nothing,but repeats Left-wing talking points,”something had to be done,Harper has only 40% of the vote,three quarters of Canadian disagree with him”. The same could be said of every Liberal majority government,that’s just the way the system works.
If I hear another pampered Canadian brat talk about the “Arab Spring”,which is a myth anyway, from the comfort of a safe secure home provided by their parents in a democratic Country that the world beats a path to, I may “hurl”.
Some day,if she ever gets off the public teat and makes her way in the real world, the young woman may very well be embarrassed by her silly,childish action.
June 4, 2011 at 12:18 PM
Her ideas and her biases are no reason to have kept her from working as a page. It isn’t bizarre to assume that adults can have strong opinions and not act on them in such an embarrassing way. The failure is not with the hiring process, but with a woman who has no sense of duty and responsibility upon having been hired. In my reading of her history, her writing, performances and opinions might have been a little out there, but her prior actions gave no indication that she would be unable to fulfill the oath she swore.
June 4, 2011 at 12:33 PM
That’s why resumes and background checks are kinda important dontcha think? Were either of these done and if they were, you’re saying that with her obvious biases, which should have made her automatically unsuitable for a non-partisan position, are acceptable to you? Please tell me you don’t do any hiring in real life.
June 5, 2011 at 6:20 AM
Automatically unsuitable? Are you telling me that people with biases should never be given a non-partisan job? That’s pretty narrow. People always have biases, and should behave themselves. Being passionate about her politics should not have prevented her from being a page. She should have *behaved* differently, not *thought* differently. There is nothing in her past behaviour that could have predicted that she would be so disrespectful of the position she took. And yes, I have hired people — some of whom disagreed with me. Life is full of divergent opinions but we have to judge people on their actions, not their biases.
June 5, 2011 at 7:41 AM
That’s right, if the person who hired her had done their job, she would have never been hired based on her activism and bias.
June 4, 2011 at 8:18 PM
Please excuse me for being so brash, but this has p***ed me right off. What a despicable disrespectful little trick.
I think it’s like this: De Pape is just another dirty little lefty, therefore unaccountable. It was, after all, Harper’s majority that drove the brat to pull such a contemptible stunt, therefore in the Lefty world this is Harper’s fault.
I’ll bet soon there will be screaming claims she was silenced
June 4, 2011 at 12:27 PM
But Paul, she didn’t want her parents to know what she did. How did she expect to keep it secret. Doesn’t she know that tv goes as far as Manitoba. I think even the internet can be accessed in Manitoba and also twitter.
I know she didn’t learn math at the UofO, but she should have know the above. lol
June 4, 2011 at 1:24 PM
University of Ottawa – producing the next generation of polite anarchists. Only in Canada, eh!!!
June 4, 2011 at 1:59 PM
I wouldn’t hire her to make my lunch.
June 4, 2011 at 2:08 PM
I’d sure be worried about her bringing me a glass of water if she knew I was Conservative
June 4, 2011 at 2:12 PM
What does she have in mind for stopping P M Harper when he has been elected to form a majority government according to our democratic process? What would she propose?
I don’t think political activists are suitable for the job she was doing and someone wasn’t doing their job when she got hired.
June 4, 2011 at 2:19 PM
Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs was her mentor. I think this Senators judgement should be questioned.
June 4, 2011 at 2:22 PM
I’d like to know if she had anything to do with her being hired
June 4, 2011 at 3:32 PM
She could have at least been one of her references.
June 4, 2011 at 3:02 PM
Which one are you talking about? There are two nutbars in the photo.
June 5, 2011 at 2:38 AM
There’s not much doubt our CBC Employee Evan was in a state of glee just speaking to the activist twit.
June 4, 2011 at 3:17 PM
Given that she wants to “Stop Harper”, the time to do that is when the election is on.
In Canada, you join a political party of your choice or form one of your own, and advocate your point of view through your vehicle of choice. Or you can talk to your MP and have them voice your discontent. The only thing she has demonstrated is that she is thus far a malcontent…ie her political viewpoint lost out in the election.
The considered person would be looking to 4 years from now to voice that discontent in the next election. This is how democracy works, but I gather the U of O graduate missed that little nicety.
Further, given that this is the Speech from the Throne the only thing she managed to do was send a direct insult to Her Majesty; ie the Crown and the entirety of Parliament.
The little gal needs to learn how to ‘shoot straight’, but appears to need a little time in the maturity department.
The “Arab Spring” gal should try her protests on the streets of Damascus and see if she lives to tell the story….
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
June 4, 2011 at 3:59 PM
If she is as smart as they say she is, then it’s really kind of sad to see an intelligent mind so thoroughly dominated by the propaganda that passes for education these days. I’m sure she’ll be able to find work with the other propagandists and useful idiots but I seriously doubt her capacity for critical thought.
June 4, 2011 at 5:51 PM
Come on. Obviously she’s intelligent. She talks in soundbites. She parrots election commercials word for word.
The most telling indication of her intelligence is the fact that the Conservatives got nearly 40% of the votes and she thinks that means “three-quarters of Canadians voted against Harper”.
What a dimwit.
June 4, 2011 at 5:54 PM
The call for the Arab spring got me. The little twit should read this: Syrian forces kill 6 protesters http://bit.ly/lAdSaI
June 7, 2011 at 2:52 PM
Obviously she wasn’t a math major. Only 37% voted against the Conservatives (about 60% of votes x 60% turnout). The other 63% – clearly a majority – didn’t vote against the incumbent government.
June 4, 2011 at 6:49 PM
It is galling to see this young woman presume to represent anybody, including herself in the storied halls of Parliament. She was only there out of privilege and as such had a duty to respect that privilege.
She was not elected to any office and should have had the common decency to keep her thoughts, as ill-developed and badly considered as they are, to herself. There is a time and place to protest, and her chosen venue was neither the time, nor the place. Three weeks short of contract’s end, it wasn’t ‘brave’ or ‘courageous’ but merely convenient.
I am sorry that she was given any air-time by our media. That they considered worth reporting the actions of this seriously ego-centric progeny of a patently failing higher education system, is equally stunning.
June 4, 2011 at 6:53 PM
There are so many amazing young people who try to get this job it sems sad that it is given to some one who does not respect the position.
As a side note a three of our children recieved generous offers from the U of Ottawa but all three said no thanks we do not want a degree from the U of Zero. Two of three have already graduated and are doing well .
June 4, 2011 at 9:45 PM
A future hero of Canada, once we come to the full realization of what Harper and the greed of corporatism will finally do.
The Conservatives were found in contempt of Parliament, the whole lot of them. We need 10,000 or 100,000 more acts like this over the next four years.
Wake up Canada! Don’t run blindly run the ‘Stop Harper’ sign.
June 4, 2011 at 10:08 PM
Moronic and ridiculous at the same time
June 5, 2011 at 1:09 PM
We gotta go through this again?
The Conservatives were indeed found in “contempt” of Parliament..
by a bunch of lying, thieving, secretive, churlish, power hungry, stupid Liberals and their obviously biased Liberal speaker with one foot out the door.
Absolute bull****.
How were your s**t-rag Lying Liberals rewarded for their arrogant grandstanding?
They got exactly what they deserved.
June 15, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Seems you blue balls can’t control yourselves. The lying sack of barnyard droppings resides on the Conservative side of the fence now… bullies, thugs, just basically mean-spirited, and not worthy of any respect.
June 4, 2011 at 10:42 PM
It’s going to be a long four years for you Cons, if a woman with a sign can cause this much angst. Expect more protests. Maybe the party can arrange a bulk purchase of fainting couches.
June 5, 2011 at 12:04 AM
Just who’s in government again? Hurts doesn’t it?
June 5, 2011 at 3:21 AM
You do understand Harper isn’t in for life, and then his son takes over – right? By the way, what’s happening with the BC Cons ?
June 5, 2011 at 9:47 AM
JanBC you need medication.
June 5, 2011 at 5:23 AM
“Harper has only 40% of the vote, so three quarters of Canadian disagree with him”.
That statement, together with her actions, speaks volumes about our education system. The kid cannot do the most elementary math, but is part of the ‘social justice committee’.
June 15, 2011 at 12:04 AM
Only 39% of 62% of eligible voters voted Conservative. Which is 24%.
Look in the mirror.
June 5, 2011 at 6:02 AM
DePape smear is a rude, arrogant Liberal Fascist, her pathetic stunt disgraced our Honoured Canadian Institutions, she should be charged by the RCMP and then we should have a full public inquiry into how she was able to subvert Parliment’s security and dissrupt the decisive Canadian democratic will of the people
Just saying
June 7, 2011 at 2:58 PM
Unfortunately, the cops almost never enforce section 176(2) of the Criminal Code (wilful disruption of a meeting). She should be charged, the U of Zero mob that shut down Coulter should have been charged, the OCAP thugs who stormed city council should have been charged, and the list goes on.
June 15, 2011 at 12:05 AM
And the Conservatives being found in contempt of Parliament means what? A greaseball like Baird should be in jail for his outbursts in Ottawa.
June 5, 2011 at 10:27 AM
This just proves that there is a huge difference between being book smart and street smart.
June 5, 2011 at 10:29 AM
Not sure she is all that book smart either
June 7, 2011 at 2:59 PM
If so then the people who gave her $75,000 in scholarships must be complete morons.
June 5, 2011 at 12:19 PM
[…] you didn’t think an interview could get much worse than CBC’s Evan Solomon’s (see here), check out Jane Taber having Brigette DePape on as a Question Period […]
June 6, 2011 at 2:07 PM
” Mary T Says:
June 4, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Contempt of parliament, isn’t that what Pat Martin and others were so outraged about during the election. lol”
Yeah, I know, how dare the NDP condone this … wait …. what the …. they didn’t!
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110605/senate-page-protest-brigette-depape-110605/20110605/?hub=OttawaHome
Regardless, Mary, I’d like to thank you for showing the priorities of Canada’s Good Ol’ CONservatives. Forging documents and refusing to give parliament necessary information GOOD, breaking parliamentary etiquette once BAD! The difference between the repetitive crimes of Top-Level Conservative Staffers and the one-time offence (that was rewarded with immediate employment termination) is the difference between breaking the law by spitting gum on the sidewalk vs breaking the law by smashing someone’s head against the sidewalk.
And since Harper hired someone with a Criminal Record to advise him (as opposed to the ultimate sin to you knuckle-draggers, hiring someone who disagrees with you), I hardly think you Tory hacks are in a position to question judgement.
June 6, 2011 at 2:39 PM
Spoiled, privileged brat with a university education. Uses this opportunity that we as taxpayers supported by the way, to get attention. Then her reference to “Arab spring” was insulting to those in the Arab world who are truly suffering. This young lady should go out and do some real work as a natural consequence her actions. But she’ll be rewarded with a cushy job.
June 6, 2011 at 10:16 PM
You conservatives are sad sad people. Gad. Makes me ashamed of how many dimwitted Canadians there actually are out there.
June 9, 2011 at 9:42 AM
The only thing we’re sad about is having to put up with freaks like you and your lefty pals. All of Canada should be ashamed that such pathetic, disgusting, and completely brainless losers like you and DePape exist in our otherwise wonderful country.
June 15, 2011 at 12:07 AM
Yawn.
And again, only 24% of eligible voters chose Harper.
June 11, 2011 at 1:21 PM
true canadian hero
she’s right, with a minority canadian vote — it’s only our stupid political system that allows a minority of voters to elect a government — she’s right, conservative values are not canadian values — rock on ms. depape — true canadian hero
December 7, 2011 at 8:25 AM
[…] This group just happened to include the parliamentary page who held up the “Stop Harper” sign during House […]