More than a week after he flew to Afghanistan for a Thanksgiving weekend visit with the Canadian military, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier is still facing questions and is being teased about handing out Jos. Louis cakes to soldiers at a remote outpost.
By the time he got home, Mr. Bernier's gesture had given birth to a new mocking expression, "Jos. Louis diplomacy," apparently first uttered by Liberal military critic Denis Coderre, who had been on a rival visit to Afghanistan.
Again yesterday, on a public-affairs show on the TVA network, Mr. Bernier was told that it was " kétaine" (tacky) to give the snacks to soldiers from the Quebec-based Royal 22nd Regiment.
And in a weekend speech, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe said the Conservatives' policies amounted to "gas for Alberta, cars for Ontario - and for Quebec, little cakes."
The Jos. Louis is a plastic-wrapped cream-filled cake snack of the same style as the Twinkie or the May West.
Pierre Côté, a trends analyst and one-time head of an Internet-based marketing agency, said the Jos. Louis is one of Quebec's oldest brands and has a strong stamp in the popular consciousness here.
To people who support the Afghanistan mission, a Jos. Louis cake could be comfort food, a reminder of home similar to what a Tim Hortons doughnut would be for anglophone soldiers, Mr. Côté said.
But, he noted, for critics of the mission, the Jos. Louis handout looked like a piffling reward for the soldiers.
On his blog, humorist Stéphane Laporte called the minister a "Jos. Louis pusher."
"It was humiliating to see the little soldiers having to look grateful!" he wrote. "Life is worth more than a Jos. Louis."
Mr. Bernier said on TVA yesterday, "It's too bad it came out like this."
The cakes are made at a factory in his riding of Beauce, south of Quebec City. He said the distribution came at the request of a soldier from the Beauce region.
Tu Thanh Ha