Buckets of (the other) Grewal

As you may have noticed, this site has made the finals in the Canadian Blog Awards in three categories. (Please go and vote, btw.) One of them is for my faq, which is as yet only half-finished. Anyway, I've been working hard at it recently. Today I have been trying to write on Nina and her role in the affair, and I noticed the interview that Nina gave to the Now newspaper in July. (The Now is a local paper in Surrey, where the Grewals live.)

You can read the Now's full story about the interview here. Now that Gurmant has resigned, several things about this interview, several things seem all the more striking.

Towards the end of the story, for example, she discusses that even if Gurmant should decide to quit politics (as indeed he has), she would still seek re-election (as she has). Apparently Gurmant has been thinking of retiring from politics for months.

Other notable things.

Asked what she considered to be the worst day in all of this, Grewal replied, "the whole thing was the worst for me."

Still, one incident particularly came to mind: "The CBC, they chased on me, I was in the washroom and they just put the cameras on the washroom that Nina's going to come out_they were after me all the time."

This, of course, was on of the most enduring images of the affair. Gurmant having disappeared, and Nina running away from reporters. A picture's worth…

Nina also complains about the Globe and Mail profile of her:

She's "particularly troubled" about a story that appeared in the Globe and Mail on June 11, headlined "Nina Grewal's degree in political silence." The story, she said, claimed "I'm just a silent person not talking on anything. Why would I, when I was not part of this controversy?"

"The Globe and Mail did that hatchet story on me _ I'm such a silent person out there, I don't speak, I'm a dummy MP, and I won't let them do that to me."

The Globe's story is worth revisiting, since its thrust is not merely that Nina is a quiet person, but that she'd become little more than an extension of her husband in Parliament. Is that fair? Perhaps not. But many observers both inside the party and out seem to have shared it. (For the Globe story on Nina, see here.)