Commentary
Permission to invoke an Aesopian fable to draw a parallel in Canadian politics? … Thank you.
In the fable “The Monkey and the Cat,” Bertrand the monkey persuades Raton the cat to retrieve chestnuts roasting in fireplace embers, promising him a share. Raton plucks them from the fire, one by one, but repeatedly burns his paw, as Bertrand gobbles up all the chestnuts. Raton gets nothing for his pains.
It’s from this fable that the French get their phrase tirer les marrons du feu, meaning to benefit from the work of others. It’s also the source of the English idiom “a cat’s paw,’’ i.e., one who’s been suckered….