Bourque gets creamed

Montreal municipal politicians are sporting cream - cream pie, wiped pie from face that is. after being hit en route to fashion show yesterday, Mayor Pierre Bourque became the second mayoral candidate this election season to get a pie in the face from Quebec's notorious band of pie-throwers, Les Entartistes, as he made his way to a fashion show for the opening of a top Quebec designer's shop on Crescent St. "He even had cream in his ear," said a giggling Bourque spokesman, Madeleine Champagne, who saw the whole incident.

"There were two pies and pie-throwers, but it seemed like three pies. He was all covered - and at a fashion show, of all things." However, Champagne described Bourque as "a cool cat." A shop-owner gave Bourque a clean shirt and tie to change into, she said. The mayor then attended the fashion show and gave a short speech on the city's commercial renovation subsidy program, Programme Operation Commerce.The city has invested $2.5 million in the area around Crescent, called the Quartier du Musee, she said. Hey, there's even a certain amount of prestige with beinghit in the kisser with a pie.

"I take it as a compliment," Champagne said."He (Bourque) was not on the shortlist when the pie-throwers announced who they were targeting. Now suddenly he's jumped ahead." Les Entartistes hit the scene in Quebec in May when they left a creamy calling card on the face of Jacques Duchesneau, the former Montreal Urban Community police chief turned star mayoral candidate, at a 2,000-guest soiree hosted by his New Montreal Party at Windsor Station.

Like Duchesneau in May, Bourque rose above sticky adversity yesterday. And Champagne pointed out Bourque is now in the same company as U.S. computer baron Bill Gates, who was pied this year in Belgium by Brussels-based l'Internationale Patisserie.Les Entartistes are the Montreal chapter of the Brussels-based group.

Head pie-tosser is Francois Gourd, whose previous fringe political experience includes the Rhinoceros Party. However, the pie-meister said yesterday his hands are clean on the Bourque hit, claiming to be unaware of it, because he had just returned from the country.

But he added he wasn't surprised."The pies are starting to fly, and that's the goal," said Gourd, who added that 10 branches of Les Entartistes are cooking up plots to hit Quebec politicians and personalities in positions of power with their just dessert for taking themselves too seriously.

"Everywhere we go, we say pie, pie, pie," Gourd said.

Stallone Hit a Flop

Among the targets was Alliance Quebec president William Johnson, who got pied while walking in the St. Jean Baptiste Day parade in June. But there was one flop among the big hits this summer. The pie-throwers took a shot at Hollywood hulk Sylvester Stallone at the opening of the Planet Hollywood restaurant on Ste. Catherine St. W. in July, but missed.

"It's an era of pie-throwing we're entering," Gourd said. Yet even the pie-thrower can become the pied.Gourd said he was hit while a guest on the taping of a new Radio-Canada talk show hosted by Denise Bombardier that will air on Saturday.

Gourd said yesterday he would find out more about the Bourque hit yesterday evening, when his group was to meet.

In true terrorist fashion, Les Entartistes issued a press release yesterday evening claiming responsibility for the hit. But the message offered a tart warning to parties in the municipal-election campaign: The group will continue tarting as long as they "don't present real ideas, like closing pawn shops, legalizing squeegees and, above all, no Loblaws or new (Expos baseball) stadium."

LINDA GYULAI