It was Christmas in September for the governing Tories and the NDP in the three Quebec by-elections last week. The Liberals wound up with a rotten potato, a piece of coal and a switch.

The NDP won by a large margin in the Montreal riding of Outremont while the Tories made further inroads into rural, francophone Quebec with a wide margin in Roberval. The Bloc Quebecois narrowly held onto their St.-Hyacinthe seat.

With this development, fortunes seem low for the Liberals and their new leader Stephane Dion, and sinking lower. Along with a number of other things, the Liberals need more positive profile nationally – or anywhere they can get it.

Speaking of profile, Kings-Hants MP Scott Brison has seemed to be pretty thin on the ground lately. Almost invisible, and silent.

This is especially disturbing because we’re dealing with a very able and affable representative here of whom many have become quite fond and trusting.

We’ve heard plenty from a number of Liberal MPs on a lot of issues: environment, the Afghan mission and so on. But there has been very little from Brison, either on national or local concerns.

Even when weighed down with responsibilities as Public Works Minister in Liberal prime minister Paul Martin’s government, Brison seemed to have had a higher local profile than he appears to have now.

He had gained great profile nationwide, including in Kings-Hants, when he ran for the Tory leadership, then moving to the Liberals from the Conservatives, then as a promising Martin minister, and then as a contender for the Liberal leadership, which Dion nabbed.

Brison’s move to the fiscally responsible and pragmatic Martin’s cabinet was easy for many to accept, being close to progressive conservative ideals the young MP had long espoused.

Unfortunately for Martin and Brison, support in the party and among the electorate evaporated and we have the current political landscape in the country.

So, in the wake of these events over the past decade, the biggest story involving Brison lately has been his marriage to Maxime St. Pierre.

Martin and former prime minister Joe Clark, a mentor to Brison, were on hand along with a number of high-placed current Liberals, including Dion. There was a news blackout on the event at Cheverie, which means that only the national media would get any immediate information.

In keeping with local profile and traditional courtesy, a brief interview with our sister publication The Hants Journal, Brison’s community newspaper, wouldn’t have gone astray. Just to keep the home folk up on things.

Brison seems to have a particular taste for national media attention and we’re sure it’ll serve him well for many of his political endeavours. However, it’s his profile and accomplishments in Kings-Hants that will carry him on election day. He would do well to remember that.

Now that Brison is a 40-year-old married man, lifestyle and orientation mean even less than it did when he started out in politics. With those aspects out of the way and not as prominent as they may have been for some, we’d like to see more substance, especially around here, where the voters live and work.