Quebec politician falls for fleur-de-lis mittens Photoshop of Dufour-Lapointe sisters

You might say Pierre Duchesne had the pure laine pulled over his eyes by a Photoshop job.

As far as we know, no retailer has marketed Quebec mittens in a similar style to the Canada mittens that are sold in a partnership between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Canadian Olympic Committee. So common sense might have dictated that when a pic of moguls medallists and Montrealers Chloé and Justine Dufour-Lapointe wearing mittens bearing Quebec's fleur-de-lis symbol starting making the rounds, whoever's running the Twitter account for a provincial cabinet minister might have been better off to ignore it.

That was lost on the staff of Pierre Duchesne, Quebec's minister responsible for higher education, research, science and technology. On Tuesday, the Parti Quebecois MNA retweeted the doctored photo with the comment, "Superbe!! :)"

This from the party that came up with the Quebec Charter of Values, yeah.

Duchesne, at this writing, still has the tweet up and has spun it to say he might even be a "victim." Instead of, y'know, just having a gullible moment. Everyone has fallen for an Internet hoax at some point, especially when it is something you might have wished was true.

(Yes, I fell for that story about NBA forward Blake Griffin bodily removing Justin Bieber from a Starbucks, too.)

The doctoring came from a photo of the Dufour-Lapointe siblings wearing Canada mittens. The motivation for making it can't be determined. On one hand, it's an expression of Quebec nationalist pride and there's nothing wrong with that. It could have also been done to try to gull secessionists. Or it could be a little of both, but Duchesne might have been wise to let it on he knew it wasn't for real. Meantime, up in heaven Mordecai Richler is probably having a laugh about this.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.