ChuckerCanuck 2.0

When I look at media reaction to Belinda being called or not called a dog, I have to wonder:

What if Belinda's head poked through the tent and instead of Harper and Bush on the verge of carnal familiarity, it was Harper and MacKay or MacKay and Ambrose. Its still stinging satire because instead of this being a gay-separatist theme with the PQ leader, it becomes a Tory/Liberal theme and the past relationship with MacKay.

The CBC would be having a live townhall meeting with Peter Mansbridge and Rex Murphy manning the Inbox. A weeping audience member would say, "women have been set back decades by this. Decades." The Globe and Mail would have 20 pages with an editorial regretting their endorsement of the Conservatives. Sheila Copps' column in the Sun would be brutal but matched by Jeffrey Simpson and the 2 Martin conspiracy.

Instead, this story a brief below the Mazda ad that spends most of the time explaining what the television station is and how popular the show is with Quebeckers. Not only was Boisclair's participation unstatesmanlike and ivy-league childish, it insulted the Prime Minister of Canada, the President of the United States and, uhhh, gay people who, like everyone, want to be treated as serious people in their work life with equal access to opportunities in the economy.

Brokeback Belinda. Brokeback Boisclair. Can you see the difference? I can't see the difference. Where is the outrage? And why isn't it here?

Andre Boisclair, future founding father of the Republic of Quebec, takes part in an upcoming comedy sketch on MusiMax - a cable tv channel in Quebec. Its a parody on Brokeback Mountain. In the sketch, he sticks his head into the tent where "imitations" of the Prime Minister and the President of the United States are making homosexual love and he says, "Quebec will never be a part of this."

Edgy stuff. The Harper/Bush Brokeback thing is still as fresh and hard-hitting as it was when the movie came out - us sophisticates still know that Harper and Bush are "gay-hating" hicks, so were still "getting" the punchline.

But the new twist to the punchline is that Boisclair is gay: he must really, really disagree with Bush=Harper if he rejects the opportunity for an all-male threesome with them.

Today, Andre Boislcair says he did not understand what the whole concept of the sketch was and had he known it was to be "as it is", he would not have participated. Duped maybe, but foolish in any case. What a ridiculous country Quebec if President Boisclair trafficked in this gawdy burlesque foreign policy. What would he have done, the joke begs, if in the tent he found Chavez and Castro? There are less vulgar ways to agree and differ.

Andre Boisclair is sorely lacking in nation building skills. But he need look no further than Ottawa for some lessons in nation-building.

Last week, the Prime Minister submitted the resolution to declare les Quebecois a nation within a United Canada. Every federal party, including the separatist Bloc Quebecois, voted for a United Canada. To do so, the Prime Minister angered exuberant nationalists on the One Canada side who would prefer at best to ignore the French Fact of North America, at worst to see you leave and set up a failed state so they can say "I told you so." For these folks, One Canada trumps United Canada.

The Prime Minister is taking historic belles risques at a political cost for the cause of a United Canada. By contrast, the future founder of Quebec, is running around with sketch-comedy hipsters, thinking life is one long burlesque in Berlin.

Old Squid first made headlines, at least at this site, when Brigitte Bardot refused to meet him after the Prime Minister refused to meet her. He is, of course, a folk hero of cyberspace, renown for being to articulate nuanced policy positions with a single word, "fuck". Because of him, Chuckercanuck spent a commute reading the most agonizing material ever written - in form and content. It is Chapter 5 of the Auditor General's report. Its topic: an audit of the Federal Governments Re-Location programs. Federal employees move and like any company, when the governmoent choses to re-locate an employee, it covers all the employee costs and provides services to make it hassle free. Public Works chose to outsource this function to professionals and issued a request for proposal (RFP) for contracts to move (1) Canadian Forces members, (2)RCMP employees and (3)all other deparments.

Everyone should read Chapter 5. But if you can't, here's my summary, in the best Sheila Fraser imitation I can do.

1.0 Companies submitted bids following the instructions of the RFP issued by Public Works. One of these companies was the incumbent, Royal Lepage Relocation Services.

1.1 The RFP wanted a total price made up of two components: (1) an administrative fee to manage the program + (2) a per service cost times the number of services each year.

2.0 The RFP completely misrepresented the number of times the bidders would be moving a soldier or RCMP officer who wants to keep their house and rent it out to others - something the bidder would manage.

3.0 Only the imcumbents, Royal Lepage, knew that the RFP greatly, greatly exagerated the number of times this service would be offered. So, while other bidders priced according to the RFP, Royal Lepage priced based on its actual costs in that area. Creating a grossly skewed bid contest.

3.1 This is a double incompetence because the Federal Government had all the information it needed to see how wildly misleading their RFP was. You can't even say Royal Lepage "hoodwinked" the Government because nothing was hidden from the Government, it just takes these very, very long blinks.

3.2 This is a triple icompetence because the competitors called and asked questions because the services described in 2.0 seemed so out of proportion for what they, the professionals, encounter that it didn't make sense. The Government stuck to its numbers.

4.0 Surprise, surprise, the incumbent wins the grossly skewed bid contest.

4.1 There's other stuff, but it would bore Lawrence Welk and doesn't have the same outrage-inducing sting to it. (Nerds will enjoy the eyerolls though).

5.0 Hello! These guys would be paid immediately for part (2) of the cost items in 1.1 (you know, hiring the movers, paying the notary, etc., etc.). This proves that governments are the sweetest clients in the world. I'd call anyone who pays in 30 days a prince. Instantly? That's Shangri-la.

6.0 Now this stinks worse than a dog exiting a still pond: Royal Lepage'd bid says re-locating employees pay $0 for property management services (renting out your house if you decide to keep it, etc.). But in the sample of actual moves that the AG examined, every single one paid as little as $800 to as much as $8,000 for those very services.

6.1 It looks like soldiers getting ripped off. Not that its any less offensive when its an RCMP officer or a marine biologist moving to Victoria from Placentia Bay.
People have some 'splaining to do.

Guess who's bursting blood vessles? Claude Charron was once a Quebec Minister for the separatist PQ government. He was, also, Rene Levesque's confident during the Night of the Long Knives. In an interview last night, he lashed out at pretty much everyone and their mother for allowing the nation farce to unravel over the course of the week. But the folks who win his most hostile emtions are the Bloc Quebecois - who, he says, should admit are incompetent parliamentarians. Worse still, the Bloc Quebecois, according to Charron, have managed to make Quebec look less and less of an independent nation with every little game they play.

Meanwhile, in the Quebec National Assembly, Premier Charest introduced a motion for the Assembly to rejoice in the recognition given to Quebecois by parliament in Ottawa. Andre Boisclair, who just last week talked about the resolution as a great addition to his tool kit, refused. Ahhh, those wily separatists - the real master-planners and long-gamers of confederation: this tool will serve them best if they pretend it never, ever happened.

So, instead of hailing last night's resolution as a springboard to separatism, Andre Boisclair makes the news by announcing he will participate in a parody of Brokeback Mountain. That is not a joke, folks.

We can never be like Japan, where immigration officials raid your fridges to make sure you eat a Japanese diet. You will never define a Canadian that way, as much as Molson would like to. One guy - I forget his name - called us a cultural mosaic as opposed to the american melting pot, a stained-glass window through which the light of this great country shines - dare a Tory say it - like a rainbow. Canada is unlike anything else in the world, confederations aren't exactly commonplace. It is a fruitless effort to squeeze Canada into a semantic mold of convenience.

The One Canada crowd have giggled delightedly over the idea that a slippery slope of nations will pour out of parliament like so much - well, you know. Why not Newfoundland? Why not [fill in pet cause]? What other ethnic groups make a nation by virtue of their numbers via immigration? Why not call out every shard of glass in our cultural mosaic?

None of these potential nations became part of Canada through its defeat and conquer. That seems a remarkable fact - especially since my travels to french and english blogs today indicate that it is a vibrant, motivating bit of history: some Canada enthusiasts ask, "didn't we win the plains of Abraham" while some Quebec only enthusiasts remind, "there were Kennedys on the plains of Abraham, we remember who are enemies are." Nutballs on both sides, of course. The only other groups who qualify as nations because they too were conquered peoples are the aboriginal people.

Does the One Canada crowd snicker when they say Assembly of First Nations? Obviously, Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden, with their supporters, must at least acknowledge their distaste for that term as well. Funny, Gerard Kennedy has no First Nations policy on his website. I guess that's one way of taking care of the problem.

If you are seriously big on One Canada, then at least 1 of 4 films you rent should be from Quebec. Mention that you rented Seraphim or downloaded Daniel Belanger onto your Ipod. Flip between Corner Gas and Tout le Monde En Parle. Don't wait for the translation before you figure out what Iggy said on the show. At least pretend that when you say "one nation" it is not just to retain that last, lifeless sense of the word "nation" - that is territorial entity with common citizenship. Canada is bigger than that, more than that and not nearly as weakly bound as that need to cling to "nation" betrays.

When the CBC asked Canadians to finish the sentence: "As Canadian as...", the winning response was, "as possible, under the circumstances." This self-deprecating joke works from sea to shining sea to shining sea in any language. Where else but Canada could the sentence end that way? By any other name, its still the greatest country in the world.

What's a 'nation' between friends?

Today, my buddies in the separatist movement will be taking a huge leap backward by supporting the resolution to declare 'the Quebecois' a nation. Let's leave the whirling dirvish that this has created outside Quebec - we can talk about that tonight.

Let's talk about what this resolution means inside Quebec, the province.

There are no arguments left for separation. Gilles and Andre must rally the citizens of Quebec based on the argument that Quebec should be a country because it will be more ethnically pure than this mutt called Canada. Will this ring a bell in the hearts of Quebeckers? Aside from the guy I pass each morning on my way to work who has carved a fleur-de-lys out of his walking stick, Quebeckers will recoil at such an ugly motivation for statehood, especially given that Canada provides all the institutions we need to thrive in the world.

This blur between Quebec the civic state and la nation Quebecois has been a construct of the separatists that keeps separatism hovering over 40% perenially. It pretends that all Quebeckers, anglophones, allophones and francophones should be caught up in the separatist dream because it isn't ethnicity at its core, its the impositions of some evil imperialists in Ottawa. The "One Nation Under Toronto" crowd decided the solution was to re-cast the Ottawa imperialists as sunny optimists, not evil. (That was the sponsorship program which did us wonders).

An oft-ignored consequence has been separatists, treated as the vanguard of protecting the french fact in North America, abandoning French Canadians outside of Quebec, preferring them to disappear into a mottled gene pool than remain vibrant outposts on the Canadian prairie or quiet New Brunswick coves. Instead of Quebec at the heart of invigorating french in North America, separatists have chosen a path of willful ignorance at best, hostile indifference at worst. If Louis Riel were alive today, Quebec separatists would ask, "qui?" Finally, people in and out of Quebec, are asking themselves this question: what is a Quebecois and how does that person relate to a franco-manitoban?

Furthermore, the Quebec National Assembly called Quebec (the province) a "nation" long ago. This was insufficient for the separatists, they needed the nod from the Canadian House of Commons. Why was the Quebec's national assembly insufficient for the separatists? If its insufficient on that matter, then isn't it insufficient on virtually every matter? The separatists, by their own actions, show a complete lack of confidence in the institutions of Quebec and de-legitimize any actions taken without the consent and approval for the Canadian house of commons.

Separatism is not dead. But it no longer owns the language of the debate. Et ceci me fait sourire.

Warren Kinsella is a good man and empassioned advocate for the Oppose the One Nation Resolution movement. He thinks Gilles Duceppe will deploy his apparently political genius to table the following motion and stumble up the country for good:

"Whereas this House has recognized that the Québécois form a nation within Canada, we call upon this House to officialize, and immediately give constitutional effect to, that recognition of the Québec nation."

I am not a lawyer, so maybe I'm wrong - but could the house "give constitutional effect" to anything? I thought giving up constitutional booty of that kind takes a bunch people more than the House of Commons, like say some provinces. Gilles tabling something like that would help the case against the Bloc's purpose and productivity.

Also, a resolution like that, which ends with a reference to the province of Quebec, would give the Tories a chance to continue to widen the chasm between the Quebecois nation and the province of Quebec. And it would give the Prime Minister the opportunity to show how the province in Quebec has the tools and capacity to protect and promote the french fact in North America.

Irish Canadians have a very shallow ethnic pride: sure, we are all shamrocks in March and get misty when the Irish team squeaks into later rounds of the World Cup, but that's as far as it will go. Here's proof: Paul Martin, Keith Martin, Pat Martin, Brothers McGinty, John McCallum, Gerard Kennedy - see my blood pressure is jumping points with each one listed, I'd better stop here before I end up like a victim from Scanners. Nope, there's no cobbling a secret irish conspiracy, even though the Shamrock Summit will forever have me suspicious.

The above was simply a very large disclaimer for what I am about to announce. In this brief bit of Tory government, I have developed a man-crush on Jim Flaherty. In no way, at least in my mind, does it compromise my Harpermania. But, I can no longer deny feeling like a $1000 bucks whenever he gives a speech or meets the press or floats an idea.

His critics give such mixed reviews, its hard to unscramble it all. Ontario lefties call up the memories of lava pits and human sacrifice in the Harris days. Ontario righties, like Andrew Coyne, say Flaherty isn't a conservative and would fit seemelessly into a Liberal cabinet as its finance minister. Andrew Coyne makes the stronger case against Flaherty: right now, when those lefties hyperventilate, its leaves everyone else scratching their heads, "he's nothing like you describe. Who made that mushroom salad for you at lunch?"

Foremost minority governments live or fall on budgets. Andrew Coyne's crticism boils down to - the budget will be so appealing to Liberals it is hard to see how the Liberals will vote down a budget to trigger an election. If those conditions do come about, the issue will be so awkwardly contrived, people will chalk it up to yet another example of Liberals adopting a ridiculous position just to thwart the Prime Minister. I think that's the kind of criticism Flaherty should welcome.

Sometimes the facts are a punchline themselves. Cerberus delivers a lovely weapon of mass disruption to the Rae camp.

Guess what Canada: Bob Rae borrowed gobs and gobs of money to finance his leadership campaign and is spending like a sailor to get on that final ballot.

Now that Michael Ignatieff is a taxpayer, if there's one thing he should be losing sleep over, its Bob Rae's big spending, big borrowing campaign ways - a potential Ignatieff cabinet would have to include Bob Rae at a very key position, like finance, say.

Can you imagine early early morning of budget day, Iggy and Rae crafting a budget. Iggy, frustrated and sour, snaps at Bob, "You've known me 40 years! You know I'm not good with numbers!"

"Neither am I!" Rae snaps back and the news silences the two tired men, hunched over budgets with paper-roll calculators and dozens of pencils.

"You're not?" Michael asks in soft surprise. Bob Rae drops his head, nodding slowly, "No."

"Jesus bobby!" Michael says with the intamacy and concern of old friends, "you never told me!"

"I figured you know, by now, everyone figured that out."

"Shit! What are we going to do?"

Bob smiled, shoulders drooped in defeat, "What I've always done, Michael. I've erred on the side of compassion."

"Dynamite line, Bob." Iggy is thrilled and the two call up the deputy finance minister and tell her to issue $10 billion in bonds and foggeddaboud'it.

Thank you Molar Mauler for calling this one out - proof positive that the Prime Minister is just about the coolest thing to hit this Dominion. Ever.

Here's the Prime Minister's reaction to news that the Bloc Quebecois will vote for the PM's resolution:

"This is their third position in three days on the issue. And I think now they have to explain what their raison d'etre is in Ottawa if they're going to pass a resolution put forward by the prime minister that endorses the unity of Canada."

Indeed.

ps. I guess Duceppe didn't like the idea of using my line, "I actually voted against the nation before I voted for it."

pps. The "One Nation Under Toronto" crowd are still in a tizzy, though. Maybe Warren & Andrew will start their own separatist movement!

Calgary Grit worries what Warren Kinsella thinks. Warren Kinsella worries what Andrew Coyne thinks. Andrew Coyne worries what Paul Wells thinks. And as they wring one another’s hands, they blur the distinction between Quebec and Quebecois in order to win a few debating points. Gentlemen be warned: there’s a fine line between obstinancy and separatist sympathy!

Meanwhile, on the front lines of the battle for Quebec, around the water coolers of the Anglo ghetto, the troops are cheering. Not in two decades has Canada had a Prime Minister that strikes fear into the heart of separatists. Gilles Duceppe’s pitiable response to the PM’s move reminded everyone that you could take the guy out of the hair net, but you could never take the hair net out of the guy. His spiritual leader, Andre Boisclair, spent the day hiding in his bat cave, curled in fetal position and begging an aide to slap him out of this nightmare. He emerged yesterday with a contradictory response that ended with an uncomfortable discussion of his – um – “tool kit”.

Most importantly, everyone noticed what the wise pundits above did not. Should one day, after the hurdles imposed by the Clarity Act, a Quebecois nation separate from Canada, it will not look like the Province of Quebec. It will not have Quebec’s borders. It will not have all of Quebec’s fine people. And Montreal will not be its largest city.

You can't quite squeeze that into the Cole Porter song, but that's the tune lots of folks are singing. In his column, Andrew Coyne mourned the death of Canada for being too much Belgium and not enough France. He was even desperate for a big-spending project, like expanding the T-Can, to create some national will.

Yesterday was a very good day for Canada. It was a bad day for the word "nation". So what? Advertisers corrupted the word long ago using the word to flog a brand.
Today, it became something that for a Canadian would be difficult to say of any other country in the world. Japan is a nation. China? Sweden is a nation. Great Britain? Russia? India? Texas? Sure, sure - it doesn't matter anyway. If you feel like bellyaching or wearing a black veil over anything, do it for the word nation, not Canada.

Where Michael "Yeah, I'm the lazy, drunk janitor who fel asleep on a console mid-clean and accidentally caused the nuclear meltdown" Ignatieff got it so wrong and rankled so many was that he talked about a civic nation of Quebec. Handing to the separatists two things: the cover of plurality for their cause; it affirms their argument to the territorial integrity of Quebec. The PM's resolution avoids both things - ensuring the debate on nationhood is ethnic in origin and not civic; recognizes no special status for Quebec except as a province.

So if Canada is not a nation, what is it? Who cares! Its still ticking and looking pretty good. Don't look for comparisons - we can never be Finland or Nepal - so why try to squeeze into their tights? Besides, we used to call ourselves a dominion, which to my ear sounds a lot cooler than nation.

I actually voted against the nation before I vote for it...

Chuckercanuck is the Worf of the U.S.S. Blogging Tory: the idea of cutting Liberals some slack will never occur to me and my photon torpedoes will always be locked and loaded. The exception to that is when Tories get a chance to bruise the separatists - only then, can you disregard wonton Liberals. Today, such an opportunity arose. First, a short history of Quebec, the Nation.

June 24, 2006 - some journalist asks the PM a question: Is Quebec a nation?
[note one, it starts with a journalist] The PM responds he doesn't want to get into divisive semantic debates.

<< the middle section of this history involves Liberals eating each other alive with journalists sprinkling MSG on everybody to make them look even tastier >>

This week, the Bloc announces a motion calling for the HoC to recognize Quebec as a nation. The national drama reaches a crescendo with the prospect of the Prime Minister "slapping the face of ever mother in Quebec" or whatever doomsday motto you chose.

The response? A counter-resolution to be voted on before the Bloc's political grenade. "This House recognizes that Québécois form a nation within a united Canada". (note Quebecois. note united Canada.)

The Bloc must either vote down a resolution that recognizes Quebec as a nation or vote for a resolution that calls for Quebec within a united Canada. Neither message is one to take home to the terroirs. Either way, it emphasizes the triviality and focus on effervescence that the Bloc Quebecois brings to federal politics. Quebec's highways are collapsing onto fine people while the Bloc Quebecois pisses away its time on winning semantic trinkets.

The Liberals are rescued from a Madame Butterfly routine at their convention and they can forget all their worries and install Iggy as commander-in-chief. But, sadly, the fact that Harper quelled in a day what they couldn't in months, serves as a nice symbol for 13 years of Liberal rule versus 13 months of Tory rule. (Wait a minute, not a bad campaign theme in a spring election.)

The big loser: the word "nation" which got a serious downgrading in meaning today. To generalize off Martin Luther, words have wax noses and this one just got flattened in order to fit the Canadian face. This will annoy the excellent Andrew Coyne because it kills his Canada is a nation campaign: why would Canada aim so low as to be a mere "nation"? Chuckercanuck can't ask people to use "skullmulderry" one day and not let the PM redefine "nation" the next. Especially when it puts to bed a divisive semantic debate and sends the separatists scouting for a new sore to pick at.

Found at Bourque's: The Tories are mulling over income splitting for all couples, after having done so for seniors this fall. The Star begins and ends with unattributed criticisms of the very thought of income splitting. The Star has these fantom critics with no name, particularly women's advocates "who argue, by easing the tax burden for families with a stay-at-home spouse, it would tend to discourage women from joining the workforce."

Why women should be discouraged from being discouraged from joining the workforce is not clear at all. Caddle prodding women into the working world is just chauvinism changing hands from a sadist to a masochist. You thought husbands and fathers were total pricks? Meet the women's advocates - they want you to spend the rest of your life worrying about freight rates into Omaha and next week's convention in Orlando.

People who want to emancipate women into the workforce are not actually women's advocates. They are neo-communists. They want to industrialize child rearing and commit every last human kilojoule to economic activity. They want to measure life by the resume and and define a person by the job title Its hell, captured perfectly in the television horror, Ally McBeal, where everyone wanted to have sex but no one wanted children except the big-boned ball of anger. (And that was just lover-replacement therapy.)

Before I get carried away, I have to remember this is all Star speculation inserted in a news story. No real women's advocate criticised the idea of income splitting in Canada yet and I doubt any will: this is the biggest pay equity scandal in human civilization. Abandoning it calls to mind the old saying, "with advocates like these, who needs enemies?"

That was the headline atop the Montreal Gazette this morning. Having spent the weekend on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, I am completely out of the loop, Canada news-wise. (Though I can tell you alot about the Impeach Bush movement in Senator Saunders land). Since I haven't heard any reaction to the news, I thought I'd make up what I expect the reaction to be....

Gilles Duceppe ---

"We Quebeckers are for peace, except when Canadians are trying to broker it, then we are against peace. Besides, if the Prime Minister wanted to send an envoy, why not send my hair stylist: everyone knows Kim Jong Il and I use the same hair stylist."

Jack Layton ---

"If Canada sends an envoy to North Korea, the talks should be about agricultural co-operatives. They're doing some really neat, collectivist stuff out there and we sure could learn from them. Besides, what's the point of talks if the Taliban aren't at the table?"

Jim Traverse ---

"This shows the Conservatives are not a party to be trusted with a majority. Like Russia, Japan, South Korea and China, the PM is trying to line Canada up with the Bush agenda on North Korea. When Canadians realize this government is pushing an activist agenda that promotes peace and human rights across the globe, they will become a nation of spine-shiverers."

Michael Ignatieff ---

"I'm not losing sleep over it. Errr. I mean, its an abomination of the most perverted sort. Errr. I'm the expert on these issues, I should be the one going to North Korea. Um. In fact, I am going to North Korea, next week, before the convention. I'm going to sit with Kim Jong Il and bring peace to the Korean peninsula after a quick peace pit-stop in Israel. Oh wait - cancel that, I'm booked in Sarnia to quell war crimes there."

Bob Rae ---

"Cut Kim Jong Il some slack. Every day, he wakes up a new man. Sure, the 90s were tough on North Korea, but you think that's his fault? That's plain unfair. First, he was dealing with recession, folks. Add incompetent bureaucrats that make the Queen's Park gang look professional and you get a disaster that's everyone's fault but his. And I'm sure he's learned from everyone else's mistakes."

Stephane Dion ---

"KYoto. KyOto. KyoTO. Ky-kyoto. Kyoto-to. KY-oto. Ky-oh-oh-oh-To. Kyoto."

CBC News ---

"Critics slam Harper and Harper's envoy. Critics point to the immense trade opportunities with North Korea that Harper's initiative has all but destroyed. Critics also wonder why worry about North Korean nukes? One critic dismissed concerns about Jong-Il's nukes: 'In effect, Canada is a massive human shield and North Korean decency cancels out any chance they would fire a missile at the States because it could hit Canada. Harper is waisting his time.'"

Today, Chuckercanuck discovered a gaping hole in his knowledge of Canadiana. Being of the facist persuasion, I had previously thought that Judy Rebick and Maude Barlow were the same person. (To me, all lefties look the same.) But thanks to the good folks at the CBC, I discovered that they are different people and that Judy is the one with the sense of humour.

Maude did the lunch hour phone-in show in Montreal as Chuckercanuck and family escaped to our spiritual homeland, the caves of Vermont. She's promoting her new book "Too Close for Comfort" where she argues that Canada is too close to the United States. I know, I know - its a shockingly fascinating subject that's never been covered before. The whole clan Chuckercanuck was spitting mad by the end of it, ready to pummel any Yanks that came our way. Lousy bastards, those yanks! But a couple of things stopped us from buying Maude's thesis wholesale.

The first problem was she, like all anti-americans, lunged at the "some of my best friends are black" line of argument. She works very closely with amerikans who share her passion for authoritative government based on Barlowvian principles. Her problem isn't amerikans - as her title and thesis suggest - its just one amerikan: W. So, why tar an entire nation and its history with W's sins? She can't see the national forest because she's too busy peeing on the presidential tree. If anyone is too close for komfort, its her.

The second, even more odious problem is this: she is deeply concerned with water issues. She believes, like many people, that access to water is a fundamental human right that should be enshrined in a UN declaration. At the same time, she notes that Amerika is running out of water. Should Canada share its water bounty with the United States? Fuck no! We should horde it, Maude argues. Are americans human?I guess in Maude's formulation, they are not. Yes, yes, make sure someone in Chad has the water they need, but let the frikkin' Satanist down south go extinct from thirst.

Don Martin in today's Post joined the chorus of lefties hopping mad that Prime Minister Harper would want to talk human rights with China. He ends with a question: if Harper takes on China's human rights, will he take on the United States' human rights?

For the morals-by-crayola crowd, this logic will hit them like rolaids in an upset stomach. "Ahhhh, exactly", Charlie Sheen would pipe up from the back of brothel in an ugly patch of Bakersfield.

Maybe when they start harvesting organs from Gitmo, I'll be a little more convinced. Alternatively, when the bookstores of China are overflowing with publications calling their President a perfect storm of stupidity and evil, the comparison might work a little better.

Instead, the comparison seems somewhere between a grasp and a fraud. Do Canadians buy that crap? I'm too busy to answer the question. Could you please fill in the blank for me?

It was over a lunch of freedom rolls with plum sauce and general freedom's chicken with extra chilis that I read about China's snub. The Prime Minister of Canada heads to Asia this week and requested a meeting. After a nervous frenzy of faxing, China declined, preferring that the Prime Minister speak to the hand since the face wouldn't understand. The issue: the Conservatives make too much of human rights in China. Critics at home, cheering China on for "bullying a bully", are in 24-hour-Munsch-scream mode because anything more than a whisper on human rights in China puts in jeopardy the trade opportunities for Canada with that ocean of people.

The trade canard is an inside joke wrapped in a bluff. Our trade relationship consists of selling them natural resources and buying cheap goods from them. Natural resources are completely insensitive to intergovernmental relations - we have it, they need it, price is everything. Do we have to buy China's goods? In the very short term, probably, but in the long term? The fun part of natural resources is it doesn't pick up and move to India for the same or less cost. As for selling them our value added goods - why bother? We're panting country no.17 whose visionary leader sees all the people in China and thinks 'what a market'.

When you are an energy and raw materials superpower, you can afford to piss a few people off in the name of principle. If there's one thing to learn in the middle east, isn't that it? This isn't simply a matter of chronic deficits in Chinese human rights: North Korea, perverted half-sister of China, has a nuclear bomb and a bunch of people living on the most severe reverse Atkins diet ever imagined. Any country living along the flight path of a Jong-Il Missile headed to the Great Satan has the right to worry about China's tendency to indulge the korean Hotel California.

CORRECTION: Canada did not request the meeting in the first place. The snub was over a meeting the Chinese asked for in the first place. Wow. Mr. Dithers would have been perfect as the head honcho of the Chinese communist party.

If there is one thing that unites the nation of Canada, it is our chocalate bars: the frisky kitkat; the carnal caramilk; the champagne of bars - coffee crisp. Among our splendorous selection, Oh Henry stands apart. Afterall, a single Oh! Henry could feed a family of four for a week. Not well, but it could.

The nation of Canada has been in mourning for some days since the recall of Hershey Canada's suite of sweets due to an outbreak of salmonella in their Smith Falls, Ontario plant.

Canada Food Inspection Agency tells us the problem is contained, the salmonellad chocolate is quarantined and the public can resume its copious consumption. But here's the kicker:

There is no legal compulsion to tell the public why there was samonella in the chocolate. And since the problem is contained, Hershey Canada will keep the source of the problem as a corporate secret. Not exactly "how do you get the caramel in a caramilk bar" type secret, is it? And really, is this a wise move for Hershey?

Should they let a guy like me, scared of clouds and lake bottoms, imagine for myself what series of events led to the contamination? I think not.

Right now, I'm picturing a fellow named Harvey. He works in maintenance at the plant and finds underwear cumbersome and optional. He's balding. Lately, he's talked to his doctor about a new drug that will help restore his youthful head of hair. Side effects? Twitching, insominia, hallucinations, anal leakage.

With that in mind, does the Oh! Henry join spinach and Alexander Keith's in the land of products whose mental associations make them inedible?

Don Martin is the closest thing to a lefty column that I pay to read. Somewhere in the middle of the front section of the National Post, I know I'm going to stumble into a cauldron of bitter anti-Harper slights and slurs. While his column today had me barking like a mad dog on my commute into work, it wasn't Don Martin's doing. It was the subject of his column: Bob Rae. Here's the quote that had me ulalating and convulsing next to half-sleepy office workers headed to their daily prisons:

"I don't think Stephen Harper's views have changed very much since he was 21 and frankly that worries me," Rae says, "People say to me, 'You've changed'. I say, 'Yeah and thank goodness because its not a bad thing to see the world differently at 58 than you did when you were 25.'"

Ignore the petty smear directed at our Prime Minister (in fact, come to expect nothing more from Mr. Rae than petty smears and candy-cane promises). What worries me, frankly, is that Bob Rae is surrounded by jaw-dropped people astonished that over 40 years, Bob Rae has changed. Are these a gaggle of Forest Gumps? Couldn't be - even Forest Gump knew that change was an unavoidable force in life. No, the only two who could make such sponge-brained statements are Finnegan and Casey - Canadians who haven't changed a bit since they hit CBC forty years ago. Bob Rae hangs out with puppets - not even metaphorical puppets - real puppets.

But has Bob Rae changed? At 21, he entertained people by streaking. At 58, he entertains people by streaking. At 21, he believed in the power of government to deliver all needs and wants to its citizens. At 58, he believes government can deliver virtually all needs and wants to its citizens. At 21, full of youthful confidence, he believed he would change the face of Canada. At 58, he writes an autobiography called "Canada in the Balance".

That's right - in trying to sum up Bob Rae's life, Bob Rae feels his destiny and Canada's are intimately tied. This suggests to me that we could replace Pluto with Mr. Rae's ego as our 9th planet (though it would be one of the gaseous ones). Memo to Bob: the country will do just fine without you.

Hat Tip to Gol - luminary of Saint John - for spotting the first uncoerced use of Chuckercanuck's neologism: skullmulderry.

Wener Patels - a ferocious, frothing Liberal blogger from Alberta - lent his peculiar insight to some issue of burning importance (e.g., giving Hudson Bay the respect it really deserves and changing its name in the constitution to Hudson's Sea). While making his case, he points out that as our national IQ drops, conservatives will make electoral gains as only stupid people vote for the conservatives. For that effort, a commenter accused him of skullmulderry. It was the correct usage, of course.

"Skullmulderry" is taking its rightful place next to "wazzap" and "coolio" as a critical bit of vocabulary everyone needs to explain the world around them.

At their last convention, Liberals plucked a guy from the United States to come deliver the keynote address. [insert joke that highlights, depending on your viewpoint, the irony or hypocrisy of that]. Almost as if they have no choice [raise eyebrows], another guy from Yankeeland will tubefeed a value system to the conventioneers this time as well - former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean.

When Iggy finished his speech, he remembered he had a Canadian passport, and decided to run for Prime Minister based on the big-fish-small-pond principle. While that experiment doesn't look headed for a happy conclusion, Howard Dean is no Michael Ignatieff. Howard Dean has favourable name recognition with virtually everyone across Canada and has executive and legislative experience as impressive as Frank McKenna's run of New Brunswick.

Immigrating to Canada is a snap and given the skills shortage in Alberta, Howard Dean should be fast-tracked. (They're looking for a premier, aren't they?) By the time he's done all his paper work for citizenship, the PM will have completed his mission and the country will be choosing PM-23. (And Dean doesn't even have to give up his Yankee status to become PM!)

Risks? Well. Like Bill Clinton, Howard Dean looks like a Tory and thinks like a Tory. He is loved by the NRA for his vigorous defense of responsible gun ownership and when faced with the same-sex marriage issue, Howard Dean implemented the Tory approach of civil unions. Then again, there's nothing to say he wouldn't run as a Tory.

When Canadians find out that Bill Clinton is coming to town, we all, to the last man, woman and child, rush to our closets to see if we have any navy blue dresses from the Gap that still fit in order to greet him. After all, you never know, right? Even in Quebec, the peculiar and pretty Arkansas accent (and a great intelligence) leave this nation starry-eyed and sighing to the heavens. When he was at the AIDS conference in Toronto, who among us wasn't sitting in rapt attention as he waxed passionate on the use of condoms. Its like getting a speech on light sabres from Yoda.

It must be difficult for the opposition to swallow, in either official language, the message that Bill Clinton brings: Canada is pursuing a noble and critical cause in Afghanistan and the Prime Minister's position is the right one on the most important international issue in the world. Any withdrawal - even the dignified one that Gerard Kennedy seems pretty keen on - results in the return of depraved lunatics who make Donald Rumsfeld look like a host from the Shopping Network. It creates the operating space for terrorist groups to staff up, plan and prepare for attacks with global reach. And, a withdrawal would signal the end of multilateralism for generations.

The Prime Minister made this last point to the general assembly in the United Nations. Afghanistan is the UN's most important mission. Afghanistan is the definitive measure of the UN's authenticity. If the Afghan mission fails, so does the United Nations. Canada's commitment is the UN's commitment: Afghanistan is the most important mission we've undertaken in decades.

The energetic defense of the Prime Minister's position on Afghanistan by Bill Clinton puts to rest the idea that Stephen Harper is a robotron neokon with great hair in service to W. Whenever Jim Traverse or Bob Rae start going on like that, let's have a giggle: cause they'd be all buckled knees and fluttered hearts if it was coming in the syrupy drawl of Bill Clinton.

I never expected my switch to leftyism would have such devastating consequences. Clearly, I can move mountains with this silly site – or at least, small mounds of glacial till left behind from when man turned Earth into an ice ball. It does explain why the Bloc Quebecois keep asking me for a lunch date.

So, in order to put some ying back into a cosmos that I have over-yanged in the past 48 hours, I hereby declare that I am once more a rapid Tory and Harpermaniac. Long Live Right-Wing Nuttery!

SHOCKING UPDATE:

In less than an hour, Ipsos-Reid reports my switch back to the Tories has done the trick! Phew.

Wow. Day One as a Lefty has been much more of a challenge than I thought it would be. It happened this morning with Barbara Kay’s piece on libraries and bookstores. I joined the left yesterday so that I had the maximum freedom to say anything, stupid or not, without penalty like: Afghans are hopeless, they aren’t capable of living in a civilized manner. I’m free to say what I want and, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean? Yeah. You sure do: people, green space and puppies.

So, I’m partial to freedom of expression for mostly everyone (except, were it up to me, a very small list of people). Mostly because, like any modern person, I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on truth and I must always test my ideas against other ideas and drop untrue ideas in favor of true ideas. Hiding from ideas like I’m Hansel - one scoop away from a hot roasting pan is not even a cup of tea, let alone my cup of tea.

Can we extrapolate that since librarians go 225 to 1, Democrat to Republican, the same ideological bias exists in Canada? My guess is “no” only because some Democrats translate to mildly infected conservatives up here. I’d bet its only 200 to 1. When a yankee publishing house says there isn’t a single conservative in the Canadian publishing industry – maybe there’s few closeted conservatives who, when asked what they did for Pride Day, make a sad face and talk about a plumber who had to come and fix the toilet.

The consequences of a society permitted to read only what’s been featured in Fidel Castro’s Book of the Month Club are depressing, dismal, dire and every other negative d-word that comes to mind. Dank. Deadly. Dreadful.

One silver lining: last year, I shopped a project around the industry, with only humiliation and embarrassment to show for my efforts. I thought maybe it was because I was not a good writer and no one would ever pay me to do it. But it turns out, its not me, its them. My book, “The Funnier Side of Ghengis Khan”, still has a chance.

Today, with heavy heart, Chuckercanuck parts company with conservatives and embraces leftyism in all its political and cultural varieties. I realize most of you will be shocked by this, some will even feel betrayed. I struggled mightily to put this post together in hopes of providing an explanation - defense, if you prefer - that helps you make sense of it. Who knows, maybe at the end of this you'll embrace leftyism as well.

To begin, the fundamental question is one of values. My analysis led me to conclude that my core beliefs line up with leftyism more often than with conservatism. Conservatives cherish greed, toxic waste and the weapons industry. Leftys cherish people, green space and puppies. I love puppies and that clinched it for me, although I do enjoy cuddling with blueprints for the next nasty missile system.

More importantly, leftyism emancipates you into the land of reckless irresponsibility. You can say anything you want - people know your saying it for a good cause. It doesn't count. If anything, it only proves your passion for the cause. Deb Grey is a side of bacon and Rona Ambrose is a barbie doll who can't compute the "sophisticated" global warming science. All fine, perfect - commendable - for the cause.

So, newly minted as a lefty, free to say whatever stumbles out of my mouth in the name of people, green spaces and puppies. For instance,

1. Italian Canadians are great people, but as Prime Minister? I don't think so.

2. The best thing to do with rapists, is to strap them to a slab of ice and once crying with frosty pain, castrate them.

3. Quebec is a nation and maybe we should offer grants to anglos to move out of Quebec to help strengthen the french fact. That would make the politics of all this much simpler.

All these solemn declarations of mine are neuteured before they hit your ears because I'm a lefty and whatever vaguely off-putting thing I say, you know I meant well.

Yesterday, Chuckercanuck did some activism in support of his new International Court for Frauds against Humanity. Turns out, this little peach of progressivism already has a working model: the Liberal Party Permanent Appeal Committee. That's the place to go if you're a Liberal and you got a beef. Well, Iggy's beef with Bob Rae was side-of-cow big and he took Bob Rae to court - the Liberal's court - charging him with delegate fraud in B.C.[insert Quebecker brow-wipe].

Stephane Dion, Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden followed Iggy's lead, offering support but shying away from the complicated decisions. The others - if memory serves there's about fifteen more candidates of - declined to participate. (This includes Joe Volpe, notably). The court ruled "Judge Judy" style: throwing out the pimp plaintiff for too much sussin' attitude and no case, vindicating the girlfriend defenedent who we all know can't say "no" to sweet-talking homies. Iggy gets slapped with a $1,000 fine for calling Bob Rae's campaign fraud artists while the trio of leadership hopefuls following Iggy on this face no consequences.

I'm not sure if its the same Liberal Party court or maybe it was the Liberal Party Panel of Immortal Social Justice that recently, mostly, absolved Joe Volpe of his campaign fraud. They struck down a $30,000 penalty some other Liberal Party Institute of Truth & Reconciliation imposed on the eve of the delegate selection weekend. Was it right that Joe Volpe's campaign was killed by a "due process" that today looks a little ridiculous? Or was Joe Volpe right: the Liberal Party has a glass ceiling for Italian Canadians? I had a hard time resisting snickers over that when the accusation was made, but ever since I saw the CBC-HQ in Toronto, I've been shaken by the examplars of progressivism.

For my friends who, in bursts of anger, ripped up their Tory membership cards over the $0 Billion Income Trust decision - well, enjoy yourselves. When not involved in defending yourself from accusations of fraud from outside and within the party, you will be on some Committee for Liberal Salvation & Eternalities where you will be deciding whether a fellow member is guilty of fraud or not.

This morning, thanks to the man who put Chucki jokes on the map, Chuckercanuck realized that when Louise Arbour starts looking around for her next gig, we should offer her a chance to set up a new international court: the ICC, frauds against humanity division. Put it wherever you want (I'd recommend higher ground than the Hague, however). I vote Toronto - the upstarts up the 401 could use some euro-pizzazz.

Like a field of dreams, build it, and we will sue. There are a raft of people guilty of frauds against humanity of varying scales. The mundane nigerian money launderer or internet viagara peddler may form the bulk of global fraudsters - pernicious but petty. But sometimes, the perpetrators are the very same people entrusted with humanity's greatest responsibilities. Like governments and the pseudo government of governments, the UN. Or the swarm of NGOs that orbit these money shaking institutions, pushing a cause to fatten their endowments.


My first case would be Chuckercanuck vs. the Global Warming NGO Industry.

Two weeks ago, Liberal MPs said our PM had just destroyed the planet, but put our destruction on the backburner for the more pressing issue of name-calling Belinda Stronach. Last year, hyperventilating alarmists screamed about Hurricane Katrina and Rita as examples of global warming but went quiet for this hurricane season. And 5 years ago, eyes-bulged hystericists pointed to a hockey-stick graph as the signal proof of man-made global warming, forgetting to tell you, later, that it was a fallacy peddled for a good cause.

I think I have a pretty solid case. Of course, this is all a fantasy and the idea of an international court for frauds against humanity scares the crap out of me especially since it will be staffed by socialist revolutionaries from York University. We won't be going after environmental fraudsters, but a neokon witch-list for trial-free burning.

skullmulderry

- the act of seeking conspiratorial explanations for all events in a way that splits the human race into three groups: the evil, the brain-dead, and you.

I'll be quick, friends. So many of my readers come from the very cream of Canadian life, its almost shocking to see that every once in a while a 'rain man' finds his way here from one of those ridiculous Liberal blogs. But it does happen, and when it does, hurled my way is probably history's most lame insult: neoconservative.

Prick me and do I not bleed? Serve me as much booze as Via Rail has tonight, and do I not grow dizzy and incomprehensible? Of course! And when you use that term, beware: that small chunck of thinking people automatically assume the following:

1) You have an unhealthy knowledge of bus schedules in your municipality.

2) You give your municipal librarian the creeps.

3) You still can't figure out how your level 7 dwarf got creamed by the evil orcs in your last session of D&D.

4) The makers of Yatzee consider you their target market.

5) Your thighs create a swooshing sound with every stride you make.

6) Half the characters from "The Office" are based on you.

7) Your relatives despair when it occurs to them you are an unavoidable part of the holiday season.

8) The only girls who want to date you are overseas and keen to "marry".

9) At least three times a day, you use the term "reagonomics"; everytime you do, you raise your eyebrows.

10) When a mauve Pontiac Sunfire whips by you, your jaw drops and you think "Hot. Rod."

Yes, I spin you right round baby, round, round, like a record baby, round round round round, but if you want to be taken seriously, stop telling us how dizzy I make you and start giving us some substance to your quibbles.

Like all good Canadians outside the 905 area code, I hate Toronto. The problem with that antipathy is that whenever I am forced to visit Toronto, I realize that its quite a fine city - beautiful, dynamic, a fantatic body of water to enjoy. Today, I was in Toronto and had the pleasure of being down on Front street where the CBC national headquarters has been built with the architectural flair of a 6 year old's lego concoction.

Looking up at the imposing tribute to left-wing imperialism, I see that they have plastered the entrance with pictures of the big stars of CBC, kind of like the posters at the Bell Centre of Habs stars in Montreal. So who are the CBC big guns?

Well, Peter Mansbridge, Rick Mercer, Some Local Yokel from Toronto and George Stombopolous.

That's right - in 2006, Y2K long a memory and partying like its 1999 way out of fashion, the CBC does not have a single prominent woman working for the network. The women, even the lovely Wendy Mesley or the once-amusing Luba Goy, are but second fiddles to the all male extravaganza that is supposedly the face of Canada.

If this were the Taliban Broacasting Corporation, then I could understand the situation - except Peter would have to grow a very heavy beard, like he did when he rushed back from the Muskokas to cover the Ontario blackout. But this is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and in this nation, we aren't usually so quick to relegate the women to the basement.

It has never been named and, if you are a federal Liberal or separatist, it does not exist. But lurking in the western corner of the province of Quebec, buried deep in the folds of the Quebec nation, sits an invisible nation. Since no one has bothered to identify or name it, allow me: Chuckistan.

Unique in the world, this tiny, vibrant patch of oh, say, 0.5 million people speak a common language: english. But they speak english a little funny - they don't go to corner stores, for example, they go to deps. They don't order toppings on their pizza, no, in Chuckistan pizzas come one way: all-dressed. Want something different? Order an all-dressed, minus what you don't want, extra what you do want. They drive along the T-Can, skip over Tim's for Van Houttes and never, ever turn right on a red light. They follow Vermont politics as closely as anything else.

Historically, Chuckistan has been content to live in the shadows of louder, gaudier nations surrounding it - Quebec to name one; Toronto to name another. But one day last week, Chuckistan woke up to find out it had been duped, suckered and swindled by the party the purported to be its ultimate champion: the Liberal party who've joined forces with Quebec separatists to deny us to oblivion. The situation is unacceptable and even with heroic efforts by PM Harper, Chuckistanistas must take matters into their own hand. Here are the basic facts about Chuckistan that all Canadians need to know:

Capital: Pierrefonds, Quebec (translation - rock bottom)
Spiritual Leader: that guy from Hamas isn't available anymore, eh? Okay then - William Shatner.
National Song: Suzanne by L. Cohen
Nationa Follow-up Song: I wear my sunglasses at night, C. Hart
National Book: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, M. Richler
National Fruit: The Montreal Melon
National Flower: uhhh, Chukistan resident, Guy Lafleur
National Motto: Sure, tax the shit out of us and pretend we don't exist, for some reason we like it here.

note: if there were such a nation as Chukistan, delineated as the anglo ghetto of Quebec, we would be a province with about NFLD's population, it would have one of the richest per capita tax bases in Canada and Quebec would go into default overnight - friends out west, spare a thought for us - you think you shovel money into Quebec? It ain't nothing like us.