ChuckerCanuck 2.0

Citizens of Canada, I can take this no more. I respect your right to elect whatever government you choose, but I do not have to live with the consequences of that choice. Enjoy your Rhino Party and the risible government that you have selected for yourselves. I am leaving. I am joining JD Salinger, Annie Proulx, John Irving (for half the year) and that Russian guy who wrote about some gulag archipelago in Vermont until the Rhino government is no more.

Before I sign off indefinitely - that's right, no more Chuckercanuckisms until Prime Minister Salmi is nothing more than a portrait hanging on Parliament Hill - let me tell you where we fell into the maple syrup.

To me, it all started last summer, in 2007. I mentioned earlier this week that Rhino appeal began with the revelations that a generation of politics-as-usual led to crumbling infranstructure across Montreal. People realized something had to change.

As with many things in Canada's history, American events didn't help. The busting of Senator Craig in the Minneapolis airport for attempts to engage in man-on-man love in a bathroom stall with a police officer and then pass it off as a simple misunderstanding left the continent feeling as the arresting officer did when he said, "Embarrassing, embarrassing. No wonder why we're going down the tubes."

In Canada, no serious alternate could be found - afterall, the natural governing party was not only led by two Political Science professors promising to play Donald Trump with taxpayer money, but they were embracing - iconifying, if that's a word - the art of hiding one's shit from others. What's scandalous, according to the next generation Liberal, wasn't corrupt action, it's letting people find out about the corrupt action.

But merely a desire for change is not reason enough to change - the change must be accompanied by some noticeable improvement. As the election 2008 results show, of the status-quo parties, the Tories were still the best option. And Chuckercanuck is convinced you'll all realize soon enough they were the right option. In the meantime, its $20 Black Bush for Chuckercanuck and a seat on the sidelines. Goodbye, Canada.

Labels: Chuckercanuck's Last Day in the Age of Rhino

News reports have it that President Bush called Prime Minister Salmi this morning to congratulate him on the victory. I'd bet there was plenty of joking and commiseration what with the rumours that the Liberal party might contest the election results on the grounds that the Rhino party are not "a legitimate political party". Maybe W could lend out James Baker to defend the Rhino case.

While CBC reports everything was hunky-dory and that President Bush underlined the productive, warm relationship between our two countries, Fox News reports that President Bush is worried about the new instability up in Canada and has war-gamed a regime change strategy if it comes to that. Personally, I'll chalk that up to typical Fox News hyperbole until I start seeing US troops massing on our borders.

Other world leaders followed the President's lead with calls to our Prime Minister. Kim Jong-Il monopolized North Korea's only phone but couldn't get through, apparently he was dialing one of the Canadian Idol numbers accidentally. Gordon Brown managed to squeeze in a quick chat but supposedly hung up after Prime Minister Salmi threatened to block shipments of Red Rose into that country.

Labels: Day 3 of the Age of Rhino

Poor Michelle Jean.

If electing the Rhinos to a majority in the house had only caused minor tremors in the financial markets and across the government departments, today's speech from the throne will all but guarantee that Canada will become the only banana republic that needs to import its bananas.

Now, some things I can accept: the idea that every piece of legislation should contain the word "fun" makes good sense to a satire-oriented propagandist like me. Afterall, who wants to get tough on crime with stricter sentencing when you can get tough on crime with fun stricter sentencing? Said another way, wouldn't it be easier to have Canada get on board with the Kyoto protocol if its implementation bill referred to it as the fun Kyoto protocol? I think so.

Others, however, are simply daft. Repealing the law of gravity might please some of the old ladies sunning themselves at Cavendish beach (and of course, oogling men), but its just not going to work. Worse still, slippery slopes may be logically fallacious, but politically popular: if we repeal gravity, then we open the gates to barbarians wanting to repeal every law and theory of science we need to make the world work. Bye bye, evolution. Bye bye, Boyle's law.

Careful what you vote for, Canada, you just might get it.

Labels: The Age of the Rhino continues

What lovely mess this is shaping up to be - James Bow fills in the details better than I would, but let summarise: the market tumbles, the dollar crumbles, the bureaucracy grumbles. Under the circumstances, I can understand the desire on the part of our functionaries to loudly announce the continued functioning of our government after our decision to send them Just-for-Laughs rejects for leaders.

If I were Brian Salmi, I'd be a nervous nelly. Never actually expecting to win a seat anywhere in Canada, the Rhino party now dominates parliament. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Salmi's previous careers included stints as a bike courrier and house painter; honest, necessary work to be sure, but hardly a prep school for running a $200 billion budget. For once, even a rabid Tory like me can thank heavens that our once proud national governing party has stuffed the senate so tight with cronies, we actually have a chance to protect ourselves from the dangerous mix of incomptence and frivolity we have installed in our executive.

Meanwhile, closer to home, just over twelve hours after my hero has left the helm of the Tory party, I have been thrust into the middle of post-Harper Tory politics. This morning, the caucus met to select an interem leader and came to the bizarre choice of James Moore. A fine man, yes. But not my choice. Maxime Bernier has the chops and I suppose the only reason he did not get the nod was that, unlike Moore, Bernier is a serious contender for the leadership race that will start any minute now (if it hadn't started just after the Harper speech).

We'll see what the coming days bring, but I have the sneaking suspicion that once the fubar-fools stop celebrating their political coup, sober Canadians will have wished the Liberal scaremongering about soliders in our streets wasn't just scaremongering.

Labels: Day 1 of the Age of Rhino

In fact, I do feel like Jeff Bridges waking up groggy, in pain and wondering who the murdered woman in my bed is... Prime Minister Salmi - doesn't exactly roll off the toungue. However, the commuter train showed up on schedule this morning, the sidewalks were crowded with anonymous desk-slaves rushing to their cubicles and my office was buzzing with faxes and blackberry beeps when I walked in. Life goes on, like it or not.

Some colleagues know I'm a Harpermaniac and they offered some comfort this morning as I pondered life without the greatest Prime Minister in history. (I cracked open a little Jamieson's for the coffee to give my office the feel of a true Irish wake.) Anyway, I should point out Stephen Harper's concession speech was truly magnificent. Whoever his speech writer is - that man has a long bright future in rhetoric-making.

Labels: Who is Prime Minister Salmi

Labels: Saskboy Made me Do it

9:06 pm. I meant to start this live-blogging thing-a-ma-jig earlier, but admitedly, I was busy lifting my jaw from the floor and trying to fit it back to its original position. Since this blog's inception, I have worked so hard to avoid saying anything to sweepingly insulting, but I have to say it:

Canadians, are you frikkin' out of your skulls?

Granted, this is just the Atlantic results so far. No surprise that Stephane Dion's syrupy pandering to that region earned some seats. But the Rhinos? The Rhinos? Is it a collective bad joke? Let's say this holds until all the polls in each of those 10 ridings are counted --- 10 Rhino MPs? You know, Canada, that works out to like $1.4 million a year in funding the Rhino party? Clearly, I'm not alone in thinking these election results are crazy.

One good thing though, Garth Turner will finally have a caucus he can call home.

9:30 pm. Okay. The insanity train continues. With the Tories now ahead of the Liberals, I'm feeling a modicum of relief. But being 2nd to the Rhinos! 50 seats people - 50 seats. I feel like Charlton Heston racing through the streets: "The Rhino Party is peeeeople! It's peoplllleeee!" (I realize the Rhino party is people so isn't quite as scary as soylent green.)

Two bits have me happy though. Peter Mansbridge looks befuddled and I swear there's sweat beading on the crown of his head. Oh, better yet: Iggy's gone! Now free from that annoying MP crap, he can get on with the real work of bringing Israel to the war crimes court.

9:37 pm. Calgary Grit worries about the Rhino platform. Sure, there's plenty of junk in it. My only concern involves the promise to replace tap water with Cabernet Sauvignon. I mean, seriously: aren't you tired of wine with vanilla accents? Jesus! Make it Shiraz, I say.

9:41 pm. Saskboy weighs in and he seems positively thrilled by the Rhino romp. I suppose all fringe parties must stick together (ha! ha!). Give him credit, though, the Greens have finally won a seat.

9:54 pm. Duceppe meets his Dieppe. Layton's off to Satan. But we're stuck with another Trudeau. I wonder how impressed the Rhinos will be with the boy's pirouettes. Looking at the results, the Tories have a chance to pull this out of the fire. I've got Clapton's "Alberta, Alberta" running through my head as we speak.

9:56 pm. Funny - in the tragic, makes you weep for humanity kind of way - comment over at James Bow's blog: "I would normally vote in a federal election, but man, I didn’t even get the chance this time around… and I actually have read a Canadian newspaper and listened to the CBC news within the last 48 hours."

That attitude, my friends, is why the Rhinos are out front with no signs of slowing down!

10:00 pm. Peter Mansbridge has just called it for the Rhinos. Minority territory for now. (He raised his eyebrows when he said for now as if he's bloody Svengali). Anyway, I'm not watching the rest of this bloodbath. I'm turning to Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares.

11:05 pm. Its official. Canada - True, North, Strong and Free to Shoot itself in the foot - has elected a Rhino majority. I will be wearing black for the next 6 months and listening exclusively to the Doors (starting with "The End"). The implications, nationally and internationally, are staggering. Already the American networks have cut away from their regular programming to crow about the crazies in Canukistan and their polka-dot revolution. Afterall, we will soon witness the first NATO meeting to begin with the whimper of a whoopee cushion. I'm heading to bed before I have to listen to Harper's speech. If I did that, I would cry.

Labels: Election 2008 - already a shocker

Last spring, the Liberal party embarked on a program of ceding ridings to the Green party. At first, it was supposed to be a high-minded, principles-based decision to make sure global warming was the top-of-mind for the electorate (a difficult trick, given the cool summer we've had and the fact that the 4 warmest years on record are still from the 1930s).

But now, given this. I suppose its okay - since we are talking about the separatist heartland of Lac-St-Jean. Any federalist is better than a separatist any day. Still, the desperation smells worse than Anthony Michael Hall in Sixteen Candles.

More important than Liberal follies, the art of crab cakes:

Into a bowl mix:

Crab meat
Minced yellow pepper
Minced artichoke
Chopped green onion
Panko bread crumbs (only slightly less than crab meat)
Two eggs beaten
Salt & pepper (that's right, season only with these, onion and artichoke do the flavoring)

Make 1/2 cup crab cakes. Drop into fry pan to brown them on two sides then bake off.

Serve with a dijon sauce of dijon, honey (small amount), worcesteshire, sour cream.

Labels: saturday night

Okay, okay. Quickly then. I just got back from a last ditch effort with my local Tory candidate. Obviously, she has no chance of winning in this zombified Liberal riding. It always gives me chuckles because we sometimes knock on hard-core Grit doors where they say stuff like, "you anti-gay hate-mongers!" My candidate smiles through it and tries to remind them that our Liberal MP voted down same-sex marriage and that she was on record at the time of the vote as being in support.

But all that seems like eons ago - now that everybody clamours to get a ticket to the Brison wedding and all.

Anyway, the last door we hit was an odd one. The guy answered in a cut-off tanktop and sweat shorts with a giant Wildcat beer in his hands. When my candidate said she was running as a Tory, the guy laughed. And I quote him now:

"Tories, Liberals and the other jerks ain't worth the scratch on my ass." (I'm not kidding, he actually said that.) "I read all your platforms and you know what? There's more farce in them books then the Rhino party platform. Tomorrow, I'm voting Rhino."

Ouch. I'm going to bed with all fingers crossed. Tory majority tomorrow. Tory majority tomorrow.

(Meanwhile, the Greens - a real democracy movement there - are already contemplating suing Canada for not giving them their soapbox....)

Labels: Vote Tory

Allow me to put the satire aside for a second and talk about this election campaign. It has been a gob-smacking affair on a number of fronts.

One. While this is as unpleasant for me as eating liver stuffed with brussel sprouts, I must concede that Stephane Dion has run an intelligent campaign. Not so much intelligent from the strategy perspective - that hissy fit in the final minutes of the english debate certainly confirmed voters' fears that he hadn't the chops to run a country. But aside from that, he presented reasonable - might I even say Conservative - policies and debated Stephen Harper as if he understood how smart a man our Prime Minister is. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was sure-footed, even-tempered and confident for the entire 36 day run.

Two. The sideshow of Elizabeth May doing her best to play North Korea to Jack Layton's South Korea might have given us all good belly laughs, but sadly for their parties, signalled to the country that if alternatives were sought from our two big parties, neither of these groups could do it. You don't see this kind of animus and venom unless you're at a curling club's annual general meeting. Petty, petty. And like Mr. Petty, they're both free falling.

Three. The last polls continue to show an unprecendented number of undecided voters. This isn't just people waffling between right-leaning Gritss and left-leaning Tories, these people are treating "not decided" as if it meant "none of the above". As a loyal Harpermaniac, its baffling. For a Prime Minister, we have the perfect combination of Muhammed Ali, Albert Einstein and Charlemagne. Who wouldn't want to keep that good thing going? But that's just me. Afterall, Taco Bell does well and I can't stand Taco Bell.

Anyway, if I were to put my analyst hat on and eschew propaganda for a second, I would say the tipping point - the moment when so much of Canada swung into the "none of the above" column - came last summer when yet another chunk of Montreal infrastructure came tumbling down. Like a virus, every day, more people began to question the political culture of this nation. A culture which, for decades, used infrastructure to create jobs without regard for public safety. A bureaucracy that worried more about its pension and holidays than the sacred trust given to them by tax payers. A political establishment so fixed on announceables, it ignored deliverables.

Of course, our Prime Minister is the antedote to the mess the past generation created. But even the great Stephen Harper should pay attention to the spreading anger in this country over how our entire public sphere operates.

For now, I'm still betting that the undecides will break the Tories' way and by midnight tomorrow, we'll be looking at a Tory majority. That goal achieved, this blog can finally retire after a political marathon that began just weeks before the 2006 campaign.

Update: My analysis of the facts on the ground seem to run in line with James Bow - again, I'm loath to agree with a Liberal, but.....

Labels: I can't decide what this label should be - ha ha

Truth is stranger than fiction.

The conspiracy theorists had it right. Chuckercanuck had it wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Surete de Quebec indeed planted fake protestors amongst the gathering of kumbayaers at Montebello in hopes of provoking violence.

Okay, okay - the Surete say they weren't trying to trigger violence. And, I suppose that's partly believeable - in the sense that to wish to provoke violence is, pardon my bill 101 french, fucking lunacy. Also, its semi-acceptable to think they planted protestors in order to obtain information on people amongst the crowd who indeed wanted violence - the way they might send Eddie Murphy out to pretend he was a drug lord in order to catch the real drug lords.

I am mystified by this. What could possibly be gained from the ploy? Even the pretense of catching the real rotten apples in the crowd seems, pardon my bill 101 french again, fucking retarded. They would catch themselves up on their own accord - who the hell needs to instigate the instigators?

This story will develop, of course, but for the time being, Quebec's police force looks as foolish as the unwashed who show up at these conferences armed with rocks and peace signs.

Labels: Bury this one in my archives

For my money, the above is the single best quote Jean Chretien ever made. While I did not and do not agree with the position taken on Iraq, I admired the simple yet unavoidable logic of his statement.

Let's now apply this to the second great Montebello conspiracy - the one about the police infiltrating the protest industry in an attempt to turn the protestors into the infected zombies of 28 days later.

There are two main pieces of evidence.

The first are the boots - Vibram boots that can be purchased, well, basically everywhere - from Browning to Cabela's.

The second comes from the boss man of CUPE (a union of which I was a member for 4 months in Tumbler Ridge, BC). Here's his damning evidence:

"I looked him in his eye and said 'You're a cop aren't you?' and his eyes just glazed right up," Coles tells a crowd in the video."

Glazed eyes on a protestor? You don't need to be judge Judy to figure this guy is guilty. Glazed eyes? I mean, nothing I know could produce glazed eyes. And if I could name something that produces glazed eyes, it certainly wouldn't be anything associated with the protest industry --- maybe in the 60s, but not now. Never. No way. Glazed eyes? Impossible! Next, they'll tell me these obvious infiltrators had a bad case of the munchies.

Labels: Uh-huh

It warms my heart to see a new conspiracy sprout up hourly over the Montebello summit. Of the 6 protestors who showed up to liberate the the continent from three elected leaders, apparently 4 of them were police infiltrators. Their purpose - to trigger a violent protest and discredit the protest industry. Impossible? I suppose not. But then again, it rests on the massive supposition that the protest industry needs help discrediting itself.

However, I must confess my jealousy that lefties and Liberals see conspiracies everywhere the way Warren Buffett can spot a money maker. What rods or cones am I missing that make me blind to the conspiracies around me? The answer, friends, came thanks to Ebay where a gentlemen from Renfrew, Ontario is selling conspiracy glasses to help the conspiracy-impaired, like me, see the nefarious networks operating all around me. The glasses look suspiciously like 3-D glasses with a red lens and blue lens in a cardboard frame. But trust me, they work.

Just this afternoon, as I strolled the streets, I saw for the first time that the blue and white buses in Montreal are designed to lull us into complacency for an impending invasion by Greece - all financed by Greek shipping magnates operating out of Canada Steamship Lines. Meanwhile, I passed the red Tercel of a parking metre attendant who was speaking into his cell phone. I could swear he was speaking mandarin. Red. Mandarin. It didn't take high-tech glasses to see what's going on there. But maybe the most terrifying thing I saw in the sharp blue and red hues of my conspiracy glasses: American tourists. Drinking bottled water. From Canada. I'm not making this up.

Labels: See and they said the I'm not making this up punchline was dead

Fortunately for readers of Chuckercanuck, I am well fed on a diet of highly sensitive information. Case in point, a mole in Montebello has sent me video of the first trilateral meeting between Prime Minister Harper, President Calderon and Balzebub Bush. Stephane Dion and the 20 year old, blue & mat haired grungemeisters were totally right to be afraid......

(Harper and Calderon are waiting in nervous silence until a door swings open and in marches Bush.)

Bush: Caldie, Harper - report. I've got a performance review with the Halliburton board in thirty minutes and if I don't show them some progress, its over for the three of us. Capiche, amigos?

(Harper and Calderon stare at each other nervously, wondering who will have the guts to speak first.)

Bush: Hey, I didn't say 30 Mexican minutes. I didn't even say 30 tundra-sized Canadian minutes. I got 30 American minutes. Stevo, you first.

Harper (jittery): Ah, well, ah. My scientists are working on a sovereignty ray. The idea is you put it up in space, charge it, aim it at a country and zap! They instantly lose sovereignty. The project lead, Myron Thompson, assures me that we are 3 months away from trying it on Canada. Three months, Mr. President, and Canada will lose its sovereignty to the United States of America!!!

Bush: Three months? Keep your eyes off the ice and watch the game, Steve-O. This sovereing - this sovereitny - this - oh dammit! This country-busting laser is good and all, but I don't want nobody testing it on Canada until after the 2008 elections. You hand Canada to us now and it'd be like California just got an ugly, Al-Gore-voting twin in the union.

Harper: Uhhh, uhhh, smart thinking, Mr. President. I'll make a note of that and hold off on the trial run for another 16 months.

Bush: Dang straight, you will. How about you Caldie?

Calderon: Mr. President, the tunnel has been a smashing success. Every day, 10,000 Mexicans travel without worries from the Juarez tunnel to steal work from unionized construction workers across the United States. The tunnel now connects to the Pittsburgh subway system which is being expanded principally through our illegal aliens. I can forsee a day when every job in America is filled by a Mexican with no legal right to work!

Bush: Slow down, Kemosalsa. No one said take all the jobs, only the high-wage, high-pension union jobs that are crippling the country. You keep your Sanchez and Morales off Wall Street and out of Silicon valley - unless they're landscaping. Got that clear?

Calderon: Yes, Mr. President! Very wise, Mr. President.

(after an awkward silence of President Bush staring down the other two, Prime Minister Harper finally speaks.)

Harper: Mr. President, uhhh, sir, while I accept the wisdom of your every whim and utterance, may I suggest one thing?

Bush: Shoot. And I mean that literally cause if what you got to say don't make any sense, I certainly will.

Harper: I think it would be appropriate for you to give a little. You know, butter up Canadians so they won't get too uppity when we zap them with our sovereignty ray.

Bush: Hmm. That's a possom of a pickle of a problem. Tell you what. You know that whole passport thingy? How's about I make the new deadline end of February, 2008.

(Harper explodes with joy then turns to weeping.)

Harper: Thank you, Mr. President. You won't regret this Mr. President.

Bush: Alright, alright. Stop with the girly stuff. You're worse than Putin after three of his dang crantinis.

Labels: Thank God - we have Stephane Dion to save us

In the zombie genre, one of the first puzzles a moviemaker must answer is how to trigger the zombie outbreak. (The next question is zombie behaviour, but that's out of scope for today's conversation). In Romero's classic series ("Night, Dawn & Day of the Dead"), no explanation is given except a quasi-mythic answer about hell being full.

The the thing about the trigger is that it is only that - all zombie movies require that zombism propagates through the human species as an apocolyptic rabies-like contagion. Its a self-fueling mechanism after its first bang. In the recent Days Later series (28 & 28 weeks), it was a genetically modified "rage" virus - contained within the bowels of a university, unleashed by animal rights protestors. Whatever the trigger, virus or soul capacity in hell, once your a zombie you bite and scratch your way to more zombies.

This story, now three months long, has inspired me for Montreal Zombie Invasion. As you can see, its a bizarre labour grievance that this city is famous for (one year its Ben's smoked meat, the next years its the graveyards). The terrible omission in the reporting is that it gives us no idea of how much in $ the union wants vs. management. I think we bill-paying stake holders should have a right to decide where fair lies.

Anyway, the trigger for my Montreal Zombie Invasion movie will be a strike of cemetary workers. This strike spreads across the island and pretty soon the coolers of the city are corpse motels waiting for the strike to end and the union get back to digging graves and keeping the crematorium stoked. The strike last many, many weeks to the point where back to work legislation is in the works. But its too late, for the angry workers, management, especially for the relatives of recently deceased hoping when the thing settles their won't be coffin-shipping errors; for all this anger, the angriest people are the recently dead themselves, unable to receive the dignified burial they deserve after a life of hard struggle and short breaks. The dead rise as the ultimate protest to the strike and, without really meaning to, unleash an catastrophe on the continent.

Meanwhile, outside movieland and in real-world Montreal, the gap between demands and achievability means the future price for burying a loved one is set to fly higher than an eagle with grieving relatives as the cash-wind beneath those wings.

Labels: From my new book - Zombie Movie Basics

For all of you who are considering taking some adult education in the Montreal area this coming fall, I am pleased to highlight some of the classes on offer by the Commission Scolaire de Montreal. I have taken the liberty of translating the class briefings into english.

Poetry Appreciation
Instructor: K. Homolka
Learn about the evolution of poetry in the english language from the 17th century to the present day. Understand the basic elements of poetry: metre, scansion, lexicon. Analyze classics of major periods.

Microsoft Office Suite
Instructor: C. Olson
This 13 week course will bring a person with little to no computer skills to an intermediate level in all major Microsoft applications with special emphasis on excel.

Introduction to Anthropology
Instructor: D. Berkowitz
Study the history of the field of anthropology, the major concepts and some famous case studies.

World Religions
Instructor: A. Rassam
A survey of the major religions. The basic tenets and structures of faith reviewed.

Introduction to U.S. Politics
Instructor: J. Hinkley Jr.
The fundamental mechanisms of American democracy and government. The history of political parties and a brief review of the legacies of each US President.

Labels: Just trying to get a discussion going

$10,000 fines for speeding?

I can see more blockbuster "tough on crime" announcements from the Ontario's Liberal government:

1. Litterbug? Get your hands chopped off.

2. Jay-Walker? Have your spinal cord cracked permanently.

3. Fail to top off fuel in a rental car because the indicator still says - mostly - full? $2,000,000 fine and 6 months community service. [editor's note: actually, this one is a pretty good idea. Nothing pisses me off more than being 5 minutes out of a car rental joint and the tanks already at 3/4.]

4. Wearing slack pants and showing off your underwear? Spend 5 months in the McGinty patented "wedge-o-nator" - all the pain of a wedgie delivered discreetly through micro-fibre technology. [editor's note: thanks to the good folks on the world's first all-news radio station in Pittsburgh, I learned yesterday that the fashion for wearing drooping pants comes from prison "queens" who roamed the prison yard advertising their wares for their sex-starved fellow inmates. Not so tough sounding, is it?]

5. Commit a gun crime? Well, c'mon, actually, er, oh brother! Look at the root causes that make these poor lost souls do what they do. Getting tough is not the answer. Getting smart is.

Labels: The real tag for this post would be cheap gimmick post to keep traffic up

Due to the huge demand from this wide and varied readership, Chuckercanuck is proud to announce the launch of a new range of toys for children and discerning adult collectors (who plan to attend an Antiques Roadshow episode three or four decades from now). It is a range of toys that celebrate the wholesome pleasure of playing make-believe with your favorite family of imaginary characters: Chuckercanuck & Company. All action figures are made with the highest quality plastics and feature working joints, twisting waists and accurate reproductions of the real-life people that are these lovable characters.

Caution: plastics are not actually high quality. Do not put in eyes or mouth nor leave in contact with skin for periods longer than 7 minutes. Studies have shown such contact could lead to dizziness, fainting, dimensia and death.

The initial launch will include five of your favorite Chuckercanuck characters.

Chuckercanuck ($11.99 plus taxes)
This barrel-chested adonis dressed in Brooks Brothers casuals can be integrated into almost any action figure playset. Have him crush Darth Vader or date Barbie; explain how the world works to Dora or simply enjoy a picnic with Shrek on a Sunday afternoon. Caution: Chuckercanuck hands have been known to fall off and become a serious chokeing hazard. Children under 4 years old should not be permitted to play with the action figure without careful adult supervision.

Springer ($8.99 plus taxes)
Adorned in a hunter's camouflage and equipped with his unregistered rifle, this life lover will bring hours of joy to your children as they explore the wilds of your backyard. Have him hunt down beetles or simply climb a rock and wail against the tyranny of socialized health care. Caution: Springer dolls have been known to explode when exposed to sunlight and risk becoming a serious maiming hazard. Supervized play should only occur under cloudy conditions.

Rainbow ($8.99 plus taxes)
This little tyke looks dressed for bed time except for the butcher knife and ninja stars permanently fixed to her grip. The product of Chuckercanuck's careless, conservative parenting, Rainbow's permanent scowl will make even the whiniest child laugh with delight and sympathy. Caution: Knife and ninja stars are realistically sharpened and have caused serious lacerations that resulted in extended hospitalization. Exercise extreme caution when handling.

Joe Green ($3.47 plus taxes)
Looking remarkably like Kevin Spacey in the final scenes of Seven, Joe Green is a necessary ingredient to every child's make-believing. Have him hatch plans of insane evil only to see them come apart through deluded miscalculations and inhuman hubris. Caution: Joe Green dolls are a lead-mercury alloy. Exposure will lead to slow-death if a quick death does not come.

Labels: And Calgary Grit doesn't even have a t-shirt

Odd-bird Stephane Dion pre-reacted to the pending cabinet shuffle today saying he doesn’t expect it to change the Prime Minister’s ‘aloof’ style.

Hmmm… I can picture a parallel universe (a sad one at that) in which a Prime Minister Dion is set to announce a new cabinet and the first thing he says is:

“You know how I am impatient with criticism, draped in dogma and generally surly? Well, my new cabinet will make me a boisterous, beer-loving, back-slapper with a passion for lacrosse.”

An opposition leader whose thoughts on a cabinet shuffle orbit around potential personality changes of the Prime Minister seems a fairly clueless fellow about how government works. Cabinets are not expensive forms of percodan, Mr. Dion. They run governments. Of course, it does help illuminate why the minister in charge of Canada’s profile in Quebec had no idea what his government was doing to raise that profile in Quebec…

On more substantive issues, Mr. Dion labels the Harper government as “far right”. Now, everything is relative – right? So, if from his vantage point he calls the Harper government “far right” – just where do you think he’s standing? Somewhere between Chairman Mao and Trotsky. The last federal budget could be described in a hundred ways – far right would not be one of them.

Mr. Dion says the Harper government is ignoring Canadian’s priorities – like poverty. Now, I could make my Liberal friends sore with me and remind them that they ignored every promise they made to combat child poverty they ever made. But instead, I’d just point out that the employment rate hasn’t been as strong today for decades. (PS, Liberal friends, 1 decade = 10 years). If ignoring the issue is what it takes to make headway on the issue then I say: Ignore Away, Mr. Harper!

Labels: Pre-reacting since 1974

Our friend Red Tory has posted a video which he describes as "humorous". He warns conservatives like me that we probably won't get the joke as we are too tight assed and prudish to appreciate the genius satire at work in the video. I couldn't resist, I gave it a viewing.

He was entirely correct: this conservative did not find it on par with Voltaire. The subject matter is as valid as it is worn: the immense scandal of widespread child molestation at the hands of Catholic priests and the attempts to cover it up by the church. As an on-again, off-again catholic, I can attest that this is the blackest mark against the church in its history. It is fair game.

But if Red Tory feels this epitomizes clever, liberal (read: secularist) comedy - well, stay away from his movie picks. It is vulgar, crude and moronic. It is the stuff that Beavis and Butthead guffaw over ("huh-huh, huh-huh, he said penis"). The punch line - the climax of hilarity - comes when a priest confides that after each raping of a little boy, the priest will defecate and the fecal material is used to make Bibles. [I will pause here to let you catch your breath, wipe your tears and ice the knee from all the slapping.]

The great Thatcher once said that a bird can't fly without a right wing and left wing. I worry deeply over the state of Canada's left since it has become everything it spent the last decade laughing at - incapable of rising above the cartoon of itself.

Labels: You tell me if it was funny

By now, everybody in Canada knows there will be a cabinet shuffle in the near future - perhaps as early as tomorrow. As a service to my readers, I have mined my sources and squeezed my contacts for any scrap of intelligence I wring from them. The results are pretty startling and I share them with you now:

1. No Liberals in Cabinet

Despite intense lobbying on the part of 1/3 of the Liberal caucus to jump ship and free themselves of Stephane Dion, none will be brought into cabinet. Instead, they will be forced to sit in their caucus and cringe everytime their leader gets up to say something.

2. The Minister of Defense will be a Quebecker

Likely Maxime Bernier, a francophone in this post will achieve two things. One, it will continue the good work Tories have done to make the military more top of mind in Quebec. Two, it will be a fun contrast against the Liberal defense critic. Bernier - a tall, dynamic, marathon-running, achievement-oriented fellow. Denis Corderre - uhhhhh, let's just say there's no marathon in his past, present or future - the man puts the 'pout' in 'poutine'.

3. The Arts "Community" are the new Gitmo

Even though just months ago, Stephane Dion assured us the end of the biosphere was nigh, the new hot topic won't be our complete destruction but will be the arts community. Since Bev Oda won't be budged, "artists" (I put in quotes to because it won't be actually artists rather a bunch of lazy-assed arts lobbyists) will become evermore vocal in the discriminatory, harsh, undemocratic way they feel they are treated in the country. Expect hundreds of speeches from artists telling us they are many times more important to Canada than we are. It will be the most important Liberal Party issue.

4. Jim Prentice gets to kick a bigger can

Just that.

Labels: Helping Canada one mindless speculation at a time

In 2000, Rick Mercer snuck up to W and snookered him with a question about Prime Minister Jean Poutine. W smiled warmly and said he looked forward to working with Prime Minister Poutine. Canadians laughed themselves into a riot - "what a silly man, doesn't know our Prime Minister's name!" (Instead of the proper response, which is: "wow, Jean Chretien has made us so insignificant - no one bothers to know who the hell we are!") We chalked up W's error to the fact that he was a stupid Texan too busy remembering who begat who in the Old Testament. No one mentioned that W has no idea who this pissant reporter was and he took the question at face value and responded with kindness and respect.

Now, in 2008, Barak Obama without prompting says he will call the President of Canada to renegotiate our free-trade agreement if he's elected President. After that, he plans to chide the Pope of Norway, ignore the Sultan of South Africa and open negotiations with the Grand Wazier of Mars. Its all part of his muscular foreign policy - which includes nuking Pakistan and joining Chavez and Castro for lattes at Havana's first Starbucks. Will progressive Canada greet Barak Obama's ignorance with the same derisive sneering as they did Ws? I doubt it. Even though, whereas W didn't know who the players of the Canadian political game are, Barak doesn't even know the game itself. Even though, W's goof was made in a spirit of goodwill, Barak's embarassment comes with it the promise of hurting Canada's economy in order to curry favour with the Teamsters.

Labels: This Site Endorses Mit Romney for President

One of the most powerful criticisms levelled at the Tory government from our Gritty friends - henceforth the Chilean Sea Bass Lobby - is that at some point, the Tories can't refer to themselves as Canada's New Government anymore.

Of course, since they began levelling the critique about 3 weeks into this government's term, it came across as a flimsy attack foretelling a desparate future - like the no-name wrestler who back-slaps Andre the Giant in the early minutes of a cage-match.

But, as the Prime Minister plans out a cabinet shuffle and the possibility of a Throne Speech, Chuckercanuck now agrees: this is not a new government.

What it is, instead, is one of the most stable minority governments in the history of Canada - unprecendented since the stability does not depend on any formal propping agreement from an opposition party; remarkable since there is no imminent or even mid-term threat of this government falling. Parliament will continue to show confidence in the government through to 2009 - a historic achievement by any standard.

Those who swim in our nation's vast pools of pettiness, eagre to remove any credit to the Prime Minister for this jaw-dropping accomplishment will argue that the its not so much Stephen Harper's strengths that create this condition but the near-fatal weakness of the other party leaders: neither the pimp, gimp or wimp can muster any material opposition to the Tories. But, no matter what permutation of leader or strategy any opposition would attempt, they would be no better off than today. It would be interesting if any dear reader could articulate any, but I am confident none will come.

What once was Canada's New Government is simply, Canada's Government. And that's something people are not only getting used to, but comfortable with.

Labels: Pax Harpernia Rolls Along

Small-minded imbeciles living in suburbs and shopping at Wal-Mart.

That is how the great separatist intelligentsia describes ordinairy Quebeckers these days.

When Quebeckers unblinkingly embraced separatist dogma, we were proud individualists set to carve out a poutine paradise from North America. Now that Quebeckers have essentially turned their backs on such antiquated fantasy-making, we are sheep.

And these fine fellows, like Canada-taxpayer subsidized filmaker Pierre Falardeau, who shit upon regular folk enjoying their backyards and working for the weekend ask, "Where are the intellectuals? Where are the artists? Where are the thinkers, the ones who are meant to make us reflect"

Well, I have two answers for you left-bank wannabes:

Answer 1. You are the intellectuals and artists. You make us reflect. And upon reflection, we find you shallow, roiling with useless anger, trapped in extreme vanity, indifferent to the basic needs of a society, much too cozy at the bosom of the tax-payer teet. Ordinairy Quebeckers haven't suddenly turned stupid after bathing in radio waves - you have failed in your self-annointed mission. Your ideas are boring, rusty, past due, unchallenged, creaky, delusional, sexless and laughable.

Answer 2. Actually, separ-artistes, it is rather foolish that you should think that while you would rebel against your parents staleness, your children would march like an army of zombies off the cliff your thinking brought us to. Conservatism, as Chuckercanuck has explained patiently to you bright lights, is the new cool in Quebec. Marx is out. Rand is in. Quebec Independence is out. Quebekers' Independence is in.

I cannot help but remark that the woeful state of separtism and the pathetic insults hurled by its greatest defenders are a result of one man's action and vision for the nation. So, thank you Stephen Harper for doing what few could imagine doing and many lined up to oppose. From fiscal imbalance to the United Canada resolution, the Prime Minister has given Canada the promise of real, lasting confederal stability.

Labels: Actuellement - j'aime un maitre de Calgary

Dear Readers,


I am proud to announce that Chuckercanuck is the first blog in Canada to officially join CUBE (pronounced Cubee), the Canadian Union of Blogging Eggheads. For quite some time now, I have felt oppressed and abused by you; powerless as a single pyjama pundit working to satisfy your endless apetite for political prognostication at less-than-slave wages. But, thanks to the print shop at Office Depot, I carry in my pocket proof positive that we bloggers are finally fighting for justice and equality in this fair nation!


This does mean, abiding by the new CUBE contract, that rules governing this blog to protect its author are now in effect:



1 - While the 2007 price to read Chuckercanuck will not change, it will be increased by 7.3% for each of the next four years.


2 - I am entitled to have three people stand around the computer drinking coffee and smoking while I type up my posts.


3 - Steel toe boots and hard hats are required in the computer room.


4 - Commenters must begin every comment with, "your magnificence."


5 - Gross negligence and / or incomptence can only result in a written warning to be filed in my employee folder for reference at a future date.


6 - For the extremely low price of $43.76 per month, I am represented by Syd Ryan. As a result, I am now officially calling for a boycott of Israel.

Labels: If he wasn't encased in cement - Jimmy Hoffa would be rolling in his grave

Labels: Over to you Calgary Grit

The New York Times Magazine has a fine article by the deputy leader of the opposition which contains a few gems that you should all file in your "quotoble Ignatieff" folder:

"the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true"

Professor Dion, he's talking about you!

"As a former denizen of Harvard, I’ve had to learn that a sense of reality doesn’t always flourish in elite institutions"

And who tends these gardens - who controls whether reality or fantasy flourish in these institutions? Ahh, Iggy, we hardly knew ya.

"He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound."

In context, Iggy is taking a very personal jab at GWB. But then again, the son of Russian princes, Iggy is obviously talking about himself!

"The political realm is a world of lunatic literalism"

This actually, is very true. Like when Liberals say daycare is about "all the children of Canada".

"Having taught political science myself, I have to say the discipline promises more than it can deliver."

Not the discipline, the practicers of said discipline, Iggy.

"But it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included"

There we have it - unfit for anything but parliamentary gopher!

Labels: When direct quotes are the best satire - the end is nigh

Calgary Grit is coordinating a "Best Premier" contest, following on wildly successful contests in previous doldrum summers. For this contest, he wants bloggers from each province to host the contest to name a best premier in each province. After searching high and low for a Grit blogger in Quebec to host la version Quebecois, he found there are no Grit bloggers from Quebec left. So, the honour falls to me - your friendly right-wing fanatic from the Anglo ghetto of Montreal.

To the right, you'll find the 9 semi-finalists for best premier of Quebec, in chronological order. Please vote. Please vote often. Polls close on Saturday

One inspiring tidbit for my fellow Tories - when you look at the history of Quebec, its amazing to see how bleu its been. And not the pie-in-the-sky blue of the Parti Quebecois, but deep, royal blue.

Labels: If you think Parizeau should be on this list - seek counselling ASAP