The Malaise of Modern Candianity

We need a drink.

That’s what we’ve been telling ourselves since that fateful day last May 2nd when the country meandered into the right wing fold not by majority, no, but mostly by accident.

As is our Canadian way, when we decide to vote for a majority in federal government the political landscape will be the same for the next half decade. The four way tango that had made up political life in this fair country for the last generation or so may be definitively changed. Our so-called natural governing party having fallen to the depredations of an inclement global zeitgeist. With the myopia of a public more turned on by you tube videos of people falling and hurting themselves, or when it suits our fair weather political minds, we alternatively examine with a self satisfied smile the frothy mixture of hyperbole, vitriol, ignorance, and passion in the nation to our south. The natural governing party governs no longer (sure, that‘s not really news to anyone but bear with us, we probably have a point), nor even merit’s the comfy confines of Stornoway. While we don’t know if the Liberal party will rear it’s head once again, we certainly hope it doesn’t in the incarnation it has in the last several years. We can’t take anymore of our uninspired leaders, with uninspired sound bites, in their uninspired suits (why do government officials always look like they’re wearing really expensive well tailored potato sacks?) in their uninspired hair cuts droning on about, well, whatever it is they drone on about, by the time the droning hit’s the second sentence we’ve already switched to watching youtube videos of people falling down and hurting themselves.

We really need a drink.

We have been forced into the lock step of a western led Boot Scootin’ Boogie, and, as we all know from the middle nineties world wide embrace of new country music and absurdly big stetson hats and all things cowboy, there is nothing more universally demeaning than grown adults in a line dance anywhere east of the west.

As our (we weren’t sure if we should, at this late date, include the first person singular noun “I” after making so much use of the Royal We) grandma used to say, back when she was dating a capable little lad name Lenny, “what is to be done?” Of course she was referring to how to get him out of the house after he secretly spent the night, but the question still applies. The easiest thing to do, and what Canadians tend to do, is to ignore our complicity in the democratic system, which is more or less a democratic tradition in North America, and to distract ourselves by looking askance to our south, our noses up, and to pat ourselves on the back for not being Them! Well, have we got news for us. With voter rates dropping (we here in Ontario have broken our previous record for low electoral participation! A round of who-gives-a-shit for everyone!), the acceleration of the destruction of our manufacturing sector due to a reckless gambling in the financial sector of the world, and this Canadian generation’s general fear of doing things that are bold, with a federal government that is turning away from the collectivist spirit that has created our country, and with a new and clear polarization in our electorate, we are heading the way of the Glorious Republic.

We could really use that drink now.

To answer our (my?) dear grandma’s question: A number of things can be done. After griping and pissing and moaning, and twisting, and panting like impotent jerks, something can actually be done. Now that the provincial shoulder shrug has been accomplished we can actually press this government, the Liberals are in a worse position than a Baluchi in a beer tent and McGuinty knows it. With his just shy of majority, and his just shy of actually accomplishing anything really useful in the long term for this province, there is room to effectively press his government. A genuine interest and engagement is what’s called for here, and people, we’re talking about letters. Not electronic letters, no, the one’s made out of paper. Have you seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? No? Well you should. It’s damn good and damn uplifting, and those fat cats in Washington, or, you Ottawa, should watch it too. It’s stirring. And Jimmy Stewart is great in it. But in that movie the people write letters. If people in the Great Depression can scrape together paper and ink surely you can put down your expensive coffee and stop BBM’ing for a second and write a letter. Yes, that’s right, against all the high falutin’ New Media Enthusiasm that has swept the world, what with the Arab Spring, and Steve Jobs being heralded the techno messiah and everyone living out loud and what have you, we, Neo-Luddites, want you to start writing letters. Sure, sure, that requires a lot more time and attention than a face book update, it’s true, and to that we say: fuck you. It’s about time you took yourself more seriously. Really! You don’t look half bad when you’re covered in a kindly attention to politics. Why, we want you to spruce yourself up, we want you to Rise! And Shine! And Write A Goddam Letter! Because, Canada, you have a lot going for you, you have a lot to live for! We believe in you! We think you can really do something amazing! And one way to do that is to maybe, just maybe, write a letter.

Do you remember how it used to feel to receive a letter in the mail? There it was, that paper envelope, with looping script, and there gasp there was your name! The most beautiful sounding word in the English language, your very own name! It’s like a teensy weensy little Christmas every time you got a letter. You know what happens now? Now you forget to check your e-mail for one week, two weeks, two and a half weeks go by and finally you log into your mail box and there are thirty, well, what are they? They must be letters. They don’t seem like letters of course. They all look the same, drab, small, half of them not even addressed specifically to you. Some you check, some you delete, some you avoid until there it is, day after day, accusing you, begging you to be read, to be considered, to be poured over, until you just can’t take it anymore and you stop logging on to your e-mail account for one week, two, two and a half weeks. It’s a dastardly pattern and we want to help you out of it. We want your local politician to remember to pure unalloyed joy of opening a personal letter addressed to him or her! We want both of you to share in that experience. It’s simple, it’s mildly amusing, and it is genuinely important. So don’t be an asshole. Write a letter.

Of course we can’t help but mention New media, like this fair blog that you are currently probably ignoring, as another example of the way Canadians can engage and try to move the public debate. With the wobbly weakness of the provincial Liberals they’ll be looking for ways to create public consensus and due to the fact that they’re beholden to the huggable NDP there’s a division and a weakness that the public can easily exploit. So blogging, while ridiculous we admit (we here at bar politics are nothing if not ridiculous. You should see what we’re wearing today. You say never do the double plaid? We say ALWAYS do the double plaid. You say never wear white after Labor Day? We say fine. But we won’t wear underwear either!) is an option that is increasingly useful (we encourage you to send us your own blogs, we read voraciously you see, and we’re interested in seeing what other motivated Canadians have to say about politics). As well the doddering Toronto City Hall is now vulnerable to the same kind of activist approach. The Gravy Train (which for the longest time we thought was a TTC poutinery stationed on one of the cars. We were looking for weeks, just imagine our embarrassment…)(incidentally one of barpolitics new demands is to include a publicly funded poutinery in one of the subway cars. We’d call it, you guessed it, The Gravy Train) Commandant has made enough public mistakes that the public is realizing how absurd it was to elect him in the first place. Again, like McGuinty, Ford will be looking for consensus, and compromise, and there is room to push the municipal and provincial governments in a direction more inclined with the general public good, and to get these government on side against the iron fisted bludgeon that comprises HarperGov TM.

How did we find ourselves at the dull point of the spear? The Liberals, that’s how. Yeah, it’s true everyone has been saying sad little mourning things about the Liberals, but no one has really held them accountable in the way we’re about to right now: Which is to say really, really, really accountable. Considering that the Liberals, while strutting around and patting themselves on the back for being oh so wonderful, considered themselves the Natural Governing Party, and then managed to drift into destroying the liberal collectivist consensus that had characterized Canadian political identity since approximately, well let’s see, oh right, the last hundred years or so; and besides being shunted out of government in early Confederation the Liberal party and their ethos have characterized the center of Canadian identity more or less since the beginning of Confederation.

On the other hand, let’s remember that since the 19th century, the Liberals have been the party that imagined the Canada most of us associate with our core values; the party that began progressive politics, increased immigration, opposed imperialism, created Saskatchewan and Alberta, and gave us our first francophone prime minister. The Liberals have been the party of Canadian sovereignty, the creators of a Canadian navy, the mother’s allowance, the Canada Pension Plan, and universal health care. The Liberals gave us the just society programs, official bilingualism with the Official Languages Act, they gave us the only nation state in the world that believes in unity through the commonality of difference, our multicultural understanding of ourselves, as endowed through their creation of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No one can deny how important the Liberal party has been in defining the progressive nature of our fair country.

The Liberals have given us the giants of Confederation, MacKenzie, Laurier, King, Pearson and Trudeau. The Liberals have been essential in characterizing our noblest and best visionaries.

So what the fuck happened?

The failure to attract Quebec voters back into the federal party, Meech Lake, Charlottetown, the decline in a leadership capable of actually doing something universally Canadian. Chretien became the prime minister that paid the bills but couldn’t figure out a way to buy into a consensus of Canadians outside of Ontario. The long and ridiculous neglect of the west, the disregard for Quebec, the arrogance and cronyism characterized best by the Sponsorship Scandal, the abandonment of the center left by the Baby Boomers, damn their eyes, and the slide of the immigrant vote towards the right, the Wheat Board, the National Energy Plan, federal Transfer Payments, the failure to mediate between Quebec and Alberta, the failure to create a vision around which the country could rally.

And after the Triumvirate of Who Gives A Shit, the triple yawn of Martin, Dion, and Ignatieff, we can only thank Chretien, whose biggest accomplishment was to balance the budget, the only thing is that he never told us why he did it (we suspect it was to ensure our social safety net for the next generation, but we’ll never really know, because he’s dead right?).

So how about that drink?

Alright. So what do we need? We need a vision. And hopefully something greater than just the romance and sentimentalism of a huggable mustachio. We need something to inspire us. We need a distraction from the distractions, something that will make us remember our old collectivist spirit, and what has always characterized Canadians at our best, our ability to turn away from division, and turn towards compromise, our ability to recognize that there is more that unites us than divides us, that whether you come from Yellowknife, or Antigonish, it is the Canadian way to support each other, to defend each other, to shelter each other, and all of this is done with respect to regional differences, cultural differences, language differences, social differences.

So, on that note, (a more positive one than we first suspected) we here at bar politics, in spite of the absurdity of the last decade, can’t help but feel hope for our future. We leave you this autumn to remember that although HarperGov defines you as just a taxpayer, 60% of Canadians didn’t actually vote for his myopic party! You’re not just a tax payer, you’re cooler than that, you’re not just a voter once every three to five years, you’re smarter than that, and you don’t have to accept poor political leadership, you‘re better than that. Remember that there is a way to speak up and there is reason to speak up because, against all odds, we remain Canadians.

We leave you now, we humbly beg you to listen to us and to join is in jerking the collective chains of those who would be our political leaders. So let us drink and be merry for tomorrow we will act collectively.

Cheers.

Barpolitics Caption Contest

You, yes you can win a free beer* and at least one hour's conversation with the barpolitics writers if you come up with the winning caption for this photo of NDP MP Charrmaine Borg meeting with her constituents from Saturday's Globe and Mail.

*Offer not redeemable anywhere.

#cdnpoli

After the Old Rush

So here we are - the numbers are in, the dance is done, and Mr. Nanos can retire back to obscurity for another five years, relegated to the same obscurity as delegated to Jacques Rogge. (If you don’t know who Roggge is, I’ve made my point - if you don’t know who Nanos is, fuck you - seriously).

We find ourselves more divided as a nation than ever before. “Le Bon Jack” has convinced Canadians that support of the unions in Canada and anti-conservatism is one and the same ,which could be considered his greatest triumph, even more so than pissing on the carpet of the Bloc. So now we can look forward to an orange clown car parking in front of the Parliament building, accompanied with midgets and soda bottles, unloading all 103 MPs in a bunch, with all the discipline, focus and message that would accompany such a show.

It’ll be easier to get a gaggle of 6 year olds on a caffeine drip to focus on Carl Sagan reciting the Encyclopedia Britanica than it will be to get these untested freshmen to avoid embarrassing themselves. But at least there are 103 of them.

For yours truly it is a much greater tragedy to see the demise of the last Great Canadian Party and the return of Iggy to academia where, let’s be honest, he belonged the whole time. He did a heroic job of pointing out all of the abuses of power, the shifty deals, the arrogance of the ruling party and the general disregard for tradition and democracy exhibited by his pale-eyed opponent, and was punished squarely for assuming that The Nation actually gave a shit, or even a squirt.

When Jason Kenney is shoving the nose cone of an F-35 up Shiela Fraser’s ass, I’ll personally slap the first son of a bitch who complains silly. I would slap them stupid, but I wouldn’t want to waste my energy with redundancies.

And then there is the Consevative Party - the Victors Victorious. All credit should be given to the machine which wrangled enough votes through precise mircromanagement of demographics, splitting the votes of potential conservative voters away from the undecided votes of NDP and Liberal scrums. It was the key to their success.

Dead is the notion of providing a unified, national message, replaced with market segmented messages, all the way down to individual funding for parks and fire stations. Who needs a coherent and rejuvenating vision for the future when the Prime Minister personally installs a new stop sign at the end of your street?

But really, two groups must be singled out for their contribution to the new Canadian political landscape: New Canadians and the Boomers.

It is not possible to look at the role of New Canadians without appearing to be racist, so here we go: New Canadians vote on the basis of Crime and Punishment and Low Taxes. Is that racist enough for you?

Once cannot equate Chinese Canadians in Vancouver with Punjaibis is Brampton. That is the point. It is the strength of incumbency that can provide the low taxes that new business owners in the GTA need at the same time as they provide the promises of increased policing and prison capacity that can register with New Chinese immigrants in gang-heavy areas of British Columbia.

And here’s the rub: The Liberal Party of Canada has been unable to strategically identify specific issues that can apply equally to groups that lay between the NDP and Liberal Party, thereby preventing the split in the vote that was their downfall.

You can’t, in good faith, blame New Canadians for voting their values. Many of them have grown up in environments whereby the notion of initiating an election - a very new concept for many of them - based on the failure of a government to adequately publicize the expenses of a fighter jet or prison purchase seems a little bit silly.

It is difficult to criticize South Asians who have fought hard for the preservation of their democratic rights for a half a century (as opposed to the rest of us who have been fighting for a century and a half).

It is much easier to blame East Asians to whom the notion democracy is very difficult to distinguish from the type of anarchy to which they ascribe the Tien an Men protests. The Law and Order principles of the Conservative Party Line up perfectly with their natural desire for law, order, peace and harmony. It may be easier to blame them, but I won’t.

The fact is, the New Canadians voted to their values and you can’t take that away from them. It was a failure of the Liberal Party to provide an alternative narrative to them that was the source of their loss. The true betrayal belongs to The Boomers.

I don’t mean to say that you should kill your grandparents, but if you want to change the political landscape of this country - seriously - kill your grandparents. I’m just saying.

While the Chinese Canadians were starving under their latest 5 year plan and the South Asians were shooting each other for the sake of the familial ambitions of individual elite families, Baby Boomers in Canada were busy drinking, smoking and dosing themselves into oblivion. They made great progress in providing an alternative to the Protestant work ethic.

While India and Pakistan fought each other to the death, while China struggled through a cultural revolution in which all vestiges of anything that meant a damn to East Asian culture was destroyed piece by piece, the boomers in North American disassembled anything that mattered a damn into tiny pieces - personal responsibility, sexual responsibility, humility, any source of adult respectability was discarded in a vague attempt to capture a childlike sense of freedom relegating the notion of liberty to the equivalent of vigorously playing in a sandbox.

Now that the bill has come due we see the true face of the baby boomers in Canada. As the Boomers come close to retirement we see them become less and less amenable to any kind of taxes which may assure the health care system which allowed them to beat cancer, diabetes and heart disease, regardless of the poor choices they made to supplement themselves with these afflictions. No, in fact, now that they’ve cashed in on the system that protected themselves from their poor choices they are more than willing to prevent the same opportunities from being available to their children and grandchildren.

The government of Canad is in debt. Even the promises of the Conservative Government to reduce or eliminate the deficit by 2014 have proved to be nothing more than bullshit jn the wind. Now that the Boomers have “got theirs” it really doesn’t matter if the Conservative government’s election promises will eliminate the prospect of erasing provincial transfer payments. These are the guarantor of the public health care coverage which was the promise of all Canadians.

There were two main components that were the source of the Conservative Party’s victory. The first - New Canadians - cannot be blamed for voting to their values: peace/ security and low taxes. The Liberals can be faulted for failing to appeal to them. However, the Baby Boomers are absolutely blame for the upcoming disaster which faces our governments, just like acid rain, the reduction of the ozone layer and the ridiculously high price of gas, the failure of centrist Liberalism to find a middle ground between “I got mine” conservatism and “fuck the system” NDP support can be squarely placed in the laps of the Boomers.

“I hope I die before I get old.”

This is a satire blog, and I have been unable to be funny for most of this post, so here is a joke:

Q: “What’s the difference between a Conservative and a Baby Boomer?”

A: “Not a Goddamned thing.”

The Death of Empathy

Empathy died early this morning at Toronto Western Hospital. Empathy, a long venerated quality, has, in recent years been in gross physical decline. While all have noted this slow passing of a once great hero of ours, the final moments were spent in quiet loneliness. Indeed, there have been no speeches by great political figures, there have been no parades celebrating Empathy’s long career, no eulogies lamenting a life spent in healing the breeches caused by the regular wear and tear of the human condition.

At the age of 7,652 years, some have said that Empathy has had a long enough life, and it has been well lived. Indeed, Empathy first became known to a shepherd in the fertile crescent who came to understand the sufferings of a fellow shepherd who had lost a segment of his flock and was in dire straits. The two hugged, and the shepherd promised to “work something out with the flocks”. The two remained friends to the end of their days.

Empathy was well regarded in the court of Hammurabi the Second. The first Hammurabi laughed at Empathy in the face, but the second one was a much cooler dude. Hammurabi the Second subsidized the building of a large ziggurat as a make work program during a fertile crescent recession in order to stimulate the economy. His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, later on cancelled the ziggurat as “these kinds of projects degrade the value of the individual and erodes personal initiative in the form of small business entrepreneurship.” Empathy was not always loved, but Empathy was always there.

Another notable moment in the history of empathy was among the northern German princes during the Reformation. Phlieg von Hasselpuff, prince of Sax-Coburg-Blemheim-Schnitzel temporarily outlawed the presence of Empathy in his court. In the absence of Empathy Phlieg’s wife Catherine Hottenpiecefass, could no longer stand Phlieg’s physical presence. In order to maintain a family line, and have an enjoyable home life, Phlieg was forced to re-instate the concept. Once again, Empathy had prevailed.

Empathy made a triumphant entry into the public political realm in Canada under the Trudeau government. Partially caused by the decline of the Atlantic fisheries and manufacturing in southern Ontario, the Trudeau government guaranteed an annual income to ensure that every Canadian had a certain amount of support coming to them each and every year guaranteed by the state.

It was Monday evening that the first obvious signs that Empathy was about to die became indisputable. It has been a long decline, and at times there have been rallying points, it is true. However, on Monday evening Empathy was not looking good. In fact, Empathy looked positively like a piece of shit. Pale, anaemic, hunched, with a staring starved jaundiced look to it. The doctors shook their heads, rubbed their chins, and did not know what had caused this severe decline, and were incapable of halting its progress. All the nurses stood around blowing their noses and looking puffy eyed around the examination room.
Empathy is survived by its children, Goodwill, Kindness and Humanity.

They’re aren’t looking so hot either.

Meet the Harpers

Jean: RCMP security
Michele Munteau - Personal stylist to the PM
Laureen Harper - aged 47
Benjamin Harper - aged 15
Rachel Harper - aged 11
Tim Wassylko - head chef 24 Sussex
Jenni Byrne - Conservative party campaign manager

tump ta tump ta tump tump tump tump... tmp!

Ben: “Good morning Tim! What’s for breakfast?”

Tim: “Good morning, Ben. I’m not sure. Is your father up yet?”

Ben: “He’s with Michele, The refrigerator broke and daddy’s hair thawed. What’s a ‘cat-as-trophy?”

Tim: “Well, Ben, a catastrophe is just a challenge in disguise. Don’t you know how much your father hates it when you jump down the stairs?”

tump ta tump ta tump ta tump ta... tump

Rachel: “Good morning, snotrag.”

Tim: “Good morning, Rachel.”

Rachel: “I wasn’t talking to you, Tim.”

Ben:“Ouch! Quit it Rachel! Is dad coming?”

Rachel: “Freezer. Hair. Catastrophe.”

Jean: “Rachel, please don’t hurry so much on the stairs.”

Rachel: “Relax, Jean. I’ve been here for five years. Is the car ready?”

Jean: “Five minutes. Is your father coming?”

Ben: “He’ll be ready as soon as we fuigre out a way to apply liquid nitrogen to hair folicles without discolouration.”

tump ta tump ta tump ta tump ta tump ta tump

Tim: “What’s for breakfast, Mr. Prime MInister?”

Stephen: “Good morning, Tim. I think we’ll just have - “

Jenni: “Don’t answer that question!”

Stephen: “Jenni? How did you get in here? We weren’t scheduled to meet until - “

Jean: “Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t know how she got past the gate, I-”

Stephen: “That’s fine Jean. It’s alright. Is everything ready?”

Jean: “Yes sir, we’re ready to go any time you’re ready.”

Rachel: “Daddy, what is she doing here?”

Jenni: “Oh it’s okay, Ben. My name is Jenni Byrne and I’m here to help your father.”

Stephen: “Jenni, I hardly see how you can be helpful at breakfast. I-”

Jenni: “Here’s my card, Rachel.”

Rachel: “Can I colour on it?”

Jenni: “Sure you can, Rachel. Just don’t let your friends colour on it. Only you can colour on it and never use the colour red.”

Rachel: “Okay, Jenny.”

Stephen: “I still don’t understand why you’re here, Jenni. We aren’t scheduled to meet for another two hours. What is - “

Jenni: “Stephen, I think that we’ve lost the edge on our breakfast image among Canadians.”

Stephen: “Breakfast image?”

Jenni: “Yes, breakfast image. A great deal of Canadians’ political decisions are made between the hours of 1am and 10am, usually with a cup of coffee in their hand.”

Stephen: “And so?”

Jenni: “So, Mr. Prime Minister, we have t meet the electorate half way. We must exhibit strong control not only over the message that Canadians receive over breakfast, we must exert control over breakfast in Canada itself.”

Rachel: “Daddy can I eat yet?”

Stephen: “Just a second, Rachel. What are you getting at, Jenni?”

Jenni: “Sir, we have 14 days left in his campaign. If we let the people of Canada know that you were eating the same things as them we could turn the Nanos by 2.5%”

Ben: “Dad I’m hungry!”

Rachel: “Tim?”

Tim: “Yes Rachel?”

Rachel: “Can I have some orange juice?”

Jenni: “Not a good idea, Tim”

Tim: “Jenni, you can’t be serious.”

Stephen: “What do you mean, Jenni?”

Jenni: “Mr. Prime Minister, the communities in which your candidates have the best chance of
swinging the riding away from either the NDP or Liberals have a concentration of one Tim Horton’s store per every 2,500 residents.”

Jean: “Isn’t that the same ratio of citizens to prisoners that we’re aiming for?”

Jenni: “That’s enough out of you, Jean. When I want to know how to tase a Polak to death, I’ll ask your opinion.”

Stephen: “So you think I should be drinking Timmie’s every morning?”

Jenni: “Not just you, Stephen, but everybody.”

Stephen: “Jenni, you can’t expect me to give coffee to an 11 year old.”

Jenni: “I’m just putting it out there, Mr. Prime Minister. Timmie’s could be the key to winning over the tirekickers in Medicine Hat and the rust collars in Windsor.”

Stephen: “Just a second, Tim. Ben, you remember when we went camping last year, don’t you?.”

Ben: “Yeah, dad, the bats scared me.”

Stephen: “But you remember in the morning I let you have some coffee? You loved it!”

Ben: “I loved being alive. Not much else.”

Jenni: “Let me try, Mr. Harper. Rachel - here try this.”

Rachel: “I don’t want that!”

Stephen: “Try it, just once for your father, Rachel.”

Rachel: “I don’t want to!”

Stephen: “C’mon sugarplumb, just give it a try.”

Jenni: “See, how hard was that?”

Rachel: “Daddy, it tastes like crying!”

Tim: “Sir, we have the facilities of a 3 star restaurant. Are we really going to-”

Jenni: “Are you better than Timmie`s, Tim?”

Tim: “No, Jenni, I just think that the Prime Minister’s family has more choice than-”

Jenni: “Not while I’m here, Tim!”

Jean: “Sir, are we ready to go?”

Stephen: “Just a few minutes, Jean.”

Sex! Did We Get Your Attention? Hot Sex!

Journalistically speaking there is no hot news about elections, there is nothing new about party leaders lining up and speaking up and pointing their fingers at each other, always with the promises, the promises! There is nothing especially great about how politicians look, in their absurdly baggy suits, and badly coiffed hair, their cliché spouting, bland performance underneath the banal glare of lights and cameras with a convenient backdrop, rural heartland, factory, school, whatever. More specifically, politics isn’t that interesting. Not in the way, say, a really beautifully half undressed person you love who is currently quietly reclining in bed on a mid-Saturday morning is interesting in the most vivid way imaginable. So interesting that rather than doing anything else at all, like, say, the laundry, jogging, calling back a friend you promised to have brunch with, drinking water, you know, anything at all pretty much takes a back seat. Politics is not as interesting as sex. Though, maybe, it should be, because we are definitely sitting around causally fucking ourselves.

Mostly we cast around looking for new hot topics in the news, did one leader make whatever a gaff is, was there a boondoggle? There was a boondoggle! What the fuck, does anyone but a political journalist use the word boondoggle? No! No one but a political journalist uses the word boondoggle. New mission: Use the word boondoggle in everyday conversation next week, see if that horrendous word slides under the radar. If it doesn’t you owe whoever called you on it a shot. Take one yourself, you look like you could use a stiff drink. You could use a stiff drink because of how much you’ve been fucking yourself.

Let’s get to the sexiness of politics already and all the positions that Canadians are willing to take on the matter. A good friend of mine (his name is Danny and apparently he makes his wife very happy) once told me that sex isn’t good unless you’ve assumed at least three positions and the foreplay should take at least a half hour. Well, we’ve been in about five years of foreplay with the party of the Big East (more on that in a later post, but shit, why isn’t anyone really making a big deal about how the Conservative Party is basically a bunch of Ontarians who took a dump on Ontario a couple years back and now want to have their way with the rest of the country? The West Wants In? Well, the west just got mostly shoved out of the top level of their own party) and we’re going to get nailed pretty hard real soon.

The thing is, all jokey metaphors aside, politics is important. Not to unduly use other unrelated geopolitical events callously to drive home a point, but there are people dying to have the right to cast a ballot in other countries just this minute. There has been a recent draft of political commercials, some really funny, some really quite earnest, all insisting that Canadians get out the vote. Simultaneously the Conservative Party has been systematically kicking out young voters as that party tries to prejudicially profile young voters. Let’s be honest, the Conservatives are prejudiced, we have definitive evidence. So sure, if you like your politics brushed with a tinge if the bigoted American flag wrapped debate crushing partisanship you’ll probably say a political party has every right to profile and vet the audience, you’ll agree that a political party has the duty to limit reporters ability to report and ask questions, and it is in a political party’s best interests to erode the popular interest by casting political debate as merely bickering. This is where we’re being fucked.

Of course you’ll rarely hear about politics as a form of sex. As already noted in our beloved blog, the Conservatives in particular, but political analysts generally, like to have it as if it were warfare. We are always talking about hierarchy, defeating opponents, rhetorical victories translating into poll standings, obsessive statistical analysis, banners, and the general chest thumping that passes for the democratic process in much of electioneering. We, here at barpolitics, are more sensitive. You can tell we are sensitive because we have well moisturized hands. Unlike the Conservative Party (their hands are calloused, their cuticles are uneven), we don’t want to make war, we want to make love. Alright, we’re probably losing some of the thread here. The whole point is that politics is much more than a fight, though good sex can feel that way at times, it is in the end about congress. We’re totally serious about that. As in sex, just as in politics, to make it good you really gotta feel it, you really gotta mean it. That’s why, like in both sex and politics, when we repeatedly come against lacklustre performance in our leader/lovers we become dull, uninterested, we’d rather watch porno and masturbate than waste another minute enduing the drawn out dry hump of an election. The thing is, we’re gonna get fucked one way or the other. And rather than shuffling off to the bedroom to give yourself a jobby and wake up in the morning with the dick that you don’t know remember having climbed into bed with at the very least we can make a choice and have a tussle with someone you’ve chosen.

Sure it’s a risk, sex, and politics, always is, but it’s totally worth it if you know what you’re doing. So in this election, give ‘er, and give ‘er good. Do it with vigour, and do it like you care, because it’s only as good as you make it. And look, it doesn’t really matter if a lot of this didn’t make a whole lot of sense just as long as you basically understand what we’re saying. Right? Right? Whatever, I’m gonna go for round two.

SUCCC it part 2: you are not welcome here.

SUCCC it part 2: you are not welcome here.

The conservative campaign has unveiled its platform, much like the budget on which it expected to fall. Like that budget there are not many surprises. One surprise among them is a matter of strategy. Harpergov has announced that it will push its law and order platform in a single omnibus bill. [1]

Mixed among changes to mandatory minimum sentencing, elimination of home arrest and other techniques to castrate the process that has been the auspice of judges who actually understand the nature of crime is increased funding for prisons and police.

We should thank our lucky stars that we have a government brave enough to ignore the advice of criminologists both in Canada and across the world who have come to the conclusion that increased investment in prisons does little to reduce crime rates [2]. Thank the Christian god that the Harper government is aware of the real threat that justifies this seemingly irrational increase in spending on prisons.

That threat, my real Canadians, is "unreported crime".

In previous posts [3] we have exposed the source of this threat - so sneaky that it evades the gaze of even the most astute crime reporters. While my bar tab holds out and my eyes stay straight I feel that I have to inform you yet again of the organization that is responsible for this murky wave of criminality - SUCCC -or the Secret Underground Consortium of Canadian Criminals.

Oooooh. That's good whiskey. You ever been so drunk that you write all of your "n"s as "m"s? I guess being drunk would make "just do it"" make a lot less sense.

Right - the point, how elusive a maiden as you are. Tonight I want to talk to you about the next member of SUCCC that must be exposed to the public. Awish Aslam, or as she is known to the public - "The Threat".

Some of you who still aren't reading Sun Media [spitting gesture] will be familiar with the 19 year old University of Western Ontario student who was ejected from a Conservative Party event in London, because her Facebook account included a photo of herself and Michael "Iggy", The Ig", "The Iggster" Ignatieff.

First off, we at barpolitics really must tip our hats (our hat - for really one of us is gratuitously bald) to the conservative party staffer who had the foresight and initiative to investigate a potential troublemaker like Aslam - apparently for reasons completely unrelated to the fact that her last name is Aslam.

It truly must have took real testicular fortitude to escort this 19 year old University of Western Ontario student from the party event. Not knowing at which point she might make her move to be closer to Allah. We should really take this opportunity to congratulate the RCMP for their flexibility. Not only are they capable of protecting the Prime Minister but they have managed to freelance as the public relations wing of the Conservative Party. After all, protecting the Prime Minister can be a pretty boring job in Canada (not like in Sri Lanka). Luckily the RCMP has done honor and service to their history by acting as bouncers at Conservative Party Event.

Most bouncers that I know do it for the free blowjobs and bumps of cocaine, but thank Christian Jesus that our national police do it for the sake of a higher calling. I should encourage my children to seek out a career in law enforcement, if only for the oral sex.

So there you have it, Canada. I've lost my train of thought after two pints of organic and two shots of Irish whiskey (what kind of whiskey I will not tell at least until we get a sponsorship deal). We've already [4] talked about how New Canadians are welcomed in the little blue tent so long as they do not hold opposing views, or they have the audacity to pursue an education.

Now we know that brown and young people are being barred from the political process, I as a WASP alcoholic can sleep better (you never really sleep when you're drunk) knowing that The Conservative Party is doing its part to prevent young brown people from participating in the democratic process.

How's that working out for you, Mubarak?

We're Not Saying Tom Flanagan Sucks The Bag

Now, we don’t like to judge. We, at barpolitics, like to be even handed in our sobered thinking. We like to give a fair shake when a fair shake is due. For instance, that guy who jostled me in last evenings late night moderate drinking, jostled me in such a way as to cause the spilling of my precious beer, I shook him soundly, I shook him fairly, I shook him and shook him until his friends, and he had many, decided that the shaking was done, and that the time had come for some reciprocal shaking, which, if the truth be known, was unfairly administered, and that is just the point. A fair shake where a fair shake is due.

This is, however, no time for sober thinking. We are, after all, in an electoral political system, and why ruin it with clear thought unobstructed with needlessly sentimental calls to ideas that feel true?

The jaundiced blear eyed squint of the late morning lean to our collective hangover that we like to call political commentary in this well governed land needs to be commented on. It is true, there is something particularly odd about a commentary on the commentary, it’s like buttering both sides of the bread, it’s like wearing underwear under a trench coat, it simply isn’t done. However, I do a lot of things that I shouldn’t do. For instance, I was wearing only an extremely tight pair of underwear under my trench coat at the bars I frequented last evening which led to a man dumping my beer on me which led to me threatening to shake him which led to him actually shaking me because whereas I am weak and think it’s a good time to nap often he clearly thinks it is a good time to weight lift often. As well, a decade of napping and playing Dungeons & Dragons has left me with but a single equally weak friend, while a decade of lifting weights had left my opponent with many surprisingly strong friends. Bastards.

But I digress.

On Monday Tom Flanagan wrote an op-ed for the Globe & Mail. It amounts to a marvellous substitute for the horrors of genuinely interesting and useful thinking. Flanagan is right to say that during an election it is the right thing to do to reflect about the nature of our politics. It is also a good time to reflect on the nature of our political writing. Flanagan exemplifies the inability of our right wing to understand what a metaphor is.

Allow me to explain.

Flanagan lists a variety of words and concepts that describe the system by which we elect our government. Among these words are ‘campaign‘, ‘taking the field‘, the ‘war room‘, ‘the ground war‘, ’message discipline’ as rigid as that of military discipline. He further explains that there are but three systems for choosing our government, heredity, bloody civil war, or smooth persuasion, and persuasion, electoral politics, are the alternative to bloody civil war. Which serves to explain the language used to describe the process of garnering voter support during an election.

While the Clausewitz aphorism, pithy as it is, is considered accurate, reducing an election to actual warfare is disingenuous. Rather, the whole purpose of contriving to make the electoral cycle equal to warfare is to defend the Conservative Party strategy. Flanagan even goes so far as to explain how, in the sense that this is war, it is fair to impugn Ignatieff’s motives for coming back to his homeland to compete as a Liberal, and even argues that this negative characterisation is of a higher intellectual plateau than any kind of positive ad that the Conservative Party may have put out. It would take a Conservative to think that a character attack is of greater intellectual worth than a positive program for change.

The thing is, if politics is in fact war, and war isn’t simply a metaphor for the political landscape, then it might be just to use any sneaky-deaky tactic to find victory. Amongst our more cynical citizens, this is the case. I must question whether or not ideas do in fact matter, and that positive messages of hope may be less sexy, and less damaging to political opponents, the climate of warfare that characterises our southern neighbour has only served to erode genuine political discourse. I would say what we don’t want is anyone throwing around the slur of being un-Canadian except it is too late.

If we take Tom Flanagan at his word though then the misinformation and attack ads amount to a Psychological Operation, and the muscling out of moderate citizens looking to be politically informed is an attack on the liberties to congregate. Tom Flanagan wants Canadians to accept his sterile view that the truth can not be known, that we must judge on plausibility, that we must come to terms with a political dialogue that is at open war, and because of this warfare, anything is allowed. Oddly, he also places Kim Campbell and Ralph Klein on the same level as Aristotle and Cicero, all great political philosophers. Campbell helpfully explains that the worst time to talk about social programs is on campaign. Of course that might have been because of what her party wanted to do to Canadian social programs. Ralph Klein is quoted as saying that his health care reform is far too complicated to explain on campaign.

Either Kim and Ralph lack the requisite imagination and vocabulary to explain their positions, or they were strategically arguing against that kind of explanation in order to confuse the enemy. It’s difficult to say, the fog of war, you see.

Let me put it this way: It’s not fair to say that in order to sway you, the heroic reader of our beloved blog, against Tom Flanagan that he is a flatulent egg head university tight ass that probably wears incredibly tight shoes. Furthermore, it would be entirely out of order to say that Flanagan is the kind of man that wears suspenders and a belt, he can’t trust his pants you see, and it would be absolutely ridiculous to insist that he is the small man of Confederation, or that he should be hustled out of political gatherings because his face book friends are from the wrong side of the prairies. Which is why I won’t say that. That kind of writing and thinking has no place in an election, where ideas do matter, Kim Campbell is not a brilliant political philosopher, where elections are a rather excellent time to talk about the agenda of future government, and where the distinction between the nobler elements of our political discourse are given precedence over a blind emotional call to arms.

Maybe it’s not as sentimental as warfare, but a political campaign is not a war of words. It is, hopefully, a meaningful dialogue between constituents, a negotiation between ridings, a deal made between regions, and not the cruel conquering by the blessed few over the defeated and lamenting many. That is, it shouldn’t be.

And it’s true, Tommy F-dogg did use the word marvellous. The only thing that is truly marvellous is to wear sheer silk underpants underneath an excellent trench coat while writing a political blog in a café.

Jason Kenney: Just Visiting

Commercial Spot. Queue ominous music:

“Why is Jason Kenney in Canada after being away for three days? Does he have a plan to integrate new Canadians into our culture? No. Instead his party is running attack ads to hide the fact that they are cutting investment in language training for new arrivals to Canada. With no long term vision for Canada, he’s not in it for the New Canadians, he’s just in it for his Canadians. [Run shot of Kenney going down escalator]. It’s the only reason he’s back.”
 
In his time as Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Kenney has been sent abroad as the face of the Canadian government for functions such as funerals and conferences that are of importance to new Canadian voters. But the question remains: why did he come back?
 
Educated in San Francisco (seriously), Kenney couldn’t possibly be in touch with the interests of Canadians. In his work inside Canada as Minister of Multiculturalism, he has been exposed to all sorts of ideas, languages and foods that are foreign to “good” Canadians like you and me. Sure the new Canadians provide a vital shot in the arm to our economy and define us as the most inclusive, multicultural nation on our green earth, but we all know from the Conservative Party that anyone who has spent any considerable amount of time outside of Canada cannot be trusted.
 
Well, that’s not exactly correct. They can be trusted to vote for the Conservative Party, but they can’t be trusted to be Prime Minister of the Country.
 
And don’t think we here at Barpolitics have forgot about San Francisco - oh no, we never forget San Francisco. It is clear that anyone who has more than one degree from one university is tainted by the bias resulting from an inherent link between education and Liberal values.
 
Part and parcel of the Canadian dream that drives the new Canadians is the hope that their children will go to University - perhaps to be a doctor, perhaps to be a lawyer, or perhaps to be both happy and successful. But luckily the Conservative party knows that when you spend too much time in university, you become suspect.
 
Oh wait, what’s that phrase? Not suspect... “out of touch” - that’s the one. Again, the conservative party wants new Canadians to follow their dreams - just so long as their children don’t try to run for Prime Minister.
 
It is clear that the Conservative Party has a plan for new Canadians - one of Jason Kenney’s staffers was kind enough to deliver it to the opposition in a Conservative election fund raising request written out on House of Commons stationary.

 
This was spun off by Kenney as a mistake by an overenthusiastic, inexperienced staffer. The staffer, Kasra Nejatian, was dismissed, but it is worth looking at why such a gaffe was possible in the first place. A lot of it has to do with the Conservative Party’s aversion to academia.
 
Although he has a law degree, Nejatian has little experience in politics, and there is a reason for that. Other than the Conservative Party’s hostility towards the academic community, there are laws that exist that bar public servants from operating as registered lobbyists for five years after they leave their posts. [1]
 
Few who have both the experience required for effective public service and an inclination towards Conservative politics would give up the lucrative opportunities available to an Ottawa lobbyist. There are no Turner/ Pelletier/ Marchand powerhouses in the Conservative Party. They are lucky to attract half a Stanfield and a Clarke.
 
It is because of their shallow depth that the Conservative Party, and the Prime Minister’s Office specifically, must exert its iron fisted control over every aspect of the government’s operations. If they don’t, they know that some green staffer will sell the farm for a bag of beans, as happened in the case of Kasra Nejatian.
 
So the message to new Canadians is clear: You can be successful enough to vote Conservative, but not too successful. Your children can be educated, but not so educated that they begin to question Harpergov’s machine. Your experience outside of Canada is valued, but not if that experience makes you question the Conservative party. Otherwise, to Stephen Harper, you are Just Visiting.

To Our Dear Ugly Canadians

We have been thinking of the coming trouble to our dear Canadian Parliament, and so, in our cups, lisping, for we lisp when in our cups and when in our cups we do not care who knows it, though when sober and reminded that we lisp when we are in our cups (that’s how those bastards say it: “Hey, you know you were lisping last night?“ Us: “When? When!?“ Them: “Last night. You know. When you were in your cups”) we are shamed and mutter things under our breath but otherwise cause no trouble for we are not troublesome when hangovery but contrite and sad in our way. Anyway, we must, as preamble, declare that we are sensitive men, we are generally men of moderation, if anything at all we are moderate men of great sensitivity, and we had got to talking and to reasoning, for we do our best reasoning and talking when greased by good crisp cold clean Canadian lager, and we began recalling what it is really to be Canadian. As we ordered more to drink, for in our moderation we could not quench our thirst, we began to wonder at the late date of this Canadian awakening.

The alcohol we drank made us sharp, it cleared our minds, and we would have none of that pap that told us it would be better if we didn’t reach for another, and then another after that. The beer made us wiser, for that is what good clear cold beer does to moderate men of sensitivity. Beer freed us from the quotidian details of life that serve to generally clutter our minds. Quotidian details such as whether or not we should get some rest and get to bed before 3 AM so as to better do our various jobs for which we receive financial remuneration. Not to mention that the deep sense of fulfillment our various employments offer us, the rich emotional lives that we have built around our work that we do for cash, the sense that we are working not only for a business, in our various jobs, but for families, extended families, horrible little bitchy extended families that demean us and force us to wake early when we know, as sensitive and moderate men, we should only awaken late, that sense of camaraderie and a palpable bitterness might be affected were we to drink further into the night. Beer can make heroes out of ordinary people. Are we not heroes? Are we not the sons of the hewers of wood and drawers of water? Or in my case the son of a cleaner of offices, in my comrade a son of old bootleggers. Are we not sons of immigrant entrepreneurs? Yes! We are! Were they not drunk a lot too? They were |(except for in my case my father was mostly a teetotaller)! And were our even more ancient ancestors drunk just as often as we are? You know, in pioneer times? Certainly as far as we know! We agreed that it was probably so that pioneers got drunk. And we agreed that, though we had little enough evidence to support it, that the pioneers were drunk often.

So it is in these latter days of our so-called well governed Canadian democracy that we find ourselves, and perhaps you too feel this way, in a sense of desultory apathy towards our democratic politics.
We have entered a time of the long yawn. We are too well fed, and we mean this personally, the amount of food we consume is absurd and something should be done. We have needlessly expensive coffee, and we are constantly checking our face book accounts, we recently friend-ed Kanye but he never comes to our parties and we are duly upset. We can’t remember what happened during the last referendum and we are unclear what the word means anyway. We think multiculturalism is when we eat at those restaurants that claim to be Chinese/Canadian food purveyors and while dining we make uncivil joke references to international crisis (for instance when something mildly disappointing happens, like a sub par lunch in an average kind of restaurant that we should have known better than to eat in we like to say loudly so that other tables may hear that our dining experience was worse than being in Libya) which both supports a certain status as somewhat knowledgeable intellects fully aware of the world at large while being disdainfully far enough away not to really care (and really, can you be a Canadian/Chinese food fusion restaurant without maple syrup and back bacon? Damnit we think not!). In other words, it is so often the case that we are full of shit.

We firmly believe that you also are full of shit.

So, it is, for us anyway, in our weaker moments, when the cooling and healing powers of alcohol do not relieve us but we are caught between the sigh and shrugging off of what it sometimes can come to feel being a Canadian, a sort of “why the fuck not” nationalism and a vague concern for our fellow citizens. We feel that there are only two requirements in democracy, and that is to pay taxes and to vote. Of course the implication to voting is being informed about politics. So let’s be honest with you, newspapers, while important, can be absurdly boring. We freely admit this. As well, while we do enjoy the CBC, sometimes we want to punch it in it’s polite little well turned mouth, and after that we want to have sex with its girlfriend, and pee on its lawn and do other juvenile bully-ish things. Here’s the thing. We are the ugly Canadians. In our better moments, when we are quietly reading these quickly becoming obsolete things called books, we read about the early Canadians. We won’t say it was a better time, but it was certainly a more uncouth time. We are the ugly uncouth Canadians. There was a time, and it really wasn’t so long ago, when America was thirsty for liquor we secretly made it for them. Why? Mostly for cold hard cash. There was a time when our ministers of Parliament thought it would be great fun to get trashed and then make fun of each other in the actual Parliament itself. There was a time when our political parties thought that it’d be fine to actually have a party by giving away free beer and then get hammered Canadians to vote! One beer, one vote. And there was no reason you couldn’t get a second beer. For a second vote of course. We’re not saying that our political parties should offer us good strong cold pints, but we are saying that we really want to drink beer. Perhaps we’re losing the thread here. Anyway, we think our point might have been that there are a group of ugly uncouth impolite foul mouthed Canadians who are at times genuinely moved by what happens politically in this country, allowing us to politely wait out the current dry heave that constitutes the governing party in our parliament.

We believe that we live in an immoderate age, and we are being uniquely Canadian by being immoderately moderate. The slow drift of our politics is at times admirable, there is nothing at all wrong with the sober judgment, and calm reflection. Though we often find ourselves a little out of fashion, our skinny jeans took too long to take hold in the downtown zeitgeist, and it is just when other liberal democracies are returning to social democracy that we quietly and calmly picked our first genuinely committed neoliberal government. Never one to move quickly, Canadians have again and again asked of our current government to be just weak enough to barely act on their agenda. For, just as we are people who drink in moderation., this country is a country of moderate political values. We aren’t necessarily upset by this.

Our government is a silent minority and it is to our growing horror that we do not wish to rid ourselves of the tyrannous flannel grey that covers our dear Parliament. Beneath the crushing cold gaze of Harper’s Government our plain dealing Canadian ways have been subverted into the hard glare of an economist. Not even a good economist, our minority party leader was incapable of figuring out that an enormous recession was at hand, and still we elected him and his party. Our silent minority does not want our northern ways, but looks to our flatulent southern neighbours for answers.

Our cabinet ministers have been trussed, our Ministers of Parliament have been in the depths of a long cruel verbal constipation. HarperGov does not trust his own people to speak, and We Know Why! Or at least we think we know why. No, we totally know why! It is because of what they’ll say. Our current government has no big ideas. A smaller tax base is the best they can come up with, and it is with an elongated yawn that Canada is passing off its social security system in favour of what has always best characterised us, our collective effort to live a better life not at the whim of the invisible hand, but we the many hands of our actual neighbours.

We want a government that has big ideas, innovative ideas, that will propel Canada into the future, stronger, with a system that will provide better lives for Canadians, healthier, smarter, and yes, of course, far richer.
We think that our newspapers do a damn fine job of reporting, except for The Sun, that’s just a piece of trash, really, you can ask anyone about that. Other newspapers, actual newspapers, they’re just fine for the most part. We would like to offer our humble services in providing that one thing that a newspaper is not able to: Historical Context mixed with the lightest touch, the barest zest, of a belligerent sense of humour.

You see, we believe that the current zeitgeist in Canada, the hand ringing, the je ne sais quoi that comes to mind when you ask the average Canadian what being a Canadian is all about is the product of a certain lack of vision on behalf of our elected officials. Our current government looks to our absurdly petulant south and thinks the answers spring from the Chicago School, while previous governments have called to our colonial roots asking an outdated British cultural imperialism to tell us where we are going.

The thing is, we aren’t British subjects anymore, and we certainly aren’t American. We are the marvelously shaped hat of the America’s, we are Le Belle Chapeau, and we should damned well act like it.

We are in our Avro Arrow moment. Each generation in Canada has had unique challenges that had to be faced collectively: Champlain’s early settlement and the Iroquois war; the war of 1812; we helped reinvent an empire and called ourselves Dominion and then Confederation; we had our prophet Riel hung and built a railway; we were called in as a subjects to a king in world war and left that war as a sovereign state; we gave thirsty Americans booze (amen to that!); we actually had the third largest army of the Allies after the second really big war; then we decolonized and it didn’t actually require a revolution, all we had to do was file the proper paper work; FLQ and the Quiet Revolution didn’t divide us, but defined us as the kind of democracy that can have a separatist party in its legislature, that’s just the kind of incredibly flexible remarkably tolerant calm good looking reasonably well dressed assholes that we are; we wrote a Charter that gave us an official constitution, and while it’s not necessarily prettily written, it’s damnably well written and ends up pissing off any kind of autocratic federal government (as long as we stand for the document of course); Multiculturalism, a testament to the enduring strength of our heritage, for it is certain, our actual heritage is not French, or British, or even native, but all three at once, we are a Metis nation it has been said and it is true, and we are the mixed races of the world. Forget a pot, a salad is healthier.

We are in the midst of a hesitating misstep. We do not think our government's big ideas should be about smaller taxes, bigger police forces, larger penitentiaries, less culture, more air force, and a withering of our ability to act collectively through the apparatus of our state government. It takes a nation to solve continental size problems. It took a federal government to settle this country, it took a federal government to build our trains, our highways, to set national standards on education and sharing the wealth of rich provinces with provinces that happened to be poorer. It is not simply because it is right that our federal governments in the past created national programs that enabled all of Canada to share in the largesse that we have been fortunate enough to have, it is because that is what Canadians do.

From the time we settled the St. Lawrence valley, up to the creation of our national healthcare system, Canadians have struggled together for a better world. Our small bore government has an altogether different view as to what the federal mission should be.

So, we here at barpolitics, aim to dissect all of the missed opportunities of the majestic government of Harper, in all its neoliberal glory. In the tradition of John A. Macdonald all the way to Ralph Klein, we promise to never write to you unless directly under the influence of a good clean lager. We embark on this possibly worthy endeavour, creating our beloved blog, and drinking all the while because we do in fact care, we do it because it’s actually the only way we can take away our existential pain (we mean drinking), and we do it because, let’s be honest, we’re better when we’re drunk, and politics do matter and matter in a way that is a little bit more pissed than perhaps our polite nation would be ready to acknowledge. The thing is, we believe that there are more of you out there. We believe that there are many ugly Canadians of great sensitivity and unusually soft hands who are as contemptuous of our Conservative government as we are. This, our beloved blog, is for you.