Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Canadian Political Humour Primer
It has come to my attention that this blog now has American readers. As a public service to these readers, I have composed this brief sketch of Canadian political history so that they may have some appreciation of the political humour in this blog. Fellow igloo-dwellers, please help me out by adding your own editorial notes:
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| Marcel Marceau ceded Quebec to Britain in the '60s, or a long time ago anyway |
At other times, we date the country's origin from Confederation in 1867, when Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald bribed some other British colonies into joining in the vain hope of stifling French Canadian whining. Sir John A. was not some glamourous American military type; he was a drunk Scotsman who was a consummate politician and had the same hair-dresser as former British PM Disraeli.
Almost immediately after Sir John A., the country was taken over by the Liberal Party, who embody everything that Americans think about when they use the word 'liberal' as an insult. Generations of social engineering have made it almost impossible for Canadian politicians to hold any contradictory political views. The Liberals have established a vast concentration camp called "Western Canada" to isolate dissidents who dare to suggest that public healthcare could be improved or that the gun registry is an expensive boondoggle.
After decades of failing to unseat the Liberals for any length of time, the Conservatives have fallen into a cycle of perpetually fighting amongst themselves. The latest round of this came in the late 1980's, when some conservatives decided that Conservative PM Brian Mulroney was too slick and not conservative enough and so split off to form the Reform Party, later known as the Canadian Alliance. This schism led to the near-complete destruction of conservative electoral hopes and allowed the Liberals to regain power. This is what is known as "principled politics" in Canada and as dumb-assed self-defeating idiocy in other countries.
Two years ago, Canadian conservatives finally decided it would be more fun to fight each other in close quarters rather than in separate parties, so the Alliance and PC parties merged and have been happily fighting with each other ever since. PC stands for Progressive Conservative and sometimes for Politically Correct, since the PCs are about as conservative as the right-wing of the U.S. Democrats.
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| Harper likes stick up his ass |
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| Mackay likes ass on his stick |
The current Conservative (a.k.a. Tory party) leader, Stephen Harper, is noted for being very grumpy but very smart. He comes from the Alliance side. For a variety of reasons not entirely his fault, the party is not doing well, so his PC rivals are starting to circle like vultures. Most notable in this crowd is PC pretty boy Peter Mackay, who used to go out with Belinda Stronach, the Paris Hilton of Canadian politics, before she decided to defect to the Liberals.
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| Ain't it always the way: Liberal Paul Martin conspired for 30 yrs for the PM job only to find he sucks at it |
Other characters to note on the Canadian political scene are the NDP (a socialist party that are like Ralph Nader on steroids) and the Bloc Quebecois (a party that specializes in French Canadian whining.)
So that should be about all you need to know to follow along, unless my other readers have further insights.
posted by Mentok @ 10:44 a.m.,
