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Guy Who Runs This Canada Place Sounds Like A Dick
I have been paying closer attention to Canadian politics lately, on the theory that when everything goes to shit at least there will be somewhere with decent health care (and, eventually, really nice weather) I can escape to. Still, I have been wondering about Stephen Harper, who has been Prime Minister of our upstairs neighbor for almost five years (albeit of a minority government). What kind of man is he, and where is he steering my Plan B? This review of a new book about his premiership does not make for encouraging reading. Maybe I'll just stay here and wait for the zombies to eat me. It seems easier.
If we make nice with the druglords and can deal with the killing stuff (dope and coke oughtta be no problem!) then we might have a shot at Mexico.
God, even your escape fantasies are depressing.
Stephen Harper will have you believing in the reptile agenda. Mostly it's the way that his face and hair look hastily stapled over a not quite mammalian skull. But then there's the fact that flowers droop in his shadow and touching his naked skin will impart a strange circular rash at the site of contact. Seven days later you die.
Listen, even my nine year old knows enough about Harper to say "he eats puppies" when his name comes up. He doesn't reflect what Canada is all about, at all. But in comparison to what you guys deal with down there? He's a dream. I mean, even our most right leaning politicians are ultimately only right of centre. And outside of doing fuck all for the environment, he hasn't really tried to ruin our nice things. (Nobody is going to challenge our right to safe, accessible abortions or gay marriage or the like.) Also, Balk, Canada has bears. Lots and lots of bears. Please don't rule us out!
Apparently his high school aptitude tests recommended either "Prime Minister of Canada" or "editor of New York magazine."
Well, sure, he's no William Lyon Mackenzie King. But he is Canadianianaian, which means he's trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent, and able to tie just about any kind of knot you need.
He's a total cunt, yes, but the most jarring thing? HOMEBOY NEVER BLINKS. And I don't mean that figuratively.
I've been a big fan of the "when the shit goes down" scenario for a while now. I consistently ask my wife to pick a destination to flee to when the inevitable occurs and so far we've settled on Nova Scotia or someplace else in Canada. Each day as we draw closer to Palin's America (it's coming and it's going to be brutal), it seems clearer that we are not going anywhere. My romantic notion of escaping to the mountains of South America or venturing into the Nordic cold are drawing to a close because the reality is I'm stuck here, mired in years of complex American grounding. It's too late and there's too much baggage to just hit the road – I'm living a life not acting out a fucking Nicholson movie. Plus if I go Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast my wife will never forgive me. Ugh. It hurts to say it, it hurts to feel it.
@BadUncle true fact: William Lyon Mackenzie King turned away a boat carrying 900 jews trying to escape Nazi Germany in 1939. The boat had to go back to Europe. Estimates are that likely 200 or more of them died in concentration camps. So yeah, Harper is only a little worse than that. Do a search for the St. Louis if you are curious.
Well, so much for my cursory understanding of Canadian history. He should have been poked with a stick, by people drinking Labatt's. Please don't tell me anything upsetting about Labatt's
@Jorge Adot: And Harper would like to do the same to the Tamils. It's really sick how no one learns from history.
Oh yeah, he's definitely the worst. And we just can't seem to get rid of him. Still unclear who keeps voting for this bs.
Also, can we please put to bed this whole "if scenario X occurs, I'm moving to Canada" trope? It's terribly insulting to have your country regarded as some sort of geographic Plan B. Sorry to break your heart, but my fellow Canadians and I aren't exactly sitting around pining for more Americans to join us. It all just reeks of the colonial mindset, this idea that you'll just go to someone else's country as though it's just lying in wait for you should the going get tough.
However, Mr. Balk, you remain (as always) welcome in my pants.
If Palin actually gets elected, the influx of American liberals could be the boost you need to get rid of Harper.
Pine on THAT.
Nope. American liberals would most likely vote for Harper; Democrats are to the right of the Conservative party. That's another thing the escapist fantasy Americans tend to forget.
blech no. Harper is a neo-con drill-baby-drill conservative/Conservative through and through. Absolutely not to the right of the US Democrats. Sorry.
You are, actually. You're desperate for population. You'd pay Americans to settle on the prairies.
Hahahahahahahah, "as though."
Democrats are also to the right of American liberals. Democrats are just left of completely useless! You think we vote for these guys because we like them? "At least I'm not as bad as my opponent" might as well be the official party motto.
Grade four, (or so our American friends can understand fourth grade,) civic class graduate speaking here, so I am well qualified to speak; he's the Prime Minister, his premiership would be applicable if he was a Premier, the head of a province. Interesting aside, in Canada civics class is called "Socialist indoctrination lessons" and is generally taught buy a Maoist.
And his name is an anagram for Panther Herpes.
"Buy a Maoist"? is that like code for buying a Chinese baby?
Harper carries on a prime ministership, not a “premiership.” A premier is an elected head of a province or territory, and it’s pronounced PREEMyer without exception and not in any of the hodgepodge of unstable pronunciations you Americans have.
I don't talk Canadian. Here in the English-speaking world we use "premiership" to refer to Prime Ministerships. It's in dictionaries and everything!
You can’t write about Canada then play the American card. Canadian Oxford, second edition, p. 1223, defines premier as I did, then adds “2 a prime minister or head of government in any of several other countries.” Premiership is merely a noun appended to that definition.
It really is in dictionaries and everything, which contradict you.
Sounds just like Bloomberg to me. Out of the frying pan, etc
I always figured Harper to be the dismissive, quiet kid in your 10th grade math class who when it came to group work, wouldn't trust anyone else to do anything, would do the entire project by himself, land an A+, and let everyone in the group know how little they did to contribute to it. I'll take the grade, but we could do without the insults, thanks.
Harper is a grade-A dick, who's power is thankfully limited at the moment. He's one in a long line of Conservatives who model their politics on the American right wing (Harris, Mulroney et al). The problem for them is that Canadians are wary of jeopardizing our nice, fairly harmonious, society in order to save a few bucks in taxes.
Harper is also, as noted above, part lizard.