Well today is the big day! Today, Canadians from coast to coast will vote to decide who will lead our great country for the next 4 years – or at least until the next no-confidence vote.
This column didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to write about the specific issues. Believe me, it was not for lack of material, as this election campaign had tonnes of material to poke fun at.
So here are just a few last minute pieces to help those of you who may still be undecided become even more confused.
As the final day of campaigning winds down two of our candidates focus their last-ditch efforts to Ontario, trying to coerce your vote in their favour.
After all, we’re the ones to blame for all the country’s problems right? We keep on voting in those damned dirty Liberals. We’re nothing but a bunch of gay-loving, smoke-banning, french-hating, city-slicking, pinko-socialist, Maple Leaf obsessing, America-haters right? Am I right?
Can I get a “Down with Ontario!” people?
I digress…
Harper Turns even Bluer
On his final campaign push, Stephen Harper wanted to impress on people the consequences of “letting the Liberals squeak back into power.”
“I like to talk about our top five priorities (G.S.T. cut; reduce crime; reduce wait times; accountability; and childcare), what are Mr. Martin’s top five priorities? Fighting a Quebec referendum nobody wants; running ads attacking our military and talking about martial law; picking a phony fight with the U.S.; starting an abortion debate nobody needs; promising a handgun ban … that he can’t enforce.”
–Stephen Harper1
He also added, “Finally, if you vote in another Liberal government, I will hold my breath until the next election, or until my face turns blue like this.”2
Martin Rocks!
Nobody had better say that Prime Minister Incumbent Paul Martin isn’t taking this election seriously. After all, he faces the prospect of being the first Liberal candidate to lose in an election in 13 years. So what was he doing two days before the election to make sure this doesn’t happen?
“Liberal Leader Paul Martin travelled to Winnipeg Saturday night where he rocked out with a local band Toxic Rock. He leapt onto the stage and picked up an acoustic guitar and pretended to strum along with the group at a fundraiser for the city’s francophone community radio station.”33
Then he pumped his arms in the air and yelled, “Rock on Winnipeg!” doing satan’s hand gesture before leaping into a dumb-founded crowd and body surfing.4
Ironically, for the last couple of terms, Martin has been doing the political version of air-guitar and lip-syncing.
Latyon Strives for NDP Mediocrity
Jack Layton and his peeps are urging Canadians to vote in more NDPers in order to keep either the Liberal or Conservative government in check.
Wow Jack, way to go man. You’ve been an inspiration to this voter. I know now that the best way to achieve success in life is to set your goals as low as possible, without actually aiming to fail. This way, any kind of limited success you may attain is above and beyond, leaving you feeling all warm and tingly inside.
I think I’d like to live my life by this paradigm. From now on, my life goal is to wake up every morning breathing and try not to die before the end of the day. If I can do that, I will consider my life a huge success.
There, I feel much better about myself…I should have done this a long time ago…Now maybe I can get off these happy pills my doctor prescribed me.
In other news, Layton’s campaign bus was taken off the road yesterday due to vandals breaking several windows.5
When asked to comment, Layton replied, “Bummer dude. Maybe we should get the government to provide public funding for all vandals so they don’t take it out on my ride. Oh, and to squeegee kids too, they’re bitchin’.”
The Bloc Bites Back
Bloc Leader Ferret-Face Duceppe is up to his old tricks again. Whereas at the beginning of this campaign he worked with Harper to bring down the Liberals in the no-confidence vote and also helped bring them down in the polls, it is Harper and his Conservatives who have felt the wrath of the Ferret in the latter half of the campaign.
“‘I haven’t been afraid to work closely with Stephen Harper and Jack Layton to see to it that Quebec’s goals are achieved in the House of Commons,’ Duceppe said.”
— Gilles Duceppe6
That was his tune at the beginning of the campaign. This past weekend the tune changed:
“On the weekend, the Bloc published an ad in several newspapers featuring a cowboy hat above the words ‘We won’t let Calgary decide for Quebec.’”
“Harper represents the riding of Calgary Southwest.”6
–Gilles Duceppe7
Maybe now Harper will learn that no matter how cute, cuddly and playful Ferrets look, they’re still wild animals that can’t be trusted, and they’ll bite you when you are least expecting it.
I think Ferret-face is looking at this wrong. Maybe you do want Calgary to decide for Quebec. If you left it up to them, you’d be out of Canada by now. Isn’t that what you really want?
- Quote from Toronto-Federal Leaders Wrap Up Campaigns from www.pulse24.com, January 23, 2006. ↩︎
- Harper may not have actually said this. ↩︎
- Quote from Toronto-Federal Leaders Wrap Up Campaigns from www.pulse24.com, January 23, 2006. ↩︎
- No he didn’t ↩︎
- Quote from Toronto-Federal Leaders Wrap Up Campaigns from www.pulse24.com, January 23, 2006. ↩︎
- Quote from Bloc leader promises ‘constructive opposition from www.ctv.ca, January 22, 2006. ↩︎
- Quote from Bloc leader promises ‘constructive opposition from www.ctv.ca, January 22, 2006. ↩︎
What are you thinking?