From the desk of Wes Johnston, M.P.
Wet Vancouver – Sunnyvale Coast – Sea-to-Sky Country Club
For those who took exception to my scolding of District of West Vancouver Council over its unanimous motion to ban LNG tankers from Howe Sound, and those who raised concerns over farmed salmon when MYgovernment™® failed to implement recommendations of the Cohen Commission... as well as anyone still hand-wringing over trivialities like climate change, endangered species, pipelines, mines, pollution, fracking, health, water, sustainable economy, education and First Nations' rights, I say: Disagree! Poppycock! Balderdash!
I'm doing so here, through contracted proxy, because you've ignored my copious "Letters to the Editor" attempting to inculcate a right way of thinking — a personal invite to the Order of the Clapping Seal. Sadly, I had to resort to that degrading pulpit because so few of you appreciate the cognitive blunt-force trauma of neoconservatism. Sure, I regularly stuff your mailboxes with lame flyers that summarize the latest propaganda from MYgovernment™® with the same simplistic, misleading phrases spouted by my automatonic Ottawa colleagues, but these bear repeating ad nauseam for good reason. Under this proven doctrine, the more you repeat something that isn't true, the truer it gets—get it? That's why you need to believe — er, understand — that MYgovernment™® has indeed accomplished much.
I'll be the first to admit none of these advents has been intelligent, reasonable, justified, logical or informed by what's best for the country (i.e., in everyone's interest). But when the political campaign never stops, whither meaningful policymaking? The future ends with the next election — "now" is all about gewgaws and tinsel. You can't list a single MYgovernment™® act that actually benefitted the country as a whole, but you've got to admire our litany of firsts.
Our PM is the only one to have an Internet Top 10 list of "Crimes Against Humanity" attached to his name, and these are no small potatoes: supporting the invasion of Iraq and participating in illegal war in Libya that led to the creation of ISIS; lying about the war in Afghanistan; supporting illegal settlements in Israel; helping Canadian mining and energy companies destroy the Earth (apparently there's only one of these); indifference to Palestinian, Haitian, Congolese, Syrian, etc. suffering; blocking arms controls. Impressive. And here's the coup de grace: thousands of Canadians believe our PM should be tried in international court for his climate change policies. Man, you can't buy that kind of publicity!
I'm proud of what we've achieved on the world stage on your behalf, but lest you think us too focused on foreign malfeasance, remember: no other PM has demonstrated such contempt for our own democracy: proroguing Parliament twice for partisan reasons; interfering with and slashing budgets of Parliamentary watchdogs; abandoning Canadian citizens in overseas jails while ignoring court orders to repatriate them; producing a guide (200 pages! with your tax dollars!) to help MYgovernment™® Parliamentary Committee chairs thwart opposition; abusing power by cutting funding to groups with whom MYgovernment™® has ideological differences, dismantling critical Canadian science and libraries, criminally deregulating the environmental sector, breaking our own fixed election law, substantiated acts of electoral fraud, and, most recently, sham hearings for civil-liberties-curtailing anti-terror legislation. We're clearly making a mark.
Paul Martin — who as finance minister in John Chretien's Liberal government, and briefly as PM himself, orchestrated Canada's best financial position ever — recently called the new budget of MYgovernment™® "an absolute disgrace." Well, that's one perspective, but coming from a guy who posted record budget surpluses it doesn't mean much —MYgovernment™® was able to destroy in seconds the over $13 billion inherited from Martin with ill-advised and politically motivated GST cuts. If making poor decisions are what you do best (and we do) then this budget will be awesome! I'm fired up and can't wait to see what new tax loopholes — er, laws — are buried in it. Remember, $750,000,000 is what MYgovernment™® has spent advertising its programs (and our party, and the oil industry... but I digress). And that's only a conservative (ha ha) estimate. Two things to note here: 1) your tax money again (ha ha again), and 2) no, this doesn't suggest $$$ could be restored to funding various women's groups, Parks Canada, or environmental research — even world-renowned bargains like the Experimental Lakes Area that cost a piddling $2 mil/yr. Only a responsible government would let such irritants cut into self-promotion, and MYgovernment™® is no such thing.
Before I finish, let me address recent suggestions that these days, M.P. actually stands for "Meat Puppet." Nonsense. Urban dictionaries define Meat Puppet as either a person who publishes comments in public venues about some thing/product in order to generate interest and buzz, or a person that has no will of their own and lets others control them. Hopefully the PM will call the perpetrator of this sordid rumour a terrorist so I can dutifully clap approval from my seat on the back benches.
God bless Canada. (yes, I actually wrote this once!)
