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Government knows best

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? I mean, you've got the Harperites harping against Iggy Pop for torpedoing the nation's chances to serve a temporary term on the United Nations Security Council - an honour likely only one in

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?

I mean, you've got the Harperites harping against Iggy Pop for torpedoing the nation's chances to serve a temporary term on the United Nations Security Council - an honour likely only one in 10 Canadians could even define - as though the man swung serious weight on the world stage. C'mon Conservatives; this guy doesn't even have that kind of clout in Canada.

And you've got every other political party in the country claiming the Conservatives are about as popular on the world stage as a raging case of diarrhea at a debutante ball, having lost the Security Council's bench-warmer position to Portugal, a country whose last great achievement involved increasing cork production and whose economy is swirling the bowl at such a dizzying rate the rest of the European Union is already signing it up for Greek lessons with Berlitz.

Of course, they save their most bile vitriol for Little Stevie Hapless. If only the doughboy hadn't opted for that photo op and a lifetime's supply of Timbits last year instead of being the keynote speaker at the UN General Assembly's Cures for Insomnia conference, Canada would've had the seat in the bag, so to speak. They also deride Stevie for the Conservatives' shameful foreign policy decisions to reduce aid to Africa and thumb their collective nose at any meaningful climate change strategy... without acknowledging the reality that without those, Canada would have no foreign policy at all.

Drawing on his vast experience in matters such as these, Stevie's spin machine has gone all hyperdrive into Sour Grapes mode - something he mastered as the kid who was never chosen for any team sport - claiming the UN is an insignificant, corrupt, Euro-centric, poopy-face organization no self-respecting leader of a minority government would ever want to have anything to do with. Conveniently, and true to form, all questions along the lines of, "Well, if it doesn't matter, why did you spend so much time, effort and ego on trying to get them to pick you? Oh, and by the way, have you been crying?" have been referred to Stockboy Day, whose tongue was surgically removed sometime in August.

I say, phooey. Sometimes you get the b'ar, sometimes the b'ar gets you. Whatever that means. Canada's got bigger problems than not getting chosen to be the Security Council's temporary boot-licker. Besides, we all know the real reason Canada wasn't chosen.

Unfortunately, when I tell you what the real reason is, it's going to sound somewhat biased since, in all honesty, it is the Conservatives' fault. But it doesn't reflect negatively on any of their achievements, there being none to reflect on. It isn't about their policies. It has more to do with a deeply-seated, unfair prejudice the rest of the world, and especially the EU countries, continue to blindly hold on to despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's because the Harper Conservatives are clairvoyant. Heck, for all I know, they're witches even.

They know things for which there is no real evidence. They understand things that elude true understanding. More importantly, they base their few, admittedly destructive, policies on this elusive, unpredictable and, if you're not an anointed member of the team, unfathomable understanding.

And that, quite frankly, scares hell out of the General Assembly, who as a body hew to the tried and true, scientific methods of reading goat entrails, tea leaves and, in a pinch, when something's really beyond understanding - like how they got the caramel in the Caramilk bar - offering human sacrifices to the gods.

How else to explain the Conservatives' all-out, frontal attack on Statistics Canada? StatsCan is generally regarded, outside the PMO and Tory caucus, as one of the world's leading data gathering and analyses bodies. For generations, political leaders of all stripes and all levels of government have relied on StatsCan numbers to prove the adage - attributed to both Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain - that, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

But unlike fact-based governments before them, the Harperites just, well, know what's what and are completely happy to relegate anything StatsCan discovers through the totally discredited scientific method to the dustbin of history.

It didn't start with the long-form census debacle. But it certainly found voice there when coven-master Tony Clement, in announcing StatsCan's most important project would be replaced with a voluntary survey, said many ordinary Canadians object to the invasive nature of the census. As proof of this, he offered... the statement that many ordinary Canadians object to the invasive nature of the census.

Oh sure, he could have conjured up a few ordinary Canadians who object but that would be so, so scientific. Okay, it would actually be anecdotal but it's not like Tony knows the difference.

Given the current government polls more than any government before it, you might think Tony would have some statistics to back up his claim. But you're missing the point. He knows it's true. Jeez, what more proof do you need?

Well, it seems there are non-believers who do need more than that. These naysayers - chief among them the former head of StatsCan who resigned rather than risk having a spell cast upon him - have caused such a fuss the Conservatives have changed their tactics. They've embraced statistics, at least imaginary statistics.

Relying, no doubt, on the very useful arm of mathematics that deal in imaginary numbers, Stockboy Day announced early last August that the government would vigorously pursue its law and order agenda by spending billions of dollars building more prisons to house criminals who commit unreported crimes. Please, you nonbelievers, don't ask how the cops are going to catch perpetrators of unreported crimes or how Crown attorneys are going to prosecute them.

Since fighting criminals, imaginary or otherwise, plays well to the Tory base of right-wing reactionaries, homophobes and rugged individualists, and since StatsCan has the temerity to completely ignore unreported crime when it compiles statistics showing crime is actually decreasing, what's a government to do?

Vic Toews, Public Safety Minister, announced the government would build 576 new cells at six prisons in Kingston and Montreal. The Harperites say it'll cost around $2 billion over five years, $7 million of which they immediately carved out of StatsCan's budget. But with their firm grasp of actual statistics, why should they even bother trying to guess. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, absent the clairvoyant gene, predicts it will cost as much as five times that. So what?

And what of the people suggesting this approach has already been tried and has failed, most notably in California, a state that spends more on prisons than education? Hey people, we're talking about fighting imaginary crime here. What? You think we can do that with avatars or something?

Boil, boil, toil and trouble....