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I was teaching my puppy, Viggo, to pee outside yesterday when a man motioned to me to come to the fence. He introduced himself as the local Conservative candidate and asked if he could count on my vote.
Wiping the pee from my hand, I extended it, and he handed me a pamphlet, my first in the run-up to next fall's federal election.
Poor fellow.
Who convinced him to run against the McGuinty Dynasty in Ottawa South?
I felt sorry for him, so I decided to allot him five minutes of windbaggery.
Clearly he hadn't realized to whom he was speaking.
Fly meet spider.
"What's your climate plan?" I asked.
A smile spread on his Cheshire mug, and he began to extol the virtues of his party's plan to cut The Dreaded Carbon Tax.
"I've been hearing from your neighbours that many people detest the Trudeau Tax," he began.
Given the fact my house is surrounded by crackheads and cranky pensioners, I have no doubt. I also have no doubt that the cranks were also asking for "coffee money" while my 100-year-old next door neighbour mixed him up with her lawn chemical guy.
I asked him to explain the carbon tax, and I don't think he understood it. Does anybody?
My understanding of the carbon tax is this. Essentially, the government takes your toonie every time you fill up your gas tank, then they give it back to you in the Spring, and you say "wow! I found a toonie. You've got my vote, Bucko!"
But this guy wasn't quite sure what a toonie was.
Really, he should have done his homework before he darkened my fence.
"I used to work at Environment Canada," I told him. "Maybe you should think about a business responsibility plan that would give consumers a nickel for every pop bottle they return.
"You realize that only eight percent of plastic is recycled in this country?"
His eyes widened, and they began to dart back and forth in their eyes sockets as if he had been accidentally tasered in the groin by a police officer.
Then he found his composure.
"I understand," he said. "I'm a businessman, a food distributor."
"Congratulations," I said as I turned to pick up Viggo's poop.
He seemed relieved our encounter was over.
The man returned to the street to join Pudge Nation, a small army of blue shirted Tories who had spread out to canvass my sad corner of the world.
"Did you get her support?" I imagine him being asked by the Head Pudge.
"Not sure," he might have replied as he scratched me off his supporter list. "I think she's a Liberal."
I'm not, you know, a Liberal.
I used to be a Liberal back in the days when men wore roses in their lapels and twirled in capes.
Today, I am simply a free range voter, somebody who would mark the "X" for anyone who didn't grow up in the Wonderful Land of Lawyers, Pickpockets and Professional Fart Catchers.
Or at least a candidate who can explain the Carbon Tax before vilifying it.
God, I miss Paul Callandra.
Politics is getting more and more ridiculous.
I'm so fed up that I cancelled my Globe and Mail and Toronto Star subscriptions in favour of a Cat of the Month Club.
The news just makes me want to puke.
I don't want to hear about how much Justin Trudeau pays for organic food. Nor do I want to be reminded about the stupidity of my beer-swilling brethren who gave the keys to our kingdom to the enabler of Rob Ford.
Frankly, I'm sick of politics -- all of it -- especially here in Ontario.
Doug Ford is an asshat and everybody knows it.
I could have told everybody that he would make a terrible Premier.
I didn't vote for him, that's for sure, but he's ruining my life.
What a feckless idiot.
I want someone to stick the hose of a helium tank up Doug Ford's ass, blow him up and run him in the Macy's parade as Ontario's contribution.
Our Thanksgiving Day Turkey -- marinated in beer and farting out taxpayer money.
Give me a good scandal anytime. I'm in for a juicy sex scandal or a big time freewheeling spending spree by an Oxy-loving Senator.
But this.
This was a JUDICIAL PROCESS and PROTOCOL scandal!
A did he, or didn't he speak crossly to a Cabinet Minister scandal. An "I don't feel respected, anymore" scandal involving politicians.
Man or woman in this country, nobody respects politicians.
Not even other politicians.
I don't care about Lavalin. It has nothing to do with me. It's someplace over there, in another province I don't care about.
As a company, Lavalin never did anything to me. It didn't poison my drinking water or give me cancer. It didn't deny my kids a good education. It didn't cause the potholes in my neighborhood.
It's not Boeing!
It's just a big stupid company that did something terrible a long time ago in a land far, far away, which involved a guy who was beaten by a flash mob.
I'm sure it was bad, like everything people do in foreign countries under the banner "what happens in Libya stays in Libya".
Maybe their executives should be in jail. Most executives should be in jail.
But politically speaking, did anybody really do anything really that bad?
Nobody broke the law. A couple of women got their feelings hurt.
Move the hell on.
And while we're on the subject, this might seem controversial, but I don't care that they were women. The women I grew up idolizing in politics were championship ball twisters. Remember Judy LaMarsh? Monique Begin? Flora Frickin' MacDonald??
To quote Tom Hanks badly, there's no crying in politics.
When life hands you lemons, you take those lemons and put them in the Fiji water when you collect up all your directorships when you retire on your sized-up House of Commons pension.
That's the way it's always been. We just didn't hear about it all the time.
Back to the carbon tax fight.
A word of advice, Andrew Scheer.
Shut the fuck up about it.
It's done.
We have a carbon tax. I got my cheque.
Now I don't want to hear about it from you.
Go back to your government-subsidized pile and come up with a climate plan.
Stat.
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