by Klaus Rohrich
May 17, 2004
Last night I had a terrible dream, in fact, it was a nightmare! I dreamt that there was a federal election this summer and that the Liberals were re-elected with, and this is the truly frightening part, a minority government through a coalition with the NDP! It was totally dreadful.
The very first thing that the new government did in my nightmare was to declare that fiscal deficits were a good thing and that henceforth during each and every year of their five-year mandate the plan was to increase the deficit by some 75%. The government also declared that tax cuts were bad for the economy and therefore retroactively instituted tax increases for each of the past five years. Of course, this left everyone in Canada owing back taxes, meaning the Canada Customs and Revenue agency had to hire 100,000 new enforcement officers to go out and collect all those back taxes, penalties and interest.
In my nightmare, Jack Layton was appointed Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister of Defense, a post he promptly made redundant by abolishing the Canadian Forces. Olivia Chow, who had been elected co-leader of the federal NDP was named as head to a new government ministry created just for her, the Ministry of Truth and Reconciliation. Her mandate was to root out inequality, discrimination and "deviation" (a new crime that was introduced in Bill 666, a massive new omnibus body of legislation that criminalized "wrong thinking").
Prime Minister Paul Martin who had temporarily recused himself from his duties because of the ongoing RCMP investigations into several new scandals involving federal funds disappearing somewhere in Quebec, was issuing statements on a daily basis that he wanted "…to be absolutely clear" that he knew nothing about any alleged wrongdoing and that, "make no mistake", when the culprits were found out they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He was also sure that the RCMP, the "finest national police force any country could be fortunate enough to have", would "get to the bottom of the matter".
The new coalition government also created several new ministries and government departments. Svend Robinson was appointed to a newly created honorary position as "Royal Bearer of the Ring". His official duty involved opening each session of Parliament by sashaying down the centre aisle, dressed in an ermine and red velvet robe and stopping before the Speaker’s Dais with arm extended and wrist drooping slightly to better show the new Official Ring of the People of Canada, or "Folksring" for short. He would then formally introduce the Governor General and Her Royal Consort, who would open the session by reading the Speech from the Crown in a mix of Canada’s seven official languages.
Judy Rebick was appointed as Deputy Minister of a newly created Ministry of Lesbian affairs. Her first act was to complain the Ministry did not have enough women in its employ, citing the fact that there were two men working as secretaries in one of the offices.
It gets worse.
David Suzuki was Minister of Industry and Trade. His first piece of legislation, called "The Return to Nature act", abolished all manufacturing within five kilometers of a stream or natural watercourse. He also cancelled Canada’s participation in the controversial North american Free Trade agreement, declaring that "Canada will reap much more benefits going it alone".
The government retained the services of Dr. Jack Kevorkian as special advisor to the new Minister of Health and Human Services, Scott Brison, whose defection from the Conservative Party earned him this Ministry.
Legislation making bicycle ownership mandatory was also enacted in an effort to discourage Canadians from driving (as if the $1.20/litre surtax on gasoline didn’t do it).
Just as Joe Clark was about to assume the leadership of the Conservative Party for the third time, I awoke from my nightmare. I was in a cold sweat. My heart was thumping. It seemed so real!
I have often held, smugly no less, that no matter what the Liberals do, Canadians will continue to vote for them, as voting Liberal has become a conditioned response for Canadian voters, much like Pavlov’s dogs salivating on hearing a bell. However, of late a number of pundits have suggested that the possibility of a minority government with Jack Layton as kingmaker was not only a probability, it was a likelihood. This thought had never occurred to me as I have seen Canadians worshipping those craven idols from Quebec for so long that the idea of a Prime Minister who wasn’t from Quebec and who wasn’t a Liberal with a strong majority seemed preposterous.
Having had this nightmare certainly changed my mind in a big way. Come the next election, I’m going to be campaigning for the Liberals!