It Was the Best of Times, It Was the… Yikes!

2020 is hindsight. It’s also been a real pain in the ass. Truly a year for the books (or the webpages, in the case of this novice blogger's first partial year). So here's Miss F-D's first annual summary of lessons learned, lives lost, losers lambasted, and, of course… Liberals loved.

 🇨🇦 🎊 🎉 🎇 🎈 🎆 🇨🇦

Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends

Amid all the otherwise positive kudos for Justin Trudeau and his party’s handling of the pandemic came some occasional setbacks and stumbles in between. The manufactured scandal-mongering of the opposition over the summer has been analysed and buttery males’ed to death, but WeGhazi wasn’t the only difficult point for the Liberals this year. Canada’s delegation also lost out on their bid for a rotating membership at the United Nations Security Council, something that Trudeau had hoped to attain as a reflection of Canada’s position as a reformed player on the world stage, particularly in the wake of an embarrassing defeat for Stephen Harper in 2010.

It didn’t materialize, despite a hard-fought, albeit at times chaotic, push led over the last stretch by Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne. But I’m not the only one who rejects the petty and feckless opposition’s juvenile Nelson Muntz finger pointing that “Canada is not back” and it’s all Trudeau’s fault. You can go through my four-part analysis under the tag “UN Security Council” for a further explanation and several defences from actual foreign policy writers. The bottom line is that extenuating circumstances threw a lot of spanners in the works for Trudeau’s global ambitions — not the least of which was the cataclysmic disruption of the geopolitical landscape by the election of a bona fide elephant (or orange woolly mammoth) in the bed downstairs.

It’s not like “Canadian values” won’t be represented at the table by Norway and Ireland. Ultimately, considering the less-than-sunny disposition of the “big players” at the table, it’s probably more likely that “Canadian values” won’t be represented by anyone much at all. Not when the two biggest beasts in the room — the dragon and the eagle (or lumbering elephant) — don’t take too kindly to smaller party guests telling them to call off the dogs of war.

John Lennon famously said of Trudeau’s father in 1969, “if all leaders could be like Mr. Trudeau, the world would have peace.” Some forty years after Lennon's murder at the hands of a bitter hater who sought happiness in the form of a warm gun, the same is true of Pierre’s son. If all leaders could be like Justin Trudeau, or Angela Merkel, or Jacinda Ardern, or Erna Solberg and Leo Varadkar, the world would have peace. But Lennon also said this time around the holidays, war is over if you want it. I’m sure Trudeau wants war to be over. Norway too and Ireland especially. But China and the Untied States don’t and neither does Russia. And so the best that any of the little guys at the table (or even on the outside looking in) can hope for is that cooler heads and warmer hearts someday prevail. Otherwise, as Trudeau said when he addressed the U.N. in September for the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding, if you think things are bad now… they’re about to get a whole lot worse.

The world needs more Canada. All he is saying, is give peace a chance.

But perhaps we’re... just not ready.

No self-respecting fish would want to be covered by a Jesse Brown podcast

With apologies to the late, great Mike Royko, one of the biggest problems that I and other colleagues addressed this year (and have been shouting about for some years now) is the absolute rot that is the Canadian “news” media. That fish is rotting from the head on down, and it's a creature from the swamp with multiple rotting heads. If you thought the U.S. village idiots with their bothsiderism and bizarre fixations upon conspiracy-theory nontroversies like Hillary’s emails on Hunter’s laptop were bad, Canada’s equivalent junk journos are a pathetic copycat cabal that punches above its weight in stupid.

Media criticism and accountability is direly needed in Canada. For some time, it attempted to be filled by the “CanadaLand” podcast network and its frenetic founder, the former CBC personality Jesse Brown. Some of the most insightful investigations into the incestuousness and corruption of Canada’s newspapers have come from CanadaLand pieces and so I give credit where credit is due.

But looking back now, almost none of it came from Brown, but the freelancers he hired — and as far as I and many others are concerned, he completely incinerated his credibility and became the very thing that he proclaimed to hate: just another crooked, myopic shill with an obsessive hatred for Justin Trudeau like the rest of the self-aggrandizing hacks and punditocracy putzes at Postmedia, the Globe, and increasingly, even his former employer at the CBC.

That Canada’s news media ran uncritically with piss-poor coverage of Brown’s vendetta against the Kielburger charity, and aided this mutual masturbation scheme to turn what could have been a beneficial aid program for pandemic-distressed students into a Bizarro Trump “scandal,” is shameful in and of itself. What’s worse is that because Brown bet the farm on ingratiating himself among the “establishment” that never took him seriously, and sought to do their bidding with a gambit at torpedoing Trudeau with this absolute nothingburger of a Clintonesque conspiracy theory, there is a vacuum for genuine criticism of the eyesore that is the Canadian fourth estate. It sure as hell isn’t going to come from some techbro who fancies himself the Warren Kinsella of Ezra Levants.

But who?

Brown’s primary rival in this sphere would have ideally been lawyer and Bush Runner author Mark Bourrie, a onetime journalist himself who also authors a blog appropriately titled Fair Press Canada, and had previously written a book called Kill the Messengers about Stephen Harper's dismantling of journalistic accountability. Bourrie wrote excellent, scathing critiques of Brown, his sham publicity operation fronting as essentially the Chapo Trap House of Rebel Medias, and the generally shameful performance of his own former profession and the anti-Liberal political opposition. But he is burned out, fed up, and in poor health. That leaves the yeoman’s work of Daniel Dale and Brian Stelter-esque factchecking to a scattered assortment of “tweeps” and small-time bloggers who get sneered at as Liberal partisans or even Trudeau groupies, because reality has a small- and big-L liberal bias. Not healthy for a G7 democracy. Or should I say, a “Murdochracy.”

For all their crowing about Trudeau and his supposed blind spots, the entire industry refuses to engage in the requisite introspection they would need to realize that they are one gigantic multi-layered conflict of interest. I have a series that I’m sporadically working on, Connecting the Dots, that ties a lot of these threads together to paint a very bad picture of the self-designated gatekeepers of truth up in the north.

Amid the corrupt connections of Postmedia, CTV/Globe & Mail, Global/Corus, and now even the Toronto “ToryStar,” Jesse Brown set out to be a muckraking Superman with a digital Daily Planet. But Jesse Brown is no Perry White. He’s just a wannabe Conrad Black.

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old

Apologies on this account to the late, great Dan Fogelberg, on another Same Old Lang Syne. To say this year has exhausted all of us from all walks of life is perhaps literally the understatement of the century. The fresh-faced wunderkind in Ottawa is now a greying middle-aged veteran statesman who looks like he’s been through the war. Nevertheless, he persists (and dare I say, still maintains a new and different kind of sexy in the process), though I expect that this next upcoming campaign cycle will surely be his last. Trudeau the elder served sixteen years as prime minister, from 1968 to 1984 with a brief Joe Clark interregnum for eleven months in 1979. Chronologically speaking, Trudeau the younger has served only five thus far; psychologically speaking, with those five years dominated by Donald Trump and a global pandemic, it’s fair to say that about nine decades has been compressed into just half of one.

And I admire his tenacity throughout. I admire a lot more than that about Justin Trudeau, obviously, but I truly marvel at his willingness to sacrifice what could otherwise be a successful and indeed lucrative private life as a schoolteacher or an app developer or whatever it is he would otherwise be doing, to marshal his country through crisis after crisis — while suffering the slings and arrows of some of the most deplorable individuals to ever serve as members of public office. Including and especially Donald Trump.

I am tired too, of COVID and bigotry and conspiracy theorists and smear attackers and the deplorable stupidity of wide swaths of peoplekind, including the majority of my limited inner circle. I’ve found that I like blogging, I like getting my words out there, but that I ought to pace myself lest I reach a point of burnout as well.

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade

And I send him all the best wishes for a happy and successful 2021 and long afterward, hopefully with a majority government in the near future and a bestseller second memoir at some point down the line.

Myself, I owe the strength to keep going to the friends I’ve met along the way (and even some I haven’t). Simon, J.D., R.T., Rumleyfips, Steve, Ottlib, Marmalade, Brawnfire, Salamander, Brian Dundas, all the “non-commenters” at Wonkette, and everyone over at “Liberal Twitter.” Thanks for everything, from this lonely Yank on the wrong side of the border who doesn’t allow comments either and has never been fond of canned clams. (Though I’ve yet to try poutine. Perhaps that’s a resolution worth keeping, eh?)

Happy New Year, Canada. Bonne année. And for Dearest Justin… don’t let the Sun catch you crying, and don’t let the bastards grind you down — let ‘em fuddle duddle in the snow and freeze in the dark.

You’re a great Guy. You’re a truly royal Canadian.

 

Boxing Day

 

So, obviously December 26th isn't a holiday to commemorate pugilism. It's actually an old English custom that can basically be summed up as "donation day," but is now "day-after-Christmas-discount-day" (and "return what doesn't fit day").

But I'mma celebrate it a little differently this year, though. What with charity all of a sudden being a hair-on-fire fauxtrage for our dear prizefighting prime minister's desperate and craven adversaries. Then there's the fact that I actually do have a whole bunch — about 20 (yes, 20) — of boxes full of donations to be sent out somewhere... except nothing is open, and no one is accepting anything, due to this damn pandemic that can't end soon enough.

My discount DVD player died and I can't find the remote for my mini-TV. So I didn't get to do a whole lot of watching my holiday movie discs this year (and our Internet sucks in the suburban boonies, hence no Netflix or any of those other overpriced luxuries — probably overrated since all you're doing is paying a monthly subscription to watch things that used to come over the air for free). But I did manage to locate a portable player down in the basement, so at least I'll get some seasonal entertainment in.

What's this got to do with Boxing Day?

Why, I'm going to celebrate it by (re-)watching God Save Justin Trudeau.

 

And maybe check and see if one of the cable channels has a Rocky marathon on.

As a run-up to the main movie event, I'm going to re-watch the actual 2012 match between The Canadian Kid and Brass Knuckles Brazeau. (Who later went on to be thrown under the bus by his own party, because Harper #ReallySucks, and developed an unlikely respect for, and even friendship with, his onetime rival in the ring.) Always a good motivator to see Ezra Levant fail spectacularly, and express clearly discernible agony on national television.

There isn't much good on YouTube, but every so often you find a diamond in the digital rough.

Justin Trudeau does best when he's underestimated. At first he was thought to have no shot at the big time because he was too young. Now it seems the play-by-play pundits have decided he's getting to the point of being washed up and not long for the circuit because he's too old.

Always a good motivator to recognize that in their rush to declare him the Canadian political world's version of Jake LaMotta, the play-by-play pundits sure do spew out a lot of raging bull...shit.

I say bring on the next fight. Between the seasoned sage and a rusty old tool, my money's on Hockey Balboa running up the steps of Parliament to declare victory, then lift his little boy on his shoulders and cry out:

Yo, Hadrien!!!

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

 

He might stumble, but he's still one of the best. But if you're looking for a champ, Justin is...

 

I'll be back in a short while for some year-end stuff and additions to a project I've been working on. But the movie's starting, and my popcorn just went "ding" in the microwave... eh, gotta fly now...

 

 

A Very Merry Un-Birthday To You!

 

Happy Birthday, Christmas, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Sunny Ways Days... All the Festivities, Katie, to Canada's very own princes of peace, Justin & Sacha Trudeau. No, they're not twins like the Property Brothers, but you'd be forgiven for thinking so; two years separates them, but little else.

 

💕 🎄 🎂 🇨🇦

Because like twins they're close to one another but pretty divergent personality-wise. Sacha, the quiet brother, picked an ideal career for someone who prefers to stay behind the scenes: he became a writer and a documentary filmmaker. Justin the extrovert, meanwhile, became, well... you know.

 

And so the first of Maggie Magdalene's two December babies has been making the rounds of the interview circuit talking about flickers of hope for next year, after what has been a mostly miserable and decidedly un-miraculous 2020. Mostly the media is obnoxious and doesn't relay the gospel of St. Pierre very well to the faithful or the unconverted. So instead I'll just let the messenger speak his own words as we get ready for the, um, holy writ to drop.

Here's Rosie Barton being Canada nice:

Here's Evan Solomon being... less of a dickbro than usual, just for the holidays, I guess. (Had to get in a WeGhazi dig, though. And a little JAQing off to Skippy the Pigeon's conspiracy theories. Dude, WTF?)

Anyway, here's a summary of Rosie's interview and the full transcript from Evan's. (As of this writing, I haven't yet been able to locate on YouTube the other of the Canadian Big Three networks' year-end interviews, from The West Block at Global News. I'll link it here if/when they do, but as I plan on going into further detail about over the holiday Parliament break, I'm not a fan of Fox-Lite North at all...)

UPDATE 26 December: Here's Global's The West Block, featuring Justin growing out his 1980s rock musician hair again. (Jesus Christ, Canada, since when is Kenny Loggins your prime minister?)

 

Finally, on a more upbeat note, here's a pretty damn awesome photo retrospective from Adam Scotti (bandwidth warning!), and the annual tradition going on some twenty years of Justin's visit to buddy and Montreal DJ Terry DiMonte, where he talks about vaccines and Die Hard... and mom. As Susan Delacourt recounts from excerpts of the friends' fireside chat, this year has been especially tough on poor Margaret — and that's even aside from narrowly escaping a house fire, and then having her name dragged through the mud by her son's jealous adversaries like a common Hunter Biden:

Trudeau also said that his mother, Margaret, has been having a hard time over the past year. He didn’t go into details, but hinted that the pandemic has put a strain on her much-publicized struggles with mental health.

“She’s not doing great,” Trudeau said. “She’s in Montreal and she’s going to be alone for Christmas and I’m not going to see her.”

His mother, he said, is normally “the champion of Christmas,” overseeing the turkey, the stuffing and the carrots mixed with turnips that only she and the prime minister appear to enjoy.

“It’s really tough, but you know, these are the things that families are having to go through … Doing Christmas without my mom, knowing that she’s just a two-hour drive away, yet knowing that it might as well be light-years away.”

Light-years away. (You know he wanted to say a galaxy far, far away.) Justin may not be Home Alone inside that replica of the McCallister brick house, but he sure does miss his mom. (Even if she's not in Florida and he in New York.) The only upside is that if all goes according to plan, Margaret is sure to be on a high-priority list for the first groups of Canadians to be vaccinated, not because she's the PM's mother but because she's elderly and has chronic health conditions. And that because of (certain) wonders of technology like Zoom, Face Time, and the old-fashioned telephone, even if he can't reach out and touch somebody's hand, Maggie's boy child born on Christmas day is only...

It's been real, it's been tough, and it's been real tough. But hopefully next year and beyond holds brighter days ahead, not just for the Trudeau family, the Liberal government, and people in the country of Canada, but others in their orbit — especially a now (or soon-to-be) Trump-less United States.

As I've said before, until then, we'll fuddle-duddle through somehow.

So Justin (and Sacha), have yourselves a happy Christmas birthday now.

 

Another year older and a new one's just begun... fuck 2020 and on to 2021!

We Deliver For Yule!

 

I told you he was Santa Claus. Or should I say... Santé Claus? ("Health" in French.) Because after all the huffing and puffing and amplified poutrage of last week over a supposedly "missed" COVID vaccine timeline... surprise surprise, Maggie's  boy child went in his sleigh and pulled out a miracle. Underpromise... and overdeliver. Jedi mind tricks 101. One helluva bluff from a man with a very pleasing poker face.

(Gotta say, I love the shrug from the sign language interpreter. Moonlighting as a mind reader, translating PMJT's gauntlet-throwing staredown of the opposition as, "Is that it? What else you got?")

 

And lo and behold, it appears that Santé Claus either has a magical multitasking ability, or a team of clones getting other shit done:

 

 (Or, he just has a clever photographer with an aptitude for overlay filters...)

What's actually going on is that Santé Claus does have a really stellar team doing the grunt work to get these vaccines rolled out and crush COVID over the next months and years, while he does his best to reassure the public that help is on the way in the form of a lot more than tiny reindeer. (In fact it's best advised to leave the reindeer alone. They're drunk, and they like to hump cars. Don't ask.)

So amid all this last-minute rush for Christmas deliveries (some of which require the kind of space-age refrigeration technology that Frosty the Snowman could have only dreamed about fifty years ago), what have the Grinches and Scrooges comprising Santé Claus' adversaries been doing to benefit the war effort?

 

*Tsk-tsk-tsk*

In fact, it's been worse than nothin'. They've been actively trying to undermine the war effort — and steal Christmas, while blaming Santé Claus and all the medical professionals down in W.H.O.-ville. Fortunately, their best efforts at sabotage don't seem to be landing as well as they did all those months ago — as the old saying goes, only the jesters dare tell the truth...

And of course, because he is such an effective multitasker, in between the well-oiled Big Red Machine cranking into high gear for team Canada in spite of the axis of evil's best efforts to throw spanners in the works, Santé Claus even found some time over the weekend to get in a verbal sparring match with an old pal over one of the most vexing conundrums of the ages:

(And don't forget: Doug Ford's police have themselves an RV. But I digress.)

 

Anyway, right now, things are looking a little bit brighter for Canada and for our beloved Santé Claus...

 

'Twas the eve of an election

And all through the north,

The crisis was receding

As the Liberals marched forth.

Canadians were snuggled all tight in their beds,

With visions of vaccines dancing in their heads.

Chrystia with her guardrails (but no fiscal "cap")

Had just settled in... and wasn't taking any crap.

As dry commentary that before the pandemic would fly,

Obama's takes on movies didn't rank very high.

Our prime minister might stumble, but recovered real quick —

You knew in a moment, he must be Saint Nick.

When what to his steely blue eyes should appear?

It was Eric O'Foole... or was that Andrew Scheer?

His lies, how they angered; his dimples, how phony;

His shit-eating grin was so full of baloney.

His shadow cabinet put good governance to shame,

So he dog-whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"On Skippy! On Rempel! On Bergen and Sloan!

Every so-con and QAnon and Harperite drone!"

But his chances of toppling Trudeau turned to ash,

Despite opening the war chest full of dark-money cash.

And I heard Justin exclaim, ere he drove out of sight...

...and to all, a good night!

 

 

Weekend Coffee Talk Dec. 5, 2020: The Christmas Rush

 

Vaccines, mini-budgets, and conservative conspiracy cranks, oh my. This weekend's Coffee Talk linklist roundup is a miscellany mishmash of stocking stuffer stories hitting the presses and the twittersphere, as we head to the holiday time crunch before Parliament's much-needed break. Talk amongst yourselves... I'll give you some egg nog.

• ICYMI: My early rundown on why the Cons' latest "Vax-Scam" nontroversy is bullshit on its face, plus another take from our pal Simon and some new developments adding further credence to the Great Debunking of 2020. Pfizer gets stretched a little thin; Derek Sloan gets needled for being a prick; and Canadian media's favourite academic crank after Jordan Peterson gets schooled (and flunks out) for pushing "tough love" on Alberta. Conservatives: they're not just anti-vaxers but anti-facts-ers. (Jackie's Miss F-D blog | Simon's blog | Dale Smith's Routine Proceedings | Global News | G&M | Toronto Star | CBC Politics | 660 City News)

• Eric O'Foole is a liar, even though parliamentary protocols prevent the Liberals from using that exact word in describing him as such. So here's Dale Smith and Enzo DiMatteo to do it for them ― the latter even likening him to Rudy "Switch to Decaf" Giuliani. Just not ready... nice hair dye, though. (Loonie Politics | NOW Toronto)

• The Liberals got an early Christmas present from Moderna in addition to their CEO's statements popping Errant the Tool's balloon: a deal for 20 million more shipments of their vaccine, to be delivered by FedEx. Inb4 the Dippers complain that it isn't being sent out by Canada Post because "private sector bad," while Sloan and Skippy rile up the conspiracy base to argue that George Soros owns the registration for Santa's sleigh... which is red because it was contracted out to "corrupt" Liberals with ties to communist China. Hm, that's interesting: suddenly Canada faces a tin foil shortage in addition to a run on toilet paper. (CTV News)

• Section 230 of United States law needs to die in order to save Canada — and a lot of innocent kids. QAnon is a wild goose chase, but killing the internet "as we know it" could stop that and an actual trafficking network. Read this and be enraged that Avenue Q (!) was right. (NY Times)
  

• Speaking of QAnon: This piece offers an excellent rundown of how the American brain-worm disease spread up north like, well, a pandemic of stupid. Friendly sausage makers of the world, unite. (The Walrus)

• And speaking of Sausagegate and the media dropping the ball on that disaster-in-the-making: The high-profile resignation of yet another BiPOC broadcaster from Shaw/Global/Corus really exposes the systemic racism of Canadian news media and why their torqued coverage #ReallySucks. On the plus side, Ryan Jespersen ('memba him?) has his own independent thing going on, and he and Supriya Dwivedi seem to be getting something started in sticking it to the lying-press swamp. Plus, a throwback piece from Erica Ifill from this past summer, on why the MSM in Canada needs a reckoning ASAP. (Vice Canada | Jespo's Real Talk podcast | Not in My Colour)

• Yet another report on the racism of Canada's crumbling fourth estate. Plus, a tweep uncovers a potential... "conflict of interest" that should give Shaw/Corus/Global pause — if Eric the Fool is looking for a "definition" of systemic racism and "corruption," he should look no further than the network and the anchor who first interviewed him on the subject. Ya know, uh... I almost don't want to know what they really call kettles besides "black"... (Vice Canada | "Alberta Yoda" on Twitter) UPDATE 5 January 2021: Mercedes denies this downthread, but won't comment further on the matter. Well, OK then, we'll just leave it in the air of possibility. Just asking questions, right? It would be irresponsible not to speculate...
  

• Jason Kenney shat the bed bigly in a failed attempt to own Trudeau, so here comes Captain Kirk to try and beam Albertans up to the realm of sanity and good governance. Sorry Cap'n, there doesn't seem to be any intelligent life anywhere in the UCP. (G&M)

• U.S. Justice Department ignores Trump's dick-wagging trade war and inadvertently attempts to do Justin a solid by getting the two Michaels out in exchange for the Huawei brat. Win-win for the rules-based international order and potentially for Trudeau, especially if it takes some of the wind out of Erin the windbag's sails (or sales) of his junk boat. But sure, he's the Manchurian Canada Date, right? (Bloomberg News)

• ICYMI: Mostly middle-aged mediocre male (M4) pundits who know the cost of everything and value of nothing are mad that Justin and Chrystia are intent upon pursuing a national childcare policy, as a major investment that will pay back society with substantial interest. So here's a good piece on why affordable child care is the pathway to truly building back better... for the better half. (The Walrus)

• WeGhazi nonsense: Fearing that their whole charade might get blown to bits, Mark Bourrie's agent is being trolled by Jesse Brownshirt's onetime lackey who parlayed CanadaLand's bogus hit job into a sweet deal with the G&M. Best reply in the thread: "is Jaren the male version of Karen?" Fitting, since he literally asked to speak to Mark's manager. (Mark Bourrie on Twitter)

• And finally: Politics or no politics, I just completely love "Ivalera" and "Katy Notie's" Trudeau stan feeds. I know "Katy" is being facetious, but wouldn't say I'm offended by how damn good he looks... though I certainly am a bit flustered. My oh my, he is quite a sugar plum and I have lots of visions of him in my head... ("Katy Notie" on Twitter)
  

Dearest Justin: Dead Like Me

 

This week's open letter to the prime minister is a break from COVID stuff. Instead, it's a follow-up on a previous post about a somber issue that is near and dear to my heart: the right to die. As yet another mass murderer gets spotlighted by the media for his mental health diagnosis being the supposed "trigger" for his horrific actions, it's become clear that the stigma for the rest of us will never — and I mean never — go away. In short, what's an awkward but otherwise harmless leper like me with the Greta disease supposed to do when potential employers and the general public think of me as predisposed to be Keeping Up with the Minassians?

 

***

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:

It's me again, your #1 American fan with the penchant for quoting cheesy '80s music and appealing to your tragic sense of empathy. Besides the ongoing COVID-19 developments, I have been closely watching two issues unfolding in Canada, from my perch on the opposite side of the 49th parallel: the contentious debate over reforms to the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation, and the trial of the "Toronto incel killer" — and in particular, how the media has handled its coverage of both.

As you and a number of your ministers have noted on social media, yesterday, December 3, marked the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Interestingly enough, at the same time, the Conservatives were pulling their usual shenanigans in bad faith during committee hearings for the MAiD legislation, ostensibly as "disability advocates"; a Conservative MP with a history of troublesome outbursts proffered conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine; you yourself made a profound and emotional statement marking the anniversary of the Polytechnique murders; and testimony for the defence continued in the trial of self-declared "incel" Alek Minassian continued in an Ontario courtroom — whose initial stated reasoning behind his horrific actions was eerily similar to the misogynistic hatred spewed by Marc Lepine on that fateful day in 1989, yet whose attorneys are staking a claim that Minassian should be held not criminally responsible for the murders he committed, because his diagnosis of autism-spectrum disorder supposedly renders him unable to comprehend life as anything other than a video game.

It may not seem at first like all these things are related, certainly not for the plea I am about to make in my letter. But hear me out: Ultimately, put together what is forming is a certain narrative about life (and death) "on the spectrum." I have my own narrative that challenges all of it. To paraphrase "the Captain" in Cool Hand Luke, "what I have here is a failure to communicate" — but what I really need is someone there to listen.

Prime Minister, it's clear that the Conservatives don't much care about the persons with disabilities they "cape" for, other than as pawns and prop objects to offer an sympathetic façade for their religious conservative agenda. At the committee they keep touting the concerns of unnamed "disability advocates" concerned that MAiD legalization and expansion of criteria sends a harmful message that their lives are not worth living. Which of course is a complete crock, especially when the Conservatives themselves don't exactly have a record of offering policies that make anyone's life worth living besides the sociopathic filthy rich and a cadre of bigots. So much for being "pro-life." Not pro-quality of life but just breathing for the sake of breathing and so the rich and bigots have someone to kick, someone to exploit. To make matters worse, now they have a prominent member of caucus (whose supporters in the leadership Erin O'Toole is clearly beholden to) pushing disinformation about the supposed risks of COVID-19 vaccines. In all cases they are lying, full stop, even though I know there are parliamentary protocols restricting you from saying that exact word. The group that sponsored Derek Sloan's petition is a proponent of the myth that won't die: Vaccines do not cause autism. But nor are these mysterious disability advocates being touted by the Conservatives correct in their assumptions: MAiD is not forcible or coercive but a choice — and one that I, as an ASD sufferer myself, would give anything to have. They want to take that choice away. They do not speak for me.

But Prime Minister, I was initially disappointed that the reforms that Justice Minister Lametti and the Liberal party proposed were specifically exclusive of those with mental illness seeking a permanent relief to their suffering. I am, however, tentatively encouraged by the Attorney General's remarks recently that in response to pushback and an examination of the constitutionality of the exception, the government would revisit the legislation at a later date, preferring to get something in before the December 18th deadline (in hopes the Conservatives don't sabotage it altogether). There are no mental health restrictions on women making the choice to terminate a pregnancy, nor should there be. As you have correctly noted, it is her life and her choice. The same should apply for suicide, full stop. If I decide that (philosophical conundrums about the nature of "being" aside) my mother made an error in carrying the as-yet-hypothetical "me" to full term, I should have the right to correct that mistake. As you and your government will correct your legislative mistake, I too seek to correct the mistake of ever having come into this world at all.

Women who seek abortions have their own reasons for doing so. Those reasons are as valid as anyone else's. They are also nobody's business. The same, I believe, is true of suicide. But in the interest of full disclosure, I'll explain some of my own. This is where the Minassian trial and the Polytechnique massacre come into play (and the media coverage of both): people with mental health disorders are always going to be shunned and feared as potential killers in the making. As much as I admire your mother Margaret and her mental health advocacy (and wrote on numerous occasions how infuriated I was by the opposition parties' witch hunt over her work with the Kielburger brothers' charity endeavours), sadly, I don't believe she or any other high-profile activists have moved the needle one bit. Ninety per cent of autistic adults in the U.S. and Canada respectively are unemployed because they are considered unemployable. That includes me. The vast majority are not murderers but targets of bullying and ostracism. That also includes me. In some situations a case could be made — with numerous caveats and disclaimers, obviously — that a backlash against their tormentors is understandable. None of which absolves Minassian of his horrific crimes, or that of the bizarre "incel" subculture that has also claimed Lepine in retrospect, which is predicated upon a weaponized hatred of women and a mentality that rape is a civil right. But the fact remains that there is nowhere for the "misfits" to go when they cannot live up to expectations, especially the expectation of being gainfully employed. There is no Island of Misfit Toys for them/us to find some niche of usefulness. There is only stigma, misery, and shame. Minassian himself said that he wished he, himself, had died when carrying out his vehicular massacre on a busy Toronto thoroughfare. As there is no cure for his condition, would he, and the people he killed, be better off if he had the option of doing so without taking so many people with him?

It may seem crass on first look, but as your government is working on this legislation to expand access to MAiD services, I notice that you are also in the process of developing a "national autism strategy." I believe the former should be tied in with the latter, to bring Canada in line with peer countries such as Switzerland and the Benelux region. I would argue as well that Canada and in particular, the Liberal party, should not fall for the bogus fad of "neuro-diversity" currently being pushed by a vocal subset of well-connected, identity-focused activists hijacking the terminology and symbolism of the gay rights movement, and which is arguably the flip side of anti-vaxerism that seemingly perceives god-awful ailments like polio to be not that big of a deal. (You should probably be alerted that one such advocacy group in Ontario had hired your exiled nemesis Warren Kinsella, who allegedly coached them how to harass the parents of suffering children being neglected by Doug Ford's government and to paint the federal Liberals as being hostile to "autism pride." He seems to be desperate for relevance and appears to have a rather twisted vendetta towards you, so it doesn't surprise me that he would ingratiate himself with the disability-rights equivalent of Bernie Bros and "Rose Twitter.") 

 

I neither wish to be branded a ticking time bomb nor an "indigo child" with "differences to be embraced". Nor do I wish to burden the taxpayer by becoming a ward of the state. I acknowledge that I'm unwell. I wish I could be fixed. Unfortunately, there is no way of Building Back Better when your brain was built broken in the first place. Mental illnesses aren't exactly the same as neurodevelopmental defects, though those who suffer from the latter often develop the former. But there is no Prozac for Down's syndrome, no Xanax for autism. No surgical intervention nor braces or broken-arm casts exist to make the abnormal, normal. Nothing at all that can make a Sheldon Cooper into the most popular kid in the class or a Temperance Brennan into the homecoming queen. There is only the semantic gaslighting of zealous activists seeking to upend reality by abolishing normality as a concept, simultaneously and paradoxically countered and abetted by bad-faith arguments of credulous politicians, control-freak preachers, and court-appointed attorneys. Permit me another Nick Hornby-esque indulgence of falling back on my trademark trope of invoking song lyrics, but as Don Henley once said, "armchair warriors often fail... and lawyers dwell on small details." As it stands now, though, the MAiD legislation in limbo seems to be saying, "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." Honestly, Mr. Trudeau, if I could have jumped in front of Alek Minassian's U-Haul van I would have, and spared someone else who wanted to live. Can you find it in your heart to let someone like me break out of the Bellevue Hotel California? I am all for prison reformism but not everyone believes that death is a penalty. For some of us, life itself is a sentence of cruel and unusual punishment!

I'm sorry to have alarmed you with this blunt wall of text, Prime Minister. I know there is a lot on your plate right now. But I hope that even some of this message gets through and that you can understand where I might be coming from. I sincerely hope that the initial (?) modifications to the MAiD legislation go through by the deadline, and I look forward to what eventual changes may come down the line at some point. Sooner rather than later I would breathe a sigh of relief if given the opportunity to peacefully and humanely shuffle off this mortal coil, like Edward G. Robinson in a certain Charlton Heston sci-fi classic. Because if Soylent Green is people, apparently... I have a near-fatal food allergy...

The King in the North

 

I knew there was a reason why Justin grew that beard, and no, it wasn't because of his political pseudo-Dipper shift to crowd out Jagmeet Singh by being a much friendlier Tom Mulcair.

It's because he's getting ready for his post-political job at the end of the decade when Chrystia (in her holiday red dress) takes over and Justin... heads farther north.

"If you missed the economic statement"... it was Santa Claus' deputy elf putting a down payment on a lot of goodies. Wait, did I say Santa Claus? I dunno, watch the video and judge for yourself...

Did I mention? Maggie's boy child, with Pierre Papa Noel, was born on Christmas Day. Yup, he's going to be Santa Claus when the U.N. finally taps him for the job. That's why his father brought him to the arctic base when he was a boy (no really, he did), and why the Scrooges and Grinches of the opposition don't want a great reset now: they're a bunch of humbugs and they're about to become irrelevant.

 

But they're likely to end up with a big lump of... um, something other than coal in their stockings.

 

'Cause that's how we do it in the North.

Merry Chrystia-mas and Happy Tru' Year!

 

Well, today is December, and Chrystia Freeland delivered her big "dress rehearsal" mini-budget yesterday. Contrary to what the naysayers might think, it was by all accounts a home run out of the park, from a woman who is truly in a league of her own. (Memo to the deficit hawks in the media: there's no crying in baseball.)

 

In the whopping 237-page document (mondo PDF; web link here if you don't want to download) were allocations for everything from environmental initiatives like tree-planting and energy-efficient home upgrades, to the big capstone of a (proposed) national childcare program. The eventual twenty-fourth prime minister of Canada (you know it as well as I do) accurately described it as the biggest spending package since WW2, a fitting description for this battle against an invisible enemy requiring a collective commitment to a greater cause. So what's not to like?

Well, if you're the feckless Axis of Evil, a lot, apparently. Error O'Foole complained about there being "no plan" for vaccines (because Trudeau and Freeland have a crystal ball to plot out unknown unknowns, right?); his deputy ding-dong Pigeon Poilievre squawked about the Liberals supposedly maxing out the  "national credit card"; Yves Blanc Cheque... who knows, I don't speak French and he's probably high on coke or testosterone, and Jagmeet Kardashian whined that it didn't spend enough!

So where does that leave us right now? Well... first of all, the useless opposition has started their chest thumping about an election again, which probably won't happen (but who knows?), but if it did, it's probably not something the Liberals would be afraid of.

Not with the latest batch of polls putting them back in majority range now that WeGhazi is all but a bad summer memory. And not with those polls continuing to show a massive gender gap separating the party of the "she-covery" of the future, from the blue meanies representing 1950s backwards men.

You know, these guys. (Minus the milk-chugging moron no longer sitting centre stage, who has been replaced by a different forgettable character actor.)

If no Christmas election, then probably the next go-around will be sometime in the (early) spring when the full budget is released — and Canadians can make their decision of who they want to be the finance minister in charge of the public bank account: a Rhodes Scholar on Putin and Trump's shit list who speaks multiple languages, or a pigeon with a tin foil hat who, well, squeaks and squawks.

First and foremost, of course, they would get to choose who they want to be prime minister when the dust finally settles — and so far, they're sticking with the guy who wants to build back better, while the other guy is actually trailing an unknown unknown.

I know who I'd support if I was a Canadian voter.

 

I'd put my economic stock in the lady from Uni-Rosedale...

 

I'd put my vote in the hand of the man from Papineau...

 

We're not out of the woods yet, of course. The pandemic is awful; the enemy's a creep, and we have miles to go before we sleep.

 

But as I've said before, until then, we'll fuddle-duddle through somehow... so have yourself a merry Liberal Chrystia-mas now...!