Welcome to Well, That Sucked, our weekly compendium of exactly what it sounds like. Thrown in this week’s garbage: Christ, absolutely everything.
Reticent as I am to dip deeper into the Rob Ford as National Embarrassment pool, it needs to be acknowledged at the very top: what a truly horrible week for Rob Ford and his doofus, enabling family. At least he got us on The Daily Show. Repeatedly.
Moreover, what an embarrassing week for all of you who defended him (or continue to defend him) long after we knew there was a tape, and now two tapes, and probably many more tapes. I hope you are all humiliated. I hope you all remember this the next time you claim that the media—like some amorphous blob that feeds off The Man’s failures by making shit up—is out to get the mayor of the country’s largest city. Just tell me you aren’t smoking crack right now.
In the wake of Hurricane Ford, all any other politician has to do to look good is absolutely nothing. Just sit there, don’t move, don’t even breathe, like you’re watching your boss fire an incompetent co-worker over the course of half a year.
And yet, there are so many idiot politicians doing so many idiot things. I am a woman of the people, so I want to make sure that we get good and mad at those who deserve it.
The Senate, perhaps not content to be seen merely as useless and gunning instead for massively corrupt, suspended three senators this week. While it may have taken the rest of us mere seconds to realize that Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, and Patrick Brazeau are assholes, it took the Senate two weeks. The three of them were given three-week suspensions—but oh, don’t worry, that time will count toward their pensions, worth at least $24,000. For those of us who actually pay these salaries, it’s the most expensive way we’ve ever been fucked. Enjoy it! It’s a party.
Then there was Justin Trudeau, who made Stephen Harper’s attempts to portray him as callow a hell of a lot easier. Trudeau’s campaign held a “Justin Unplugged” fundraiser, a $250-per-head event targeted at women and our teeny tiny brains. The e-vite encouraged women to ask questions such as, “What’s your favourite virtue?” and “What is the biggest issue facing women?” If chicks dig anything, it’s a milquetoast white male who wants to explain what we should be worrying about. Look how well that turned out for Ford! His phone just won’t stop ringing.
I tried asking Trudeau plenty of questions myself, but alas, they all went unacknowledged. (What is your favourite issue of Tiger Beat? Do you want to go the mall on Saturday? Have you tried using a Clarisonic because, oh my god, I just got one and I love it. Also, do you have any policies of any value that you can actually communicate clearly? I love your iPhone case, where did you get it?)
Finally, proving that Rob Ford isn’t the only racist in a position of great power in Canadian politics, the Parti Quebecois is indicating that they’re more than ready to trigger an election over their values charter. Should Bill 60 be adopted, it would indeed be a victory for Premier Pauline Marois, as well as headscarf-fearing racists all across this great nation of ours. Is this not what our forefathers fought for?
But this week belongs to the one and only Rob Ford, his pink face sweating under television lights, apologizing for smoking crack and threatening to kill someone and being dumb enough to let himself be filmed while doing all the above. Canada has always maintained an inferiority complex compared to the U.S.—about our boring politics, our news that never crosses the border—but here we are. Living the dream. The most depressing week on record in recent Canadian history has at least taught the world our name.
How Canadian of us, to find the silver lining.
