MUNICIPALITY FATALITY!

Quick geography lesson: in southern Ontario, just west of Pickering but east of Mississauga on Highway 401, lies a sleepy little village on the shores of Lake Ontario called Toronto (pron. “Trawnna”.) For some reason, Canadians hold a bizarre infatuation with this humble little hamlet, which means that whenever it comes time for the dozen-odd voting Torontonians to elect a mayor, it makes national headlines. Since we’re a legitimate news outlet, it’s our journalistic duty to write about the bizarre girly-slap-fight going on between a subset of some of Toronto’s craziest people all vying to be King of Toronto, and to be given the launch codes to the secret missile silo inside the needle of the CN Tower. [Note to self: remember to redact that last confidential bit before hitting "Publish" -ed.]

What’s this all mean? Prepare for MAYORAL KOMBAAAAT! Please listen to this theme song while you read on:

What men have the SkyDome-sized balls to think they’re fit to run Toronto? Let’s find out!

GEORGE SMITHERMAN

Support based on most recent TorStar poll: 34%

Coles Notes summary: Longtime Liberal bigshot in provincial politics. Has held down desks as Minister of Health, Minister of Energy, and Deputy Premier under McGuinty’s grits. Nicknamed Furious George for his short fuse. Former party-drug addict, which is probably less fun than it sounds. Gayer than a handbag full of rainbows. First non-NDPer elected “Best MPP” by local hooker-ad repository NOW Weekly. Once announced he’d wear an adult diaper as Health Minister in order to prove some point about, uh… we don’t even remember what the point was, we just couldn’t get the mental image out of our heads. Would make a great “sassy gay sidekick”-type character on Degrassi; made snarky comments about wanting to have children with his husband but being “unable to conceive, despite plenty of trying.” (Mmm-hmmm, you did NOT just go there!)

Mayor George?: As the highest-profile, most well-connected and well-funded candidate in the race, George has been the front-runner in this race before he even announced his candidacy. By all accounts, he’s an all-around swell guy with a lot of populist, mainstream Liberal views that jibe well with Joe Torontonian. He’s got a straight-talking, practical approach, with a bit of  a fun streak hidden in his reputation as a short-tempered hard-ass. Gets a lot of small-C conservative support too, along with some union support and the Church Street vote. He’s playing a classic frontrunner’s campaign – don’t make any waves, don’t rush to make any policy announcements, and try to rise above the bickering also-rans early to cruise to victory. He also happens to have a lot of enemies. His original campaign manager, a man by the pornstar-sounding name of Jeff Bangs, recently quit Smitherman’s campaign – leading to SWIRLING RUMOURS. He’s recently gotten a new campaign manager, the head of the Toronto District School Board. As a product of the TDSB myself, I can vouch that it helped me learn good.

Full Disclosure: George Smitherman came up to my table at an event once, and as he was talking to us he sort of gave me a bit of a shoulder-rub. He has strong hands. I feel that, as a legitimate journalist, I needed to say this.

ROB FORD

Support based on most recent TorStar poll: 27%

Coles Notes summary: Colourful city councilor with a backstory that’s, well… complicated. He’s got the blustery pink face, blonde brushcut, populist rhetoric and bizarre outbursts of a Canadian Glenn Beck. Huge with the Bud-swilling, Toronto Sun-reading crowd. Built like a football players, likely because he was one, and currently coaches high school football. Obsessed with financial responsibility, and to that end, pays for all of his office expenses out of his own pocket – which even the Sun finds a little weird. Can detail and ridicule all of the martinis, cab rides and blow-up dolls ever purchased with public funds by every other member of City Council. Charged, but not convicted, of beating his wife. Said, on the record, that only gay people and drug addicts get AIDS. Probably the only mayoral candidate where the phrases “blew the top of her head off”, “You called me a fat fuck!” and “go to Iran and get raped and shot” are integral to their personal profile.

Mayor Rob?: He’s the default choice of the right wing, with a little less Joe Clark and a little more Sarah Palin. Despite coming off as a bit of a clown, you can tell he actually gives a shit about issues in Toronto. His big issues are cutting spending and housing, which play well in the current economic climate. He’s definitely an underdog, but his populist rhetoric is picking up a ton of steam. He clearly cares a lot about his work and cares about the issues, but holy shit, this guy.

Misc.:

JOE PANTALONE

Support based on most recent TorStar poll: 14%

Coles Notes summary: Current deputy mayor and City Hall old-timer with a few decades of experience under his belt. Token NDP lefty. Good ol’ Italian boy, not like these other mangia-cakes…  I mean, other than Rocco, and Giorgio. Real stuffy, old-fashioned policy wonk-type, which serves its purpose, but ain’t exactly lighting up the city with excitement.

Mayor Joe?: I wouldn’t count on it. He’ll get his NDP vote, and all the usual suspects of unions, City Hall buddies and people who think his name’s cute enough to vote for, but as the race becomes tighter expect him to lose steam and get caught in the fray, despite an apparently strong showing in a recent (non-televized, what the hell, Rogers Cable Channel 10, was there a high school hockey game on instead?) debate. Should really start using the slogan “If you’re going to Pant, never Pant Alone.”

DAN FOR MAYOR

Ratings based on most recent episode: 1.9% share

Coles Notes summary: Fred Ewanuick, star of the CTV smash hit series Corner Gas, returns as hapless loser Dan, a bartender who decides to make it up to an ex-girlfriend by running for mayor.

Mayor Dan?: Considering the absolute lack of humour found in this candidate, we’re pretty sure this campaign’s getting cancelled before the end of the season.

END OF PART ONE!

We’re splitting this post in two (mo’ Google ad hits mo’ money, son) so join us next time as we meet Rocco, Giorgio, a woman (!) named Sarah, whatever happened to grinning vagina-farmer Giamboner, and find out about the only white supremacist in the race, if that’s your kind of thing!

Hey, at least it's more prestigious than the Geminis

Over the past year, Twitter has been adopted as the tool of choice for cutting-edge Members of Parliament to connect with their constituents about political positions, breaking Parliamentary news and the inside scoop on Government issues.

Failing that, Twitter’s used for 140-character partisan snipes and announcing what MPs had for breakfast.

According to the fantastic site Politwitter, 97 Members of Parliament are currently on Twitter – not exactly a majority, but gaining steam. The site also crunches every variety of useless statistic about politicians on Twitter that can be crunched, including a Social Media Score for every Canadian pol. Make sure to cite the troves of information at Politwitter when you churn out some half-assed essay at 2 A.M. about how “Social Media Is The Future Of Communication”, first-year communications studies majors! However, they also track how often MPs tweet – their annoyingness factor, in other terms – and there’s one politician whose chubby little head and shoulders are above the rest, earning our first award:

THE TWEETY FOR BEST ABUSE OF TWITTER

Sample Tweet: "Je pensais être victime d'un virus massif sur ITune: j'écoutais Hotel California et la toune suivante était:I know you want me de Calle Ocho".

There’s a site called Follow Cost which determines how often a person posts on Twitter, and therefore determines how much it will “cost” you to follow them. One MP, with a current score of 56 tweets per day among his last 100 tweets, has a follow cost that’s so off-the-charts that it prompts the website to dramatically flash the words “Nuclear Follow Cost” and show a mushroom cloud. Ladies and gentlemen, your Tweety for Abuse of Twitter goes to DENIS CODERRE, Liberal – Bourassa!

Denis Coderre will tweet about literally anything on Earth. He live-tweets every Habs game, probably contributing more hockey analysis alone to the internet than some TSN anchors. He once tweeted 22 times over the course of one Montreal/Tampa Bay game, including one to tell us he was eating chicken wings. He tells jokes. He compared John Baird to “yogurt past its expiry date”, which must be really insulting in French. He replies to pretty much anyone who @’s him in a Tweet, sometimes with just a two-character emoticon, often smiling, occasionally winking. His background image is a caricature of himself on the Quebecois cartoon “Et Dieu créa… Laflaque.” Today, he posted about how he thought he had an iTunes virus because he was listening to Hotel California when it switched to Calle Ocho, but then he realized he’d accidentally uploaded his kid’s iPod songs.

Basically, following Denis Coderre on Twitter is like having a cool uncle who gets drunk and tells a lot of long stories. We’re not sure whether that makes him the best or worst MP on Twitter, but he definitely gets the inaugural Tweety for Abuse of Twitter.

THE TWEETY FOR GROSS IMAGERY

Carolyn Bennett’s a pretty decent Tweeter. She’s pretty lighthearted, and talks a lot about stuff like the Olympics and the Oscars (which she’d apparently wagered on, and had picked Avatar for Best Picture. Fool!) But then one day, she dropped this bombshell:

Just sent an email to VIa Rail-the washroom on the train coming home from Windsor reeked of urine-often on the train to Ottawa too..not good

That’s pretty gross, Carolyn.

Without Twitter, we wouldn’t live in a world where we have to imagine Carolyn Bennett popping a squat to hover over a urine-soaked steel toilet on some piss-scented hell-train bouncing along to Windsor. This is all Twitter’s fault.

Congratulations on your Tweety!

THE TWEETY FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN SLANDER

Oh Dean Del Mastro, you just can't catch a break.

We already wrote about Liberal backbencher Michelle Simson, and that time she called Dean Del Fatstro a fattie. We just remembered it now, though, so we decided Michelle Simson should be an obvious recipient for our inaugural Lifetime Achievement in Slander Tweety.

This groundbreaking moment in Twitter history showed how social networking and new media opportunities have revolutionized the way that elected officials can call each other lardasses.

If I had to pick 3 defining moments in the history of Canadian political insults, it would be the following: John A. MacDonald drunkenly vomiting during a debate and claiming it was because the idea of his opponent made him ill, Pierre Trudeau telling opponents to fuddle-duddle off, and Michelle Simson tapping her thumbs 140 times or less on her Blackberry to call a political opponent a fatass and having that message instantly spread to every politician and news organization on Earth.

Congratulations on your Tweety, Michelle!

THE TWEETY FOR SUCKING AT THE INTERNET

Sukh Dhaliwal seems like an alright guy, but boy, he could use some Internet safety training. He somehow managed to get himself a Twitter virus (practice safe Twittering, kids, if you Twitter without protection you might catch a virus) which spammed all of his followers, including Your MapleRag. Sending direct-message virus links to all of your acquaintances ain’t exactly the way to present yourself as a politician with gravitas. Don’t campaign teams all have some pimply 18-year-old to handle this “internet stuff” for them?

More alarmingly, MapleRag’s imaginary girlfriend, Niki Ashton (NDP, representing the riding of Our Hearts) has ALSO allegedly caught a virus, based on a tweet she posted advising people not to click on suspicious direct messages she might have sent. However, she doesn’t win jack at the Tweeties because Your MapleRag didn’t get the virus from her, which proves she doesn’t love us. I CAN CHANGE, BABY!

Congratulations on your Tweety, Sukh!

THAT DOES IT for round one of the inaugural Tweety awards, come back later when we’ll probably do more of this crap! Also you can follow MapleRag on Twitter, and we’ll give you the Tweety for All-Around Swell Person!

Hey, 'dja hear about this?

I was going to write a SERIOUS BUDGET RESPONSE, like everyone else’s doing, but that just wouldn’t suit our… style. Instead, here’s this.

On Monday, two older men – their hair graying, their eyes full of doe-eyed innocence – stepped back in front of the cameras with their finest suits freshly dry-cleaned, ready to return to work after a long time away from their famous desk. They’d taken a controversial break that had been panned by the media in order to get a fresh start at their job. In fact, they’re both hated by the media, and it seems most people you talk to hate them. But somewhere out there, a slight majority of the country – the quiet,  white, middle-aged, Wal-Mart shopping masses – admire this man.

One of them was Jay Leno returning to the Tonight Show he abandoned. One of them was Stephen Harper returning to the Parliament he prorogued.

Yes, we’re comparing the Prime Minister to Jay Leno. This ain’t exactly The Economist you’re reading, bub.

In each case, these were beleaguered public figures who would be trying to regain public sympathy after their controversial breaks from the spotlight. Jay Leno was condemned publicly for what seemed like his bullying, nonchalant attitude towards Conan O’Brien, the man whose job he was taking, and for a series of uninspired TV spots that did nothing to apologize for, or even mention, the controversy at hand. Harper had been at the Olympics, and was publicly condemned for his bullying, nonchalant attitude towards Parliamentary procedure, and for hiding behind the Canadian flag for 2 weeks at the Olympics while failing to apologize for, or even mention, the prorogation.

All eyes were on their return, waiting to hear the material they’d prepared in their off-time. For Jay, it would be his first week back – his monologues, his interviews, his general demeanor – people needed to know that he was worthy of the Tonight Show, they wanted him to prove he still had it, that during all of this two month-long bullshit he’d been preparing material to blow us away. For Harper, it would be the throne speech and budget – two long-awaited announcements that had been stored away during prorogation, people needed to know that work had been accomplished during the vacation and needed to have their needs met by a government with shaky confidence levels.

In each case, they dropped the ball.

Jay Leno... Stephen Harper... Jayphen Leper? Fitting surname.

To call Jay Leno’s first show back “underwhelming” would be like calling a root canal without anesthetic  “less than desirable.” In his first monologue back, he plodded through material that was so stale and so far past its best-before date, even a broke college student would throw it out of their fridge.  Dick Cheney jokes, Paris Hilton jokes – tired, beaten dead horses, the type of thing you can watch without even cracking a smile, as if your cheeks muscles are atrophied and paralyzed from the same awful, predictable punchlines. But for Leno, it was safe – he was just doing what he’d always done, re-packaging the same jokes he’s told for 15 years, why the fuck should he change a routine that works when he’s the top-rated man in late night? Stephen Harper also chose to play it safe. He came out with a budget that was met with collective underwhelmed groans. He didn’t take any risks, he didn’t come out from his vacation with new, fresh material – he did what he knew, which was a budget heavy on talk of belt-tightening, nothing new for social programs or the environment or students, a few token tax cuts, a few loopholes tightened. The budget was released with a whimper, clouded by a country still wearing patriotic red-and-white Olympic goggles and a brilliant diversion in the form of the O Canada “debate”.

Of course, each man has his critics. Notably, the media loathes each of them, calling them egomaniacs and control-freaks, caricaturing them as second-rate stuffed-suits trying to fill a huge desk. They’ve also got real critics in the form of opposition who wants to take their job. There’s one guy who’s particularly a real thorn in their side – a sharp-tongued intellectual-type who gets derided himself for being too erratic, too peculiar for the mainstream.

Call him David Letterman, or call him Michael Ignatieff.

Each were brutal with their criticisms leading up to this week. Letterman lampooned Leno as a self-serving hack in a series of heartfelt monologues, all of this coming from a man who still bitterly remembers that Leno stole his job. Ignatieff was vicious in his attacks on Harper over proroguing parliament, calling him a self-serving hack with disdain for Parliament, all of this coming from a man who’s bitter that Harper still has the job he wants.

The most vicious of all of them, though, has been the third-wheel. The late-comer to the party who can risk being inflammatory and hostile since, being outside of the main two-man fray, they’ve got nothing to lose. Call him Jimmy Kimmel, or call him Jack Layton. Kimmel, you’ll remember, got so pissed-off that he decided to do an entire show as Jay Leno. The NDP, meanwhile, are letting all the attack dogs out over the budget – right now the NDP.ca website has a graphic saying that there’s $5 billion exclusively for TAX BREAKS for BANKS and BIG OIL (not true, but, meh) with a picture of some horrid old fat cat smoking a big cigar, right beside a graphic for $0 FOR FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE coupled with a picture of a kid sucking on an asthma inhaler, the implication being Stephen Harper wants to kill your asthmatic kid by somehow poisoning the air, which has nothing to do with global warming, but damn, that’s some good inflammatory rhetoric right there!

Then Gilles Duceppe is George Lopez. You’re forgiven for completely forgetting about either one’s existence. They only appeal to a minority making up about a fifth of their countries – Quebecois and American hispanics, respectively – but within that seemingly narrow demographic they do big business, which translates into bafflingly surprising results (Lopez Tonight averages 1 million+ viewers and occasionally beats shows like Kimmel and Colbert, while the Bloc somehow has 48 seats.) Anyways, no one gives a shit about what either George Lopez or Gilles Duceppe have to say.

And, uh…. I guess the Green Party is Carson Daly or something? Enough with the opposition comparisons, this is getting silly.

So what was the substance of Harper’s big comeback? It was pretty much as thin and predictable as a Leno monologue. If you look at the talking points listed on the Conservative website, it’s pretty much the equivalent of telling the same old Monica Lewinsky and OJ Simpson jokes. Job creation. Hard-working Canadians. Ignatieff’s a tax-and-spend liberal. Carbon tax. Strengthening our economy. Conservative leadership. The same ancient punchlines, told without any of the storytelling flair. The same tired gimmicks, the same joke routines, the same ba-dum-tschh! of sidekick Flaherty on drums after each joke delivery.

Let’s see how their ratings go.

Hey Americans, how do you like our national anthem? You might've heard it in Vancouver, about 14 times.

A new trend is sweeping the nation: contemporary music with increasingly sexist themes is being heard from coast to coast, and little is being done about it. A hit song called “O Canada”, written by Quebecois rapper Calixa Lavallee in 1880, is spreading its message of sexist hatred across the nation. This song’s vulgar message was reportedly omnipresent during the recent Winter Olympics, and is now even in our public schools. I’ll give you a taste of this song’s misogynistic, sexist nonsense, but don’t say I didn’t warn you:

“True patriot love / In all thy sons command”

Filth. Luckily, OUTRAGE IS BREWING!

The Parliament’s going to “consider” doing “research through a Parliamentary committee” to see whether or not, maybe, there’s a possibility, that lyrics changes could be considered, to something more inclusive like “In all of us command”. In other words, nothing’s happening, and nothing’s going to happen. Stop frothing at the mouth about preserving our proud heritage, crazy-eyed National Post columnists ready to pounce. There’s probably no story here, considering that the idea of changing the anthem lyrics to be more inclusive is about 3 decades old by now, and nothing’s changed yet.

But still, let’s all get outraged!

Alright, who can we get to serve up some outrage… how ’bout, maybe a University professor, tee up a talking point, aaaand… here’s one now!

“The national anthem should reflect its population and Canada consists of 51 per cent women.” – Adele Mercier, Queen’s University Prof

[Now play this sound clip]

Hold up a minute, you mean there’s WOMEN in this country? When did THIS happen?

(You guys know that later on it says “God”, right? Like, in the same song? I mean, I don’t want to get you too worked up.)

Alright, this is a dumb, ancient argument, it’s the sort of thing they probably made junior high debate teams argue about in the 80s because (a) people get really fucking worked up about it for some reason, and (b) both sides always win, since if you’re anti-lyric-change you’re a rational sexist, but if you’re pro-change you’re irrational but inclusive.

I’ll outline all your possible dumb, smug-faced arguments, rating their validity on a scale of Smug Emoticons, represented as:

#1: ARGUMENT: Changing the anthem disrespects our country’s history and traditions. Actually, chump, the anthem’s already changed lyrics as late as the 60s, which is why old people look confused when they’re singing the anthem, because they still remember the old version (with a couple extra verses of “We stand on guard”, or something) they learned as kids. Plus, it’s debatable what the original English lyrics were anyways, and the English lyrics are just an awkward copy of the original French. It’s not exactly a firmly-grounded historical landmark of our people, is what I’m sayin’.

ARGUMENT STRENGTH:

#2: ARGUMENT: A sexist national anthem reflects poorly on our country. Here’s a news flash: other than seventh-graders doing geography assignments on foreign countries, no one gives a shit about anyone else’s national anthems. You probably only know the US anthem from watching too much American sports, you know the tune of the badass Soviet-era Russian anthem, and maybe the British anthem as an imperial throwback. If you’re a real trivia buff, you might know a couple other countries’ anthems, with that information stored in the “interesting nonsense that might come up on Jeopardy” cortex of your brain. As you heard at the Olympics, a lot of countries have some truly awful-sounding anthems too, and pretty much all of them have outdated, embarrassing lyrics. The American anthem’s an unsingable drinking-shanty about the British bombing the shit out of Baltimore (if you’ve been to Baltimore lately, you’d probably think the bombing wasn’t so long ago.) The British anthem’s a tune so stuffy and old-fashioned that the only nouns in the first verse are “God” and “Queen”, two concepts the British are increasingly apathetic about. In short, no, the world doesn’t care about our anthem, since they probably have a worse one.

ARGUMENT STRENGTH:

#3: ARGUMENT: If we start giving in to these fringe political-correctness types, what’s next? Easy, National Post columnist. There’s no slippery slope here. Even if you let the feminists win the anthem-lyrics battle (SPOILERS: they won’t), it won’t lead to some topsy-turvy ultra-PC country of your hyperbolic nightmares. Broads already got the vote. Your “If we let them change O Canada, WHAT’S NEXT” schtick is about as strong a point as American wingnuts saying “If we let gays marry, then we’ll have to allow polygamy and bestiality and incest and statutory rape!” No you wouldn’t, you walking First-Year-Psychology-course-lecture-on-logical-fallacies.

ARGUMENT STRENGTH:

#4: ARGUMENT: Harper’s just doing this as political posturing to appeal to female voters. Yeah, probably. But fuck, could you imagine a more miscalculated strategy? Your “base” is white, middle-aged male traditionalists, and you’re considering talking about changing our country’s national anthem to be more feminist? But you’re right, this is definitely some political shit right here: Harper’s basically trying to call the opposition’s bluff here. “Hey Iggy, you guys are all about that feminist junk, you wanna change the national anthem? No? Well, you’re sexist, because we’re considering doing it. Oh wait, you do now? Way to alienate average Canadians, we weren’t actually gonna do it!”

ARGUMENT STRENGTH:

#5: ARGUMENT: They’re not gonna change the thing, because it’d be a huge pain in the ass. THANK YOU, you’re making sense now! You’re right, it would be a gigantic PR mess to try to change a national anthem that we all have implanted in our minds. They’d have to waste all this money changing documents and putting out press releases, and there’d be a huge opposition who just say “fuck it we’ll keep singing it the old way”. We’re a stubborn nation by default, and we don’t like messin’ around with the norm – whether it be getting bent out of shape about Peter Mansbridge standing at his desk, or Torontonians still calling their concrete baseball-toilet “Skydome” after a good half-decade of it having a different name. Our stubborn laziness trumps all other arguments. Yeah, the anthem’s not as ideally inclusive of women and non-Christians as it could be. But it’s not that people don’t care about the plight of women. We’re just lazy. Your Female Editor, and every other ovary-bearing human I polled about this topic, agreed – the prevailing sentiment being “fuck it, I’m not relearning the song lyrics at this point, and no one else wants to either.”

ARGUMENT STRENGTH:

Well, that settles it.

Our national anthem’s sexist.

But, at the risk of presenting an oxymoron, our collective apathy is near-militant in its enthusiasm.

[Article: Globe]

This is a Serious Politics hat. SHE'S SERIOUS ABOUT POLITICS, LIKE US.

WELCOME BACK, POLITICS! We missed you! Our Olympic break was fun, though, we got to post all sorts of silly things as the OFFICIAL CANADIAN™ POLITICS BLOG OF THE VANCOUVER™ 2010™ OLYMPICS™, writing about sexy curlers and acid flashbacks and Nickelback, but now we have to put our Serious Hat back on to make Serious Posts about the adult matter of Politics, which apparently just returned to Ottawa!

Also, Roll Up The Rim started again, in terms of national breaking news we have to report. So go forth and suck back a cup of warm, cream-diluted, African-inventin’ burnt patriotism and half-heartedly slip the slimy lid up until you see “RÉESSAYEZ S.V.P.” before continuing with one smooth motion into the trashbin toss.

Hey, remember Canadian Against Proroguing Parliament? Of course you do, you’re probably a damn member of the thing. If you’re still too old to be using Facebook (an age barrier which creeps upward by the day – it currently sits around 38), then you’ve at least heard about this group, since it’s been filling column spaces, creating blog buzz and was probably even mentioned on CTV Newsnet, to the delight of all 17 people who watch that channel. (Edit: I actually checked Wikipedia, and apparently the channel’s now called CTV News Network, and has been called that for like half a year – what the Lisa LaFuck?) This Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group was a big deal, see, because it was supposed to usher in some new era of grassroots political involvement across the country. Political involvement, social media, today’s youth, grassroots, new media, web 2.0, et-fucking-cetera.

These people met on Facebook, and then met up in the real world without supervision? Did they learn nothing about internet safety from Bert & Gert?

Back in February the Facebook group actually did stage something of a coup, when their 200,000+ members managed to actually translate into something happening in the real world! 15,000-odd people showed up for rallies/parades across the country to protest the proroguing. As we all know by now, Stephen Harper listened, and decided not to prorogue parliament Yeah, not much happened, but from the sounds of the media coverage, this was just the tip of the iceberg as this Facebook group was supposedly brewing a political revolution across the country – like the American Tea Baggers, except without the fat, racist, pill-addled Walmart-greeter wingnuts in Confederate flag-Snuggies.

All this media coverage got to the heads of the organizers of the Facebook group. You see, people start shitty Facebook groups all the time – I just performed a quick search, and there are no less than 1,600 Facebook groups with the sole purpose of calling Justin Bieber gay – but when your group takes off virally, you can get an inflated sense of self-worth. When 225,000 people join your group, you get the idea that this wasn’t just thousands of people mindlessly clicking “Accept” when their uncle sent them an invite – this is 225,000 followers of my movement! I’m a leader of a grassroots revolution of a quarter-million Canadians!

Of course, you’re not. You’re a guy who made a Facebook group. The Facebook fan page “Running downstairs on Christmas morning and realizing you’re Jewish” has over 200,000 fans, too. “Back in my day vampires sucked blood, not cocks” has in the ballpark of 200,000 fans. “The Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants” boasts over 600,000, while “Realizing you borrowed the pen you’re sticking in your mouth” dwarfs the CAPP group with over 800,000 fans. “Flipping the pillow over to get to the cold side” has a whopping 3.5 million fans. That doesn’t make any of these into mobilized, sweeping political movements. It makes them Facebook groups. What the media hasn’t realized is that having 225,000 people in a Facebook group doesn’t mean that 225,000 active members are working towards any kind of end goal, just like there isn’t a massive 3.5-million-strong political party based on the principles of pillow-flipping sweeping the world. It just means that a bunch of people vaguely felt something, so they clicked “Accept” when they got a group invite, and then probably never checked the group page but hoped that their membership would make some sort of intangible difference in the world.

Long story short – as the Globe&Fail reports, the CAPP Facebook group, which has apparently begun taking itself way too seriously and has somehow raised ten-grand (yes, in real dollars, we’ve left the realm of Facebook make-believe) is trying to turn itself into some sort of legitimate political movement.

HOLD ON, it gets funnier I promise.

They’ve kept their CAPP acronym by changing their name from Canadian Against Proroguing Parliament to the more stilted-sounding Canadians Advocating Political Participation. (A completely unrelated aside: my alma mater did that too! It was called Waterloo Lutheran University, and they were all, hey, our school’s not Lutheran anymore, but we wanna keep the WLU initials, so, uhhh… thinkin’…. how bout… fucking GOT IT. Wilfrid, Laurier, University. Nailed it. True story, I swear!) Anyways they’ve put together a website at canadaparticipates.ca. Honestly, look at the site, and think about how the Globe wrote a whole article about this thing, and about how it started as a Facebook group, and there’s ten-thousand dollars floating around somewhere to pay for this stuff. Ok, that’s a little funny already, but in a sad-funny way, like watching a fat figure skater falling.

The first event ever put together by the new CAPP? Some comical silliness they called the Not So Secret Democracy Mission. Alright, I’m just gonna post their mission statement, it’s too funny on its own. Read this in the voice of a little kid who’s dressed up in a suit and making his voice all low to sound super-duper-serious:

“On January 23, 2010, we showed up in tens of thousands in over 60 communities in Canada.

This time, we’ll show up with even more.

On March 2, 2010, the last day of prorogation, Mr. Harper will be under the impression that we’ve all forgotten about his evildoing. Care to show him that not only do we still remember…that not only are we still ANGRY…but that WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

[...] THIS IS A MISSION THAT WILL GO DOWN IN CANADIAN HISTORY.”

They helpfully also mention that they “do NOT condone violence”. Oh, thank God! I thought for a second your top-secret campaign to single-handedly change the course of Canadian democracy was going to involve just kneecappin’ suckers with crowbars at Tim Hortons. Turns out, it just involves them making a budget Youtube video, and you watching that Youtube video, and, if you wouldn’t mind, making a video response so the original video gets more popular, pretty please? Seriously. This was their event that they thought would go down in Canadian history.

Alright, fuck, here’s the dumb video in question, shot with some Ryerson film studies major’s Handicam, set to the dulcet tones of “Default Windows Movie Maker Sound Files > Emotional Piano.mp3″, which features people saying stuff for a minute while somehow also saying nothing:

So what was the point of the top-secret-mission if this whole “event” was just the launch of a bland Youtube video with a cast of nameless, multiethnic people saying bumper-sticker slogans across Toronto? Back to the mission description:

On that day, we encourage EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO SEES IT TO POST A VIDEO RESPONSE. In that fashion we hope that we can “hijack” YouTube and become the most discussed/watched video for that day. You can even post video responses TO video responses!

So when’s that day coming up? It was Tuesday. As in, yesterday. How’d that Youtube hijacking go for them? Did they bring the Internet to a crawl with their medium-shattering anarchist takeover of Youtube?

The Facebook group advertising the event had over 700 people saying they’d attend. When the big day came, they got four video responses.

Four.

To summarize: One of many Facebook groups pop up to protest proroguing parliament. One of them gets more popular than the others. People in the media, specifically dumb people, somehow interpret this as a call-to-arms of a political revolution. The Globe writes about how they’re the next generation of political involvement. The organizers, believing all the hype, become a foundation fighting against political apathy, and on their big launch date, with the backing of media attention, they attempt to hijack Youtube by flooding the system with video responses. They get four.

MapleRag is official launching the campaign to fight the growing trend of apathy towards groups that fight apathy.

[Globe article]

[CAPP website]

[CAPP's Fail-video]

If there's a better way to show your gravitas as a political leader than by acting like a piss-drunk prep-squad cheerleader, I don't know it

And as John Ferguson takes to the mic, honestly, all I have to say: “WELL, YOU ASKED FOR MORE FUCKING FRENCH, YOU GOT IT!” It seems cruel to rip this guy more since everyone on the continent has already ridiculed his offensively bad thrashing of the French language. It started with “Bomb Sawyer” for “Bon Soir” and went downhill from there. I was making an odd mixture of a giggle and a groan anytime a word of mimicked pidgin-french dribbled out of his lips.

We’re talking worse than Reform Party-level french.

Then he did a whole bunch of painfully awkward back-patting patriotism, including a forced “eh”, a word which none of us actually use unless we’re trying to seem drunk and harmless to Americans.

He said that athletes were the “wind beneath his wings“, without a hint of irony or anything that would forgive using such a hackneyed line.

He was trying to explain that Canadians were the most humble, polite people on Earth. Then he went on about how Canada is the best fucking country ever, and bragged about how we won at hockey. (Reminder: this is the official address to the planet after the Olympic closing ceremonies, not Coach’s Corner I’m describing.)

Then Jacques Rogge tried to pretend that he hadn’t just watched all of that butchery of the beautiful French tongue, and called the Vancouver games…. the best ever? Not quite. But “excellent, and very friendly games.” Jesus. Them’s fightin’ words.

And then, amid groans of “awww”, the games were closed. That’s it. The Olympics were done. Nothing to watch on your couch in your pyjamas. No more biathlon terminology to learn. No more Brian Williams telling you the current time in the Eastern time zone. No more goddamn “I Believe”. It’s over.

…

And now, LET THE INSANITY BEGIN!

PART 6: Heart of Gold

Hey hey, my my. Sidney Crosby can never die.

NEIL FUCKING YOUNG came out. NEIL. YOUNG. Anyways, he managed to keep the crowd’s attention using only the power of a harmonica, a guitar and a couple of monitors better than any million-dollar choreographed dancing-maple-leaf routine.

Then the torch went out, and he disappeared into the mysterious floor to hang out with Catriona Le May Doan and a mime.
If you’d have turned off your TV at that moment, you would’ve been treated to the perfect closing ceremonies.

But you didn’t, did you?

Part 7: CanCon regulations kick in.

Words can’t describe how awkward the next segment was. Basically, three famous Canadian actors of the 80s came out and did schtick from the Molson “I Am Canadian” ad. No seriously, the exact same stuff, excepting beating slightly-different dead-horses with the Canada jokes! The sort of stuff that would make you cringe if you heard these jokes told at a high school commencement, let alone the Olympics.

William Shatner talked about having sex in canoes. No, seriously. William Shatner, from Star Trek, talked about fucking, in a canoe. At the Olympic Winter Games Closing Ceremonies. Is this the best, or worst thing ever? It’s probably one or the other.

Catherine O’Hara – y’know, the mom from Home Alone? – told a bunch of Canada jokes that fell flat, but her old-lady cleavage made up for any flatness that might have occured. Her routine started with a cute curling sequence, got kind of awkwardly passive-aggressive, threw around some jokes that reached their pinnacle of popularity in the mid-40s (guests are like fish, they stink after a few days, HAW HAW GET IT, gotta send that one to Leno), and then she disappeared after telling what may be the Olympics’ first pee-pee joke.

And then MICHAEL J. FOX, who’s awesome, got stuck with some more beer-commercial patriotic schtick, the poor bastard.

Part 8: Oh my fuck what the fucking fuck, FUCK, what the FUCK

I haven't seen a beaver that big since my date with Rita MacNeil

I CAN’T EVEN DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. It would take WAY too long and WAY too many ridiculous adjectives.

MICHAEL BUBLE ON A HAT SINGING “MAPLE LEAF FOREVER”, INFLATABLE BEAVERS, SEXY MAPLE LEAF GIRLS, GIANT TABLE HOCKEY PLAYERS, SEXY MOUNTIES, FLYING MOOSE. It was like you took all the drugs in the world and watched a documentary about Canadian stereotypes.

CTV helpfully explained that Canada was “taking the piss”, you see, that this segment was meant to lightheartedly examine Canadian stereotypes. I have a feeling all of the other telecasts watching around the world didn’t get that memo, and now actually think Canada is a land of, well, over-Canadianness. I’ve never seen an Olympics do such a massive inside joke intended only for the home country. Could you imagine if the Beijing Closing Ceremonies were just a bunch of shout-outs to Chinese soap opera stars and regional inside-jokes that no one else on Earth got?

Also, a note from the Maclean’s liveblog about the song choice of “Maple Leaf Forever”: “It’s a great, great song — but isn’t it banned? “Wolfe the dauntless hero came?” Bloc MPs, to your microphones!”

The only thing that could’ve topped it on the CanCon scale would be if the Trailer Park Boys came out and just started telling every country there to fuck off.

Y’know the over-the-top musical number at the end of Producers, “Springtime for Hitler”? It was that, but with Canada instead of Nazis.

Part 9: SERIOUSLY?!

I then proceeded to predict pretty much all the big Canadian musical acts that would come up next. I was just kidding, of course – “oh, haha, what’s next, Simple Plan…. oh fffffu-AREYOUSERIOUS”, and just like that they popped up in a row like the Junos on acid. Meanwhile, athletes danced around on the floor, and quietly left through the exit which happened to be placed right below the stage, giving everyone an embarrassing view of athletes filtering out early.

NICKELBACK AND AVRIL LAVIGNE. ARE YOU SERIOUS.

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH. EVERY TIME I DO IT MAKES ME LAUGH.

I actually joked before the ceremonies that this would be who would show up, but I learned a powerful lesson: never underestimate the mind-fuck factor of the Vancouver organizing committee. As a sidenote, both of these acts have huge followings in non-English-speaking countries for some reason, so all the Eastern European  teenagers who make up the bulk of Olympic athletes were eating it up.

FUN FACT: this is where NBC actually cut away from their coverage to show the unwatchable reality show The Marriage Ref, which will be canceled in about 4 weeks. Seriously, right as Nickelback came on-stage they decided to cut the Closing Ceremonies in half – the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics they paid HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to cover – and they put an absolutely awful-looking reality show premiere right in the middle of it. Thank God every day that as a good Canadian, you get fantastic Olympic coverage on a plethora of channels and not comical NBC bullshit. Then again, they cut away from Nickelback, so maybe they had the right idea.

Anyways, then you had Alanis with her boobs almost coming out of her dress, there was Simple Plan struggling in an uphill fight for relevance, then… Hedley? Jesus, Hedley, really? No Tragically Hip? No motherfucking RUSH?

Honestly, I’d make fun of all of this shitty music in great detail, but I’m mentally exhausted. After every act, I just burst out laughing. SERIOUSLY, HEDLEY’S HERE? I just had no words left.

Canada had truly trolled the world by this point.

And, uh… there was some French faux-metal crap, Marie Mai or something, and K-Os, who’s awesome, but then there was some acid-washed b-boying, and fireworks, when suddenly…

It’s over.

Wait, what?

It’s OVER? It’s just DONE? One second, you had a breakdancer headspinning, and then, thennn… “Thanks for coming?” I mean, an anticlimactic ending is one thing, but at least it’s an ending of some sort. This didn’t even have an ending, it just… fizzled out! The fizzling is really the perfect ending for the perfect practical joke. This entire 3-hour affair was one long shaggy-dog story.

Was the goal to play increasingly bad music to test the limits of the athlete’s patience until they finally just decided to leave? I mean, making a captive audience watch Hedley is dropping a pretty big hint, like the host saying “boooy, sure is getting late” to the guest lying on his couch.

Welcome to Canada, world.

You got trolled.

I’m pretty sure Canada just trolled the world.

Sit back and think about what just happened. Our nation was given the task of putting together a 3-hour extravaganza to satisfy the varied tastes of a diverse planet.

We produced a series of bizarre inside jokes, shoulder-patting shout-outs, unintentional comedy and Avril Lavigne.

I’m convinced this was some sort of entirely-intentional form of prankery. It was Andy Kaufman via Kids In The Hall. We took the millenia-old Olympian tradition, the largest media and sporting event on earth, and turned it into what Royal Canadian Air Farce might have come up with for a “Canadian stereotypes” sketch in their unfunny years. All coated in a Velveeta-cheesy sheen of beer-commercial patriotic schtick, with a revolving door of “special guests” like a 70s variety show, and a series of moments that left a bewildered planet asking: seriously, what the fuck is up with Canada?

PART ONE: The Greatest Thing Ever.

Honestly, this was the most perfect thing ever done by anyone. Everyone I’ve talked to loved it. It made up for the Opening Ceremonies on its own, and was the perfect start to the show.

Couldn't they have gotten Red Green to fix the damn ice-penis thing with some duct tape?

If you missed it, they had the three ice-penises of the cauldron up, with the elusive broken fourth one still down. After some sparks and flying machinery, a mime (hey, they said they wanted more Quebecois content) pops out, plugs it in, Catriona Le May Doan comes out of a hole, and they light the thing. It was delightfully self-effacing humour. Only Canada could get away with starting their Closing Ceremonies by making fun of their Opening Ceremonies. Whoever thought it up should get a raise.

PART TWO: Early signs of trouble.

Some band I’ve never heard of called “Inward Eye” show up, seeming like a budget version of a U2 cover band, singing a song with lyrics that seemed to entirely consist of the words “Whoooaaooaoaoa, Vancouver.” Meanwhile, a bunch of high school student did a choreographed running-around sequence, with snowboards. It actually looked pretty cool, but after the lock-step Communist precision of Beijing, anything involving humans moving simultaneously will look like a sloppy, haphazard orgy.

Then they trooped in the Native chiefs, with their silly, fanciful Indian names like “Bill Williams”, along with Harper (SEE, I JUST REFERENCED A CANADIAN POLITICIAN, you can’t claim I don’t write enough about politics on this “politics blog”) and Gordon Campbell, who was fucking embarrassing the whole time. I mean, I get it, we won at hockey today, it’s exciting, you’re probably still drunk, but you’re a PREMIER, and you’re on WORLDWIDE TELEVISION. Don’t stand up and wave a gigantic flag you somehow smuggled into the VIP box inches away from the faces of foreign dignitaries, you look like an ass.

Then a bunch of Kidz Bop drop-outs mimed and force-smiled their way through an agonizing sugary-sweet upbeat version of O Canada, which at least wasn’t as bad as the arrangement at the Opening Ceremonies, but wasn’t as good as, say, the actual arrangement, the way the song always fucking goes.

PART THREE: There’s athletes at the Olympics?

Then they marched out all of the athletes in a confused huddle, with Canada looking sharp in vintage caribou-adorned knit sweatervests, and Germany looking like neon LSD vomit.

Joannie was our flag-bearer, because… y’know.

John Morris was there too. <3 <3 <3

After we watched all the athletes slowly shuffle their way to their seats after having pointed their camera-phone at every possible physical direction, we got a pretty painful musical number. Nikki “Overstayed your welcome, kid” Yanofsky, some chick who I’m told [by my mom] was a winner of the canceled show Canadian Idol, and a dude who I’ve never heard of badly pretending to play guitar. (I was informed by the NBC telecast that he was Native, so… what, I’m not suggesting that, he was there just because he… I mean, I’m sure he’s a great… just that, with the…) They droned through the sort of Up-With-People pop drivel that appeals to no one of any age, and THEN THE PARTY STARTED.

PART Я: IN SOVIET RUSSIA, OLYMPICS CLOSE YOU!

Must... crush... capitalism...

Just to make Canada’s sloppiness look bad, we got treated to Glorious Mother Russia coming out to annihilate all of our brains with a precise, choreographed, sensory-overloading preview of Sochi 2014. A choir came out to sing what seemed like the 25-minute extended-cut remix of the Russian national anthem, which is a spine-tingling tune if there ever was one. Then, as Mounties raised the Russian flag over Canadian soil (and Cold War-era baby boomers had a stroke at the sight of their old nightmares realized), we were treated to an onslaught of Russia-overload that reminded me of the now-dated Simpsons episode where Russia switches back to the USSR, leading to parade-bears becoming tanks and Lenin crushing his glass tomb.

There were bowling cosmonauts, ballerinas, orchestras, supermodels, some sort of freaky modernist Madame Butterfly rendition, and the combined powers of Olympics failures Evgeni Plushenko and Alex Ovechkin (combined nose weight: 3.7 kg.) It made me want to drink some vodka.

Oh, and there’s SO MUCH MORE TO COME!

[CONTINUED IN PART 2! TOO MUCH FOR ONE POST TO CONTAIN!]

As always, attractiveness will be judged using the terminology of skip’s sweeping calls, ranging from “Right Off!” on the low end to a variety of hoarsely-shouted variations on “Hard!” and “Hurry!” on the high end.

TEAM CANADA. Skip: Cheryl Bernard, Third: Susan O'Connor, Second: Carolyn Darbyshire, Lead: Cori Bartel

Oh, you KNOW we gotta start things off with a HURRY HARD. / Alright, just clean now. / Right off guys, right offfff. / Ehh… clean it? Yeah, clean.

TEAM CHINA. Skip: Wang Bingyu, Third: Liu Yin, Second: Yue Qingshuang, Lead: Zhou Yan, Alternate: Liu Jinli

Right ooooooff. / Alright, gotta go now, looks light. / Keep going hard guys, HARD! / Whoa! Whooooa! / I, um… maybe? Huh? I’m leaving this one up to the sweepers.

TEAM DENMARK. Lead: Camilla Jensen, Third: Denise Dupont, Fourth: Madeleine Dupont, Skip who throws second for some reason: Angelina Jensen

HARD HARD, but watch out for that bit of debris on the lip of the rock. / Yeaaah, keep going hard guys. / Hard! Really hard! PUSH IT! / FINISH HARD! HURRYYYYY!

TEAM GERMANY. Skip: Andrea Schöpp, Third: Monika Wagner, Second: Melanie Robillard, Lead: Stella Heiß, Alternate: Corinna Scholz

Whoa guys. Whoa. Whoa-whoa-whoa-whooooa. / Whoooooa. NEVER. / YES! HARD NOW! RIGHT ON IT HARD! / KEEP GOING HARD! / HUUUURRRYYYYYYY!

TEAM GREAT BRITAIN. Third: Jackie Lockhart, Skip: Eve Muirhead, Lead: Lorna Vevers, Second being mauled by her teammates: Kelly Wood

Alright, sweep it, yep! / HARD. HARD! HARD HARD HARD HAAAAARRRRRRD!! / Whoa, ease off a bit guys, it’s a bit heavy… / GO. HARD. NOW. I SWEAR TO GOD, HURRY HARD. IF YOU’RE NOT SWEEPING RIGHT NOW YOU’RE FIRED OFF THE TEAM.

TEAM JAPAN. (Top Left) Skip: Moe Meguro, Second: Mari Motohashi, (Bottom Left) Third: Anna Ohmiya, (Right) Lead: Kotomi Ishizaki

(Top left): Alright, go hard. Let’s see some sweeping, hard. / Yep! Keep going guys. HARD. / (Bottom left): Alright, ease off a bit guys, eeeeasy… / (Right): ALRIGHT GIVE IT ALL YOU’VE GOT HARD. HARRRRD!

TEAM RUSSIA. Lead: Ekaterina Galkina, Second: Nkeiruka Ezekh, Skip: Ludmila Privivkova, Third: Anna Sidorova (NOTE: Used to be Olga Jarkova, but she was replaced by Anna at the last second), Alternate: Margarita Fomina

YES. HARD. / HARD. HARD. / HARD HARD FOR GOD’S SAKE WHY AREN’T YOU SWEEPING HARD. HURRRYYYY. / SERIOUSLY, SWEEP. IF YOU STOP SWEEPING I WILL SHOOT YOU. I BROUGHT A GUN. I’M ABOUT TO GO BIATHLON ON THIS SHIT. YES I’M SERIOUS. / DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I JUST SAID? NEVER. STOP. SWEEPING.

(Note about Team Russian Supermodel: Originally, their vice was Olga Jarkova, seen at the right. They replaced her with the more supermodel-esque Anna Sidorova, whom I crudely cut-and-pasted over Olga’s face in the image above. Did the Honourable Russian Commissar Of Sports For The Motherland request a last-minute switcheroo before Vancouver to get more media spotlight? MapleRag Exclusive Bombshell Revealed!)

TEAM SWEDEN. Lead: Anna Le Moine, Second: Cathrine Lindahl, Third: Eva Lund, Skip: Anette Norberg

Ehhh… sweep. Absolutely sweep. I was a bit hesitant with the line call, but yeah, definitely hard. / Off. Off. Nope. Noooope. / Uhhhh… yep, alright. Go hard now! / Jesus. Uh, off. Right off. Right, off. (Bonus: Here’s this team appearing in a heavy metal video!)

TEAM SWITZERLAND. Lead: Janine Greiner, Second: Carmen Küng, Third: Carmen Schäfer, Skip: Mirjam Ott

ABSOLUTELY HARD, I DON’T CARE WHAT THE SWEEPERS SAY. HARD. / HARD HARD HARD HARD. / HARDHARDHARDHARDHARD. / Snowboarder Shaun White, what are you doing on the ice?!

TEAM U! S! A! U! S! A! Third: Allison Pottinger, Second: Nicole Joraanstad, Skip: Debbie McCormick, Lead: Natalie Nicholson

Yep, hard guys, hurry hard! / AN EMPHATIC AND UNIVERSAL HAAAARD. / Clean now, just clean. / … Y’know what, sweep it hard, but… I wouldn’t admit to any of my buddies I wanted to sweep it. It just looks like it needs sweeping.

__________________

OVERALL WINNERS: Russia. Was this even fair? They assembled a team of models who may or may not be able to curl.

Honourable mention goes to Denmark. Second honourable mention goes out to Switzerland, since they all look pretty good in the photo above, even though it’s clearly a publicity shot that’s been airbrushed more than a Penthouse centrefold. Third honourable mention goes to the Scottish lasses of Great Britain, because you’re an emotionless robot if you’re not in love with that photo of them.

Happy curling!