As if you needed more proof.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has dropped a bombshell in international political circles with a major, groundbreaking announcement settling centuries of debate: Santa Claus is a Canadian citizen.

The repercussions for us as Canadians cannot be understated.

For those not familiar with Santa Claus, he is a man who lives at the North Pole building toys, only to give them out free of charge to all of the good [also, Christian -ed.] children of the entire Earth on a single night, a night which coincidentally coincides with the birth of Jesus. A noted recluse, he is completely sheltered from the outside world and the media, save for rare occasions in which cartoon characters somehow injure him and are forced to perform the duties of Santa for the night.  Little is known about the man, his motives for running a massive toy-giving scheme, or his suspicious relationship with world governments that allow Santa into their airspace to perform countless acts of home invasion on an annual basis.

Now that we know that Santa is a Canadian citizen, what will this mean for our government’s major portfolios of responsibility?

Peter MacKay, National Defence: While Santa may at first appear to be a menace to international military forces by being virtually undetectable by modern radar and violating a number of international air space restrictions, the news that Santa is a Canadian citizen could be huge for our Defence department. While the controversy over a $9-billion purchase of F-35 fighter jets still looms, it’s interesting to note that Santa currently possesses an aircraft capable of travel at speeds scientists calculate at several times the speed of light. Run only on the occasional carrot left out by children and emitting zero carbon emissions, Santa’s crew of eight flying reindeer (with recent Wikileaks cables mentioning a ninth, red-nosed, possible alcoholic reindeer) could theoretically be bred, trained, equipped and combat-ready with the Canadian Military for deployment in Afghanistan as tactical high-speed weapons within a year. Furthermore, in war time Santa’s seemingly unlimited manufacturing resources could be converted into a near-infinite source of munitions for allied forces.

Tony Clement, Industry: Speaking of Santa’s manufacturing prowess, the news that Santa’s workshop falls under Canadian jurisdiction has instantly vaulted Santa into first place among Canadian manufacturers, with an estimated ten billion shipments exported per year. Meanwhile Santa’s workshop also instantly becomes the least-valued major company by TSX investors after posting consistent revenues of $0 per annum, putting them in a virtual tie with Nortel.

Rob Nicholson, Justice: The Government really needs to investigate Santa’s very loose adherence to international patent and copyright law. As the largest manufacturer in the world, Santa operates in a legal grey-area allowing him to recklessly reverse-engineer, replicate and mass-produce products from hundreds of thousands of trademark-holding companies worldwide. According to Nintendo Inc. estimates, Santa has manufactured at least one million Nintendo Wii gaming units over the past four years, with consumers unlikely to be able to spot a North Pole-made knockoff. If Minister Nicholson doesn’t crack down on this massive counterfeiting ring, Canada risks becoming a laughing-stock for their shoddy handling of magical elf workshops.

Lisa Raitt, Labour: Santa’s manufacturing base is maintained by an army of unpaid elf labour working in sweatshop conditions in a system alarmingly similar to slavery. While elf employment rates continue to hover around 100% in the North Pole region (save for the occasional misfit seeking to transition into dentistry), if Santa is truly a Canadian citizen, it’s alarming that we’re allowing one of the world’s worst human-rights violators to operate on our soil.

Jim Flaherty, Finance: From the NattyPost story linked up top:

“He added that Santa’s workshop is GST exempt, but admitted he didn’t get clearance from the minister of finance to say that.”

Typical Conservatives, always cutting taxes for Big-Elf-Manufacturing and screwing over the little guy, am I right? In any case, despite being the world’s largest manufacturer, Santa seems immune to taxation: as a charity he’s income tax-exempt, and as a slaveowner he doesn’t have to pay into CPP or EI. It would be worth investigating whether Santa receives any kickbacks from corporate partners such as Hanes, since based on my research Santa delivers literally hundreds of millions of wool socks every year despite consistently low demand from the world’s children.

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(Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a grievance-rich Festivus, readers!)

Canadian heaven: Where all good dead Canadians go

It’s Canada Day! On Canada day, people generally drink beer and then blow their fingers off with fireworks, preferably off of a dock, with the Tragically Hip playing. It’s how we celebrate our freedom!

To the south, Americans have their Independence Day this weekend, which celebrates the time aliens blew up the White House and Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum had to hack the mothership to wait, sorry – which celebrates the time stuffy old British people tried to enforce a tax on tea (which, apparently, Americans were quite fond of at that time – a modern equivalent might be a Big Mac tax) and the Americans responded by kicking British ass, writing a quotable Declaration, and putting their own country together complete with a needlessly busily-designed flag, unsingable anthem, and a proud history of asskicking which has gone pretty well for them. Meanwhile, Canadians have Canada Day, which celebrates the time we very politely asked Britain if we could maybe have our own country, please? Britain responded with “Shit, I thought you’d never leave”, granting us the rights to take the faces of monarchs off of 4/5ths of our monetary bills and the privilege of occasionally having our own Head of State visit.

America is the rebellious son who ran away from home as a teenager to start their own company and is now some kind of hot-shot dickish millionaire, while Canada is the mamma’s boy who waited until they were 32 to leave home and even then still lets their parents visit every weekend. It wasn’t until 1982 that we officially stopped letting our mom meddle in our lives. Think about how embarrassing that is for a second: all of these third world countries that cut the umbilical cords back in the 1700s, and then there’s us, finally getting our independence in the era of Journey and Van Halen.

But enough about our embarrassing founding – it’s time to party! Or, if you’re in Quebec, it’s time to move houses.

Do some really patriotic shit today, like drinking on a Thursday, wearing your crusty old Team Canada throwback hockey jersey, eating poutine, watching the CBC if you must, and enjoying this big, empty, beautiful country you were lucky enough to have your mom knocked up in. For inspiration, please visit this image I made of what Canadian Heaven might look like.

Keep on rocking in the free world!

When she sits around the palace, she sits AROUND the palace!

Happy Victoria Day, drunken Canadians! Victoria Day is a famous holiday invented a million years ago in Olde Englande – possibly the Victorian age, I’ll Wikipedia it later – to celebrate Queen Victoria, a frumpy fat lady (note: fat for the time period, by modern standards she’d wear a size Medium at Wal-Mart) who was Queen of Olde Englande And Her Majestic Vermin-Infested Colonies. She married her first cousin and plopped out 9 inbred kids, continuing a long tradition among British monarchs of fucking their relatives. She was so good at being incestuous and fat that we named a city full of smiling, colonial plump-faced white people in Ye Olde Britishe Columbiae after her. We also named a holiday in May after her, because Canadians salivate over the prospect of getting any possible day off from their miserable soul-crushing jobs.

Victoria Day is celebrated on the Monday that follows May 24, leading to the holiday being colloquially referred to as “May Two-Four”. This is a uniquely Canadian reference to a “Two-Four” case of beer, so named because counting into double digits is hard, eh.

Canadians honour the memory of Queen Victoria, the longest-serving monarch in British history, by waiting in traffic all day on Friday to get away from their suburban gated communities and into “nature”, a term which covers the 99.999%-odd percent of our nation’s land-mass that isn’t within the city limits of a city large enough to sustain an NHL franchise. Canadians often choose to observe Victoria Day by mooching off their buddy for 3 days because he’s got a cottage. Oh, it’s ok, you’re not mooching, you bought the guy some hot-crossed buns from the farmer’s market on the way in, and a case of whatever beer is on sale, Lake-something, sure, grab it.

Then you can celebrate our enduring British traditions and our country’s uniquely close bond to the Queen and to the Crown by getting drunk outdoors and sitting around a campfire as some asshole you knew from high school tries to remember the chords to a Tragically Hip song on the acoustic guitar he just happened to have. You suck back another beer and then decide it would be hilarious to jump into the lake, but it’s fucking freezing, because it’s Canada, and it’s only May. Then you drink some more and tell that story of the fat broad from Hamilton from the shallow end of the gene pool that you met at a bar in university – classic story – and in some whimsical, cosmic way, it’s as if Queen Victoria herself was taking her rightful throne in the storytelling of those young Canadians celebrating the day for which she was named in the country which she half-heartedly let us keep.

Long may she reign.