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.

—–

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

You put your right wing in, and you shake it all about

What’s that? A CABINET SHUFFLE? Boy, that sounds like something a website ostensibly about Canadian politics should cover! Alright, wait wait, don’t tell me who moved where… first, I wanna make my guesses, y’know, get my fantasy picks into ProLine.

PREDICTED CABINET SHUFFLES:
Stockwell Day – Moved from International Trade Minister to Minister of La Francophonie; Peter MacKay – Moved from Minister of National Defence to Minister of Status of Women; Tony Clement – Moved from Minister of Industry to Special Emissary to the Mole People; A Nice Guy Named Fred Who Was Hanging Around The Parliamentary Cafeteria And Seemed Pretty Nice - Appointed to Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians; Stephen Harper – Moved from Prime Minister of Canada to Super Prime Minister, a new post which holds the same basic responsibilities of a Prime Minister, but more Super.

Alright, I’ve got my picks in, let’s see how I did on ProLine!

But first, let’s see what Cabinet shuffle-related headlines are flying off the sails of the Grand Old Ship Globe & Mail! First:

“PM taps Day to put a lid on spending”

I really don’t want to hear about why Harper “tapped” Day, thanks. Then:

“Analysis: Stephen Harper cracks fiscal whip and tries to make nice with Quebec”

And I really, really don’t want to hear about Harper cracking any whips against anyone. Was he cracking the whip after, or while he was tapping Stockwell Day? Uggghhhh. Let’s move on.

WHO WENT WHERE:

• >Rona Ambrose
• To: Public Works From: Labour.
• Analysis: This is a promotion from the humdrum world of Labour into the bright-lights big-time world of Public Works for the Conservatives’ resident hottie. Note that the term “hottie” isn’t my own opinion, she was voted Most Attractive Female MP by the Hill Times reader poll, but the only people that vote in that are a handful of bespectacled, hair-slicked Tory policy wonks, so I guess Rona’s their type. Anyways, now she’ll get all… Public Works-y, all up in your shit.
• Implications: Her three-way trade freed up the crappy Minister of Labour job to be filled by Lisa Raitt, who got bumped down for being incompetent in the Natural Resources job. Rona took Public Works from Christian Paradis, who had a blurb in the Globe as the shooting star to watch this year. That freed up Paradis to get promoted to Raitt’s old Natural Resources job. For our purposes, let’s never speak of any kind of three-way between Rona Ambrose, Lisa Raitt and Christian Paradis ever again.

• >Keith Ashfield
• To: Revenue with responsibility for the Atlantic Gateway.
• Analysis: Greg Thompson, a popular old-school Conservative from New Brunswick, resigned from Cabinet over the weekend. According to Wikipedia, about Thompson: “He resigned from his position in Cabinet on January 16, 2010 because he couldn’t face having to make a trip to New Zealand and announced he would not be running in the next election.” What the hell, dude? New Zealand? It’s not like they wanted you to go to war-torn Liberia. Hell, most people would gladly take a nice trip to scenic New Zealand as a lovely perk of their job, they wouldn’t resign just to get out of it! Do you have an irrational fear of Hobbits or something?
• Implications: Anyways, Thompson’s out, so this nobody Keith Ashfield got to snag the lesser of Thompson’s two positions. Honestly, he was probably just the first one in the caucus meeting to yell “Dibs!” after Harper announced “Revenue With Responsibility For The Atlantic Gateway, anyone want it?” after pulling the title out of a hat.

• >Jean-Pierre Blackburn
• To: Veteran Affairs From: National Revenue
• Analysis: And then Harper called out Thompson’s other vacant position, “Veteran Affairs”, and Blackburn was smart enough to yell “Dibs!”.
• Implications: Keith Ashfield probably feels stupid for calling dibs on the first one out of the hat.

• >Diane Ablonczy:
• To: Minister of State for Seniors. From: Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism
• Analysis: This is a subtle hint that Diane, 60, is getting on in years, and maybe should focus on “old lady” stuff. It’s like casually mentioning to your mom that you’ve heard good things about a local retirement home, not that you’re saying she should go to one or anything, just that hey, she’s not as young as she once was, is all.
• Implications: None. Are you serious?

• >Rob Moore
• To: Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism
• Analysis: He’s some nobody New Brunswick newbie backbencher who got to take Diane’s job.
• Implications: Meh!

• >Stockwell Day
  
• To: President of the Treasury Board From: International Trade
• Analysis: Harper wants a guy on point in the Treasury Board to institute some tighter monetary controls and stop throwing cash around to the provinces. Needing a hard-nosed, stubborn prick, he immediately thought of Stockwell “Doris” Day.
• Implications: Stockwell’s appointee for Vice-President of the Treasury Board will, in fact, be Jesus.

• >Christian Paradis
  
• To: Natural Resources From: Public Works
• I pretty much covered this one in the Rona Ambrose three-way trade mentioned up top, but he’s supposed to be the NEXT BIG THING. Look out, Natural Resources!

• >Lisa Raitt
  
• To: Labour From: Natural Resources
• Analysis: The third part of the three-way trade above. This is a big-time demotion for Raitt who, you’ll remember, well… let’s just copy and paste from the Globe: “She landed in hot water last year after she was caught on tape referring to the medical isotope shortage as a “sexy” issue. Her aide also left a damaging tape on the desk of a reporter in which Ms. Raitt criticized a cabinet colleague, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, and then left confidential documents at the offices of CTV News.”
  
• Implications: As the writer for a Canadian politics snark-blog, I hope her wacky gaffes continue in Labour! Anyways, the mini-scandals above would be the sort of thing that could easily be buffed out compared to the car-totalling crashes of scandals that you come to expect from watching American politics. Down there Congressmen get a slap on the wrist for wild corruption/sex with people who aren’t their wife/sex with people who are more male and teenager-like than their wife/all of the above, while here in Canada you’ve got Cabinet ministers getting multi-step demotions for being forgetful and calling non-sexy stuff “sexy”. Hell, I do both of those things every day!

• >Vic Toews
• To: Public Safety From: Treasury Board President
• Analysis: On paper, I feel like this one’s a demotion. “Public Safety Minister” has always struck me as sounding like a made-up title for a grade school hall monitor in an orange vest, warning people not to run or engage in rough play. Anyways, Toews’ a huge blowhard right-winger who wants to put the whole country in jail for imaginary thought-crimes, so I’m none too happy about him being in any area of social power rather than the relatively harmless number-crunching of the Treasury Board.
  
• Fun fact: Vic’s wife left him after he had a child out of wedlock with some other chick. Hey, here’s a Public Safety initiative you could head up: condoms!

• >Peter Van Loan
  
• To: International Trade From: Public Safety
• Analysis: This one’s a demotion for sure. I’ve read a few places that Van Loan “bungled” the Safety job, but not much in the way of elaboration. Apparently his views on the issue of corrections didn’t mesh with Harper’s. He’s still in Harper’s inner circle though, so he got shuffled to International Trade taking over from Stockwell, which is a pretty nice gig in its own right.
• Implications: Apparently, Van Loan’s old job at Public Safety was starting to heat up with a lot of terrorism buzz-talk and calls for a top-to-bottom review of everything from airport security to RCMP training to immigration, so now all of that’s on the plate of nutty old Toews. Expect the final report to consist of a mumbled “Deport all th’Gays n’ Muzzies”.

DAMNIT, I didn’t get a single fantasy pick right! This is the last time I play ProLine on Cabinet shuffles.