Clockwise from top-left: M.P. Peter MacKay (Conservative-Central Nova); Governor General Michaelle Jean; and M.P. Shark (Aquatic Predator Party-Atlantic Ocean) enjoy the rising political popularity of seal meat

What’s the hottest, safest political position for Ottawa politicians to take these days? “Support our troops”? “We gotta invest in our children”? “Help out Main Street, not Wall Bay Street”? “Job creation is our priority”?

Nope! The trendy position for hot politicians who want to be seen is “I fucking love seals getting their heads smacked with icepicks!”

We all know that Michaelle Jean grossed out the world by swallowing down a slimy serving of seal-heart sashimi, after which Peter MacKay, never one to be left out, tried some raw seal meat of his own. Now everyone in Ottawa wants a piece of the hottest accessory of the season, a splayed-out butchered seal carcass!

Pretty much every politician in Canada’s all aboard the seal hunt bandwagon. Considering the widespread criticism of the seal hunt across the country, let alone the world, you’d think there’d be some level of disagreement about it on the Hill, but in Ottawa saying you’re pro-seal hunt is such an empty, unanimously-held sentiment it’s like saying you’re pro-Hockey. (For the record, Your MapleRag is totally down with clobberin’ some seals, but we can at least see why it might be controversial!)

So, what was on the menu at Parliament Hill at a luncheon today held by Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette? Double-smoked, bacon-wrapped seal loin in a port reduction. That dish sounded so good until you got to the “seal” part.

You see, by all accounts seal meat is pretty much like eating hot garbage. It’s a dark, dry meat that smells like rancid fish and is so tough, gamey and chewy that you need an expert chef to mask (i.e. smother in bacon) the meat’s “uniqueness” to make it edible. Not to mention, the seal’s full of fat which is apparently so vile it’s inedible, and the things are crawling with parasites (not unlike MPs themselves).

But hold the phone! Not everyone’s on-board with this edition of Fear Factor: Ottawa Edition! Liberal Senator Mac Harb is the lone voice against the seal hunt in Ottawa, which makes him a favourite whipping-boy of Conservatives. Look what was said in an internal memo to Tories from the PM’s office!

“Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff claims to support the seal hunt but is attempting to play both sides of the issue. In these challenging economic times Ignatieff’s Liberals are playing politics with Canadian families who depend on the hunt for their livelihoods.”

Oh what the fuck. Really? There’s one lousy senator in the entire Liberal party who’s anti-sealing, which is somehow Michael Ignatieff’s fault? And it somehow makes him “playing politics” to have ONE GUY – some useless senator, no less! – who has an original opinion? But hey, it’s the Tories, they can say ridiculous shit like “Michael Ignatieff doesn’t keep his senators on a leash, and therefore he kills impoverished Newfoundlanders” and get away with it, it’s not like any Liberal’s gonna grow a backbone and stand up to th-….. whaaaaa?

“Following the same logic,” a senior Ignatieff official told The Globe, “if Stephen Harper truly believed in airport security, he would have fired Helena Guergis?”

HOLY SHIT! A CHALLENGER APPEARS! Some random Liberal’s here to lay some fuckin’ SMACKDOWN!

“If Stephen Harper really believed in restraint, he would have sent Jim Flaherty walking to the Tim Hortons on Slater [Street in Ottawa, near Parliament Hill] rather than flying in a government plane to London. Should I go on?”

OH NO! NO! HE DID NOT JUST GO THERE! Whoever the fuck this Senior Official is, they’d better be dishing out ointment for all of these BURNS! YES, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GO ON!

“Oh, while we’re at it,” the Ignatieff official said, “if Stephen Harper was really ‘tough on crime,’ would he not direct his Minister of Justice to contest Mr. Jaffer’s unbelievably light sentence?”

OH SHIT! HE! WENT! THERE!

Whoever this mystery Senior Official is, they have GIGANTIC SWINGING BRASS BALLS! Why is this Mystery Senior Official not Prime Minister yet?!

It’s now our goal to find out, WHO IS THE SENIOR OFFICIAL GONE WILD?

Our guess is, obviously, Cute From Behind Chick.

[Globe: PMO harpoons Liberal division on seal hunt]

[Globe: Seal on the menu for parliamentarians]

With the relevation that Homer was the real terrorist, the FBI called off the wiretapping of Apu

First, read this CP piece with a straight face. Alright, alright, get all the chuckles out. There we go.

To recap, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea got pied by the notorious terrorist group Al-Pieda, a group with possible ties to the Talibanana-cream. Honestly, I could just sit here all day and think of puns involving pie and terrorism. But then, the pie-terrorists would have won.

Wait, one more. Tamil Piegers. No? Hezbollemon-meringue? Too much? Alright, just watch the video:

Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (bipartisanship!) wants to know if this brazen act of piessault by PETA constitutes an act of terrorism. Now, on the surface this seems ridiculous, because TV has taught us that getting a pie in the face is an act of light-hearted clownish pranking, while TV also taught us that only brown people can be terrorists.

Alright, let’s figure it out: IS PIEING A POLITICIAN AN ACT OF TERRORISM?

CRITERIA #1: Terrorism is a show of force meant to intimidate and humiliate. It relies on shock appeal and sudden violence to bring about a political message of bullying and fear. Match: Well, yeah, that’s a match. Maclean’s even agrees. And they take pies seriously. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #2: Terrorism is serious. Match: Eh, not so much. I mean, I wouldn’t enjoy getting a pie in the face, but it’s something of a tradition in Canadian politics. You really haven’t made it as a politician in this country unless you’ve appeared on your local news wiping whipped cream out of your eyes in a confused daze. See also: the Entartistes. NOT TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #3: Terrorism involves horrible cruelty. Match: It was a tofu pie. Eeewwww, good Lord. Give me seal flipper any day, pushing tofu into someone’s open mouth should be defined as cruel and unusual under the Geneva Conventions. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #4: Terrorists are dicks. Match: Oh, here we go. PETA’s currently $100-million in debt, the only thing that keeps them alive is attention. They’re like real-world internet trolls. PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk, quoted in the CP piece up top, is batshit crazy. She claims that chicken farming is a worse crime than the Holocaust. They had a campaign where they advocated that college students binge-drink beer rather than milk, claiming beer’s healthier. They’ve distributed pamphlets to kids about fishing called “Your Daddy Kills Animals.” They proposed renaming fish to seakittens, so they’d seem cuter. They’re also massive hypocrites: they end up putting down over 90% of the animals they’ve taken in. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have killed over 20,000 pets as of 2008. They liken the very act of pet ownership to slavery. Honestly, am I done? Can I stop now? Yes, PETA are huge dicks. TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #5: It’s generally inappropriate to make puns about terrorism. Match: Even the real news outlets can’t resist a good pie pun. The Maclean’s article was called “No mere question of taste”. I mean, it’s no Al-Pieda, but it’s not the kind of wordplay you’d generally invoke for “30 dead in car bombing.” NOT TERRORISM!

CRITERIA #6: And this is perhaps the most important criteria of all, the real litmus test of whether or not terrorism is involved: Terrorism generally does not involve pie. Match: Pieing generally involves pie. NOT TERRORISM!

So, the panel’s split. Will we ever find out if some starving hippie squishing creamy tofu into a Member of Parliament’s face constitutes an act of terrorism against our nation?

(SPOILER ALERT: Yes we will, it’s not terrorism, what are you an idiot?)

Next time if they come with quiches to the face, I’m ready with a Hamas-and-cheese quip.