Prime Minister Harper taking part in 90s-era festivities

OTTAWA (CP) – With apparent inspiration from the National Hockey League’s successful Heritage Classic and Winter Classic annual events featuring games played in outdoor settings with nostalgic vintage uniforms, noted hockey fan Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided to implement a similar festive throwback event within the halls of the Canadian government.

Standing at a podium flanked by neon-green “REFORM in ‘97″ campaign sign, the Prime Minister spoke to the press in a drab, navy blazer with mismatched slacks and a gawdy Reform campaign button, a look reminiscent of the uniforms worn by his party in the 1990s. “Ladies and gentlemen, inspired by the rich nostalgia evoked by the National Hockey League’s commitment to its roots and heritage, I’d like to welcome you to Throwback Day on Parliament Hill,” the Prime Minister said before a pool of reporters.

Harper's throwback inspiration: the uniform the NHL's Calgary Flames will wear in their 2011 Heritage Classic match (not pictured: a wizard yelling "Ten points for Gryffindor!")

“We really thought it was time to get back to our roots in the 90s, to really reconnect with what politics was all about back then,” said a particularly pleased-looking Michael Ignatieff, wearing authentic period garb including a  “young-Tony-Blair-meets-young-Matthew-Perry” shaggy mullet wig, a red Nagano 1998 Roots poor-boy cap and a red Tommy Hilfiger polo shirt. “I’m really getting into this whole 90s thing. I’ve got my copy of the Red Book here signed by Paul Martin, I’ve got Our Lady Peace cranked on my Sony Walkman, I’m having a great time! You can’t stop the Big Red Machine!” said the Liberal leader from what appeared to be a reconstructed set from the 1990s CBC teen current affairs series Jonovision.

“I’ve carefully studied my character based on historical documents from the time period, and today I’m portraying a man named Joe Clark,” said Tony Clement, donning a plain blue one-button suit with a “PC in ‘93″ campaign button. “From what we know about him, he was the leader of an obscure party oxymoronically called Progressive Conservatives, and using some VHS tapes I borrowed from the Canadian Museum of Civilization I’m trying to live life the way historians believe he might have lived.” Staying in character, he then mumbled incoherently about Quebecers with his jowels trembling in outrage.

“This whole throwback shit’s starting to be kind of a pain,” said one NDP aide on conditions of anonymity. “I asked Mr. Layton if he wanted to reschedule an appearance on George Stroumboulopoulos’ show, and it’s like he honestly believed we were back in the 90s - he said that he had no reason to appear on some MuchMusic VJ’s heavy-metal clip show. Then he mumbled something about a meeting with ‘Alexa’ and wandered off.”

Gilles Duceppe, playing the role of Lucien Bouchard, spent the entire day pacing back and forth across Parliament scowling and wearing a combed-over toupée. When asked if we was enjoying the throwback day, the unsmiling Mr. Duceppe scoffed, yelled “VOTEZ ‘OUI‘ EN ‘95!” and punched the reporter in the stomach.

Question Period featured a spirited debate, with Ignatieff’s Liberals on the government side of the aisle fielding questions about the Clarity Act and repealing the GST, Harper’s Reform Party complaining about Eastern Canada favouritism while John Baird struggled to reach Twitter from a 90s-era clunky cellphone the size of a shoebox, and a wetsuit-wearing Stockwell Day complaining that a recent Liberal proposal “was so absurd, it was like something out of a Royal Canadian Air Farce episode. Or Double Exposure.”

At one point Stephen Harper rose to go on a ten-minute rant about the Liberals’ sponsorship scandal, although it was unclear whether he was still acting in character as someone from ten years ago, or speaking in the present.

• > A purse by any other name: The Globe & Fail have continued their Pulitzer-worthy pursuit of Stockwell Day’s manpurse. In the third (!) such article about Doris’ murse, Jane Taber has bravely nailed down this story using Woodward & Bernstein-style investigative reporting. In the first mention, we learn that the Minister does indeed carry a murse, while in the breathless followup we learn just what he carries in his lady-bag: “a few legal documents, passport, wallet, small change purse, business cards and personalized note cards, mints, hand sanitizer, family photo and latest book I am reading.” (Omitted: lipstick, miniature chihuahua). Finally, in the penultimate story which will ultimately get Taber the Pulitzer, we get to see a picture of this stupid thing. JOURNALISM!

• > Prem. Williams’ Open-Heart Club Band: You’ve all heard about Danny Williams getting his heart tuned up in the States, right? And you’ve already twisted this dude’s cardiac problems into a politicized storyline about the state of Canadian healthcare, right? Good! Then we’re done here.

• > He’ll just PVR the curling, it’s better in fast forward: Obama’s not coming to our fancy little Olympics. We will get Diet Obama in the form of Joe Biden, who’ll ride the Amtrak here from Scranton and commit a bunch of Patented Biden Gaffes(tm), like pretending to be interested in luge. Hey, remember those photos that looked like George Bush was doing all this wacky drunk shit at the Olympics, being all sweaty and red-faced and holding up backwards flags and spanking volleyball players? Hah, what was WITH that guy.

• > Girl Power unseen since Sporty Spice: Harper’s new thing, his legacy, his sole and devoted cause as a head of state, is now Plight Of Women Worldwide. What, you didn’t know that? Come on, how could you not think of Harper as synonymous with the issue of women in developing countries, a topic he’s tackled all of never times. Iggy to Harper: “If you love women’s health so much, why don’t you marry it provide support for safe abortions?” Harper spokesman to Iggy: “Huh? What? HEY LOOK OVER THERE.”

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.