Blogs / Hillbilly highway
Prorogue-o-rama, fish-walling and brewskies in the backwoods
| Feb 28
Well, friends, how the fuck are you? I’m doing just fine. Shit, I take that back: I’m doing great! It’s been a while since I’ve dropped in here, been a long while indeed. Truth is, since the Feds decided to go prorogue, I reckoned I’d do the same.
I’ve been out on the road here, cruising the hillbilly highway high and wide. I’ve been ripping it up in fine form across the Wild West, consulting with the people of Canada — only on my own dollar, not yours! From Victoria to Winnipeg, Vancouver to Edmonton, Dawson Creek to Pouce Coupe, I have spoken with the folk, and friends, I tell you today that there is a deep-seeded unrest amongst the good people of our nation.
Since last we spoke here, I’ve poured hundreds of beers down my gullet and inhaled more than a few fine vapours and exotic tinctures while swapping stories with friends and strangers in many a bar, honky tonk, community hall and on more than a few street corners. It’s been good, as I said, and mighty informative. Mighty informative.
I’ve seen first hand some of these infrastructure projects our tax dollars are funding, and I reckon a great many of them to be good things. But worth going massively in debt — and likely resulting in the cutting of social programs in the future to pay for — well … that’s unlikely.
I’ve spoken with plenty of folk who are still out of work, despite our looming deficit, and about to face — or have already faced — the EI axe, despite the much ballyhooed changes to the system. Few have anything good to say about our Conservative government or their heavily publicized activities. To be fair, many of these folks had little good to say about them before they spent our next ten years of collective tax dollars on public relations make-work projects. Then again, what human with a conscience does?
Chief among the aspects chapping asses of folks I’ve talked to is the evasion of the democratic process employed by the Tories, and their glib dismissal of any criticism as “unpatriotic.” Not to mention the fact that these folks are getting paid full wages for evading work, while most Canadians are struggling just to pay bills.
However, according to the Honourable Stephen Fletcher, who visited our Hallowed Halls recently, the derailing of parliamentary democracy was “part of the parliamentary process” itself. Besides, he said, “I think most people [ … ] don’t know when Parliament is sitting one way or another.” Hm… doesn’t seem to jive with what I’ve seen (not to mention a patronizing statement if every I’ve heard one). Regardless, says Fletcher, “It’s only 22 days.”
I’d like to see Fletcher tell that to my good friend Francis. Francis was livid when I brought the subject up. Now, Francis is a good guy, kind hearted and caring. Every Saturday, he takes his Grandma out for tea, and he shovels her drive when it snows. He also works more than 40 hours a week just to pay his bills and keep himself fed. The last time Francis had 22 days off work, he was unemployed and unable to draw EI.
“If those so-and-so’s* can take paid days off to jerk each other off at the Olympics, I should be able to do the same,” he fumed over a six of Budweiser while watching the Vancouver opening ceremonies, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper, waving at the crowds, laughing at the circus, enjoyed a paycheque for his troubles. When, a week or so later, I told him of Fletcher’s comments in the Manitoban, he crushed the empty can in his hand, and snarled.
“Only 22 days, eh?” Francis cast his gaze about the hazy room for something in his apartment to hurl the empty husk upon. He found nothing. With a deep breath, he set the can on the coffee table, atop a well-creased edition of Hockey News. “God, these bastards oughta be fish walled for this kind of shit.”
“Fish walled?” I asked, baffled at this apparent back woods colloquialism.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, without explanation. “Only, they probably wouldn’t be able to smell it anyhow, they’re so goddamn rotten to begin with.”
He never explained what he was talking about, exactly, but I could tell from the evil look in his eye that perhaps it was best that I didn’t ask.
Nevertheless, the other conversations I’ve had over the past two months — while perhaps not as extreme — all bore the same semblance of disconnection and dissatisfaction with the government’s current actions. While the Conservative party still manages, despite recent polls showing their support to be dropping across the board, to hold onto their slim minority reign over Canadian policy, the time will soon come to meet their fishy fate. When it comes, I will laugh. Then I will call Francis, and we’ll both laugh, and then I’ll Skype someone else, and someone else, and then someone else again …
*Francis clearly didn’t say “so-and-so” in this regard.