Shut Up And Listen 151

The Throne Speech 2004
Oh, fuck you, America! You think you’re so great with your State of the Union Address? Huh? Yeah, well fuck that shit, Canada has you beaten once again with The Throne Speech. Oh yeah, eat it, bitches. “State of the Union Address” is just such a pussy name compared to “The Throne Speech”. With ours, you get this sense of this grand King come down from on high to speak to the people as if a god. With yours, it sounds like a status report attached to a memo. “Enclosed you’ll find the state of the union address. Look it over when you have the time and get back to us.” Very pussy, America.
	Of course, I wish it were like that, but our Throne Speech fucking sucks ass. We have the Governor General sitting in a throne reading a statement prepared by the Prime Minister and his people. And it’s at like three in the afternoon. Pretty fucking lame, eh?
	I didn’t even watch the fucking thing. I think I got home on Monday at three thirty and watched the last half hour of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I really didn’t care about The Throne Speech. Honestly, I don’t even care that much about The State of the Union Address either, but, hey, gotta write about something. What I do have though is the paper from the next day with its coverage of the speech, so I’ll at least have my facts right. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to say shit like that, but what the fuck, I’ll be honest with you, my faithful and loyal reader. Like I care about these things once their done and I can look at a nice list of what was said, but to watch these morons talk? Fuck that, okay? I barely make it through those Bush speeches. Maybe if I drank it wouldn’t be such a big issue, but seriously, have you listened to that guy? Listening to Adrienne Clarkson, our GG tell us what someone else is going to do is just as bad. I wish they’d just release a nice statement with a list of what they would have said with all the rhetoric bullshit cut out. That would be nice.
	Although, I do think our Throne Speech is another sign that Canada is really a nation of people who love TV and lazing about. Let’s see, it’s on at three in the afternoon and thus doesn’t fuck with TV schedules like the State of the Union does. Our speaker is sitting down the entire time, not standing. We have that nice relaxed attitude about it that Americans seem to lack. I don’t think there was any of that constant sitting and standing to clap bullshit either. We’re more like “All right, if we gotta do this, let’s at least be comfortable.” Just saying.
	Now the million dollar question: What exactly does Paul Martin promise to do as Prime Minister in the two or three months before an election is called? Why, good citizen, he plans to save the world. How so? Why, with seven billion dollars over ten years to cities in GST rebates! With three and a half billion dollars over ten years to cleanup toxic sites and another five hundred million for special sites! By assuring everyone that Canada will meet the requirements of the Kyoto Accord! With no deficits in the budget! With new military equipment, so our soldiers stop dying overseas because of hardware problems! Better healthcare! A new chief public health officer! By making sure children have help! With more money to the First Nations! By helping out students with better loans and more grants! With less party discipline in Parliament and more individual power for MPs! By making an enhanced ethics code for public office holders and independent ethics officers to watch over the House and the Senate! And by working towards better relations between the Federal government and the provinces! Here he comes to save the day, eh?
	That ethics thing bothers me in concept. Like are we talking about ethics relating to bribes, how they act in the workplace and shit like that or what people do in their own private time? If it’s the former, then I’m behind it one hundred and ten percent, but if it’s the latter, then well, I have to advise against that. I mean, just because we vote for them, doesn’t mean they have to be fucking saints all of a sudden. If they want to get kinky after hours, who are we to demand they don’t? As long as they do the job, I’m cool with them. I still think that whole Clinton thing was bullshit. Was the dude a total scumbag for cheating on his wife? Yeah. Was it the business of everyone else? No, not really. Just my opinion.
	Basically, I don’t have any big problems with what was said in the speech. But much like when Bush spoke, there was a lot of talk about spending, spending, spending and then a promise of no deficit (well, maybe no deficit in Bush’s case, but somehow a smaller budget). Now, with Martin I think that will happen, it’s just that he didn’t mention all the cuts he plans to make. Martin is a fiscal conservative and all the promises he made here is to keep the Liberals from losing their left-leaning voters. That’s got to be a big fear of theirs, because I know I’m not the only person to notice that Paul Martin really belongs with the Tories and not the Liberals. I mean, he made some good promises, but I still think you’d get better promises with the NDP, so I’ll probably vote for them in the election anyways.
	The day after The Throne Speech, the new session of Parliament opened and I did catch some highlights of that that night on the news. I love Canadian Parliament, because it’s like the British Parliament. You have one guy talking and a shitload of people heckling him until he stops talking and then a guy on the other side of the room jumps up and calls him a motherfucking liar who should be dragged out in the street and shot! It’s great! I remember a shot of Peter McKay, former Progressive Conservative leader (as they merged with the Alliance) saying something like, “That’s not what you said earlier! Where I come from that’s called perjury, Mister Prime Minister!” and when he said it, you know he meant “Fuck you, cocksucker!” He was just screaming it. I love that shit.
	Paul Martin will mostly win the next election sadly. The good thing is that he’ll most likely be an interesting Prime Minister. I still miss Chrétien though.