9 Oct 2005

Funny But True Stories From The Past #1

I told this story to some people the other night so it's all fresh in my brain and ripe for making it even more public. So here I go:

Back in 1995, a friend of mine was working through a student co-op program in her MP's (Member of Parliament) office. Basically, she had to answer phone calls from the constituents who wanted to bitch about the government. As you can imagine, she got a lot of calls from old people, angry people and the kind of people that believe that anything that interests them, from health care to the temperature of McDonald's apple pies, is a "right."

Anyway, in 1995 Canada was hopping with debate on account of the Quebec Referendum. For those that can't quite remember, the Quebec Referendum was a public vote in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec that asked the people if they wanted to move toward a process that would allow them to be separate and sovereign from Canada. The most memorable thing about it was immediately after the votes came in, the leader of Quebec and the separatist movement, Jacques Parizeau, got all drunk and blamed immigrants and ethnic people for the loss, on live television. This was right on par with Canadian politics because getting wasted and making crazy statements is a favourite among the leaders of our provinces.

So that's the background. During the time leading up to the vote a very angry (and probably old) man called the MP office where my friend worked and started blasting her about how ungrateful and horrible Quebec is for even considering leaving Canada. The man continued on and on and on to the poor 16-year old volunteer (who was working for an MP in ALBERTA, not Quebec) about what wretched people these separatists were until he was pretty much spent.

"You know what," he finally sputtered, "it comes down to just one thing."

"And that is?" my friend asked.

"If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for them bastards," and he promptly hung up the phone.

And that, my friends, is the logic of a politically-interested voter. If anything should encourage you to lose the apathy when it comes to voting and politics, it’s the knowledge that this guy and a handful of his friends are more than willing to make the decision for you.


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