It seems as if the bar has been lowered for politicians in the last year or so.
In the good old days we looked for such noble traits as a grasp of the issues of the day, good hair, and the ability look sincere whilst lying to us.
Now thanks to a certain spray-tanned potato sack filled with ketchup and confusion, it feels like a victory if we can just find a political leader who can form a complete sentence, keep the sexual assault allegations in single digits and refrain from handing the keys to the kingdom over to Commie Nazis.
Actually, it seems many people down south have no problem with a leader that can hit all those low notes while not forgetting to throw the global order into chaos, alter the meaning of the word “fact,” and keep up a running feud with Rosie O’Donnell.
We’ve got a crossroads moment coming up here in Canada as the federal Conservative party is choosing a leader to fight against Justin Trudeau’s broken promises and sexy eyes.
Right-wing politicians around the world have found success in recent years pitching hyper-nationalism and xenophobia – many seem less interested in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and job creation and more interested in policing what women are wearing and where kids are peeing.
But so far we’ve mostly avoided that type of fear-based, exclusionary politics here in Canada. Stephen Harper tried to make it the focus of the last election and now he’s locked in a barn on a ranch somewhere in central Alberta trying to convince the animals that they all need to be suspicious of the brown cows.
This week offered a close-up look at the Conservative contenders as they met for a debate in Edmonton. Being the hard-working, truth-seeking journalist that I am, I watched a solid 30 minutes of the proceedings (consuming at most three beers to take the edge off) to get a feel for these would-be prime ministers and grade them on a simple TNT scale.
Can they form one complete sentence, avoid pinning all of life’s problems on immigrants, and stop themselves from grabbing genitals while on stage? If they can do those things, then they get a certified TNT rating: Totally Not Trump.
First up was Lisa Raitt, who I assume is the love child of country singer Bonnie Raitt and noted right-winger Maurice Richard. She started off with a joke that was pretty good, for a politician, and followed it up by not sounding too insane. “I will hammer on Justin Trudeau every single day,” she said. I bet you will. It was standard political fare, actually, and delivered with competence. Easy ranking for her: TNT.
Next up was Kellie Leitch, who almost certainly is not a mannequin that someone stole from Reitmans, brought to life and taught to speak and move around a bit.
“Freedom! Prosperity! A unified Canadian identity!” Leitch shouted to begin her opening remarks. She seemed ready to keep on shouting random things for her entire 90-second statement. “Churches! Zippers! Rough sex with Gordon Lightfoot!”
She did stop shouting things long enough to start talking about … immigrants!
“I think we should interview each immigrant, refugee, and visitor to Canada!” Interview, huh? Like, George Stromboulopoulus? Do the visitors get to keep the
Hockey Night in Canada towel when the interview is over?
“I have a video,” she said. “Go and take a look at it on my website.”
Oh my. She mentioned the video. I did take a look at the video, and wow *dramatic pause* it’s special. And so is Leitch, in the same way that Weekend at Bernie’s 2 is special. Not special enough to get a TNT rating though.
Next came French guy with an Irish name, slight lisp guy, Oilers jersey guy (say wieners and beans again!), wise-crackin’ scarf guy, baldie, angry Saskatchewan guy with the cherubic smile, and Niles Crane from the hit show Frasier. (Sorry, there are 14 of these go-getters – they don’t all get names. This crew, however, does get certified TNT status because none of them said the word “bigly.”)
Michael Chong was next, describing how he’s the “most conservative” on every issue, including the environment (going after the rural fish vote?).
Pierre Lemieux came out pushing pipelines, and then it was North Van’s own Andrew Saxton, who before selflessly getting into politics was the bad guy in Adam Sandler’s film Billy Madison. Saxton sounded in control on stage – nice O’Leary dig! All of these guys, in fact, seemed to be fine Conservative gentlemen with their original hair and good credit ratings, so TNT approval for them all.
Maxime Bernier, the “Albertan from Quebec” who apologized for his French accent and sounded pretty sensible doing it, was the last candidate to hit the stage. TNT for sure.
Of course, the elephant in the room was actually a shark. A reality TV celebrity who likes to say shocking things? An ass grab caught on camera? An American? That’s a few too many Trump marks to declare Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame as certified TNT.
His political leanings seem to be much more, well, liberal than those of President Twitter Troll, but he does seem to have some of that “I’ll burn your house down and you’ll like it” charm to him. He is, however, leading the race, according to the polls, so he’ll need to be taken seriously whenever he decides to stop by our country.
Whoever is chosen as the winner of this contest will say a lot about where Canada ranks on the TNT scale right now. Here’s hoping we aren’t poised to blow our lovely country up. That would be SAD!
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. Andy thinks you look really fit these days – have you been working out? [email protected]
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