Most of us Canadians, and certainly any Canadians who read this blog, are overjoyed to have thrown out the party of far-right, tar sands social conservatives who have benighted this country for so long. Goodbye to the xenophobic, misogynist, Islamphobic, climate-change-ignoring, environmentalist-hating, Koch brothers-friendly, medieval holdover known as Stephen Harper. How wonderful it was to hear his concession speech, which someone on Facebook described as “best speech by a robot” while someone else just commented “smarmy goblin.”
We threw them out despite the fact that the vast majority of the corporate newspapers in the country backed the Conservative Party of Canada, running unavoidable wraparound front page ads on every paper the weekend before the election and printing glowing editorial endorsements. Endorsements! Despite the fact that this Conservative “party of the economy,” which inherited a country with a surplus ten years ago, has made Canada the only country in the G7 in recession. Bragging about making us an “energy superpower” they made us over-reliant on the oil whose price has now dropped and which is destroying the planet (the Alberta tar sands are one of the largest carbon-emitting/producing operations in the world).
Anyway, after all the endorsements of one of the most unpopular prime ministers in our history, there was a massive backlash against the papers. The Globe and Mail wrote a ridiculous, badly written endorsement that endorsed the party but not Stephen Harper, even though Stephen Harper IS the party. The editor David Walmsley posted the editorial on the Globe’s Facebook page and was taken to pieces by readers.
Walmsley, handling the Facebook account, couldn’t get any backup—except for Marvin. Marvin hates Stephen Harper though he likes the Conservatives. As I said, that’s odd since the Conservative Party was Stephen Harper’s one-man-show. Poor David. Poor Marvin.
(For non-Canadians, Elvis Stojko is a Canadian figure skater from many years past which makes Tatiana’s joke a random, hilarious non-sequitur. The NDP is the semi-left-wing party.)