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Mailbag: The Prime Minister answers more of your questions

Scott Feschuk is “the Voice in the PM’s Head”

Last night, the Prime Minister, you know, responded on, you know, YouTube to a whack of, you know, questions submitted by, you know, Canadians. Today, the Voice in the PM’s Head answers more of them.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

What was the closest you came to being elected class president and are you still bitter? – Neil Colmer

Neil –

Well, let me just say this: Like many young individuals, I did take a shot at running for students’ council – but I fell a little short and I certainly harbor no grudges or ill-will in that regard.

I mean, sure: some would point out that Courteney Gilchrist basically stole the election from me. Certainly her platform was, by any measure, fiscally irresponsible – anyone with Grade 3 math could tell you that one Wagon Wheel per child per day would have bankrupted Mrs. Forgeron’s class treasury by November.

But all of Cootie’s – I mean, Courteney’s – promises were like that: just ridiculous. I’m no expert, but common sense dictates that putting root beer in the drinking fountains would eventually corrode the plumbing, right? And every 11-year-old with a brain knows that only a duly elected government body comprised of adults has the authority to declare National “Three Dog Night” Day and make it a statutory holiday. (And what of The Carpenters? Where is the day they deserve, Courteney?)

I tried to explain this to the student body. I tried to rally them behind my slogan: Responsible Government and a Stricter Dress Code. But they wouldn’t listen. Courteney Gilchrist would smile and flirt and hand out Pixy Stix – in clear violation of campaign finance laws, I might add – and yet I’m the one who got in trouble for my poster campaign that characterized her as a “streetwalker.” Even then, even in the sixth grade, I should have known to outsource that to a third party advocacy group.

Plus, Courteney said I had Pat Boone hair. Streetwalker.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Why is Pierre Polievre your Parliamentary Secretary? – Anon001

Anon001 –

In keeping with a philosophy that has guided Prime Ministers in this country now for decades, I like to keep my enemies close and my idiots closer.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Is that a toupee? I assume so, but want to be sure. – YYZ

YYZ –

JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, COURTENEY GILCHRIST!

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Given that Scott Feschuk has never run for anything (including dog-catcher), and has zero political, administrative and business experience, do you think him even remotely qualified to rant-on about anything of a political or business nature? – burpnrun

burpnrun –

You make a good point, burpnrun. No one who has never been Prime Minister should be able to criticize the Prime Minister. In fact, no one who has never been Stephen Harper should be able to say anything bad about Stephen Harper. Do you hear that, Laureen? No one.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Being PM comes with a lot of responsibility. What would you say your toughest job is, apart from remembering the GG’s ph number? – kcm

kcm –

Well, let me just say that I dispute the premise of that question. You might want to check your facts, kcm. The reality of the situation is that I don’t even need to remember the Governor-General’s phone number any longer. To save time, I’ve instituted a system of negative-option prorogation, meaning the G-G has to call me every month just to make sure I don’t want to prorogue. Think of me as the Columbia House of prime ministers.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

I know you need to pander to all those Baby Boomer voters and their Gaddammed Beatles but what about our generation? Are you forgetting Alice Cooper? Were you comatose for the entire Grade 8 and 9? Can you not just put on the makeup and get out your snake and for once let Gen X speak for Canada? – tobyornottoby

tobyornottoby –

Put on my makeup and get out my snake? You’re obviously confused: the John Baird mailbag is next week.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

How many provincial airports do you have to freak out at before you get punted? – CBP

CBP –

Listen: As much as Helena has been the target of criticism for her behaviour, I just want to go on the record as saying that, you know, we can all relate to how she felt that day. We’ve all felt stress in a pressure situation, right? We’ve all said things in the heat of the moment that we later regret. We’ve all described Prince Edward Island as a “shithole.” We’ve all inflated the notion of our importance to such a comic extreme that we can, with a straight face, describe handing out two or three oversized novelty cheques as working our asses off. We’ve all removed our footwear and hurled it in the direction of people we perceive to be our inferiors – people who in our eyes are mouth-breathing sub-humans worthy of neither our respect nor our eye contact. We’ve all struggled to contain mighty God complexes that render us pathologically incapable of accepting that the people of this nation exist for any purpose other than to efficiently serve our needs. So, sure, Helena crossed a line – but it’s a line we all cross every single time we don’t immediately get our way, right?

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Is it true dinosaurs were around only 6 thousand years ago? Why did they have to die? Bet it was the Liberals fault. If you get rid of the Liberals is it possible the dinosaurs can come back…cuz that would be cool. – Stoner

Stoner –

I see what you’re doing here. You’re trying to get me into a debate about creationism. It’s not going to work. I have gone to extraordinary effort to craft a political image that promotes religious belief and the supremacy of a divine being – but strictly avoids questions regarding the implications or logical cohesion of my beliefs. So I get to publicly ask God to bless Canada, thereby playing to my political base, but I also get to avoid questions about how old the earth is by saying my faith is a private matter, even though, again, I namedrop God whenever there’s an advantage in it. In other words, I get the best of both worlds, one or both of which may be anywhere from 6,000 to 4.5 billion years old, wink wink.

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Yesterday, in your Firetube Chat, you remarked that

… if I don’t name senators in the absence of election, then the Senate will be controlled not just by unelected senators, by unelected senators that elect a government that people…that represent a government people didn’t elect, and that was the previous government. So we’ll continue to appoint senators.

but then went on to describe

… the assumption that somehow drugs are bad because they’re illegal. The reason drugs…it’s not that. The reason drugs are illegal is because they are bad.

I’d just like to say that you appear to have found yourself some very bad drugs. – Jack Mitchell

Jack –

The only thing I’m high on, Jack, is life. And power. And, some days when my psychic stylist gets carried away, hairspray.

But you raise an interesting question: Why does Michael Ignatieff hate our troops and our country?

•••

Dear Prime Minister:

Just how traumatic was your adolescence, anyway? – Maclean’s Regular

Maclean’s Regular –

I don’t know what you’re talking about. My adolescence was perfectly normal and entirely enjoyable. I was very popular in high school and had a lot of friends. In fact, I remember one day I pretended to be sick and – get this – a couple of friends skipped school with me and we snuck out! It was great – we drove around in a convertible, went to a baseball game and then I lip-synched a Beatles song on top of a parade float. That sure was fun and not in any way a memory I’ve appropriated from a major motion picture to shield even myself from the corduroy nightmare of my teenage years.

You’re still here? The mailbag’s over. Go home. Go!

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