Mailbag: The Prime Minister answers more of your questions

The Prime Minister is scheduled to go on YouTube tonight to answer the questions of Canadians and be mistaken for the grown-up Star Wars Kid. If you submit a question that doesn’t get answered, if you see one there you wish he’d replied to, or if you have any other query for Stephen Harper, type it below. I’ll answer a bunch on Wednesday in my Twitter alter ego as The Voice in the PM’s Head.

UPDATE: In a close race, it’s danby that emerges victorious. Do I have your email address, danby? I think I do. But if I don’t, please send it to me at scott.feschuk@macleans.rogers.com. And congratulations. (Meanwhile, I’m usually not one who respects the views of others – or the terms of most restraining orders – but I too have been growing a tad weary of the challenges. I think we’ll suspend them, at least for now, as a weekly feature – and hold the occasional challenge as the mood suits and hilarious photography allows.)

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I wouldn’t call this our most successful caption challenge ever.  We had some funny-peculiar entries but not a lot of funny-ha-ha entries. I’ve narrowed it down to three finalists. Vote for your favourite – the winner gets an Amazon.ca gift certificate, just in time for Continue…

Hey, look: it’s the press secretary to the U.S. President. And he’s wearing a Continue…

Welcome to the Tuesday Mailbag on Wednesday that’s actually on Friday. The queries below were actually submitted by actual readers. And remember – there are no stupid questions, unless you’re asking whether John Baird has an inside voice.

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Dear Scott:

Helena Guergis claimed she worked her ass off on PEI somewhere. What has become of it? I thought I may have seen it being used as a bicycle stand in front of a Summerside Cows ice cream store. – Dot

Dot –

Brace yourself. Unlike that of Sidney Crosby’s missing equipment, this story does not have a happy ending. Half of the ass wound up in Patrice Bergeron’s hockey bag and has been recovered (it was mistaken for a helmet). But the other half is on its way to Russia, where it will be mounted and displayed in the International Hall of Political Body Parts, alongside the worked-off nuts of Leonid Brezhnev and the in-over-his-head of Jimmy Carter. If there’s any good news in this tragic tale, it’s that Guergis should be able to get by with just the one cheek since so much of what she does is half-assed anyway.

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Dear Scott:

If you were to compete in two-man luge or ice dancing in the next Winter Olympics, who, among the many politicians on Parliament Hill, would you select? In the spirit of gender neutrality, thou dost can choose man or woman. – anon001

anon001 –

I can’t very well pick a man, though, can I? Not now. Not since you opened the door to allowing me to choose a woman. If I go ahead now and pick a man to lie atop me on Continue…

The Liberals are attempting to apply the nickname “Bonnie and Clyde” to Conservative couple Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer. Decent enough, in that it conveys a sense of lawlessness. Can we top it?

My entry: Screech and Chong.

Winner gets a slap on the wrist and the opportunity to refer, without repercussion, to one of the provinces of our federation as a “sh*thole.”

UPDATE: A nickname is a tricky thing. You’ve got to balance creativity with usability. Jack’s entry – B*tch Sassidy and the Crackdance Kid – gets a 10 for creativity. But would people Continue…

Time for a mailbag.

Sorry, that term isn’t gender neutral.

Time for a thou-dost-bag.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Jack Mitchell on a close victory over Not Stephen Colbert. Your Amazon.ca gift certificate will be arriving via email, Jack.

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This week’s caption challenge attracted a few good entries and several not-so-good entries. More importantly, it attracted the entry from Earth’Ln. Believe me: it’s worth the trip back to read it. It’s mesmerizing, with its hint of conspiracy and its jaunty nautical theme toward the end. I didn’t choose him as a finalist, but that doesn’t change my belief that Continue…

For this week’s caption challenge, let’s travel back in time – way, way back to a simpler era when the federal government decided to change the national anthem to make it gender-neutral.

Come up with your caption entry today. Vote for your favourite finalist tomorrow. The winner will receive Continue…

Flaherty: As I rise in this House today, our nation is at a crossroads. Some would urge us to turn at this crossroads. Experience tells us this would eventually lead us backward.

Super-Expert Analysis: Wait… what? If you turned left at a crossroads, how would you wind up going backward? You’d have turned left, not around. (Who wrote this speech? My Dad? My Dad has a terrible sense of direction. You’re supposed to be retired, Dad. Why are you confusing Jim Flaherty?)

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Flaherty: We can see our destination on the horizon. It is a high point, not only in our nation’s history of increasing prosperity, but also a high point to which the world will look for inspiration.

Super-Expert Analysis: Our destination is Yao Ming?

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Flaherty: [Our destiny] is a Canada in which our children and grandchildren will surpass us.

Super-Expert Analysis: Although not if we’re sharp enough to Continue…

UPDATE

Runners-up: Blair (“So this is what taxpayers look like.”); Amateur Hour (“If I dial 99, does Barbara Feldon answer?”); Jonathan McKinnell (“These shoes have hardly any soul, reminds of me of some of the people I work with.”); CAPS (“Mr. Prime Minister, I finally managed to pull this out of my a**. Do you still want it back?”); and Jason G. (“This is the worst Blackberry ever.”)

Winner: Confirming my bias toward Lucky-Charms-themed humour as it pertains to our Finance Minister, I’m giving it to Patchouli (“Can I get these in green?”) Send your address and shoe size to me at scott.feschuk@macleans.rogers.com and your Dr. Scholls will find their way to you, Patchouli.

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Because the only way I could like this photo any more was if it featured Gary Lunn and platform boots, I am declaring a bonus caption challenge:

No vote, but I’ll declare a victor on Friday morning. The winner will receive one (1) set of Dr. Scholl’s Massaging Gel Insoles.

Memo from The Prime Minister of Canada

I’m pandering, okay? Pandering to seniors. To women. Pandering to any group that might be able to put me over the top next time. As you all saw in the Throne Speech, I’ve given up any pretense of ideological purity, cohesive thinking or brevity.

That’s what motivated the anthem thing. But there’s a problem. Once you start fiddling with this damn song, you see how its words can be perceived to offend others: Immigrants, agnostics, atheists, pacifists, paraplegics, people who think “True patriot love” sounds kind of swishy (ie. Kenney), etc. etc.

What I need is a national anthem that doesn’t offend anybody. I’ve been up all night. Here’s what I came up with. Looking for suggestions…

O Canada

Country called Canada

Place where Continue…

Fiddling with the national anthem is such a terrible idea that it’s not even worth mocking. So we’re going to go and change “in all thy sons command” to “thou dost in us command,” are we? What are we – knights of olde? It’s never going to happen.

There are, however, at least two questions of interest that arise. There’s a simple answer to the first. The second one is a stumper.

The first question: where did this eighth-baked idea come from?

When governments are up against it financially, but eager to put shiny new “achievements” on display in the window, the call goes out to staffers: We need ideas that don’t cost any money – something that looks real and feels real, but doesn’t set us back. In Paul Martin’s government, for instance, the idea was hatched in 2004 to make tax-free the pay of any member of the Canadian Forces on active duty in most overseas deployments. It was well-received and cost very little. (The out-of-the-blue idea to prevent the notwithstanding clause from ever being invoked by Ottawa also cost nothing, assuming you don’t tally losses to credibility.)

In yesterday’s Speech from the Throne, we got a special day to celebrate seniors – I do not want to see the lineup at Swiss Chalet on that night – and we got Continue…

Some said it shouldn’t be done. Others said it couldn’t be done. With the power of hindsight, both will probably be proved correct. But what the heck, let’s give it a shot: Let’s trying an overlapping liveblog of the NHL trade deadline and the Speech from the Throne.

Hockey. Politics. It just might be the most Canadian day ever. The trade deadline is 3 p.m. ET. The Speech from the Throne starts at 2 p.m.  The liveblog begins now…

8:00 a.m. EST Live trade deadline coverage begins on TSN and Sportsnet. Seven hours from now, we’ll have a much better sense of which National Hockey League teams are loading up for a playoff run, which teams rank among the favourites to win the Stanley Cup and when the Philadelphia Flyers plan to begin the thawing of Gump Worsley.

8:03 On Sportsnet, the program is called Hockey Central Deadline 2010 and it features a group of guys working the Hyundai Newsbreaker Desk. TSN’s program is called TradeCentre and it features a group of guys known as TradeBreakers. Clearly, a key aspect of TSN’s plan to make the day seem exciting is to eliminate the SpacesBetweenWords. “We have a lot of time,” James Duthie notes. Somewhere, a coyote howls. (But only because it can’t find the remote.)

8:07 On TSN, Pierre McGuire’s microphone doesn’t Continue…

UPDATE: WDM wins it, with ease. Not sure if I have your address, WDM, so can you please flip it to me at scott.feschuk@macleans.rogers.com. Thanks, and congrats.

To begin: I wrote yesterday a thing that referenced Jason Kenney. I am now informed that the citizenship guide in question, while failing to mention gay rights, equality, same-sex marriage or snug jeans, did include Continue…