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Fuck You, Teach: The Conservatives Don't Give a Shit About Detention

It's back to school time for Canadian politicians... and the Conservatives are coming for the NDP's lunch money.

It’s September, which means children across Canada are returning to school just as our elected officials return to the House of Commons. Only one day into the fall session and it looks like there more similarities between politicians and students than just feigned interest listening to didactic speeches. To be clear, I don’t mean to offend anyone by comparing them to politicians, especially the children. The New Democrats, still polling well across Canadian provinces that aren’t trying to separate from the country, returned to Parliament with the smug confidence of the teacher's pet. The Conservatives, on the other hand, looked as angry and aggressive as an acne-smacked bully who has started to grow hair in strange places. Before the first sitting began, Nathan Cullen and Peter Van Loan - the NDP and CPC House leaders, respectively - outlined their parties' priorities for the fall session. These are tumultuous times and Canadians face many issues that could have far-reaching implications for the future of our country, like foreign ownership or another wide-sweeping omnibus budget bill. So it should come as no surprise that our governing party, ever the consummate professionals when faced with mounting pressure, rolled up their sleeves and came out swinging - as in throwing punches. Unprovoked, the CPC began the refrain that would continue throughout the day: “The NDP want to impose a ‘carbon tax’ that would result in a 'tax on everything' and you’d go poor and your children will go hungry and die, probably. Maybe. Who knows? Do you really want to take that chance?” Conservative MPs spent the rest of the day ignoring questions from the NDP and, instead, opted to prattle on about this carbon tax everyone is talking about. Of course, no one is talking about a carbon tax, least of all the New Democrats. Not just in the sense that they didn’t mention a carbon tax, but they’ve never even proposed a carbon tax. This is the equivalent to the CPC holding Mulcair down to the floor of the House and yelling, “Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself!” Wiping the dirt from their pants and holding back tears, the NDP blurted out, “But, they’re lying!” Which is true, the Conservatives are lying. Sort of. The NDP have never proposed a “tax” on carbon emissions, they’ve proposed a cap-and-trade system. Which, while not technically a “tax”, would still pass on the costs to consumers. It’s also the same system proposed by the CPC while campaigning in 2008 (and would still be willing to implement if the US pressed for it). If the two approaches are so similar, so why would the CPC split hairs and demonize the very system they had championed? Because shut up, that’s why. The CPC doesn’t actually care about the best approach to combat climate change. They’ve disbanded teams of climate change experts for proposing the best approach to combat climate change. In fact, their current regulatory approach to carbon emissions, which also likely passes costs on to consumers, is the opposite of the best approach to combat climate change, it’s the least efficient and most costly. When economic stability remains Canadians’ primary concern, the only thing the Conservatives care about is making the NDP look bad for the economy, even if it makes the CPC look bad in every other sense. This is where Canadian politics really start to resemble going back to school. This is schoolyard bullying. The CPC doesn’t care if they get in trouble with the media, they don’t care if a teacher sees, they’ll take the detention time as long as they get to slug that nerd a few times. They’re not trying to look tough either, they’re just trying to make the other kid look weak. And as long as the voters are watching, they don’t care. What can that nerd do anyhow, cry to a teacher? It looks pathetic. The Conservatives got the NDP’s new school clothes filthy and look no worse for it. Hell, they were dirty before they even got to school. It looks like it’s going to be a long semester.

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If you like Canadian Politics and the illustrious pen of Cameron Reed, go ahead and read:

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