TGIM
In addition to a hilarious rant on Canada giving foreign aid to China (“Maybe we should give the 60 million to the Sudan since, you know, they don’t have a space program”), Rick Mercer took a few shots at Stephen Harper’s Same Sex Marriage adds on tonight’s Monday Report. It’s not Doris Day funny, but it’s definitely worth checking out. Apparently the Harper adds only give two “yes” answers, so Monday Report is trying to “protect the traditional definition of survey”. Oh, and no married people can vote since they don’t want the add to lead to polygamy.
Monday Report is a show that I’ve always had high hopes for. It’s the closest we’ll ever get to a Canadian Daily Show and you can see them starting to go in that direction. Tonight, Rick showed a “Segue of the week” clip of a Toronto TV personality who said “so and so died. She was 84. Speaking of 84, I wish it was 84 degrees outside this weekend, let’s see the weather.” That was vintage Daily Show. If Mercer could just start taking some video clips from Harper and Martin and tossing in the requisite one liners and bewildered facial expressions, it could be the best thing on Canadian TV. Getting their correspondent to try a few more satire reports instead of his usual dull pieces (“this week, Darren Jones visits a quilting show!”) would be an improvement in the right direction too.
In other news…
-My Blahg has a funny spoof of Warren testifying before Gomery.
-Kevin Taft received 146 votes for and 3 against at the Alberta Liberal Party leadership review this weekend (And everyone actually got to vote. What a novel idea!). He got a great reception from his speech which was quite good and yet fully realistic of the challenges ahead. After a few less than inspiring leaders, it’s nice to the ALP finally has someone the members can rally behind.
-The leaked story about Bush pressing Martin has got a lot of media play. As the Toronto Star, of all papers, has said, it’s going to be difficult to say no to Bush. As much as I think Star Wars is a bad idea, from a purely political perspective, if Martin is going to say yes, he should just say yes and get it over with. His reputation as a waffler is growing, even among Liberals who supported him during his leadership putsch. Indecision on missile defense did Diefenbaker in, and it might very well do the same to Martin. Regardless, we’re in for a rockin’ spring session of Parliament. We’ve got red hot same sex and missile defense debates, the Sgro fall-out, Goodale’s budget, and a minority government to add that level of uncertainty we haven’t seen in years. With no hockey this year, it’ll be the hottest spectator sport in Canada this spring.