the blog quebecois

�coz i�m lonely and i�m blue
i need you and your love too
come on and rescue me

the supremes

One of the mixed blessings about the CBC strike is that the sneering CBC reports on the New Orleans rescue efforts have been replaced with sneering BBC reports on the New Orleans rescue efforts. I'm looking at you Matt Fry! Take a bow, Gavin Hewitt!

To any dispassionate observer of Leviathan, the wonder is that the State accomplishes anything, let alone on time and/or on budget. By that standard -- admittedly a low bar to hurdle -- the US federal response to New Orleans has been nimble and creative, considering all the roadblocks the incompetent Governor of Louisiana and her sidekick Mayor have left in their wake.

I attribute that agility not to George Bush nor his bureaucrats, but to the initiative and common sense of ordinary Americans; when faced with situations that the rulebook doesn't allow for -- they toss out the rulebook and find out what works instead.

We in Canada don't need initiative or common sense. We have studies (in both official languages!) that prove it.

Natural disasters do not strike Canada, because Canadians are universally loved, especially by Mommy Earth. But should she (or more likely the Portland Hills Fault) slip up and accidentally level Vancouver with a 9+ Richter quake, our worries will be few, because our Government has been extensively preparing for this for years.

Unbeknownst to most Canadians, the authorities have been busy building an exact copy of Vancouver, complete with cars, house furnishings and heroin addicts, deep in the interior of B.C. And here's the genius part: the whole thing is mounted on millions of caster wheels, like on a dessert-cart.

Naturally, this has all been very expensive. Where did the money come from?

You remember all that AdScam stuff and alleged Liberal "corruption"? Silly children! That money was being diverted by selfless civil servants and politicians for the construction of "New Vancouver." That $2-billion "gun registry"? Every penny of it spent instead on tarps to conceal the project. (The locals don't suspect a thing.)

Within minutes of the tremors ceasing, a vast armada of helicopters (now do you see why the military couldn't have new ones?) equipped with powerful suction tubes will be vacuuming dazed Vancouverites out of the wreckage. Simultaneously the world's largest fleet of bulldozers will begin towing New Vancouver to its new home, detouring only to crush a few Conservative-voting towns.

Once the bulldozers arrive, they'll push what's left of Old Vancouver into the sea and install New Vancouver in its place. The helicopters will reverse suction and begin spitting dazed Vancouverites out to carry on with their lives. From there it's just a matter of turning the power back on, and then "It's Miller Time!"

We of course have a fallback strategy: we'll lie around in the rubble and whine until the Americans come and save us.

Yeah, that's doable. Let's hope they bring some Miller.