Perfesser Dave

MEMORANDUM: Suggested Federal Tory Campaign Strategy
TO: CPC Strategical Staff, Prime Minister’s Office
FROM: Perfesser Dave, Political Consultant

Reefer Madness hit Colorado and Washington State yesterday, the first day of 2014. As a result, civilization as we know it has come to an end south of the Medical Marijuana Line.

Or, more to the point you need to make repeatedly to Canadians: American Civilization As We Know It Has Come To An End and we don’t want the Same Thing to happen in Canada! That is to say, you just can’t have too many capital letters, exclamation points or italics when you’re discussing the End of Civilization, especially not too long before a Canadian election in which the Conservative Party is on the ropes. Right? Right!!?

Actually, Civilization As We Know it Came To An End at the start of last year in Washington and Colorado, when those two benighted states voted to allow citizens to smoke pot in the privacy of their own homes — or, worse, to eat it baked into previously wholesome brownies like your mom used to make, which she only packed only with healthy stuff like sugar, chocolate and butter!

As you could see, widespread disorder followed in both U.S. states and the breakdown of civilized society got seriously underway. I mean, really, have any of you looked at the murals in Denver Airport? And they put those up before they legalized hemp! You can sure see how one thing led to the other, though!

Anyway, about the only thing holding the place together now is the Second Amendment! You can use that to remind voters about the long-gun registry, plus drum up some donations from the duck hunters.

But on the theory that you can’t proclaim an End to Civilization As We Know it too many times, 2014 has brought new rules that allow recreational weed to be sold in Colorado drugstores, and, well, obviously, this really does mean the End of Civilization As We Know It in Colorado and Washington!

Worse, according to the always reliable New York Times, the prospect of “marijuana tourism” looms — another blow to the economies of both British Columbia and Alberta. I mean, how many young people will want to wander past the drenched hookers and seedy tourist traps of Government Street in Victoria in a cold misty rain when they can smoke herb and ski in Colorado? Rogers Chocolates? Please!

Oh for heaven’s sake! This’ll be like the end of the Big Four North American automakers! (Does anyone but me remember when there were four?) Young people started buying Datsuns from Japan because they were the only thing they could afford, plus they actually worked for a few years before the fenders fell off and they didn’t lose two thirds of their value the instant you drove them off the lot. The next thing you knew, as soon as they had jobs, those dumb kids were buying bigger Datsuns!

Well, it’s too late now to do anything about that. The Big Four went down to the Big Three, and now they’re the Big Two — or they will be as soon as Canadians find out Chrysler’s advertising on the Michael Coren’s TV show, which is so Catholic it creeps out the Pope, plus it was sold yesterday to the … wait for it … the Italians. That ought to please Coren, but you may want to see if you can get him to shut up about it until after the election — although that’s probably a pipe dream…

And so now our fine Canadian young people are going to start going to Colorado for more than a little Rocky Mountain High. In their Nissans.

Next thing you know, they’ll never come back to Canada for crappy overpriced accommodation, rude motel proprietors and tiny servings of lousy food. So there goes the tourist industry, as well as the Western Canada’s largest export crop! I mean, seriously people, how many more tourists can you attract with murals on the sides of clapped-out buildings in places like Legal, Alberta, where everyone’s so old the only bar in town can barely stay in business? Especially when the murals don’t have creepy guys with machine guns and huge scimitars like the ones in Colorado?

The only hope now may be a law making it illegal for Canadians to smoke dope in Colorado! (No need to worry about Washington State, nobody goes there except computer nerds and coffee roasters — plus grass runners from the Lower Mainland, of course.) Now that would really get up Justin Trudeau’s nose!

Did I mention the End of Civilization As We Know It — not to say utter despair in the Chambers of Commerce of the land, which is never pretty! Last time it happened, you had to give them the Guest Workers for Fast Food (GW3F) program! And look at all the trouble that caused. Where was I? My mind always wanders when I’m … so hungry.

Well, with Civilization As We Know It Ending in Colorado and Washington, plus British Columbia and Alberta by merit of the damage it’ll do to the New West’s only remaining cash crop (expect property values in Calgary’s far suburbs to plummet any minute now) it’s hard to imagine the economy of Western Canada staying on the rails. And that’s going to be hard to explain if you don’t frame it just right.

Anyway, what with all the Temporary Foreign Workers and everything, about the only jobs for Canadian young people are in crime or working as prison guards, and what the heck are those people going to do if everyone in the Excited States goes and legalizes pot? Who’ll buy all those baseball hats with flat brims, the ones you wear sideways with the labels still on ’em like they do at the West Edmonton Mall, if they’re all out of work? Seriously!

Talk about finding yourself between a rock and a hard place! I mean, if we went crazy like Colorado and did the same thing, the Yanks’d probably extend the Country of Origin Law and demand we stamp “Grown in Canada” on every leaf of hemp we export down there. Where’s Simon Reisman now that we really need him? Hey, maybe Mulroney still has him in his Rolodex!

Well, thank God for federal governments. At least they’ve kept their heads, as it were, when all around were losing theirs. (Remember, it’s always good to quote Rudyard Kipling if you want to keep The Base happy.)

Where was I again? Oh yeah, The End of Civilization…

According to the Times, “skeptical federal authorities are also paying attention.”

The Times went on: “Although marijuana remains illegal under federal law, the Justice Department has given a tentative approval for Colorado and Washington to move ahead with regulating marijuana. But it warned that federal officials could intervene if the state regulations failed to keep the drug away from children, drug cartels or federal property, and out of other states.”

Actually, while the Times didn’t mention it, the American feds don’t have much choice but to give “tentative approval.” See, there’s this thing called the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” And that means the Criminal Code, or whatever they call it down there.

As for the second sentence, well, like drug cartels are going to grab control of the industry when anyone can grow the stuff in a pot by the window. You still might want to talk to Cargill Inc. and JBS USA about that, though. Even if they don’t give you a nice donation, they know how to get the stuff across the border in a reefer truck without the USG sending up drones!

Here in Canada, thankfully, there’s no Tenth Amendment, and the bit that stands in for it says the opposite, so with PM Harper — have him keep reminding voters he doesn’t even drink, except when he does — chances are you can persuade voters The End of Civilization As We Know It can be staved off if they vote the right way. Plus, that’ll explain why all the medical marijuana business had to be given to “corporations” that are, erm, already in the business.

So we’re safe here in Canada … for the moment. There’s little danger that, as the Times warned, marijuana will flow from the hands of legal adult buyers to teenagers. No, here in Canada, thank goodness, adult buyers are going to stay illegal and teenagers will have to buy their own weed, just like they always have.

But we’re on a long downhill slope, people — and it’s marked with a double diamond. If you can’t get more voters in the 905 Belt back on side soon, about the only thing that stands between Canada and The End of Civilization As We Know It will be … Alberta, reliably voting Conservative as always.

So where do you stand? With civilization or chaos? With legal pot or Legal’s murals?

My bill’s in the mail… Canada Post still delivers to the House, doesn’t it?

Yours Faithfully,
Perf. Dave

This post also appears on David Climenhaga’s blog, Alberta Diary. Note to Conservative readers: this is satire.

David J. Climenhaga

David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike...