Trudeau - Canada's Embarrassment

Jen had just picked up the leash and was about to take the pup for his morning walk when she saw her husband had taken his citizenship certificate out of its frame. He was holding the certificate in his left hand and a pair of scissors in his right hand.

“God give me strength,” she muttered as she moved towards him and took the scissors away from him “What the hell are you doing now, darling husband of mine?” Jen asked through gritted teeth.

“I’m returning my citizenship, and leaving.” John answered.

Jen looked skyward and placed her hands together as if in prayer. “Thank you God for answering my prayers.”

“We’re leaving,” he qualified. “We’re leaving Canada.”

“Over my dead body we are. What brought this lunacy on?”

“Justin Trudeau did; there’s no place for me here. Do you know if Canadian Immigration run a ‘try it for 90 days and if you don’t like it return it and get your money back’ system?”

“No, not even if you still have the receipt. Talk to me you stubborn auld fool, and calm down. What did Trudeau ever do to you? Take deep breaths and cast your mind back to the trouble you had getting here.

Remember how long it took you to become a landed immigrant; all the medicals you had to endure, and how much it cost, and how they forgot all about you for a year. And you’ve told everyone a thousand times about the ceaseless questions and cynical disbelief when you applied for Canadian Citizenship; how they couldn’t understand why you wanted to leave Scotland to come to an even colder country, and how they all went ‘aaahhh’ and shed a few tears when you explained it was because of love.”

John put the certificate down.

“That’s better. Remember what it was like when you first arrived in Canada – forgetting the little contretemps at Montreal airport. You received nothing but welcome and friendship from Canadians of all ethnicities. Seeing strangers talking to each other confused you when you first came; not only talking to each other in a desultory fashion, but carrying on conversations, even in line ups. And you never stop talking about the bank manageress who came hurrying towards you with arms open wide and gave you a big hug when you went to open up your first bank account. How you stood there paralyzed, with your arms rigidly by your side in case you were being videoed for the Ellen show.. As you stood there, bewildered, you remembered how your UK bank manager didn’t even know your name, and that was after 35 years.”

“How you discovered that Canadians were friendly, and old fashioned polite. People opened doors for you and called you Sir, which stunned you at first until you realised they were doing it because to them you were obviously a frail old fart. And why I became so embarrassed when you kept returning to every checkout after you’d bought something, to ask what the checkout girls had said to you, and how you found out that ‘have a nice day!’ was a generic way for the girls to say ‘f*** off, I wish it was closing time.’

Admit it, Canadian’s desperate desire to apologise even when it isn’t their fault, has mesmerised you since you immigrated; think of last week, when you saw that skateboarder. She was skateboarding on the road, against the traffic, weaving in and out between parked vehicles and avoiding oncoming SUV’s as she tweeted. The outcome was inevitable – she slammed into a parked car. As she tumbled ass over tit, she apologised – not to the drivers who had to swerve to avoid her – hell no, that would have been sensible. As she did her own gravity defying act, she apologised to the parked car.”

“If you go back to the UK, think what you’ll miss; Tim Hortons, drive thru banks, line ups, Robins the size of Pigeons, a relaxed lifestyle where the motorway top speed is 62 miles per hour, and you can legally drive through red lights. I know, I know, when you first came you sneered at it, but how do you think you’ll manage back in shivering, damp Scotland where they drive on the correct side of the road and drive at real speeds – and you’re going to blame it all on Justin Trudeau?"

"Be realistic for goodness sake, we all know that our new, arrogant, selfie Prince of a Prime Minister loves himself. We are all aware that his previous hobby of drama teacher has taught him how to toss his hair, flutter his eyelashes and roll up his sleeves as if he was middle class and not millionaire class. And, as he has just 'mentioned' to the world, he even taught science, - gasps of astonishment.

You're not jealous are you, you auld fool?"

"Jealous! Jealous of a 'man' whose sole claim to fame is his father and gaudy socks? A man who thinks governing a country means globetrotting? Not on your life. To be honest about it, he does have one politician's attribute - he can lie with a straight face, and his two handed handshakes, although nauseating, do seem to go down well. No, I am definitely not jealous. His intention of making things better for the ‘middle class’ of Canada, didn't go down well with me,but his last cock-up was the limit.

"You mean his crass costumes during his family vacation to India, or his stupid 'peoplekind' remark?"

"His erotic clothing even embarrassed the Indian continent's welcoming committee. You could almost see them praying that nobody was taking any videos, the costumes were cringe-making - he probably told their kids that it was Halloween. But the Peoplekind remark was the limit."

"Imagine, the Prime Minister of the planet's second largest country interrupting the woman, 'Aimee' I think her name was, at that Edmonton town hall meeting and correcting her 'mankind' remark. Remember what he said?"

"We like to say peoplekind, not necessarily mankind, because it's more inclusive. We can all learn from each other."

"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, and egotistical morons. The man, or should it be the 'people'? has a screw loose."

Jen sighed. "I must admit that he managed to make Canada the laughing stock of the world with that one, but it wasn't meant to insult you. It was meant to insult the whole nation. I must admit his mention of the Canadian Class system was the first mention of any type of class system in Canada, and it didn’t just confuse you, it mystified the whole country. His promise made no sense, considering that Canada’s ‘middle classes’ are wealthier than America’s ‘middle classes’”.

John became agitated. “Trudeau has also screwed things up with me and my friends.”

“Shouldn’t it be ‘my friends and I’? And as an aside, I didn’t know you had any friends.”

John glared, “Will you listen to me for once in your life?” He snarled.

Jen crossed her arms and sighed, “If I must.”

“Canada is a classless society. People like you for who (whom?) and what you are, not for how rich you are or what position you hold in society. I am lucky enough to be able to count as friends:-

Peter, a middle aged man who has been evicted from his home and now lives in a caravan (trailer), and Geoff, an older man who lives in a 15 bedroom home on his own.

Mike, a school crossing guard and Jeannine, the headmistress at the same school.

Another Peter who is a neurologist and Scott, who is a garbage truck driver.

Alex, a church organist and choir master, and Doug, a professional billiard player.

Jennifer, an archaeologist, and Eddie, a plumber.

It doesn’t matter a damn what anyone does for a living, and one of the wonderful things is that all the people above are friendly with each other – and me; it’s the ‘and me’ part that gives me an inner glow. I revelled in this egalitarian society, until Trudeau’s speech”.

Jen uncrossed her arms and nodded. “I understand your confusion, but the media were as bewildered as you were. There were countless articles about the middle class and what defined it. According to Mr. Trudeau, he knows what the middle class isn’t – the middle class does NOT consist of …‘people who live off their trust funds, assets or portfolios’.

Trudeau’s naive speech opened up a can of worms, and it had everybody in the nation wondering what middle class was. Apparently the middle classes are those who bring in between $39,000 and $139,000 per annum. Others maintained that money had nothing to do with the middle class, and as one MP said, ‘There are different definitions of middle class’. One MP, so unsure of what constitutes the middle class, wonders if her salary of nearly $164,000 per annum puts her in the middle class. Is she kidding?’

Justin Trudeau showed Canada his remote view of Canadian society when he admitted that, “I’ve heard people are struggling and I’ve talked a lot about the kinds of solutions we need,”

“But that doesn’t explain why you suddenly want to leave God’s own country.”

“Well, what nobody seems to appreciate is that Trudeau never mentions the class of society beneath his idea of the middle class. He never mentions it because in his mind that class is the POOR; there is no working class in Trudeau’s mind. As far as he’s concerned there is only his class, the Elite, the middle class and the poor.” I refused to be classified as poor by any politician. If I was poor, my father would turn in his grave.”

“Your Father? You mean Burling Jock?”

“Very droll. You know damn fine that before immigrating to Canada, I was a member of the Scottish working class, and proud of it. Not even the fact that we had our own business and we had two children, two dogs and two cars altered the fact that we were working class. Hell, we even owned our own 4 bedroom home and we were still working class.

What happened to the old fashioned blue collar workers and white collar workers? Remember when a self proclaimed highbrow would sneer at you until they discovered you were the owner, and then they fawned all over you? When people assumed because you got your hands dirty you couldn’t possibly have read Shakespeare, and probably couldn’t even spell it. No way could you have read Dickens, attended a concert, or appreciated art.

That doesn’t happen in Canada, or at least it didn’t until the new Trudeau Class came into being”.

“And here, folks, we have a prime example of how to take the wrong end of the stick and stick with it, or the epitome of the belligerent Scot that the world knows and shakes its head at. Let me try to get through that thick head; you remember when I was over in Scotland last year? Yes? Good! Well things have changed over there as well. Since you left Britain, the Working Class has ceased to exist……let me finish….. Let me list the class system in Britain now, obviously leaving out William & Kate, George and Charlotte.

(But here’s an oddity, according to Wikipedia – William may be 2^nd in line to the throne, but in social class standing he is middle class, because of his military rank. Still, if he is worried about his class, he just needs to move to Canada and Mr. Trudeau will come to his aid).

Elite

Established Middle Class

Technical Middle Class

New Affluent Workers

Traditional Working Class

Emergent Service Sector

Precariat

Yes, that’s what I said – Precariat – Apparently it is an amalgam of Precarious & Proletariat, which I suppose means living from hand to mouth, in other words precariously – or as we would call it…..normal.

In the U.K. Working Class has now become ‘Traditional Working Class’ and only occupies 14% of the population; we are dying out. However, if you do go back you will be pleased to know that you would now be classified as ‘The Skilled Working Class’. That class now covers self-employed contractors, and instead of blue collar workers and white collar workers, there is now White Van Culture or Affluent Blue Collar. No! I’m not kidding. You must admit that ‘Skilled Working Class’ sounds better, and considering that you used to wear blue shirts and drive white cars or sometimes drive blue cars and wear white shirts, it is a close description.

It sounds like Britain is now making allowances for the skilled self-employed. You know how you have such a high regard for the self employed over here, how ordinary homes with business posters in front of them sends you into ecstasies of admiration. Britain is beginning to catch up. Just think, one day you could have a ‘Class’ of your own. We could have a sign at the end of the driveway….

John MacNab Highly Skilled Pig Headed Class.

“BUT, and you’ll notice it is a big ‘but’, if you’d read more of Trudeau’s speeches, you would have noticed that he has finally come to a conclusion regarding the middle class; apparently the way he now sees it is….

‘People who live from paycheque to paycheque are middle class’.

What do you say to that? It seems we’ve been Middle Class all our lives and didn’t know it.”

John began to re-frame his Citizenship Certificate. “OK, I’ll stay in Canada. The only thing I’ll have to practice is the middle class sneer as I talk to the Peons and Precariats.”

Jen waited until John began singing O Canada, before turning to the dog. “He’s a claekit auld fool, pup. He still hasn’t realised that to all his friends he is in a separate class, the retired class, or seniors as they say over here. Right, lets get your walk over with, then I’ll have to hurry to the stores. Thursday is Senior’s day at the stores, and we’ll have to stock up as much as possible before the store owners realize that the cusp is near – there will soon be more Seniors than any other class.”

"But, by then we'll have shuffled off this mortal coil. By that time our derisive PM may have decided whether he is - a people or a mouse."