June 4th: The start of Parliament and other stuff....

Memo to: Brad Lavigne

Re: The start of Parliament and other stuff...

Brad, is it too late to change seats in Parliament? It was torture waiting to be called into Senate for the throne speech. Between Libby chewing my ear off and Mulcair sticking his tongue out at Rae, I just couldn’t concentrate. That was bad enough, but then the two of them got into a fight and she reached over and kicked him! I had to call a time out. I counted to ten and told them I wouldn’t allow them to hear the throne speech until they promised to behave. I knew I should have sat next to Dewar – he doesn’t even snore when he falls asleep.

I was totally blind-sided by this report that claims I am the most uncivil MP in the House! Has this idiot Sevigny ever heard Mulcair speak? Gee, he’s hardly even civil with me. And, what about Pat – he’s downright annoying, no? I had to have the caucus draw short straws just to see who would sit next to him in Parliament. The worst part of this whole sordid episode is that Olivia just can’t stop giggling. And, did she have to tweet the story to the whole caucus?

But why did the press even report this? I thought they liked me. That’s what they always tell me. They keep telling me they all vote NDP. When I tell them I am the conscience of Canada, they always agree. I think they know that I don’t just speak for the NDP; I speak for the people. Brad, they bury so much other stuff on us; you’d think they would have had the good sense to ignore this one. Can you have a word with some of them and see if we can get them back on track? And, what happened with Milewski? He usually warns us about this sort of stuff.

Ralph Goodale called me yesterday to complain about getting kicked out of his office. I’ve known Ralph now for over 20 years, and I am quite upset about this. I understand we’ve now moved him to a basement office, with no windows, in west block. That wasn’t what I had in mind when I said we need to move some of the Liberals out. That fucker is still way too close. Couldn’t we find something further away? I was kind of thinking about cleaning out a broom closet somewhere in Gatineau and sticking him there. And, while we are at it, let’s take his parking spot. Call Van Loan and tell him this is another area where the NDP and the Conservatives can work together to make Parliament work.

It was great getting our first pay stub yesterday. I can tell you I can really use the extra $75,000. But, Olivia was shocked when she opened her envelope and saw no change. She was under the impression that the Shadow Cabinet gets hefty raises. Brad, is there anything we can do about this? Olivia is, how should I say it, a touched pissed that people like Mulcair get an extra $40,000 and Charlton gets an extra $28,000 – and that’s just for being the stupid whip. Had Olivia known she wasn’t going to get a raise, she would have put her hat into the ring to be speaker. When you call Van Loan, please tell him I might be amenable on Senate reform if we can get a big chairperson job for Olivia and a few extra bucks. Again, I am willing to compromise to make parliament work.

I got an angry phone call from Suzuki late last night. He says we haven’t bought the necessary carbon offsets for our upcoming Conference in Vancouver. And guess what? He just happens to have a company that sells carbon offsets. Anyways, to make a long story short, I agreed to pay, I mean buy $75,000 worth of his bloody offsets. The big problem is that David, being David, assumed that HE was giving the keynote at our Conference. This means we now have to bump Naomi – but I can’t deal with the family. Naomi will call Avi, Avi will then call Michele, Michele will then call Stephen, Stephen will then call Ed, and then Ed will call me, and I’ll have to donate to yet another African charity. So, can you call Avi directly? Tell him Al-Jazeera can have an exclusive on our ‘Zionist Entity’ seminars at the Conference. And, yes, he can even sit next to Libby.

I called Denis Lemelin, the National President of CUPW to talk of my extreme concern about the postal strike, and it impact on Canada. I believe the strike should have been put off until the Canadian Boat to Gaza had finished their fundraising and not before. We are all relying upon CUPW to get this initiative off the ground, and any delay in freeing the people of Gaza is just not acceptable. This selfish strike action has the whole caucus up in arms. Can you call Sid and see if CUPE can replace CUPW? A least Lemelin assured me that striking workers can still make the trip.

And, can you call the Insite people and see if we can get them to set up at the Conference? A number of our MPs have indicated it might be awkward to leave the Conference and head on down to the Insite location downtown. So, let’s bring Insite to the Conference. I think it will improve attendance dramatically. But, can we add some sort of rule for conference attendees – no more than 4 needles per day? Is that reasonable? What about just 2 needles per day for MPs? Should we put some limits on the press, or will they shout about press freedom?

Jack