TABATHA SOUTHEY
Globe and Mail
At this point, I’m impressed with the sheer breadth and scope of Justice Minister Peter MacKay’s ineptitude. These days he’s wrong about so many things and manages to communicate this wrongness in so many mediums, I’m in awe.
The man is wrong everywhere! He just keeps popping up wrong! Peter MacKay is like the Zelig of wrong! He’s wrong in the House of Commons – and throws papers on the floor. He’s as wrong in four-year-old as he is in adult.
His legislation, Bill C-36, is wrong and, when unveiling the bill, he was wrong about what it contained. He was wrong about his own wrongness – he was meta-wrong.
He was wrong on Wednesday when he tweeted, “As a parent, I oppose @JustinTrudeau’s plan to make dangerous drugs more accessible to children” with a video in which Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau outlines his sensible policy to legalize and control the sale of marijuana.
Mr. MacKay’s tweet is a study in wrongness. He was wrong in his accusation, wrong to include video evidence of that wrongness and wrong to do it on Twitter – where people love to point out how wrong people are.
Mr. Trudeau has no plans to allow children to buy pot (we don’t let babies buy scotch), and decriminalization has never been proved to increase children’s access to pot.
Compound all that with the self-righteous “As a parent...” and we have Russian nesting dolls of wrongness! As if people without children have no desire to see the country run well. Were all the minister’s opinions suspect before the birth of his son a year ago? Well, yes – but only because it’s Peter MacKay! A superhero of wrong! Look! It’s a bird. It’s a really over-priced fighter jet that will not do the job for which it’s intended! It’s Wrongman!
But in general, and I say this as a parent, lots of us are morons, and those who sling our children about like moral cudgels are in the wrong – and what a vast land Mr. MacKay is proving the wrong to be!
The “as a parent” tweet followed on Mr. MacKay’s wrong, bordering on delusional, thoughts on Bill C-13 – he basically insists the bill protects Canadians’ privacy because it’s Opposite Day at the Supreme Court. Then I read that in a meeting of the Ontario Bar Association, Mr. MacKay had been – brace yourself for it – wrong! When asked why there are so few women and visible minorities on federally appointed courts, he said they “aren’t applying.” Federal Judicial Affairs won’t publish statistics about who applies. Ontario does – close to 50 per cent of applicants are women. Are Ontario women outliers?
Mr. MacKay made it clear that he understands the ladies’ reticence because he’s a father. Maybe his baby gurgles application stats, maybe his wife gave birth to Buddha and the wisdom’s just been flowing ever since, but somehow Mr. MacKay knows women have a special bond with their children that makes them inherently reluctant to become federal judges.
I missed that chapter in What to Expect When You’re Expecting; maybe it’s called Abandon All Hope, and I guess visible minorities are just universally, regardless of gender, superior parents.
Basically, to hear Minister MacKay explain it, our Federal Courts are run by dozens of baby-eating Greek Titans – it’s all Kronoses over there with the occasional Joan Crawford thrown in.
How does he find the time to be so wrong – on so many subjects, in so many forums? Peter MacKay is everywhere! Saying wrong things! I expect I’ll be at the grocery store and Peter MacKay will poke his head around the corner from the cereal aisle and say, “Buy the no-name tuna!”
Never buy the no-name tuna.
Sometimes I imagine the “snooze” button on my alarm clock is Mr. MacKay’s face: “Push my face! This will work out fine! No one needs breakfast!”
“Open that with your teeth – teeth are tools,” advises Minister MacKay.
“It’s going to rain – take shelter under a tree and wave your golf clubs at the sky,” says guest weatherman MacKay.
Text from Mr. MacKay: All Tupperware is microwavable. Don’t lift with your knees.
Where does Mr. MacKay go from here? He’s covered all the bases. There are few frontiers left for him to be wrong in, little left for him to be wrong about. He’ll have to sky-write something unconstitutional in dactylic hexameter to surprise me now – maybe be wrong in space.
