What the Heck Do You Know? Ponders the Most Important Question of the Election: Are We There Yet?
1) A Conservative Party insider claims that their candidates have been advised not to attend debates or answer questions posed to them by reporters. What are they afraid of?
a) an outbreak of hones - chicken pox. Yeah. An outbreak of honest chicken pox....transmitted by journalists. It could devastate the Conservative candidate population
b) another season of Dancing With the Stars
c) their candidates would be tempted to speak, and nothing good could come of that
2) The Conservative Party is looking for military veterans willing to speak on camera for the party's campaign ads, presumably to talk about what a swell job the Harper Government of Canada has done promoting their interests. Why are they having so much trouble finding any?
a) in basic training, Canada's soldiers were accidentally given copies of How to Be a Wallflower instead of The Military Code of Conduct, and they're all too shy to speak out publicly
b) veterans are afraid that if they said how they really felt about the government on camera, it would scare the horses and small children
c) they're doing their hair and can't come to the phone right now
3) NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has come out against forcing Muslim women to take off their niqabs during citizenship ceremonies, claiming that the Tories are exploiting the issue to take the campaign's focus off of jobs and cuts to health care. As a result, his party appears to have lost a substantial amount of its Quebec support, causing it to drop into third place in the polls. What lesson should be taken from this?
a) penny wise, poll foolish
b) fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, and, and, and, I, uhh, probably shouldn't get my philosophy of life from a television show...
c) elections are no time for principles
4) In 2001, Mulcair wrote admiringly of the policies of Margaret Thatcher. When asked about it on the current campaign trail, he said: "My number one priority is to get good service to the public. That hasn't changed and that's what that statement was about - making sure that the public gets the best services possible." I'm sorry, what party is he the leader of again?
a) the NDP...sigh...
b) the NDP - it's on all his brochures, so it must be true
c) does it make a difference?
d) other
5) Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper has decided to avoid major debates, choosing, instead, to appear at a series of smaller boutique debates. List the following debate sponsors in order of their potential importance to the outcome of the election:
a) The Edmonton Amateur Squash League's debate on guns (and why we don't have more of the delightful creatures)
b) The Tuktoyaktuk Fermi Society debate on the question: "Are Canada's restrictive policies on intergalactic immigration keeping humanity from meeting alien life forms?"
c) Rural Route 12 mailbox users' spontaneous debate on...umm...well, we're sure we'll come up with something important before the date
d) Quebecer Maurice LaFlambe's debate on how Maurice LaFlambe can get custody of his children back from his scheming bitch of an ex, Floridia
e) The Turtle Grower's Association of Lower Highlands, New Brunswick debate on Amoeba Rights
6) Conservative MP Peter Kent tweeted that a refugee who once fought for ISIS proves why Canada needs to screen refugees very carefully. Unfortunately for his argument, if not his chances of being reelected, the refugee in question actually served as a commander with the Free Syrian Army, a group that fights against ISIS. Kent used to be a journalist, so you would think he would know how to check facts before making a statement pubic. What happened to him?
a) in the basement of Tory headquarters in Ottawa is a refitted sausage machine that takes ordinary human beings as its raw material and spits out Conservative Party candidates. Kent was put through the machine 12 times just to be on the safe side
b) he's been replaced by a Stepford politician
c) he's always been like this, but you wouldn't notice because television adds 30 points to your IQ
7) Why isn't Ottawa helping to get out the youth vote?
a) bad habits start young
b) if you vote Conservative when you're 20, you have no heart; if you vote Liberal when you're 40 - when you're 40? Get real! Nobody who is 20 can imagine living to be 40!
c) to teach them a valuable lesson about the democratic process
d) other
8) What impression will the Duffy trial leave on voters?
a) the whosy whatsit? Sorry, but if it happened before yesterday, you can't expect me to remember it!
b) Duffy? Is that a flavour of potato chip in the Lay's competition?
c) a scrape like that on a car that has been keyed, one which will require voters to get a whole new paint job
9)What is the dead cat strategy?
a) a precursor to a dead cat bounce
b) helpful campaign advice from Crocodile Dundee
c) they may not be hip, but all political strategies exist to ensure that candidates don't become dead cats - dig?
d) other
10) Match the fringe political party with the policy it espouses:
a) Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada
b) Pirate Party of Canada
c) Canadian Action Party
i) wants elected members to "put forward the Biblical perspectives upon which Canada" was founded
ii) wants to nationalize Tim Hortons to "improve and defend Canadian values and the Canadian dream"
iii) wants to give voters more influence and say between elections
11) On the election trail, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "We do not offer [refugee claimants] a better health care plan than the ordinary Canadian can receive. I think that's something most new and existing and, and old stock Canadians can agree with." Old stock? Seriously? To what could the term old stock possible refer?
a) soup that had been in the fridge for several months
b) cellphones that have been sitting in the warehouse since 2002
c) the butt of a gun from World War I
12) Match the candidate with the party he or she belongs to and the social media communications that got him or her in hot water:
a) Alex Johnstone
b) Gordon Giesbrecht
c) Peter Njenga
i) Liberal
ii) NDP
iii) Conservative Party
1) posted a video comparing abortion to the Holocaust and 9/11 terrorist attack
2) on Facebook, posted that society's dependence on oil could be curbed if cars were modified to use "free air to generate engine power"
3) on Facebook, described the fence posts at Auschwitz as "phallic," then claimed she hadn't heard of the Nazi death camp before posting
13) As many as 18 incidents of voter fraud have been reported in the last two elections. Reported, mind you, not actually prosecuted. New measures purported to stop such abuses have the potential to keep thousands of people away from the polls in this election. How do the Conservatives justify the new measures?
a) young people might vote even though we aren't helping get them to the polls; we needed to be proactive about discouraging them from voting
b) senior citizens should be discouraged from voting, since they won't live long enough to deal with the policies a government they elect would enact
c) it should be hard for aboriginal people to vote - this land is our land, this land isn't their land!
14) Some of Canada's largest unions are backing the New Democratic Party, even though leader Thomas Mulcair once wrote dreadful poetry about his unrequited love for Margaret Thatcher and used a Sharpie to cross out "working class" in the party platform and scribbled "middle class" over it. Why would unions support him?
a) Mulcair once said something nice about Fred Hahn, and labour is so starved for affection these days that now they'll follow him around anywhere; they're like 300 pound burly puppies
b) union leaders are not ones to hold a grudge
c) their only other option was to sit out the election entirely, and nothing will stop those little yentas!
15) Prime Minister Harper has pledged that, if re-elected, he will pass a law that prohibits the government from increasing taxes. Given that a successive government could pass a law undoing the so-called "tax lock" law, what's the point?
a) the Conservatives need to show their base that they're serious about bankrupting the government
b) the Conservatives need to show their wealthy donors that they're serious about bankrupting the government
c) the Conservatives are serious about bankrupting the government
16) According to NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, "The Liberals failed to deliver a national child-care programme after promising it for 13 years." He didn't mention that the law was making its way through Parliament when the NDP and the Conservatives brought down the Martin government in 2005. Why would he not mention that?
a) details, details...
b) because then he would have to explain the Liberal scandal that forced the NDP - against its will - to team up with the Conservatives, and that happened before yesterday, so who remembers?
c) because it would make him look like an opportunistic hypocrite, and, unfortunately, he has been NDP leader long enough that he no longer gets a pass for such behaviour
17) Who told Stephen Harper, "I think you've been an unreal prime minister. You've been wonderful to the whole country. Honestly, I wish you nothing but the most success to you and your family. I know you have the country's best interests at heart." What were the consequences?
a) Yogi Berra, who subsequently died
b) Wayne Gretzky, who was given a ten minute penalty and a five game suspension for high schticking
c) Toronto Blue Jays pitcher David Price, who led the team to its first pennant in 23 years
d) other
18) After 10 weeks of election campaigning, how would you describe yourself?
a) cross-eyed and painless
b) robust, with a woody dandelion bouquet
c) man, I can't wait for this to be over! I'm gonna need to shower for at least a week!
19) What will Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau do if their insistence on not uniting the left allows Stephen Harper to stay in power?
a) spend the next couple of weeks polishing their egos
b) blame the other for getting in the way of their obvious path to power
c) start developing plans for how they will steal voters from each other in the election that will be called six months from now
20) What have we learned from this election?
a) we were supposed to learn something from this election?
b) really?
c) uhh...
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)
i)
j)
k)
l)
m)
n)
o) umm...can I have more time to think about this question?
