Canada Says Non Merci To Being America's Hat

Peewee's big adventure continues in middle-of-nowhere Alberta!

Hugh Jackman isn’t a Canadian but he plays one on TV. (Screengrab)

None of the Canadian NHL teams currently battling for the country’s first Stanley Cup in more than 30 goddamn years had a game last Monday, which might’ve helped with the higher-than-average voter turnout of 69 percent for the latest federal election. See also: a general sense of existential dread.

You’ve probably heard by now the rebounding Liberals led by Mark Carney ultimately won the day, although the incumbent party failed to win a majority government with 169 total seats in Parliament instead of 172. Bloc Québécois chef Yves-François Blanchet — whose party picked up 23 exclusively in la belle province as always— says there’ll be “a truce” between the two parties and is expected to help prop up the minority Libs to meet the unpredictable threat posed by Grampa Hitler and his flying monkeys.

Make fun of Trump’s boasts of being a uniter all you want but getting Quebec separatists to cozy up with Canada’s natural governing party truly is something only he could do. Old Treasonballs is unlikely to get a Nobel Peace Prize for this one either though, and only time will tell if a temporary forced marriage between the two parties bears fruit. Blanchet is well aware the previous party to form a coalition government with the Liberals, the New Democrats, was essentially just wiped from the political map.

Charismatic NDP leader Jagmeet Singh even lost in own seat in British Columbia that Canadians have politely pretended the Ontario man has ties to for the past several years, and has since announced his resignation after the Dippers were reduced to winning only seven ridings. Including mine.

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Elizabeth May managed to once again score the Greens’ sole seat in the House of Commons, but her new co-leader/arm candy Jonathan Pedneault came in a distant fourth in his Montreal neighborhood and has announced he’ll also be moving on. Presumably not to greener pastures.

Conservative bossman Pierre Poilievre, who seized defeat from the jaws of victory after seeing a 25-point lead in the polls suddenly go poof, was also axed from his home riding of Carleton outside Ottawa for Liberal noob Bruce Fanjoy — whose surname would’ve been perfect as a Secret Service codename for Tim Walz — after a whopping 82 percent of eligible voters rendered their verdict. Turns out many of them took it personally the guy couldn’t be arsed to show up for an all-candidates debate or do much in the way of campaigning locally out of misplaced confidence the rubes will turn out for him like they did the previous seven times. And Propaganda Pete’s enthusiasm for the insurrectionist clown show that seized the capital three years ago clearly didn’t go over as well with local residents as he imagined.

He’s like if Icarus not only flew too close to the sun but didn’t say thanks to Daedalus for giving him wings in the first place.

How do you like them apples? (Screengrab: @pierrepoilievre/x)

The disappointed Tory leader told reporters he plans to step aside to reflect and spend more time with his family and … Ha! Just kidding. Nope, some poor schmuck in Alberta is dutifully falling on his sword so that Peewee can continue his quixotic Common Sense crusade against all things woke. Like windmills, for example.

Although falling on his shovel might be a better metaphor. Damien Kurek — who was easily re-elected as MP for Battle River-Crowfoot with the approval of more than four out of five hurtin’ Albertans — owns a farm in the remote village of Consort, which seems a bit on-the-nose given it’s a term for someone who gets screwed by a dread sovereign.

I doubt he’ll have the support of Consort’s most famous resident, k.d. lang, who presumably doesn’t spend much time there anymore, but it’s easy to imagine — given his track record — Poilievre stealing her hit “Constant Craving” for a campaign ad or rally entrance music and pretending it’s about him.

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“Although it will be hard to temporarily step away from this role, in this region I love and have always called home, the mandate given to me is one that clearly states that change is needed,” Kurek said obediently in a press release Friday. “Offering this seat to our party leader is an important step in that process.”

Carney is already proving to be the bigger man by saying he’ll call a by-election as soon as possible instead of letting poor Pierre twist in the wind for a few months. Or booting him and his young family temporarily from Stornoway, the Ottawa mansion loaned to the elected leader of the Official Opposition, which he no longer is. There’s also an unofficial honor-among-thieves deal where the two main parties don’t run candidates against each other in by-elections held to let new leaders without a seat get into Parliament, and it would likely be pointless in MAGA-adjacent rural Alberta anyway.

Although it’d be awesome if Justin Trudeau battled his old foe in Battle River-Crowfoot again just for lulz.

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Turnouts for Canadian by-elections are usually pretty pathetic, especially if the winner is a foregone conclusion, but I’m praying it falls on a day the Edmonton Oilers are playing a Game 7 and hardly anyone bothers to vote just to add a little extra something to his humiliation.