So let it be written...
Yay! We got cheques from the federal government so let's re-elect the Conservatives.
You know, the guys with the largest largesse ever!
Well, that's what they want you to think, anyway.
This week Canadian parents rich and poor alike are receiving a more-than-suspiciously-timed bit of their own money back from the North Pole, um, Ottawa, as the Oct. 19 general election looms large.
This, of course, is a retroactive lump-sum payment of $420 or $520 per child under the new UCCB, depending on how old your child is.
What is the enhanced UCCB?
It's not an acronym for Unscrupulous Conservative Campaign Bribe. It is an acronym for enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit.
It's also a shell game. It replaces the child tax credit, for one.
Employees who used to be able to list their children as dependants, but no longer can, may have noticed their net pay go down as a result.
The new benefit is also taxable. Canada's Employment Minister, Pierre Poilievre, rode the symbolic Harper sleigh this week to promote the new benefit, and ergo, what a warm and generous bunch he and his fellow Conservatives are. He didn't wear a Santa Claus suit. He did wear a Tory party shirt. He also had the nerve to characterize the
lump payments as "Christmas in July."
Well, Santa doesn't replace one "gift" for another.
Neither does he crawl back down your chimney the following April 30 to take some of it back.
With all this talk of Christmas, albeit in July, it would of course be in poor form to forget about Jesus.
Luckily, Conservative backbencher MP Wai Young had that one covered when she compared Stephen Harper to Jesus while speaking before what had to be an astonished church congregation in Vancouver recently.
"Jesus served, he saved, but he acted as well," she said. "I want to share with you what I think our government is doing in the same vein - Jesus served and acted to always do the right thing, not the most popular thing."
OMG!
Twitter, which was created for situations such as this, lit up like, well, like a Christmas Tree.
A couple of my favourites: @LukewSavage tweeted, "And lo the Lord said 'Go forth and spy on thy citizens, for that is my will. Read not the press.' Romans 4:12."
David Climenhaga tweeted, "#CPCJesus says, 'Blessed are the 1%, for theirs is the Kingdom of Ottawa.'" Verily, I say unto you, you know a reigning party's time is pretty much done once the minions start comparing their leader to Jesus Christ.
Glass of punch, anyone? No thanks. I'll just take a bit of my own money back and run, thanks. For the hills, that is.
...So let it be done
Tom Zytaruk can be reached at tom.
zytaruk@thenownewspaper.com.