The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: I've been thinking Chris
Me: Yes?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Crime.
Me: Yes?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: It's a bad thing.
Me: Well. Yeah. I think everyone dislikes crime.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Not criminals.
Me: They don't?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: No. They think it's fun
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| I'm bored. Let's steal some TVs. |
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Which is why I'm going to get tough on crime!
Me: Okay. Just one quick thing. You do know that the crime rate in Canada is lower than it's been in almost 40 years?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: And there is still too much crime! We can do better!
Me: Wow. That's a lot of passion. I'm totally behind you. I like this. Let's get rid of crime. What do you have in mind?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: I've been thinking, Chris. If we can stop kids from doing the crime, then they won't grow up into adults who do the crime.
Me: That's a pretty progressive stance to take. Awesome. You know, there's research that shows rehabilitating young offenders and helping them get a high school education greatly reduces the chance that they'll commit property crime - the most common of all the crimes. It's a more cost effective way to deal with these offenders and at the end of it, they wind up as productive members of society, instead of career criminals.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: So what I'm going to do is throw them in jail for longer.
Me: Ah
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Because then they'll learn their lesson.
Me: There is a mountain of evidence against that position
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: And that lesson is that crime is bad
Me: Like, a literal mountain. An entire real life mountain.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: So don't do crime, kids.
Me: I think it's somewhere in the Rockies.
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| This isn't snow. It's every single sociological paper that contradicts Stephen Harper. |
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Sorry, what were you saying?
Me: I was just pointing out that there's a geologically significant amount of statistics that say -
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: We don't govern based on statistics.
Me: Seriously? You actually just said that? How could you possibly think saying that thing would ever be good.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Statistics can't be trusted.
Me: Well, there's certaintly a lot of hokey information out there. But as long as you know what you're doing and double check things like sample size, possible bias in the sample, and the analytical methods used, then statistics are wonderful tools for figuring out things about the world we live in.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: No. They sit there looking all cute and adorable and then as soon as you turn your back, they're rummaging through your garbage. Probably for drugs.
Me: What!?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: And then they just go hibernate for five months, living off of welfare, not paying any taxes. The scum.
Me: Oh. Okay. I-I think I know what's going on here. You're confused. Just a little confused is all. Have statistics ever tried to steal your picnic basket?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Yes, but then I maced the drug fiend.
Me: Oh my. This is kind of unbelievable but here goes. The thing that you think statistics are is actually just bears. Bears crossed with, I guess, heroin addicts?
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Bears? I thought those were those crazy guys that no one ever listens to?
Me: No, you're thinking of Green Party MPs, honest mistake. This is a bear.
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| My platform is investment in renewable energy sources and also eating dude's faces. |
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Whoah! What are statistics then?
Me: Statistics, or more rightly statistical analysis is a series of methods employed to collect and interpret data. Using this data we can then make conclusions about how certain things in the real world may or may not correlate. Statistics are essential to pretty much every science since without them we have no way of telling between the world we live in and some made up fantasy land.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Without statistics, we could be living in some made up fantasy land?
Me: Well, we might as well introduce policy as though we are.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: I stand by my original statement then.
Me: Seriously? Fine. We still need some way to pay for these changes to the criminal justice system that you're making.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: Oh I'm sure we have money somewhere for it.
Me: Actually no. We have the largest deficit in Canadian history ever. We could maybe move some money around from something superfluous like those $9,000,000,000 fighter jets. But jets are SO FRIGGIN COOL. We need them. All of them
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: AREN'T THEY AWESOME!
Me: SO AWESOME!
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| HOW FUCKING COOL IS THIS! |
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada: HIGH FIVE!
(Me and Stevie H high fived. It was a pretty deep friendship moment for us.)
Stevie H: Can we just get the provinces to pay for it?
Me: That kindave violates their autonomy doesn't it?
Stevie H: I have a majority government now. Who cares about the province's autonomy?
Me: Well, it kindave makes you a dick.
Stevie H: ...
Me: ...
Stevie H: ...
Me: Being a dick is a bad thing.
Stevie H: But it helped me to win this majority.
Me: Right.
Stevie H: So it's a good thing.
Me: No. Well. Maybe in politics. But being a dick while making policy is a bad thing
Stevie H: Why?
Me: Well it's like. It's like if you were debating a piece of legislature in the House of Commons and -
Stevie H: Sorry. Debate?
Me: Oh. That's my bad. They gave me the primer about how you don't know that word on my first day. Oh well, I'll try my best. When a piece of legislature is in the House of Commons, we talk about the pro's and con's and trying to work out different amendments that could be made before the bill is passed. That way we have the best possible legislature.
Stevie H: I still don't understand
Me: Ugh. So when you're a dick it's like when you're forcing some ideologically, poorly thought out, piece of legislature down parliaments throat.
Stevie H: Continue
Me: And then all of a sudden, John Baird starts waving his cock around. Maybe he disagrees with someone? Who knows? He's not using words. He's just flailing his cock about. Maybe it's some sort of phallic semaphore? Sure, people are paying attention to him, and the opposition can't say anything to stop him. But gosh he looks like a goddamned idiot.
Stevie H: That's actually pretty tame by John's standards.
Me: I know! What is with that guy? Anyways, my point is, when you're a dick and absolutely refuse to listen to what anybody has to say on any matter and force bills through parliament and stick the provinces with these huge bills for a crime initiative that won't even work, well Stevie, it kind of makes you a shitty leader.
Stevie H: You're fired.
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