When Canadians Rule The Earth

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            (I wrote this back in 2005, but news of an arctic air mass heading this way made me think of it again. Also, I couldn’t write a new column … my fingers are frozen.)

            My friend, who I’ll call Howie Dunnit, has some interesting ideas.  For instance, he was the first to come up with the concept of reality television, many years ago.  He wanted to take the ten celebrities he hated the most, put them on an island with large ravenous beasts, and film them trying to survive.

            You can see he was way ahead of his time.

            Anyway, the other day Howie stopped by and said, “I’ve come up with a plan to solve our nation’s biggest problem.”

            What? I asked.  You mean the war on terror?

            “No, no – that’s not our biggest problem.”

            Hurricane relief?  Red ink spending?  The Kardashians?

            “I’m talking about our porous border, and how all those people are coming into America because of it.”

            Oh!  Well, solving the socioeconomic difficulties that have led to Mexicans leaving their nation to begin with would –

            “I’m not talking about that, man.  Illegal immigration from the South is a problem we’re aware of.  I’m talking about something much more insidious, an invasion of our country that nobody’s even willing to acknowledge.  I’m talking about Canada.”

            Canada?

            “Sure.  Look at all those people coming down from Canada, taking American jobs, using our resources, slowly acclimating us to their culture.”

            Their culture?  But isn’t their culture pretty close to our culture?

            “It is now.  That’s what makes it insidious, dummy.  They’re reaching the highest levels of our society, and before you know it they’ll just take over!  I mean, our young people are already worshiping them!  Canadian singers, Canadian actors, Canadian starship captains –“

            Say what?

            “William Shatner.  He’s a Canadian, and what’s the biggest science fiction franchise of all time?  Not Star Wars, no – Star Trek.  With a Canadian captain, and oh, by the way, a Canadian chief engineer.”

“I thought he was Scottish.”

“You’ve got Shania Twain for the county music freaks, Jim Carrey for the comedy fans, Pamela Anderson for the … well, you know.”

            They sure know how to grow ‘em in Canada.

            “It’s been going on for years.  Steppenwolf!  Rush!  Tommy Chong and his daughter, Rae Dawn!”

            Sounds like they have issues, all right.

            “They’re continuing their infiltration, only now it’s getting worse.  They’re turning our young girls into belly baring, mad at the world singers with attitude, a la Avril Lavine.  They’re making terms that used to be scandalous sound normal – Barenaked Ladies.  Don’t even get me started on Peter North.  And Howie Mandel – tell me, how could we ever forgive them for Howie Mandel?”

            Cash payments?

            “There are lists of them, huge lists of Canadians who are taking over every aspect of America.  Did you know Alexander Graham Bell was a Canadian?”

            Seems to me he helped us out quite a bit.

            “But suppose they decide to take all that technology back?  No more phones!”

            No more salesmen.

            “That annoying little punk on the Star Wars movies, Anakin whatshisface?  Played by a Canadian.  Hugh Hefner’s ex-wife?  Canadian. At least one of them. How many American women could have had that job?”

            Maybe he ran out of American women.

            “Tom Green, buddy.  Tom Green.”

            My gosh, let’s kill ‘em all.

            “Exactly.  Keanu Reeves.  Lorne Green.  Leslie Nielsen.  Lorne Michaels brought, like, every Canadian comedian ever known to work on Saturday Night Live. And k.d. Lang, the lesbian singer who doesn’t know how to capitalize?  Canadian.”

            Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

            “Jack Kerouac – turned a whole generation of American teens into druggies.”

            Never proven, friend.

            “Gimmie a break.  Peter Jennings?  Canadian, giving American news to Americans.”

            That explains a lot.

            “Brendan Fraser.  Michael J. Fox.  Glenn Ford.  Raymond Burr.  Dan Aykroyd.  How many American actors would have gotten jobs, if they hadn’t come in and snatched those jobs away?”

            I’d say, at least five.

            “And Celine Dion, man – Celine Dion!  Tell me it’s not a conspiracy.”

            Hey, I like Celine Dion.

            “Oh, no – they’ve got you too!  You’ve been sucked in.  We have to act.”

            Okay, fine – what do you propose?

            “Invasion.”

            Say what?

            “First we tell all those Canadians they have to go back to their own country.  They won’t, of course – have you seen the average temperatures up there?  That’s our excuse. We declare war and clean their clocks.”

            Are you kidding me?  We’re already fighting a war, where would we get the manpower?

            “That’s the beauty of it.  First, we reinstitute the draft.  You know all those draft dodgers who always head to Canada?  We just hand them rifles and send them on up.  Meanwhile, the native people of Alaska are having trouble maintaining their lifestyles because the ice cap is melting, so they’re getting hungry – we hand them guns too, and invade from two directions.  Before you know it, we’re toasting our victory with Canadian beer in Toronto, over Pierre Trudeau’s moldering corpse.”

            Uh –

            “You could get Shannon Tweed as a war trophy.”

            Oh, okay.  No, wait.  I’ve got friends in Canada.  Besides, they’ve been great neighbors for hundreds of years, with a couple of lamentable exceptions.  They’re a good, freedom loving, peaceful people, and they’ve got great bacon.

            “Trust me; in fifty years they’ll have totally forgotten they weren’t always a part of the US of A.  Do Texans sit around thinking, ‘Gee, remember the good times when we were Mexico’?”

            Well, not all of them.  But look, I can’t support this.  Defending ourselves against attack, yes.  Fighting to free people from a dictator, I can accept.  But attacking a democracy because they’re too similar to us?  That’s ridiculous.

            “You know … every winter they send their arctic cold air fronts right into Indiana.”

            Huh?

            “Weather control, son.  Canadian air masses are what bring winter to the Midwest.  It’s a plot to keep winter hating humor columnists in a deep freeze for half of every year.”

            Nuke the SOB’s.

            “Now we’re talking.”