So Stephen Harper and his Tories are back in power, again with a minority government, even though they won eighteen more seats. The cost to the taxpayers of this little exercise in democracy was $300 million so, lemme see . . . three hundred million smackeroos divided by eighteen . . . divide into three hundred, carry one, switch hands . . . give me a minute here, I’m not that good at this sums stuff . . . heck, where’s the calculator thingie on this . . . okay, I got it . . . whoa, that’s SIXTEEN MILLION BUCKS PER, give or take a few hundred thousand.
What was it that the late June Callwood said? “The beaver, which has come to represent Canada, as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off its own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees.” We chose our national symbol well.