Welcome to the True North Times’ interpretation of 24/SEVEN: a recap of the past week in the life of the Prime Minister of Canada, and more.
At the beginning of this week’s episode of 24SEVEN, we watch Stephen Harper shaking hands and kissing babies (but mostly shaking hands). I swear, this stuff is more addictive than anything on Netflix.
There’s nothing on Thursday, most likely because he was gearing up for his Big Brother Canada viewing party, but, of course, Joe Oliver forgot the guacamole.
On Friday, our leader spent the entire day carefully formulating a tweet about his plans to take a trip to the Ukraine later this month. I imagine it went something like “What is the best way I can word this tweet to sound intimidating, but also Canadian?”
This is what we got.
I will be travelling to #Ukraine next week to meet with the interim Government. #cdnpoli
— Stephen Harper (@pmharper) March 14, 2014
Word is that he deliberated the word “will” instead of “might” for close to three and a half hours, I hope.
Thinking about that tweet was a pretty strenuous task for Prime Minister Harper, who then proceeded to take the weekend off, according to 24SEVEN. Not to worry, he was back at it on Monday, meeting with Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada, Vadym Prystaiko. The video offered viewers a couple of sentences from the Prime Minister, while boomstick microphones hung from the top of the frame.
Tuesday saw the PM and his wife welcome home the last troops from Afghanistan, which was Canada’s longest serving war. He marked a national holiday on May 9 to celebrate their homecoming, which fits nicely between the Jewish holiday Yom HaAtzmaut and Mother’s Day.
That same day, he also celebrated women’s hockey, and he told the story of what he did when he found out that the game was over: “I decided I wanted to be the one to break the news, so I commandeered the plane’s intercom system to announce the result, and, needless to say, staff, stakeholders, media, crewmembers, everyone on board was jubilant.”
I’m assuming he was going somewhere on that plane, but 24SEVEN really doesn’t give you any idea where it was. I’m sure the place was jubilant, though. Ah, who am I kidding? Only the Prime Minister would use the word jubilant to describe excitement.
On Wednesday, we see our faithful leader present when Joe Oliver was newly appointed Minister of finance. We’ve touched on this prior, so here’s what it means for us going forward.
Greg Rickford (Minister of Natural Resources) and Ed Holder (Minister of State: Science and Technology) were also sworn in, but were apparently only worth an honourable mention.
We conclude with the newly appointed Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford hanging out with a child (presumably his, not confirmed) and playing piano. A perfect end to an otherwise uneventful week as PM.
Here’s what they missed:
– That same event where Oliver, Rickford, and Holder were sworn in, was actually behind closed doors. Nobody really knew about it, and the ones who did make it out to Rideau Hall were left outside in the cold like neglected animals. Perhaps the Harper regime views these two things in a similar manner.
– It seems that the Prime Minister has doubled the amount of security following him around since he took office, costing around 20 million dollars annually. Referring to above, it’s most likely beefed up to protect him from the media, more than anything.
– He spoke about the referendum in Ukraine and its lack of legitimacy. It made big news for some reason, even though it seemed universally understood that the referendum wouldn’t really hold much merit.
Another week in the books! Thanks for reading. Hope this recap made you feel jubilant.
Did I even use that word right?