Boris & Wife

 

Sir John A. MacDonald decolonized and decapitated - a tweet

 

History is after all only a pack of tricks we play on the dead.[1] 

       - Voltaire

 

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[1] Quoted in Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, 2^nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 43.  First published in 1932.

A Made-in-Canada solution to the Niqab issue

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

It has come to my attention that the niqab issue has wreaked havoc on the fortunes of the NDP in Quebec.  Well done! But by bedeviling Tom Mulcair’s party you also assist that of Gilles Duceppe, the formally moribund Bloc Québécois.  Finding support among separatists cannot be a good thing, given that you once prorogued parliament (I think it was in 2008) on a perceived link with the Bloc.

In order to avoid downright false charges of being in bed with the separatists when it suits you, permit me to suggest a made-in-Canada solution to the perplexing matter of niqabs in citizenship ceremonies.  Instead of wearing the niqab these unfortunate and oppressed women (numbering a few dozen, I imagine) should be required to wear a goalie’s mask.  Voila – instant recognition as an integral part of the “Canadian family” simply by donning a modest piece of face-saving equipment!  You’ll make hockey history (at last), and it will only increase the sales of your long-nurtured book.  But the Muslim women will profit too, for you will be also be providing new and exciting career opportunities for Canada’s niqab-wearing population.  A win-win deal if there ever was one.

Your obediant servant,

Joerge Dyrkton