Your Disgusting, Corrupt, Vile, Greedy, Out-of-Touch and Stupid Government and You

It's time to dust off the old copy of A Tale of Two Cities:

Governor General Mary Simon and travelling companions dined on steak, cake and Chardonnay on a costly junket to Dubai, records show. Staff claimed Simon and 45 friends ate typical airline food. Actual menus for meals that cost $218 per plate featured French crepes, Beef Wellington and Red Velvet Cake with Chantilly cream: “$218 per meal would represent groceries for a whole family."

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The CBC awarded itself more than $156 million in pay raises and bonuses despite complaining of “severe” financial challenges. Documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation detail seven years’ worth of payments amid steep declines in CBC ad revenue: “We simply can’t be in a position where we have to keep cutting.”

Let them eat Disney Plus:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau published an autobiography in 1767 and attributed that infamous phrase to an unidentified “great princess” — and, what’s more, Rousseau actually claimed she said: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”

“Brioche” is bread. And there’s no evidence, none, that Marie Antoinette ever said, “Let them eat cake,” shortly before her head and her body were sent to separate locations by a guy wielding a guillotine. So let’s give the old gal a break, OK?

Chrystia Freeland, meanwhile, did say this to the media (who frankly resemble revolutionary executioners, some days):

“I personally, as a mother and wife, look carefully at my credit card bill once a month. And last Sunday, I said to the kids, ‘You’re older now. You don’t watch Disney anymore. Let’s cut that Disney+ subscription.”

She went on, digging herself ever-deeper: “So we cut it. It’s only $13.99 a month that we’re saving, but every little bit helps.”

Oh, boy. Where to begin?

She personally — don’t you love that she employed that Antoinette-ish flourish, “I, personally” — didn’t rely upon one of the 30-plus staff members assigned to her to break the heartbreaking news to the kids. She, the minister of finance of all of Canada, did it herself. She, personally.

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There she was, squinting at her credit card statement all on her own, personally, and wrestling inflationary spirals to the ground. With a stroke of a red pen — there’s a lot of red pens to be found in Ottawa, in the Justin Trudeau era — voila! No more Disney Plus! Problem solved.

No more American Horror Story (Justin and Chrystia have been producing a Canadian horror story)! No more Kardashians (we get that already, when Trudeau and entourage travel abroad)! No more Lost (which the country kind of is, under the aforementioned Justin and Chrystia).

All those fine Disney+ shows, gone, much like Chrystia Freeland’s sense of self-awareness.

To get serious for a moment — just for a moment — did the minister of finance not notice the kerfuffle about her boss, the prime minister, staying in a $6,000-a-night palatial London hotel in the lead-up to the Queen’s funeral? Did she not note that the president of the United States, him personally, set an example by staying at the U.S. Embassy and thereby saved his taxpayers a small fortune?

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Or, has she looked at any polls — and God knows her department is addicted to polls — which tell her what Canadians are preoccupied with these days?

It’s the cost of living, Ms. Freeland. And not Simpsons reruns on Disney. Canadians, from coast to coast to coast, are focused on how hard it is to get by.

Nanos: The top issue for Canadians is the state of the economy, far ahead of any other issue, with inflation not far behind. Abacus: 73% say the cost of living is the most important issue they’re facing — followed by economy (45%) and housing affordability (36%).

Also Abacus: When asked what inflation and rising interest rates have made “much more difficult” to get, half said food. Thirty-five per cent said housing. And 34% said energy — heating their home or fuelling their vehicle.

I doubt Canadians are worried about what else Disney Plus will ruin when they can't afford to fuel their cars.

Justin can't rest on his achievements because he does not have any.

But he does act like a squealing, little b!#ch:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has criticized recent moves by Premier Blaine Higgs to give a tax break to high-income earners in New Brunswick while also asking Ottawa for more funding for health care.

"One of the things unfortunately we continue to see, is conservative politicians who think that the best way to grow the economy is failed trickle-down theories," Trudeau said Tuesday, speaking to reporters in Oromocto.

(Sidebar: don't use terms you can't define, Justin. Like "trickle-down" or "middle-class" or "juice boxes".)

Yes, about that:

Duclos referred to a statement issued earlier Tuesday by the Council of the Federation, the group representing all premiers, before talks wrapped up.

In the statement, the premiers said they were disappointed with the lack of a federal response to an ongoing request from provinces and territories to get 35 per cent of health-care costs covered by Ottawa, up from 22 per cent.

However, Duclos declined to say at a separate news conference whether he came to the table with more cash, adding only that premiers did not want health ministers to accept any conditions, like providing data on the health-care workforce.

Just tax people some more, Justin. That usually works.