Point Finger Road

The entire community of Point Finger Road had turned out for the 2026 Leaders debate. This was the most exciting thing that had every happened here. Joyce Beebody called the Leaders to the stage to begin the evening's debate.

Prime Minister John Pride, the leader of the Conservurass party, confidently strode up the aisle to take his place, symbolically, on the right-most chair, surrounded by a dozen paranoid personal security guards in discount business suits and wearing sun glasses too dark to see their eyes. No one even tried to approach him. His glowing toothy smile hid the legendary fury he could unleash, as he often did on the floor of the House of Commons. During such an outburst his face would fill with red rage and he would spout his often quotable tirades about his opposition, rather than answer questions or address concerns raised. Dressed in his favorite 3-piece custom-tailored navy blue suit with de-rigeur Conservurass blue tie, John was an impressive and intimidating figure whose booming voice would quickly silence lesser mortals like opposition members or aspiring election candidates and would send them scurrying away to lick the toxic wounds caused by his caustic, verbal assaults. John was proud of the fact that in all three of his successful elections he had never had to face the same opponents twice since defeat at his hands had always been politically fatal.

Marie Cheri was the leader of the Fuddle-Duddles, a name the party could not shake off after the historic statement of a former leader more than 50 years ago. Marie was a cheerful and out-going French Canadian whose petite 5 foot 2 inch frame, amply filling her bright silk red dress, turned heads and stopped conversations as she passed the men and women lingering around the egg and salmon salad sandwich tables on her way towards the stage. Mary was a retired middle school principal whose no-nonsense, pragmatic approach had won her the respect and admiration of her community. She had a competent, well-funded organization and she was confident that she could take the wind out of that pompous Conservurass windbag.

The Loyal Opposition party, now referred to as the Demobrats, had shaken off the shackles of being a "new" party and had shown staying power as the Opposition for 15 of the last 20 years, but forming a government had still eluded their grasp. Jackson Cluney, their newly elected leader and former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, had demonstrated remarkable connections with Canadians speaking not only fluent English, French, Spanish, Italian and Mandarin but he was also quite capable of carrying a conversation in Cree and Ojibwa. He sported a bushy mustache and dyed his hair with streaks of grey mixed in with his darker black to give the appearance of aging with dignity. The finishing touches included grey streaks around his ears. Tonight Jackson wore a white turtleneck under a bright Demobrats orange V-neck sweater and his trademark dream-catcher necklace. He took his time shaking hands and briefly speaking to each person he met on his way to the stage.

Perry Potts completed the set as the leader of the Greenish party. The party had been forced to change its name when virtually all worldwide vegetation became more brown and black than green due to global warming especially from the toxic fumes produced by the processing of Canada's Tar Muds, which were now being exploited after the Tar Sands had been depleted of oil. Trees and other vegetation were now referred to as "greenish" even if they showed only a few green buds. His bottle-bottom thick eyeglasses and tangled hair, along which a rumpled sports coat with elbow patches gave everyone an impression of a distracted college professor rather than an astute political leader. Perry did not disappoint those in the audience who had these impressions when the books and large files he was carrying went flying in all directions and the audience laughed at his mishap, none more so that the Conservurass supporter who had tripped him. Perry gathered his papers as best he could and then shuffled to his spot at the table on stage.

Joyce briefly introduced each of the candidates finishing with John the "incumbent", a word she used no less than 12 times as she elaborated on his "accomplishments" since being elected for the first time. Accomplishments may have been a bit of an exaggeration. Except for showing up for mandatory votes to keep the minority Conserurass party in power and traveling to exotic foreign countries for 150 to 200 days a year running up travel expenses that easily exceeded Canada's annual spending on public health care, John's biggest accomplishments had been to "correct" spelling and punctuation in bills tabled by others, including opposition members. He had an uncanny ability to change the intended meaning of any bill brought forward by a careful placement of a period, a comma or a semi-colin and had done more to frustrate minority members' ambitions than any debate or committee of the House. Since the House of Commons had gone 100% paperless, John could effortlessly work his magic from any hotel penthouse suite in the world and his impact was felt in every piece of legislation passed.

In one case a private member's bill, intended to increase spending on Federal programs for child care had its meaning completely reversed to decrease spending by insertion of 4 periods, 2 semi-colons and 21 commas. The opposition parties all used word checkers to quickly check if the government changed anything in their bills, but the software programs were oddly configured to not check punctuation and since no WORDS had been changed, they assumed that the bills were being passed intact when their programs indicated the bill presented in the house was a word for word match to the one drafted in committee. The Conservurass party deliberately kept some of their members away for the vote on one pretext or another, including Prime Minister John, to ensure its passage. Now the Conserurass party had one of their most powerful weapons in this election claiming that it was the opposition who had sponsored and passed the bill and the Conserurass members could rightfully proclaim they had opposed it but were defeated.

The Senate, now filled 100% with Conservurass members, who played Solitaire and Angry Birds all day on the Apple iPads the Canadian taxpayers so generously gave them along with their $1.5 Million annual salaries and other perks, had no such excuse but simply rubber stamped their approval of everything they received. In this case it was a process that required interrupting their game play for no more than 69 seconds. Serious senate debate only occurred when ordering the daily catered lunch and decisions had to be made between ordering Beluga or Ossetra caviar with French or Californian wine. Heated debates about lunch entrees like Australian Coral Trout or Yellowfin Tuna could last for days. But ratifying or rubber- stamping a House of Commons bill, 69 seconds.

And it was this Child Care Bill Scandal which led off the debate. Marie attacked the Conservurass party for duplicity and deceit, which John simply shrugged off and pointed out that it was the Demobrats who sponsored the bill and that Marie and the Fuddle Duddles had voted in favor. Marie attempted to explain the nuances of the punctuation added by John before passage, to which John replied "Punctuation, smunctuation - what's that got to do with it? Let's put a period in this question right now and move on." Polite applause and laughter supported John's suggestion.

Then it was Jackson's turn, and he addressed the audience instead of the other candidates speaking about the high regard the Demobrats had for families and childcare and that the Conservurass members had played a dirty trick by amending a bill in a way that would be barely noticeable. He compared the changes to "seeing a dirty homeless man on the street every day, but not really seeing him. To most people passing him he would be just a dirty pile of human flesh and clothes - until one day he dies and the body is taken away. People pass the spot and feel that something is changed but can't quite identify it. Their lives go on and they eventually forget about the old man. The only thing that might have attracted their attention would be seeing the man on fire..."

If anyone had been watching John, they would have seen the red fury face building as Jackson spoke. John could suddenly contain himself no longer, "What the Hell are you talking about? All I know is that you dirty f---king Indians lie drunk in my streets all the time and I wouldn't send my dog across the street to piss on you if you were burning on fire!"

The audience was shocked and dead silence filled the room.

"That," replied Jackson calmly "is the difference between me and you, sir. If you were lying defeated in the street I would send my dog over to piss on you whether or not you were on fire!"

The audience were on their feet laughing, cheering and applauding, and red-faced John spouting a tirade of obscenities and displaying his uncontrollable fury and anger stormed out of the meeting surrounded by his wary security team watching the audience for any sudden moves. The debate was over, but not the results.

Within minutes the live Internet broadcasts were being picked up by major TV and Radio networks, and copies were quickly uploaded repeatedly to iTube, the former YouTube service now owned by Apple since they bought Google in 2021. One version, entitled "Dog pisses on politician", quickly exploded into millions of hits. By 6 o'clock the videos were on all the major news networks worldwide. Overnight polling saw Jackson's numbers surge past the Fuddle Duddles and John's numbers plummet to within 2 points of Jackson's. By election night, it was a foregone conclusion that the Fuddle-Duddle and Greenish parties would be marginal players and that the neck-in-neck battle was between the Conservurass and the Demobrats parties. In the end, John Pride won his riding by 10 votes, but his victory was short-lived. On judicial recounts the Demobrats candidate edged out the Conservurass by 25 votes in John Pride's riding and the leader was defeated. Jackson, on the other hand, was sent to Ottawa by a 90% majority in his own riding, and over 85% of the electorate turned out to vote, the highest in any riding in Canada for that election.

The Conservurass party did still end up with another minority government. During the ensuing year they suffered through several interim leaders until a party convention later the next year finally elected a new leader, followed shortly afterwards by another Federal election. This time Jackson emerged as unqualified majority leader and the new Prime Minister forming the first Demobrats government in Canadian history.

John Pride retired on his $5 million plus government pension and began to work as a "punctuation consultant" for several of the major legal firms and lobby groups in Ottawa. It was rumored that he was now charging $500,000 per carefully placed comma, semi-colon, period or colon and earning 20 times the salary he earned as a Prime Minister - and it was well-known that he paid careful attention to any bills tabled by his nemesis.

Jackson Cluney was given a black Labrador Retriever pup by the townsfolk of Point Finger Road as a thank you for bringing so much attention and excitement to the town, and a plaque memorializing the debate was installed on the wall of the community centre, renamed the Jackson Cluney Debate Hall. Jackson named his dog Pisseur "Because", he explained to anyone who asked, "Just in case."

Ron Finnigan

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