As you may know, the authorities in Canada have set up special places where citizens may demonstrate, protest, rant, and stand on crates and do some lunatic speechifying.

Finally, Canada embraces the notion of free speech.

Now, it’s limited to a mosquito-infested field in the Muskokas, and a roped off area to the north of Queen’s Park in Toronto (behind the portapotties, underneath the low branches of the maple trees).

But what if you decide to have an opinion outside of these “designated speech areas”? (I notice that they didn’t even call them “free speech areas”, probably because we didn’t want to seem to liberal and free-wheeling to the other G20 nations. Good call.)

Many bad things can happen to you, as outlined in Bill C-1984, following your pepper-spraying, beating and subsequent arrest:

1. an excruciating purple nurple-ing from Vic Toews
2. you will be forced to watch Bev Oda pack for her next junket
3. Jim Prentice will demand that you pull his finger
4. have you heard the Good News? Stockwell Day has 10 hours free to tell you all about it.
5. John Baird will chew off your leg
6. a long and “frank conversation” about “accountability” with Stephen Harper.

Seriously, I’m not making any of this up. It’s right there in the legislation. (And to be fair, it was the Liberal Party who were in control when the bill was passed.) More details about the designated speech areas and the G-meetings here. Alltop is very afraid of anything designated as an “area”.

So let’s be clear about this. A hundred world leaders gather at the UN to discuss climate change, and our PM decides to meet with the mayor of New York instead?

Lest you have any trouble deciphering the hidden message, Harper is saying: “I don’t give a shit about this so-called climate change thing.” He’s not even going through the motions.

And yes, the magnetic Environment Minister Jim Prentice attended all day, and Harper went to the dinner, but that’s kind of like sending Forrest Gump to take notes at the Mensa meeting, and then coming for the post-chess whiskey tasting. It might be more fun, but it certainly isn’t taking the endeavour very seriously.

(Obviously, I have no idea what happens at Mensa meetings, though I’m sure they’re more interesting than climate change conferences held at the UN. Even so: Shame, Stephen Harper. Shame!)

At least one journalist took notice:

If the embedded video craps out worse than Harper, you can find the story here: Bob Fife calls out Stephen Harper for not showing up to UN climate change meetings. Also, you might want to check out this page, which has another report by Fife linked under the video screen.

A special thanks to Scott for alerting me to this one.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com have no idea where Canada is.