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I
I dreamt I returned to Canada,
Our glorious and free land,
From where I'm living presently
Down Under in New Zealand.
In Pearson Airport, Toronto, I heard
A customs man complaining
Mulroney was still Prime Minister
And this summer it never stopped raining.
"So nothing's changed," I said, but he
Then cried out in vexation:
"You mean to say you haven't heard
About our new form of taxation?
With income tax and GST
The structure still needed completion:
We're taxed when we earn and when we consume,
So why not a tax on excretion?
They say Mulroney late one night
Woke up and yelled with joy: 'Let's
Give a big boost to our revenue base
By taxing the public toilets!'
The Emperor Vespasian
Once did the same thing to raise money:
The French named their pissoirs after him,
We're naming ours after Mulroney."
I took a taxi into town.
The driver, a bearded Rasta,
Sighed, heading down the 427:
*
"Dis gubbement total disasta."
*Highway 427, the main route from the airport
to downtown Toronto.
But at that point I caught a glimpse
From afar of the CN Tower,
Toronto's Statue of Liberty,
And my tears came down in a shower.
The taxi driver looked at me
And said: "Tings en dat bad, man.
Deh plenty country worse dan dis.
Sarry I mek you sad, man."
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand
And told him: "It's only nostalgia,
Something that gives me occasional pain,
Like aching corns or neuralgia."
II
I checked into the Sheraton
(Here common sense will be screaming:
"You'd never have money enough to stay there!"
I can do what I want when I'm dreaming),
Then went to the bar to celebrate
My long-delayed homecoming.
It happened to be the happy hour
And the place was crowded and humming.
The mixture of adrenalin
With plenty of Chivas Regal
Soon had me flying much higher, it seemed,
Than giant condor or eagle.
And it was when I'd reached this state
(The room was becoming unstable)
That I first noticed, then recognized,
The drunk at the neighbouring table.
I knew I'd seen that red, red nose
Somewhere before. He funneled
Booze down his throat till I finally asked:
"Say, aren't you Sir John A. MacDonald?"
*
*Canada's first Prime Minister, a Tory
and an alcoholic.
"Hush, lad," he said, "We wouldn't want
The world to know. On a frank note,
You must be very drunk indeed
To talk with a man from a banknote.
I died a hundred years ago,
Or so the fools believed then,
But I return when my country cries
And my heart is terribly grieved then.
I've been through depressions, disasters, wars--
All right, I know what you're thinking:
No wonder, with all of the bad things I've seen,
That I've kept my old habit of drinking."
III
"What brings you back this time," I asked,
"Recession and unemployment?
The nation stuck in the Slough of Despond?"
"--I'm not here for my enjoyment,"
He said. "The reasons you give are true,"
(Blowing his nose in his hanky)
"But mostly I'm back 'cause that Irish fool
Has sold us out to the Yankee!"
At this I interrupted him:
"Don't kick up such a row, sir!
No matter from where our ancestors came,
We're all Canadians now, sir,
(Excepting, of course, that lot in Quebec)
And that is a favourable omen.
I myself am descended from
Those you dismissed as 'old clo' men.'
*
*Rag dealers. MacDonald used this disparaging
term to describe Jews whom his government planned
to settle in the Canadian West.
Besides, Mulroney won the vote
On Free Trade fairly and squarely.
Don't you respect the People's voice?"
But his answer was: "Only rarely.
Back in the days when I would mount
The hustings, young and frisky,
The People used to sell their voice
For a buck and a bottle of whisky.
*
*MacDonald once opposed in Parliament a bill to
outlaw vote-buying, on the grounds that without
being bribed, no one would turn out to vote in elections.
And damn' good value, too, they got,
Unlike their sorry descendants
Who've sold for nothing the precious jewel
Of Canada's independence."
I jumped up to refute him, but
My head began to reel and
I fell and hit it on the floor
And woke up in New Zealand.
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