By Pick P. Grenadine (09441)

I was out to lunch with a friend of mine from high school at a fast casual dining locale. I turn to this friend when I feel as though I might be “losing touch” with the common man and desire to reconnect with my boring, uncultured roots. Midway through our meal, he looked up from his Americanized-Mexican wrap and into my eyes and asked, seemingly on the verge of tears from the confusion he was facing, “Why is that farm full of ducks in charge of all of Canada’s financial decisions?”

I admitted that I didn’t have an answer for him. Nearly one week later, I still don’t.

Most of us are old enough to remember The Great Canadian Financial Reorganization implemented by The Order in 1989. So long as you weren’t living in the Great White North, it was the fodder for an unending torrent of jokes. (Q: Did you hear about the infighting at Canada’s last budget conference? A: The ducks were in a row.) The reasons behind the decision, at the time, were sound: the Shadow Prime Minister of Canada went rogue and was working to strengthen the Canadian dollar after growing tired of purchasing magazines without a clear price written on the cover, instead finding a cryptic “more in Canada.”

In retaliation, “Mark” née Old Leadership, removed Canada from the Order’s Global Economy control, the Metric Tumble Exchange, and instead decreed that the financial decisions of Canada would be determined randomly by a farm filled with ducks located outside of Hamilton, Ontario. When it was time to create a budget, troughs piled high with bread would be placed near the duck pond. Each trough would be labeled with a different state department, and after one hour, the percentage of bread eaten from each trough would determine the country’s budget. This would result in strange configurations, such as in 1994 when no funds were allocated for education in Canada, or, also in 1994, when 100% of Canada’s budget went to the military because that trough was mistakenly placed closest to the pond.

No one knows why Old Leadership selected ducks. But now, ironically, it is up to our current Leadership, a dog, albeit a very good one, to undo this decision. And as we know from the other major duck-related milestone of the 1980s, the Duck Hunt video game, dogs and ducks don’t always get along.

But I say enough is enough. We have made our point long ago and the danger has completely passed. Shadow Prime Minister Barron P.M. Banner is a distant memory. Canada’s dollar has somehow managed to remain steady, in spite of the fact that it has been controlled by a team of waterfowl for nearly 30 years. And yes, we can all agree that it was very funny when Canada came out with their dollar coin and put a loon on it. We even made that poor Canadian rapper go by the name Drake! But the time has come for us to move on and allow Canadians– human Canadians to control their financial destiny once again.

Burn the troughs. Free the ducks. Let government officials selected by our Order to control the finances of Canada once again.

From Volume 872 Issue 33 – Subscribe here, members, to be the first to get the next newsletter!