This Week's Honourary Canadian Citizenship Award

Welcome to the second installment of liberal catnip's Honourary Canadian Citizenship Award!

In case you missed it, last week's honouree was Cheney's latest hunting trophy, Harry Whittington, who exemplified the great Canadian tradition of apologizing for everything - even when it's not your fault.

This week's winner is a fine example of one of our best Canadian attributes: humour.

Yes, when Democratic State Sen. Robert Hagan of Ohio "sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to "introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents" as a protest to the Republican drive to ban adoptions by gay couples, he assured his selection as my latest Honourary Canadian.

To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."
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Canadians don't buy that old "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" cliche. We prefer "if you can't beat 'em, mock 'em until they get really mad and embarassed and smack you in the face so you can charge them with assault and sue them civilly - thereby making judges work harder for their money" philosophy. When you have unelected judges, you have to keep them on their toes and away from their Playstation(TM) machines somehow.

Canada has produced many great comedians: Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Howie Mandel, Dan Ackroyd, Stephen Leacock, Rich Little, Phil Hartman, Celine Dion (admit it - you know you laughed hysterically when you saw the pics of her outrageously pompous wedding for which I revoked her Canadian citizenship...we're a humble people, Celine: humble. I did restore her status, however, when she had a complete meltdown on Larry King's show over the slack aid response to the tsunami . I'm still waiting for the thank-you letter though, Celine.)

Anyway, as a new, honourary Canadian citizen, Senator Robert Hagan is now entitled to these rights:

1. The right to use a strategically placed, maple leaf-shaped whoopee cushion the next time you meet publicly with George Bush.
2. The right to emulate some of our best political satirists: Rick Mercer, the casts of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Royal Canadian Air Farce, and new Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. No - wait...I think he's actually being serious when he appears in public. It's so hard to tell sometimes...
3. The right to find even more uses for duct tape than any American can possibly imagine.
4. The right to replace Diebold voting machines with Canadian technology: pencils and paper. (Democrats will get the last laugh next time!)
5. The right to bring a TV into the next house session so you never miss another hockey game again.
6. The right to pound on your desk and yell "Hear! Hear!" whenever you feel like it.

As a bonus, you are hereby granted all of the rights allotted to previous award winner Harry Whittington (which are too numerous to list here and which I'm just too lazy to cut and paste. Plus, the Olympics are on and I'd be a bad Canadian if I didn't watch at least some of what's going on. Oh Canada!).

So, keep your tongue firmly placed in your cheek (whatever that means), Senator Hagan. We, in Canada, salute you!