I asked my friend’s little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be Prime Minister of Canada some day.
Both of her parents, NDP supporters, were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were Prime Minister what would be the first thing you would do?”
She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.” Her parents beamed, and said, “Welcome to the NDP Party!”
“Wow…what a worthy goal!” I told her. I continued, “But you don’t have to wait until you’re Prime Minister to do that. You can come over to my house, mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out. You can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”
I smiled and said, “Welcome to the Conservative Party.”
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
Chris George is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of CG&A COMMUNICATIONS. Contact: ChrisG.George@gmail.com