The Canadian Way
CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the
cold.
THE END
THE CANADIAN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why
the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less
fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.
The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper
with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table
laden with food.
Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.
The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of
the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special
from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall
Overcome." Sven Robinson rants in an interview with Pamela Wallin that the
ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an
immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".
In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity
and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of
the summer.
The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire
grasshoppers as helpers.
Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed
retroactive taxes, the government confiscates his home.
The ant moves to the US, and starts a successful agribiz company.
The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the
ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house
he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around
him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Roy Romanow is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000.
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto Star blames
it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of
despair arising from social inequity.
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised
by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, which
promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community.
THE END