O O Ø O O O O
What I No Longer Want
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa K1A 0A2
Dear Mr. Harper:
Having had Eloise for four months has made me re-evaluate some of the things I thought I wanted.
I used to believe I wanted a productive career in architecture and a natty bungalow in an established suburban neighbourhood. Now even though I have met with some success in achieving these things, my daughter has made me realize that what I really want is an uninterrupted six hours of sleep.
Circumstances change, Mr. Harper, which is why I thought I should update you on an outstanding request.
If you’ve been combing through the 340-odd strong article archive on pintday.org, taking an inventory of the sorts of things I’ve asked of the government, you’ll have found that the only entitlement I’ve ever asked for was federal, provincial, and municipal support for my dear hockey team, the Calgary Flames.
My argument was, even though I could never support government largesse for private corporations, since you had already confiscated ungodly sums of money from Canadians, you might as well spend it on something I liked. (That argument is akin to telling a vegeterian “That pig’s already dead, why can’t you eat that one?” It only works for the first instance.)
How things have changed since 2002, Mr. Harper.
The Canadian dollar is no longer in the dumper, attendance is way up for all of the Canadian NHL franchises, and a hard-won salary cap has made the ongoing outlook for the Flames appear positively healthy. Your federal, provincial and municipal predescessors certainly made the right decision to carefully consider but decline to follow my recommendations.
I would now like to take this opportunity to rescind my request for this small entitlement. Please add it to the long list of other government entitlements I would rather do without, in exchange for the removal of the income tax. Some highlights from that list are government hospitals, government roads, government parks, government police… you get the point.
Now that I’ve fallen in line and added government hockey to the list of programmes I would like to cut, please update me on where we’re at in the process of removing the income tax.
In exchange, I’ll update you when I see those uninterrupted six hours of sleep.
Evan Spence
October 16, 2007
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