'Twas just weeks before Christmas in Attawapiskat

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, I got me a new video an' poem all about Attawapiskat. Here it is:




'Twas just weeks before Christmas, when all through the land,
Attention was aimed at a First Nation band;
Canadians heard as they'd oft heard before,
Of hardship and squalour so hard to ignore;
Of children shivering cold in their beds,
While visions of plumbing danced in their heads;
And Ma in her parka, and Pa in his cap,
Thought they'd had quite enough of this poverty crap,
Then down south in Ottawa there arose a big clatter,
MP's rose in the House to discuss the matter.
They pounded their desks, jumped up in a flash,
They shifted the topic from hardship to cash.
Forget about cold and new-fallen snow,
Harper is asking where'd the money all go,
Indignant but calm he rose to his feet,
Said, first do an audit and then you'll get heat,
Excuses, distractions and rhetoric quick,
And a lack of compassion to rival Old Nick.
More rapid than eagles his ministers came,
To defend their inaction and divert the blame;
"We're not responsible. Look what we've spent!
Fifty thousand per person for food, heat and rent!
Fifty thousand per person over five or six years!
That ought to be plenty, so wipe off your tears!
That ought to buy roads, clean water and schools,
You wasted it all, incompetent fools"
Defensive and red-faced, in rages they flew,
Denying the truth about what they knew.
And then, in a twinkling, Big Steve hatched a plan,
Of third-party management, a white business man.
He spent twenty minutes or so looking around,
And put a manager on a plane northern bound.
He was dressed all in wool, in a fine three-piece suit,
Armed with pencils and papers and a chequebook to boot;
A bundle of cash he had tight in his hand,
And he looked like a banker and that was the plan.
Harper's eyes -- how they twinkled! He wore a broad smile!
The audits and studies would take quite a while!
And time favoured Harper, he's sly as a rat,
The focus will shift from Attawapiskat;
He'd stall and he'd study and tell a few fibs,
And dig up some scandal 'bout dippers or libs;
With his pasty white face, he was suitably smug,
For poor, hungry children, he just gave a shrug.
They can shiver and shake in their tar paper shacks,
Cold arctic can winds blow through the cracks;
Christmas break's coming, there's no need for speed,
There's slop pails to take care of toiletting needs;
He spoke some big words, delegated his work,
To the third-party guy, a white southern jerk,
Then laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, on vacation he goes;
He sprang for the door, to his caucus he whistled,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, now shut up and good-night."

Attawapiskat Needs School, Afghanistan Takes Priority

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, my boogin' buddy and ofttimes sparring partner, Cam Holmstrom, is agitatin' fer a school fer the kids up in Attawapiskat. We been hearin' a lot about how us Canajuns is buildin' schools over in Hamid Karzai's warlord-ruled opium-financed torture den, The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. How 'bout we spread a little of that edu-love here in our home and native land?

That pasty-faced, eyeliner-wearing, psychic-consultin', Bush-worshippin', war-mongerin', hypocrit we call Pryminister is still dolin' out $1.4 billion per year to his big oil buddy-boys up in the Athabasca tar sands. Yet, we got First Nations folks with no schools and not even clean drinkin' water. Not only that, the permafrost is meltin' out from under 'em and Harpoon ain't got even a whiff of a plan to deal with climate change.

I say good on Cam fer callin' attention in the boogeysphere and bad on the gummint fer neglectin' our kiddies up north.

Update: Fergot to mention there's an online petition you can sign and it's goin' to Chuck Strahl.

JB