Harper Pumps Traditional Definition of Childcare
WHITEHORSE – Stephen Harper has announced that the Conservative platform will include protection – not only of the traditional definition of marriage (the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others) – but also of the traditional definition of childcare, in a press conference Tuesday.
“Paul Martin is flip-flopping on this important issue but I refuse to do so,” said Harper, a creepy smile creeping creepily across his face. “I am not above capital punishment in the discipline of my own children, and I believe the same treatment should extend to Ordinary Canadians.” His aides later corrected him, clarifying that he meant “corporal punishment,” the minor pronunciation error being his attempt to fit in with the president of the United States and to patent his own string of endearing “Harperisms.”
The Conservative leader continued by describing his concept of the ideal childcare system. “Offspring would be entrusted to the care of the household nurse, and maintain an awkward but respectful relationship with their emotionally-distant parents. Parental contact would be constrained to 20-minute, daily ‘Compassion Junctures’ and uncomfortably silent dinners. To instil discipline within their tiny little bodies, males would be trained for the coalmines at seven years, allowing smaller mine tunnels to be built and putting off an epidemic of lung disease until they turn forty. Petty crimes by badly trained children would be punishable by hanging, with a side-benefit of reducing future gun-related homicides. And if our childcare dispensations aren’t enough, they can always be sold into slavery or prostitution.
“It’s truly a triumph of free-market economics.”
Mr. Harper also declared a Conservative return to the traditional definitions of education (with a focus on imposed Christian religion and discouragement of literacy), health care (scented amulets and blood-letting), and foreign aid (bomb the Japanese). When accused of taking the whole “traditional” concept too far, Harper responded that although he is in favour of the traditional definition of marriage, he is “totally okay with two chicks and one guy, because [he] once experimented with such an activity and deemed it quite nice.”