Harper: How about a panel? We could appoint a panel to look into this whole Employment Insurance thing over the summer.
Ignatieff: A panel? You must be joking. Only a day ago, I stood before Canadians and firmly proclaimed...
Harper: What if we make it a blue-ribbon panel?
Ignatieff: Deal.
***
Oh, mighty blue ribbon! Be it a non-confidence crisis in a system of parliamentary democracy, the desire of hipsters to be seen drinking an out-of-fashion beer or the low self-esteem of a pig at a state fair, there appears to be no problem you cannot solve. You are the bold, fabric-based answer to the needs of unemployed Canadians in a time of economic turmoil. Your elegant rosette serves as a satiny beacon of hope to a nation whose problems can be solved only by an esteemed panel comprising those of great eminence and many monocles! Godspeed, flappy blue ribbon. Godspeed.
To which Kady responds:
I fell asleep knowing that I would awake to Feschuk finding le mot juste. I was not disappointed. "Flappy" doesn't just describe the ribbon on the panel.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars have been spent for decades, STUDYING and RECOMMENDING the reforms necessary to improve EI and other social programs such as the Canada Pension Plan.
Canada has become famous for its research. It has also become famous for its failure to act upon that research. Other countries do, turning to our expertise. Here? Nada.
ETA: Kady writes a post of her own on the subject.
I tell ya; Macleans is about the only credible dead-tree (and online) traditional news source left in this country. Wish I could afford a subscription to the magazine!
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