As I’m sure most of you have heard, the Conservatives are in a bit of a hot spot (and I’m not just talking about the prairies). It seems that Harps and his conservatives are being accused of a placing phone calls during the last election, giving out the wrong address for polling stations. Of course, in a Canada where no one claims to have voted for Harps, this is causing everyone to call for some sort of robo-witch hunt, or robo-town-square hanging, but I let he who is without robo-sin cast the first robo-stone. I’m sure it’s all just a mistake, and there’s some logical explanation to all this.
Listen, if you know anything about Canada like I do, you know that those hit the hardest by this near-depression-like depression we’re in are the young people of today. Unemployment rates for young adults are through the roof (also, they think their worthless BFA entitled them to not work at McDonalds). So, I’m assuming what Harps and his conservatives did was hire a bunch of young kids to make those phone calls (also ensuring that they can pay back those student loans of theirs, which will probably be non-existent once Harps has something to do with it — educating people, no thanks!). Now, I don’t know if any of you have ever met a young person before, but they’re mostly high all the time. Like, super high. You might say that’s a generalization, that not all young people are stoners. But if you actually believe that, please let me know what you’re smoking . . . because it must be better than what these young people are selling me. So, I think the answer is pretty simple; this wasn’t some fraud perpetrated by the Conservatives, it was just young people doing what they do best . . . getting high and making prank calls.
There we have it, no harm, no foul . . . let’s all go drink some Jim Beam.
[Editor’s Note: Uh, Natty, these were actually robo-calls. Not human calls.] [Journalist’s Note: Oh, robots made these calls? Well, it was nice of Harps to hire his kind.]
But, my sources tell me that these calls weren’t actually made by humans, but by robo-machines. (Apparently we have the capability of pre-recording human voices and then having those “messages” call people. But we still don’t have flying cars? Scientists, you need to look at your priorities.) I can see how you laypeople would want to put all the blame Harps, but all we can really fault Harps for is hiring robots instead of people. Listen, as we all know, Robots have a historic robot bias. Now, with Harps being the only robot candidate on the ballot, of course these robots he hired are going to do whatever it takes to get him elected; a decision that was obviously made of their own volition. What we should worry about is that these Robots that the Conservatives hired have apparently already become self-aware. And once robots become self aware, well, it’s only stomp and a clamp until the robots take over the world. And then we’re screwed.
Anyway, we’ll never even know whether or not this is an issue, because Election Canada has made it quite clear that they do not comment on investigations into election tampering. [Editor’s Note: Actually, Natty, Elections Canada has come out to say that they are investigating around 31,000 complaints about robocalling during this previous election.] [Journalist’s Note: Sure, but 31,000 . . . that must be par for the course in any election. No harm, no foul.]
Fine, so Elections Canada is going to investigate 31,000 complaints about robo-calling. I’m certain they won’t find anything, because if they did, that would be proof of what I’ve been saying all along — that no one actually voted for the Conservatives, apparently because no one actually knew where to vote. But if that were the case, then apparently we were screwed by our own Government . . . and, well, when has that ever happened?
– Nathaniel Moher is a television writer living in Vancouver. This column first appeared in The Flying Shingle.