“Let me paint a picture for you. It’s a picture of school children setting safely off to school in the morning — their parents no longer worried about their safety. It’s a picture of a family sitting in their living room with their doors unlocked, because they’re no longer afraid of their neighbourhood. Seniors leaving the grocery store, putting groceries in their car with change in their pockets. A shopkeeper cleans the front of his shop, knowing that he will be rewarded for the risks he is taking the rest of the day. It’s a picture of Legionnaires sweeping up a grave and leaving fresh flowers to honour the soldiers who gave their lives in battle. This is the sound of mothers yelling out to their kids, ‘it’s bedtime!’, and those kids yelling right back ‘ten more minutes!’ as they try to play some more street hockey, and then all of a sudden, quiet. And there, on a front porch, is a young couple, with a Canadian flag hanging from the railing of a home they own which they bought with a beautiful paycheque. And their eyes will meet and they look at each other in a way that only they know. All the hard work paid off. The Canadian promise is their story. Because finally we are home. These are our people. That is our country. This is our home. “
Speech attributed to Pierre Poilievre : Federal Conservative Leader of the Opposition and aspiring Prime Minister
Source: The Halifax Examiner,March 18/24
As a public service the Court Painter and his trusty Press Attache AHM have rewritten the aspiring prime minister’s speech to give it more punch and veracity.
Let me paint a picture for you. It’s a picture of school children setting off to school in the morning, their parents anxiously fretting about safety amidst the threats of human misdeeds, social media, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, rising tides, extreme storms, glacier melts and droughts. It’s a picture of a family sitting in their living room, their doors locked, because they feel the unease in their neighbourhood, with the spectre of social mistrust and climate change disruptions looming.
Seniors leaving the grocery store, putting overpriced groceries into their car with only spare change in their pockets; absorbing their world reshaped by price gouging and profitering: backgrounded by environmental upheavals never experienced in their formative years.
A shopkeeper diligently tidies the front of his shop, aware of the risks posed by natural disasters but undeterred as he has bought a new generator, reinforced his windows and roof knowing that he will be rewarded in the face of the risks he might face the rest of his life. It’s a picture of Legionnaires sweeping up a grave and leaving fresh flowers to honour the soldiers who gave their lives in battle, a timeless ritual amidst the ever present global conflicts filling more graves.
This is the sound of mothers yelling out to their kids, ‘it’s bedtime!’, and those kids yelling right back ‘ten more minutes!’ as they try to play some more street hockey, and then all of a sudden, quiet… as they return to their screens confronting them with toxic algorithms and the precarious social and physical balancing act between truth, lies and political phantasies they cohabit.
And there, on a front porch, is a young couple, with a Canadian flag on their railing fluttering in tatters from the recent hurricane nearby, now symbolizing the resilience of a nation amid adversity and political shortsightedness. And their eyes will meet and they look at each other in a way that only they know. All their hard work still has not paid off.
The fragile Canadian promise, once distant, is now their surreal reality. This Canadian promise is their story. Finally, they are home. These are our people. This is our country. These are our homes, amidst the realities of bad faith politicians, lies, misinformation, drug deaths, wildfires, rising tides, extreme storms, melting icecaps ,droughts and the sounds of distant wars ever closer!
Court Painter & Press Attache A Hardon MacKay celebrate their new found profitable skills as speech writers