/ by Grey Gallinger

Political Discourse in Canada

Sarah (@yowhatsthehaps), writing on Twitter:

No one ever live tweets a Stephen Harper speech. No one ever WATCHES a Stephen Harper speech.

This tweet caught my attention because it gets at the heart of what I was trying to say on twitter yesterday when I tweeted that Canada needs a Jon Stewart.

I got a few responses to my tweet, one saying we already do "his name is Ben Mulroney", another another stating we don't need any more bs liberal diversions.

I disagree with both responses.

1) Ben Mulroney, is not a political satirist, he's the windbag son of an even bigger windbag politician (arguably one of the worst, most destructive figures in recent Canadian history).

2) I don't think Jon Stewart is just another "BS liberal" distracting us from real political discourse. I think Stewart provides a relevant about of satire while simultaneously capturing the attention of people who would otherwise not give two shits about politics.

However what I was actually trying to say is that Canada needs real political satire, not only to lampoon our political system and the talking heads who supposedly run this country, but also to stimulate discourse, of which I believe there is non (outside of intellectual circles).

No one ever live tweets a Stephen Harper speech because he's effectively avoided the media and benefits from the majority of the population's apathy towards Canadian politics.