OK and all right, I get it. Stevie Wonder, that Harper boy, is not about to give me a senate appointment soon. I understand, and he’s forgiven. It’s not as if I would have had a high bar to pass under compared with his other appointments.
So I have raised my expectations and the bar.
I will forgo my senate appointment and have set my sights on being the mayor of Estevan.
I can just see his Worship Ludwig quaking in his boots.
I will be a formidable force du tour.
Instead of fudging expense accounts according to the current senate practice, I will fudge my mayoralty expenses.
There is no reason not to have limo service to and from City Hall or anywhere else I choose to attend.
When elected mayor, I promise to build a bypass around the bypass. It’s all made up stuff anyway.
As mayor of Estevan, I will set up a toll booth on the railroad tracks on Kensington and charge the CPR $23 for each and every train that runs through or shuttles up and down the city. Those who aspire to be Estevan’s toll booth tax collector may apply in person along with a fifty dollar bill, and I will gladly accept all resumes.
When elected mayor, I promise to turn Affinity Place into a hockey casino. I’m sure those credit union people will go along with the plan since banking is one big crap shoot anyway with the house holding the edge. The Can’t Lose Casino in Estevan, Sask., will be the talk of the province.
As your Number 1 governance guy, I can pretty well guarantee a couple of proclamations will pass in the council chambers, once I pay off those stubborn councilors who are always harping about “doing the right thing.”
The first proclamation will declare a Freedom Friday. The second one will pronounce the arrival of Thirsty Thursdays. Need I say more? I will ensure these edicts are strictly enforced by the Estevan Police Service. In the event EPS detects a flaw in my system, the edict will be enforced by my personally-selected replacement officers and low-standards security team.
When elected, I will declare Weyburn off limits to every Estevan citizen. Again, I need not go into any deep explanation on this one. There is no need to sully our superior status in the provincial pecking order by exposing any of our citizens to the minions residing in that never, never land. Of course the rule won’t apply to me because I’ll still have to make my twice monthly punishment ride (in the limo mind you) to the city that time and talent forgot, just to keep my day job. But that will be my problem, not our citizens’.
And, if for any reason whatsoever, you believe your property taxes are too high, just come and see me and we’ll work something out on an ad hoc, seat-of-the-pant template.
To make up for the possible revenue loss with that last promise, (however I doubt if any of that will happen), Estevan will simply annex the RM of Estevan, Bienfait and Hitchcock, much to the anticipated delight of their respective councils and citizenry.
There is so much more we can be Estevan. Just try and visualize how wonderful the Energy City could be with someone like me operating the turntable of fun and wonderment.
It’s your choice dear diary. Mayor or senator, I ask for nothing more.
Correction: In a previous column I wrote that the Mercury’s beloved pencil sharpener disappeared in the 1980s. I then heard from former Merc. reporter Rod Drabble who informed me that it was attached to the table in the Mercury’s old page layout room in the early 1990s. So I was wrong … again. Credibility was never my strong suit when it comes to forging these missives. Gosh, we deal with deep topics here don’t we?
