The Ant and The Grasshopper

CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering

heat all summer long, building his

house and laying up supplies for the

winter. The grasshopper thinks

he's a fool, and laughs and dances

and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE CANADIAN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering

heat all summer long, building his

house and laying up supplies for the

winter. The grasshopper thinks

he's a fool, and laughs and dances and

plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press

conference and demands to know why

the ant should be allowed to be warm

and well fed while others less fortunate,

like him, are cold and starving..

The CBC shows up to provide live

coverage of the shivering grasshopper,

with cuts to a video of the ant in his

comfortable warm home with a

table laden with food. Canadians are stunned

that in a country of such wealth, this poor

grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while

others have plenty.

The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition

Against Poverty demonstrate in front

of the ant's house. The CBC,

interrupting an Inuit cultural festival

special from Nunavut with breaking

news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Jack Layton grants in an interview with

Mike Duffy that the ant has gotten rich off the

backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax

hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".

In response to polls, the Liberal

Government drafts the Economic

Equity and Grasshopper

Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he

is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay both the

fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home

is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to the

US and starts a successful agribiz company.

The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing

up the last of the ant's food, though spring is still months

away, while the government house he is in, which just

happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him

because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. Inadequate

government funding is blamed, Bob Rae is appointed to

head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto

Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address

the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.

The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders,

praised by the government for enriching Canada 's multicultural

diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op and

terrorize the community.

THE END