Sarah Palin, Queen of Canada

First of all, I want to thank my good friend Stephanie White. She is the one who persuaded me to write this blog. Although I am sceptical - in fact, more than sceptical - I thought I would give it a go.

When Stephanie's in town, which isn't all that often these days, we go for coffee, usually once a week, and talk. This week we talked about Sarah Palin, the ex-Governor of Alaska. Stephanie had read an article about her in the Globe & Mail and had come to the conclusion that Palin would run for President in 2012, either running as an independent, splitting the vote like Ross Perot in 1992 and handing the election to Barak Obama, or running as the Republican and winning the Presidency. President Palin, I thought, is it anything more than alliterative? But what about the Democrats, Independents and even some Republicans who don't think she's qualified to be President, I asked. Various opinions were batted back and forth, but in the end nothing was decided (it never is), and Stephanie went back to British Columbia.

But that didn't stop me from thinking (it never does). I thought of Palin's famous observation that she could see Russia from her back yard, which has been taken as proof that she isn't qualified to be President. But surely that's just a matter of her coming down from her back yard and seeing an optometrist. And there's the fact that she doesn't think the answer to having borrowed too much money is to borrow even more money (the Michael Jackson School of Economics, I call it). Surely that observation alone means that her eyesight can't be all that bad. Ditto the fact that she doesn't think the answer to Wall Street dragging down 99.9% of the taxpaying public is for that taxpaying public to make good Wall Street's bad bets and consign their own children and grandchildren to penury. Maybe she doesn't believe in robbing the rich to feed the poor, but surely she doesn't go so far as to believe in robbing the poor to guarantee the rich the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed.

Not that I'm all that crazy about Sarah, of course. For one thing, she charges a queen's ransom for people to hear her speak. (Here in Calgary she's demanding $210 a seat. That's close to I-have-a-Mercedes-Benz-and-you-don't territory.) If she really were a person of the people, she would charge little enough so that "real" (instead of pretend) people could attend. (In fact, now that I think about it, maybe $210 a seat is a kind of Alaskan version of robbing the poor to guarantee the rich the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed.)

Anyway, I digress.

After Stephanie left I found myself asking the question: What if Sarah Palin were to become Queen of Canada? I'm not sure why. As a thought experiment, I suppose. Also, as a distinct possibility should Sarah Palin tire of being President of the United States, just as she tired of being Governor of Alaska. In my mind I began two columns: the advantages of Sarah Palin becoming the Queen of Canada, and the disadvantages.

First of all, I thought, she'd put Canada on the map. At least, as far as the United States is concerned. No longer would I be asked: "Alberta? What state is that?" Instead, people - American people, that is - would squeal with delight: "Canada! Why that's the part of America where Sarah Palin is Queen!"

She'd make Ottawa in general and Rideau Hall in particular one of the most popular destinations in North America, after Las Vegas but before Disney World. Both our balance of trade problems and our debt problems would be lanced with one prick. Fans would gather in front of her residence, and every once in a while Sarah would oblige them by going out and giving them speeches.

But what's in it for Sarah Palin, you may ask. Besides receiving twenty-one gun salutes and being pictured on self-adhesive stamps. One word. Moose. Sarah Palin loves moose. And surely Canada has more moose than America's largest state. As Queen of Canada she could call up a helicopter and go kill any number of moose any time she wanted. Rideau Hall would be wall-to-wall moose heads before the first year of her reign was out!

But that might be a problem. Not the moose heads but the speeches. If she's true to form, wouldn't she insist on charging money for every speech she gave? Say, $210 a seat (assuming there were seats to be had in front of Rideau Hall)? Our present Queen may be a foreigner as well, but at least she doesn't charge us money for her walk-abouts. Can you imagine? "Thank you so much for coming out to see me and my hubby. That will be $10.00."

So perhaps Sarah Palin's Queenliness wouldn't travel across the border all that well after all, although I admit the image of Sarah in one of her red dresses surrounded by red-dressed Mounties makes any image of our present Queen pale in comparison. Ditto Sarah's soap opera family. Were either one of our present Princes born out of wedlock, for example?

And that's another thing, now that I think about it. I'm not sure about the "Ditto the fact that she doesn't think the answer to Wall Street dragging down 99.9% of the taxpaying public is for that taxpaying public to make good Wall Street's bad debts and consign their own children and grandchildren to penury." I'd like to believe that, which is why I wrote it, but then I wanted to believe in Barak Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" too. It turned out there was change, but only in the fine print. And Sarah Palin as well as Barack Obama supported the Wall Street bailout, after all.

Maybe Sarah Palin is just another example of political compromise. She gets to say anything she wants as long as Wall Street and other powers-that-be get to DO anything they want. And before Canadians become too true-north-strong-and-free-ish, it seems to me that Canada is following the same path, albeit - like our present Queen's hubby - a full two paces behind the United States. Only in a typically Canadian way. Our politicians don't really say anything, at least anything of note, in case they might offend a voter. But they do dress (fortunately), so our politicians get to dress anyway they want as long as our own powers-that-be get to do anything they want.

In the case of our Prime Minister, he gets to wear sweaters. And, every once in a while, a smile.