Yes, Virginia, there is a notwithstanding clause
Premier Doug Ford’s attempt to use the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution for a minor union donations matter (or his threat to do so back in 2018, when he took an axe to Toronto city council) really is the last word in stupid.
When I find a bug in the house, I sometimes skip the fly swatter and use a vacuum cleaner to destroy it. “Fear the crevice tool, my friends,” I say, posed like an Austrian fencer. I don’t rent bulldozers to level the house.
That’s what Ford has done. He is a foolish man, easily panicked and given to rages when he doesn’t get his way over his pet peeves: unions, teachers and teachers’ unions. Fine. Go ahead. Fail in the courts.
Notwithstanding. What a magic word. Now I too can use the notwithstanding clause against my irritants. We all can. It could be the national summer pop hit of 2021.
Now I’m not saying it would reach the greatness of “Call Me Maybe,” but notwithstanding the gravity of the event, I will have Carly Rae Jepson’s song with its hasty swooping strings played at my funeral — along with Albinoni’s “Oboe Concerto #2 in D Minor Op. 9,” “Funkytown” for its fabulous American demotic and Kenneth McKellar’s “Scotland the Brave.”
Notwithstanding the fact that some men have committed horrendous racist and misogynist crimes in Canada recently, as they have in every nation, I will still wildly celebrate Canada Day on July 1 by doing what I usually do: nothing. I will say “Why didn’t we remember to buy a little sandcastle flag?” I do that every year.
I could use my Canadian passport as a coaster when we celebrate by drinking fizzy alcohol or rewatching that exciting raccoon episode of “The Nature of Things” where David Suzuki praises them — yes, they are smart, except when it comes to excreting on my shed roof about which I get very NOTWITHSTANDING — but I probably won’t bother.
The great thing about Canada is that you don’t have to make a fuss. Just quietly salute your immigrant parents for selecting this country and go to bed early; you can’t see the fireworks from this distance anyway.
Notwithstanding that we are in a pandemic, and that I hate my dry wheatsheaf hair as much as you do, if you use a park bench for an al fresco haircut, collect the hair when you leave. Post mulch-mowing, your hair is now scattered over the entire park for questing toddlers to put in their mouths.
Notwithstanding everything, all monster trucks, Range Rovers and SUVs with tinted windows should be seized and demolished. Also cyclists on the sidewalk, bleak modernist housing, concrete office buildings, identikit condo towers, the return of smoked glass, CBC wall-of talking-heads journalism, liquor ice flavoured anything, people exploding at store clerks and people who complain that fireworks scare their pets.
Notwithstanding a whole bunch of things, I call for Ikea and all who sail in her to spontaneously combust.
Notwithstanding the fact that all institutions are flawed, sexist and racist, and that all offices appear to be daily bullying festivals, I will not write that they are “broken.” Lamps are broken. Vases. Legs. Eggs. But “broken” is a journalistic cliché. Learn kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing damaged crockery using gold and lacquer. Now imagine the National Hockey League with golden seams running through it like rivers and creeks. Even better than before.
Notwithstanding the obvious pandemic restrictions on reporting, I will not read anything with a headline that includes “experts say.” “Problematic.” “Pivot.” “Jason Kenney.”
Nor will I read the Globe’s notorious First Person pieces by readers. I call them “Rueful Wisdoms” and I call them bad.
Notwithstanding that it’s greasily easy, I will not combine words for extra cuteness. The lovely Soia & Kyo sold me a “coatigan,” a coatlike cardigan. Gardening in your car trunk is not “cardening,” it’s just sad. Momfluencers. Shefluencers. Glamping.
Notwithstanding everything, I won’t write about the British Royal Family. Meghan and Harry, yes, but the rest of these freeloading stiffies, no. They tried kintsugi on Charles-Camilla and William-Kate but it failed. Now they’re held together with an elastic band that will eventually dry up and retro-snap just as they have.
Heather Mallick is a Toronto-based columnist covering current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @HeatherMallick