“Mr. Prime Minister,” said the Chief of Staff, placing a hamster cage on the Prime Ministerial desk. “We have a problem with the MP for Ottawa-East.”
The Prime Minister looked up, glancing at the cage in confusion before looking at the Chief of Staff. “What’s the problem?”
“That,” said the Chief of Staff, nodding at the hamster.
“The MP for Ottawa-East has a problem with a hamster?”
“No, sir. The MP for Ottawa-East is a hamster.”
The Prime Minister sat very still and very quietly for a full minute before speaking. “You’re joking.”
“No, sir.”
He brought his head down closer to the cage, squinting at the hamster. “No, seriously, Karine. Please tell me you and the staff were so committed to a joke that you went and bought a hamster, just to fuck with my head.”
The Chief of Staff shook her head, lips tight. “I wish I could, sir.”
“All right.” The Prime Minister sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Let me see if I have this right. So first of all, you’re telling me that the Ottawa-East Electoral District Association officially nominated a hamster as the candidate.”
“It’s Tremblay’s old seat. There was a ten-way race for the nomination after he retired and the hamster pulled through. The magic of vote-splitting”
“Fantastic. And then went into the general, under our banner…and won?”
The Chief of Staff shrugged. “We can’t lose in Ottawa-East. They’ve sent an MP to our benches in every election since Confederation.”
“Even if our candidate is literally a hamster,” the Prime Minister concluded morosely. “And you’re telling me nobody noticed?”
“I did a couple web searches. Doesn’t come up. None of the major papers bothered profiling a safe seat and Amar says the local paper was shut down last year by its new owners.”
“Okay. So we have some time to figure out how to manage this. We can buy some time if we just keep it on the backbench, right?”
“Well…” The Chief of Staff made a face and threw herself into one of the chairs facing the Prime Minister’s desk.
“Oh no. What is it?”
“It turns out we named her a ParlSec.”
“We named a hamster as a Parliamentary Secretary?! To who?!”
“Public Services,” the Chief of Staff replied dourly.
The Prime Minister buried his face in his hands. “God damn it. That’s Gordon, right? He’s already up my ass as it is, I’m never going to hear the end of it if he hears we appointed a hamster to assist him. Does he know yet?”
“Not yet, but he definitely suspects something’s up. We found out because he was asking about her.”
“‘Her’?”
The Chief of Staff gestured at the cage. “It’s a female hamster. That’s how she ended up on the ParlSec list.” She shrugged grimly. “We didn’t have a lot of options for non-white, non-straight, non-men after this last election cycle. Plus, we were getting pretty heavy on anglophones.”
“Guess she was listed as a native Hamster speaker?” the Prime Minister asked gloomily, tapping on the cage.
“I’m…not sure what we listed her as, actually. I can check.”
“No, no,” said the Prime Minister, waving his hand dismissively. “I don’t even want to know.” He tapped at his smartphone on his desk. “Okay. I don’t have a lot of time to prepare for this next call. What are you doing to fix this?”
“I’ve got Elaine and Ahmed on the line in my office to drill down into how this happened and figure out next steps. The good news is we have a focus group already scheduled for tomorrow, so we’re going to float some messaging and see what works.”
The Prime Minister sighed. “Great.” He stood and picked up the hamster cage. “Want to take the MP for Ottawa-East? Maybe they’ll think she’s cute enough to hold the position.”
“I mean, that’s how we got our first government, isn’t it?” The Chief of Staff asked, standing up to take the cage.
“Can’t argue with that. And, uh…” He waved the cage vaguely. “Let’s give her some kind of hamster treat. Feel like she’s earned it.”
*
The intern was early, as always. He was crouched on the floor of the hallway outside the locked office door, dressed in his usual three-piece suit and bowtie. He shot up as Delroy approached.
“Good morning, Jordan,” Delroy said affably as he fit his keys into the lock. “Get up to anything fun last night?”
“Nothing much,” Jordan replied brightly. “The Toronto-Spadina EDA had its AGM last night, and afterwards I went for drinks with Alex Gill and some friends.”
“Who’s Alex Gill?” asked Delroy, opening the door.
“You don’t know him? He’s the Party Youth President.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
The office was a mid-sized space on the third floor of an older building downtown, the windows looking out over a busy shopping street. Most of the space was taken up by a large boardroom table, with a small annex for a few desks and computers. Jordan zipped past Delroy and hefted his laptop bag onto his desk, still chattering.
“You know Elizabeth Bradford? The Party President? She made an appearance at the AGM, so I got some face time with her, but what was really exciting was getting to talk to Anatole Antoniou, who’s the MP from York East. Did you know there’s talk of him getting a Cabinet position? I told him I thought he’d be a great fit.”
“Uh-huh.” Delroy had pulled out his phone and was scrolling through his emails. “Looks like we’ve got a new set of questions for today’s focus group.” He squinted at the screen. “Something about a hamster being elected Member of Parliament?”
Jordan snorted. “Now there is a crystal-clear sign of a party that can’t get its act together. How are voters supposed to even think about trusting them with government if they can’t even vet their candidates? That’s just basic grassroots organizing.”
“Uh-huh.” Delroy kept scrolling. “Oh. Looks like it’s what if we elected a hamster as an MP.”
“Well, I mean, the voters are never wrong,” replied Jordan without hesitation. “Clearly they wanted to send a message that even a hamster would be better suited to lead than anyone from any of the other parties.”
Delroy looked up from his phone. Jordan met his gaze earnestly. “You’re gonna go a long way in this game, my friend,” Delroy said eventually.
Jordan smiled and nodded bashfully. “Aw, thanks Delroy. That means a lot.”
*
“So how would you feel,” Delroy asked, flipping to a new page in his notepad, “About a hamster being elected as a Member of Parliament?”
The focus group had been carefully outlined at the planning stage to encompass each of the party’s targeted demographics, then narrowed down to whoever happened to be available on a Wednesday afternoon. They considered the question while chewing on Timbits from a box in the centre of the table. Jordan had been banished to the back office to monitor the video feed.
“It’d do a better job than whatever moron’s sitting in the MP chair for my riding,” scoffed Jeff [Male, Caucasian, 50-64, High School Diploma].
“Maybe things would go better if we replaced all the politicians with hamsters,” snickered Dolores [Female, Caucasian, 65+, Professional Diploma].
“Um, sorry,” said Chrissy [Female, Mixed, 18-24, Student]. “What’s an MP again? What do they do?”
“Same thing they all do,” Jeff declared. “Steal our money and blow it on themselves. Politicians, eh? All the same.” Dolores nodded knowingly.
“An MP is a Member of Parliament,” Delroy explained. “They’re elected to represent their constituents and pass legislation in the House of Commons.”
Chrissy’s brow wrinkled. “So, like Congressmen?”
Delroy hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, much like Congressmen. In the United States.”
“America!” Jeff barked. “There’s a place that’d never elect a hamster to Parliament!”
“No, just to the Presidency,” Dolores quipped, bouncing in her chair in self-satisfaction.
“Let’s get back on topic,” said Delroy soothingly, holding up his hand. “Suppose you saw the media report that the governing party had elected a hamster as a Member of Parliament…”
“What media?” Jeff demanded, leaning forward. “The CBC? You can’t trust the CBC, they’re all in bed with the government anyway.”
“Suppose it was reported by media you trust,” said Delroy firmly, raising his hand again, “that the government had elected a hamster. How would you feel about the government in that scenario?”
“I’m still not sure I totally get it,” said Chrissy apologetically. “Like, what exactly would change if it was a hamster instead of a person in Parliament? What does an MP do every day?”
There was a silence. In the corner of the room, Maria [Female, Hispanic, 35-49, High School Diploma] cleared her throat. “When we try to get my mother through immigration, we go through the office of MP Mrs. Gutierrez,” she volunteered in a thick Mexican accent. “Mrs. Gutierrez and her staff, they help us every step, they talk to the government, they fix our papers for us. We are always very grateful for Mrs. Gutierrez and the work she do.”
“Isn’t that nice?” Dolores asked. “That’s what you get when the right people get into government. What party was Mrs. Gutierrez?”
Maria frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. But she is not MP anymore, she lose her seat in last election. Now we talk to new office and they not so helpful.”
“Well there you go,” Jeff harrumphed. “Politicians. No consistency. At least a hamster could stay the course. And I bet it could get it done for half the price, too!”
“It hardly matters,” Dolores said dismissively. “It’s not like they would let that happen. Somebody would catch it before it got too far.”
*
Meanwhile, the Leader of the Opposition watched as his staff helped the MP for Crowfoot into the seat across from his desk.
“Does anybody know about this yet?” he asked.
“Not so far,” said his Chief of Staff. “We only caught it when we were collecting pictures for the Shadow Cabinet announcement.”
“Hold on. The Shadow Cabinet?”
The Chief of Staff nodded glumly. “The MP for Crowfoot is our caucus Agriculture critic.”
They both stared at the fencepost propped up against the chair, chips of flaking paint fluttering in the air conditioning.
“Well,” the Leader of the Opposition remarked acidly. “Can’t say that it doesn’t know its stuff.”
The Chief of Staff folded his arms and said nothing. They sat in silence for a few moments.
“So tell me,” the Leader of the Opposition said eventually. “How did a fencepost manage to get elected as MP for Crowfoot?”
“Well,” said the Chief of Staff slowly. “It was painted the right colour.”
Harmon Moon 