Langevin Block is a big, old government building, squatting at the corner of Elgin and Wellington streets in Ottawa. If you’ve been to Ottawa, you’ve probably seen it.
Historically, Langevin has housed the office of the prime minister. More recently, it has become a place that offers shelter to the politically insane.
The people who work there came up with the idea of appointing Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau to the Senate — which was clearly crazy. They are the same people who devised a top-secret plan to reimburse Duffy for thousands in inappropriate expenses, and then expect him to shut up about it.
Expecting Mike Duffy to shut up about anything is also crazy.
However, the definitive proof that Langevin is an institution for insane political people came to us last week.
It appears the denizens of Langevin Block apparently started circulating talking points to the effect that Justin Trudeau’s admitted pot use was synonymous with Rob Ford’s crack use.
Seriously.
Now, it might sound like the Prime Minister’s Office is, er, on crack, I know. Likening marijuana to crack cocaine is nutty. But it appears that the people who work in PMO are doing just that, which makes them all insane.
Last week, a reporter from Yahoo! News contacted me, sheepishly, saying an editor wanted to compare smoking pot to smoking crack. My considered, measured response: “That’s stupid.”
Later the same day, a Sun News Network prime time host, Brian Lilley, asked me substantially the same question. We talked about Toronto’s crackhead conservative mayor, and then Brian said: “Let’s turn to the other elected official who has admitted to using drugs, Justin Trudeau.”
He went on: “Justin Trudeau admitted that, as an elected official, he used illegal drugs. Rob Ford admitted that, as an elected official, he did illegal drugs. Same, same.”
Same, same? Um, no, no. That’s crazy, crazy.
Let’s get the hand puppets out for the benefit of PMO’s mentally defective people, so they can follow along.
1. Pot is a soft drug. Virtually everyone in Canada above the age of 16 has tried it.
2. Crack cocaine is a hard drug. Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, has used it.
3. Pot is illegal, but many police forces don’t even investigate folks for simple possession anymore, let alone prosecute them. Plenty of court decisions have held that our pot laws are of no force and effect.
4. Crack cocaine is a Schedule One drug in the Criminal Code. Sale and possession of crack is always prosecuted in Canada. It kills people — those who use it and (often) those involved in its sale. It is evil.
5. Polls show lots of people think pot should be decriminalized and/or legalized. Nobody thinks crack should be.
See, PMO? They’re not the “same, same.”
They’re “different, different.”
PMO’s motives in cooking up this insane communications non-strategy are clear, even to someone cooking up crack. They want everyone to forget Stephen Harper and Rob Ford are conservative fishing buddies and that they have had a long-standing bromance going on.
They also want to do something — anything — to pull down Justin Trudeau’s poll numbers. Trudeau’s Grits have been trouncing Harper’s Reformatories in successive polls for months.
If things keep going the way they are, Trudeau is headed to 24 Sussex, and Harper is headed back to shilling for shadowy far-right interests in Calgary.
Serbs say it is like comparing grandmothers and toads. Romanians, comparing cows to a pair of longjohns. The Welsh, comparing honey to butter. To the Brits, it’s comparing chalk and cheese. Us, apples and oranges.
To wit, as rhetorical or political device, pot cannot be compared to crack.
It does, however, provide conclusive evidence about the mental state of the occupants of PMO’s Langevin Block.
They’re insane.
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