Get lost Oxfam! Canada’s not about to start arguing with God: CRA

Listen up, Canada. Jesus said, the poor will always be with you. They’ll just have to make their own pancakes, according to the CRA.

The Canada Revenue Agency has told a well-known charity that it can no longer try to prevent poverty around the world if it wants to keep its charitable status for tax purposes because ending poverty would violate a law of God.

In a letter to Oxfam Canada, which had hoped to renew its non-profit status, the CRA told the agency: “Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with you.’ That sounds like pretty clear English to us, and if English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for Oxfam Canada!

“You may want to argue with God, but the CRA isn’t about to let that happen,” added the spokesperson, who could not be identified because he is not authorized to quote scripture without an interpreter from the Prime Minister’s Office present. “Not in Canada, anyway.”

“If your goal is to eliminate poverty, then you’re trying to contradict the word of Jesus, and that is obviously a sin,” he explained. “The Harper Government does not encourage sin, at least not sin of that kind.”

The spokesperson added: “On matters like this, Prime Minister Harper thinks you should ask yourself, ‘What would Jesus do?’ I’ll tell you what Jesus would do. He was an unemployed non-union carpenter! He’d be praying for his father to get him a job on the Northern Gateway Pipeline! Or in the mailroom at Imperial Oil if foreign environmentalists had managed to keep the pipeline from being built.”

Asked the story Jesus handed out loaves and fishes, the spokesperson responded with a chuckle: “Who told you he did that? Some Communist from the United Church? I don’t think Jesus would do anything that encouraged taxpayers to become dependent on handouts!”

Canada to dump ‘Liberal’ maple leaf flag in major ‘re-branding,’ PM says

Canada’s new national flag! God save the Queen!

Canada will drop its distinctive Maple Leaf Flag and resume using the Red Ensign, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today.

“Renaming the air force the Royal Canadian Air Force and spending a few million dollars on new pips and crowns for the Army and brass loops for the Royal Canadian Navy has been really great for morale,” Harper said in an impromptu news conference in Ottawa.

“It’s a wonderful reminder of our glorious colonial past that strengthens the link between today's service members and the previous generations of heroes who bravely served our country,” Harper told reporters. “So we thought, why shouldn’t all Canadians have a morale boost like that?”

The prime minister added: “Anyway, I just don’t feel as good about the Americans since they threw Conrad Black in jail and put a guy who’s practically a socialist in the White House. Since I’m Canada’s decider, I decided that if the Red Ensign was good enough to be Canada’s flag through two world wars, it was good enough to be our flag now. Plus, it wasn’t designed by a Liberal!”

The Red Ensign will be made Canada’s official flag as soon as Parliament meets again in the fall, while his majority government is still intact, Harper said.

“And if we manage to get another majority after that, we’re thinking of making God Save the Queen the national anthem,” he concluded. “We’re completely re-branding Canada."

All Canadians over the age of 12 will be given a gorget to celebrate the change in flag, the Harper Government said in a news release.

America’s Canada meddling ‘has to stop’ president warns as Russia ponders crisis

One of the 411,000 heavily armed U.S. troops waiting within kilometres of the Canadian border faces off against a Canadian police officer.

Russia is sending additional troops to its Arctic region as part of its response to U.S. aggression against Canada and President Vladimir Putin says his government is looking at making a bigger long-term defence commitment to the region to guard against U.S. President Barack Obama’s “menace and expansionism.”

Officials in the Kremlin say the United States has amassed more than 411,000 troops in the 15 U.S. states that share a boundary with Canada. Despite repeated claims the United States has no interest in Canada, President Putin said, Russian satellites have observed no indication any of those troops are being moved away from the border.

“Many of their 112 encampments along the border have taken on the appearance of permanent bases,” he observed. “They keep saying they have no interest in Canada, but if that’s so, why do they need 400,00 soldiers, sailors and airmen crowded right up against Canada?”

“There are several large formations that are remaining and they have not reduced their presence in any way. Some portion of the force looks like it intends to remain,” Putin added.

“This meddling has to stop,” Putin told reporters. “We have only 40,000 troops close to the Ukrainian border, one tenth as many, and there’s an actual civil war going on there. As far as we can see, nothing much like that is happening in Canada right now. So why all the soldiers?”

The Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who is travelling abroad, was unavailable for comment.

National Gallery buys Stephen Harper portrait by George W. Bush

Artist George W. Bush’s portrait of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which was done in oils or acrylics or something.

The National Gallery of Canada has purchased a portrait of Prime Minister Stephen Harper from a collection of paintings of world leaders by former U.S. President George W. Bush for an undisclosed but “significant” sum.

“Very soon, Canadians will have an opportunity to view this important painting of one of our country’s greatest prime ministers, by George W. Bush, the most important U.S. political leader of our generation,” the National Gallery of Canada said in a news release. “The portrait will be on permanent display near the entrance of the National Gallery in Ottawa.

“We are very pleased to have acquired this historic portrait of a great Canadian painted by such an influential American,” the news release continued. “Clearly Mr. Bush is as good a painter as he was a president.”

In addition, the National Gallery said, it is in negotiations to exhibit the entire display of Bush’s portraiture – “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy” – when the current exhibition at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Tex., ends in early June.

Known for his contributions to U.S. political life, foreign affairs and business, the artist (who was born in 1946) is best known for his controversial self-portrait reclining in a bathtub.

Bush started painting in 2012 after reading a book about Sir Winston Churchill, a British politician who painted for relaxation in the 1940s.

“I wanted to present an authoritarian image of the people I admired when I was the Decider,” Bush said in notes to the exhibition. “You did a heckuva job, Harpy!”

Canada, Alberta, oil industry to erect huge ‘Mother Oil’ statue near Fort McMurray

An artist’s rendering of the planned “Mother Oil” statue near Fort McMurray. The statue will be built in an oilsands sludge pond by a consortium of the Alberta government, the federal government and several energy companies.

The governments of Canada and Alberta, along with a consortium of energy companies, say they will erect a huge 40-metre statue to “Mother Oil” in an oil sands sludge pond near Fort McMurray.

“It was a rare moment of agreement for our two governments,” said a spokesperson for the Alberta Ministry of Petroleum Development and Environmental Considerations, who could not be identified because the entire provincial cabinet was in a secret meeting trying to figure out what to do about Premier Alison Redford.

“Even the premier was on board before she was put on the ‘work plan’ last week, and what she thinks now isn’t really that important,” said the Alberta spokesperson. “Anyway, Danielle Smith, the Opposition leader, is on board too, so we can be confident the project will move forward.”

A spokesperson for the federal government, who could not be identified because spokespeople for the federal government may not be identified, said: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leader of the Harper Government, was particularly pleased that this 50-metre statue will be even larger than the Mother Canada statue planned for Cape Breton.”

Mother Canada is big, but Mother Oil is even bigger, because it’s even more important that Canadians never forget just how important petroleum products are to our national economy. “As a matter of fact,” the gender-nonspecific spokesperson said, “hydrocarbons are about the only thing we have left. We don’t do manufacturing in Canada any more.

“Mother Oil is going to be so big we think she’ll be visible from the Space Shuttle, a user of Canadian hydrocarbon resources,” one of the spokespeople said.

Insiders in both governments indicated the inspiration for the giant 60-metre statue actually came from Rex Murphy.

“Wow! CAPP needs to hire Rex Murphy as a spokesperson for our energy industry: telling the crowd we should be proud of what we do,” Smith said in a Tweet. “Thank you, Rex,” she said in another.

The 70-metre-tall statue will hold a torch fuelled by natural gas, a waste product of petroleum extraction that is normally just burned off in Alberta. The statue is meant to humble spectators.