The Sixth Estate

The only reason the preposterous announcement that Santa’s sleigh will be receiving an armed escort by CF-18 fighters doesn’t win the Flack Award this week is because the same announcement has been made for several years now. Why does Santa need a military escort through Canadian airspace? Is the government worried he’ll veer off course and deliver the best presents to a Liberal child? Are they perhaps concerned about Muslim terrorists lurking in the barren lands with a surface-to-air missile launcher?

And of course, there’s the $30 billion question: are the CF-18s really enough to keep Santa safe, or will he only truly be safe once we get our new F-35s?

But that is not new. No, the most unnecessarily excited shill this week was surely Greg Rogers of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, whose boss is minister Bernard Valcourt. On Monday, Rogers announced breathlessly that

Boats are not normally made to be sunk, but manufacturing a vessel to do just that has propelled 70-year-old A.F. Theriault & Son Ltd. from traditional boat building into cutting edge innovation, and helping to train navies around the world in the process.

For those who don’t speak Propagandese or Newspeak, I’ll parse that into English for you: ACOA is subsidizing the Theriault shipyard to manufacture target ships which will be shot at by the navy for training purposes. I’ll bet no one has thought of that before! In an alternative version of the press release, Rogers also makes the following painfully unsuccessful attempt at sounding clever and cutesy:

All in all, it’s just another reason to believe this is one longstanding company that will continue to sail the waters of success for years to come.

Unlike the company’s boats, which will be sunk in short order.