Ah yes, we've been hearing it for months now.
Who is Canada's Obama? Where is Canada's Obama? Why, oh why, can't we find an Obama?
Well, the answer may simply be -- and probably is -- that there is no Canadian Obama.
And that means it will be necessary to invent one.
Now, I've thought of the perfect method for doing so, and nothing could be more Canadian than
what I'm about to propose. We should take a page out of Hockey Canada's book and build what
I call a "Ghost Obama." That's what our best hockey minds used to do when the time came
to build a Team Canada for a World Junior Championship or an Olympics. They would build
what they would call a "ghost team." Instead of going out and recruiting the 23 best players in the
country, they would deconstruct a winning hockey team and break it down into its component parts.
For example, they would decide they'd need a Skilled Power Forward on left wing, a Slick Playmaking
Passer at centre, and a Prolific Sniper on right wing. Then they'd put up a slot for a Mobile Powerplay
Quarterback at left defence, and a Stay-At-Home Banger on right defence. On and on they'd go
through all the line combinations until they got to the Tenacious Forecheckers, and Diligent Penalty-
Killers on the third and fourth lines. Then, and only then, would they go and find the actual players who
best fit the descriptions.
Now, how will we construct our ghost Obama? First by deconstructing the real Obama. That means
we have to ask ourselves why Obama's so successful.
So let's make the list of qualities the real Obama has.
1. He's smart. (You can't go to Harvard and be the editor of the Harvard Law Review and be a dumb-ass.)
2. He's charismatic. (My 60-year-old sister starts ooohing and ahhing like a little school-girl when he
smiles.)
3. He's a great orator. (Only he could talk himself out of the mess Jeremiah Wright put him in.)
4. He's a wily politician. (Only he could get away with being against NAFTA and for it at the same time)
5. He's a visionary. (Green revolution, health-care reform, and all that.)
4. He's cool under fire. (You try keeping it together when the entire economy melts down all around
you and the whole free world is looking to you for a solution.)
And let's not forget ...
5. He's a member of an oppressed minority.
and ...
6. He's also NOT entirely a member of an oppressed minority ... so the majority isn't so
afraid of him.
OK ... Now, let's see if we can take those qualities, translate them into a Canadian context
and see what we get. Why don't we start from the bottom?
In Canada we have any number of oppressed minorities to choose from. Blacks, women, francophones,
First Nations. Now, we can't have our Canadian Obama be nothing more than a carbon copy of the
American Obama, so let's go the Americans one better. Let's make our Obama a woman to start with.
In fact, why don't we resolve right now to make our Obama a woman, francophone, AND black?!!!
Now, I know what you're thinking. We've already got a black, woman francophone Governor General,
and she's charismatic (read: hot) into the bargain. You're right. So we're way ahead starting with
Michaelle Jean. But it's also rather un-Canadian to exclude anyone, so let's say Jean must not only be
black, and francophone. She's also got to find some way to be native and anglophone, as well. So, why
don't we make her divorce her white, francophone husband and make her marry an anglophone
Canadian Studies professor from Calgary who's the son of a Mohawk clan mother from Six Nations and
a cod fisherman from Newfoundland? There, now that's true Canadian-style inclusiveness, but it won't
work. We can't simply command someone to get a divorce and marry someone else, can we? That's un-
Canadian. In fact, it's positively Taliban-like. Let's come back to this.
OK, so what's next? Oh yes, the vision thing, and the wily politician part. Well, that's going to
be a tall order, too. We've got our wily politicians in this country, and we've got our visionaries.
Unfortunately, they never seem to be the same people. For example:
Stephen Harper: Wily politician. Lousy visionary.
Jean Chretien: Wily politician. Not a visionary, and damned proud of it.
Paul Martin: Terrific visionary. Lousy politician.
Stephane Dion: Pretty good visionary. REALLY lousy politician!
So what we need is some sort of amalgam ... say a cross between Harper and Dion. (Not possible ..
it'd be like trying to get a boa constrictor to mate with a hamster.) How about a cross between Martin
and Chretien? (also not possible ... you couldn't even get them to speed date.)
So, perhaps, what we need is to get David Suzuki, the great Canadian environmental visionary, and
geneticist, to do some creative gene-splicing. He could take his own visionary genes, and splice them
with Michaelle Jean's visible-minority, francophone, hotness genes. Then, he could fuse that
with Phil Fontaine's anglophone, First Nation genes. Then, perhaps he could exhume
Diefenbaker and extract his oratory DNA, and mix it with Jean Chretien's wily politician genetic code.
That, of course, leaves smarts. Well, Suzuki's smart. And for good measure, he could throw in Michael
Ignatieff's Harvard genes, even if he DIDN'T edit the Harvard Law Review.
So, there you have it ... a Canadian Obama. Yes, we'd have to genetically engineer her, but she'd be
our very own, that is ... until she moved to the States and ran for the Republicans in 2012.
