Discussions

CLASSIC VERSION:  
 
The ant works hard in the withering  
heat all summer long, building his  
house and laying up supplies for the  
winter.  
 
The grasshopper thinks  
he's a fool, and laughs and dances  
and plays the summer away.  
 
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.  
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.  
 
 
THE CANADIAN VERSION:  
 
The ant works hard in the withering  
heat all summer long, building his  
house and laying up supplies for the  
winter. The grasshopper thinks  
he's a fool, and laughs and dances and  
plays the summer away.  
 
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.  
 
So far, so good, eh?  
 
The shivering grasshopper calls a press  
conference and demands to know why  
the ant should be allowed to be warm  
and well fed while others less fortunate,  
like him, are cold and starving.  
 
The CBC shows up to provide live  
coverage of the shivering grasshopper:  
with cuts to a video of the ant in his  
comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor  
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while  
others have plenty.  
 
The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition  
Against Poverty demonstrate in front  
of the ant's house. The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."  
 
Jack Layton grants in an interview with  
Mike Duffy that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".  
 
In response to polls, the Liberal  
Government drafts the Economic  
Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.  
 
The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he  
is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.  
 
Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to the US and starts a successful Agribiz company.  
 
The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though spring is still months  
away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him  
because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Bob Rae is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000.  
 
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Toronto Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.  
 
The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Canada 's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow-op and terrorize the community.  
 
THE END