Grasshoppers

I thought you might enjoy this. 

THE 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