I could tell he was nervous. The dull grimace that painted his face was certainly a dead giveaway. But there was more to it than that. Perhaps it was the way in which he kept toying with his shirt collar, the sweat beading on his forehead. Or maybe it was the way in which he hastily tore through the Sear’s catalog perched on his lap.
The point is, I could tell he was nervous. And this was when Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper turned to me, his face full of undeniable fear.
It was earlier that week that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatief had pledged his party’s support for net neutrality. The problem was, nobody knew exactly what that meant – and neither did Harper.
The Conservatives, it seemed, cared little about the internet’s future.
He muttered something about being “inter-nept” – a painful pun on a number of levels. Yet, I wasn’t going to disagree with him; his pocketbook of passwords had taken an unsuccessful trip through the washer last week. Again.
“Perhaps we could Ask Jeeves what to do?” he suggested weakly. Another page turned.
This time, I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
I took the catalog from his lap, an array of sweater vests and cardigans splayed across the page – something I could undoubtedly use to my advantage. And so it began.
“Stephen,” I asked. “You buy your sweater vests online, correct?”
There was a mumble of agreement, and with that, perhaps a chance.
“What if…what if certain companies had control over how you bought your sweaters?” I continued.
“What if someone like Harry Rosen paid internet providers to favour visitors to their website over, say, Sears instead?”
His eyes widening, Harper knew I meant business. Harry Rosen’s sweaters, after all, were clearly inferior to Sear’s offerings; they itched, for one, and Harper explained on more than one occasion that his children shied away from his “warm, Rosen-clad embraces.”
“Support this net neutrality business, Stephen,” I explained quietly, the hint of smile hidden beneath my grave tone.
“Because if you don’t match Ignatief and the Liberals, some might even accuse you of acting against the interests of sweater-minded voters nationwide.”
Harper’s face grew cold; the thought was clearly appalling. The fidgeting had stopped, but the sweat pooled upon his brow more furiously than ever. He nodded, slowly at first, but more quickly as the notion set in.
To be forced into a Harry Rosen lifestyle was one thing, but to be accused of sweater-clad partisanship? It seemed nearly too much for the Conservative leader to handle.
“We must declare our support immediately for this sweater neutrality business,” Harper exclaimed, exacerbated, and obviously missing the point. But his heart was in the right place now, and that was all that mattered.
With that, the keyboard clicked.
And so I smiled to myself. It wasn’t Harper’s newfound enlightenment that pleased me, but the sweater-clad conservative’s furious typing that filled the room behind me.
You’d think he was tapping out a well-formed response – perhaps a scathing rebuttal to a half-baked Liberal promise of online freedom – but no, that would be too easy.
Harper had yet to log-on; he would have to remember his password first.
