Leaked! Jack Layton's Memo to Brad Lavigne on the Shadow Cabinet.

Memo to: Brad Lavigne

Re: The Shadow Cabinet & Libby
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Brad, can you tell those idiotic new MPs to stop texting me about the shadow cabinet? Brosseau sent me 348 texts today and I can’t even understand them. I know she doesn’t speak French, but does she even know Standard English? Ever since I made that stupid Hashtagfail joke, everybody thinks I know the twitter lingo. And tell Ravignat to have his Ottawa Sword club stop messaging Olivia –she went over her limit and Rogers suspended her account. Boy, was she pissed! I think Ravignat going to be sitting way in the back of parliament...perhaps in the corridor near the kitchen.

And, for some reason, he thinks Olivia makes all the decisions! Can you believe it? By the way, ask Olivia if she’s gone through all the resumes.

Can you have a word with Libby? Last week, she asked me to attend a Nakba demonstration. When I told her I was busy training Brosseau, she had a complete meltdown. I could only get her to calm down by promising to have two minutes of silence for the Nakba at our upcoming Conference in Vancouver. Couldn’t she bug Mulcair or Dewar for a change? Why is it always me? But, you’re right; her face does turn an amazing shade of red after 10 minutes of yelling.

I’ve been thinking hard about the shadow cabinet. I think we should have some sort of ceremony to ‘swear’ everybody in. I don’t mean bibles or any of that shit...and we certainly don’t need the Governor-General (Olivia will do, thank you very much). Do you think we can still use Rideau Hall even though the GG won’t be invited? If not, speak to Sid about using a CUPE hall. If he asks for a speaking slot, just be polite and say no. He’ll scream for a few minutes, well, maybe more than just a few, but just wait him out.

I don’t want our ceremony to look like Harper’s. Who can we consult on this? Maybe we can fly in Maude from the UK to help out. If I know her, she’ll want to splash ‘holy water’ on everybody. But, let’s make the event meaningful. Perhaps everybody can get a brand new set of beads and maybe we can all smoke a peace pipe. Olivia can ‘bless’ everybody after we finish chanting.

And, let’s make this a CBC exclusive. They’ll eat it up – and I think they might even let me play some guitar. Call Milewski and tell him this story has his name all over it. Do you think we can get prime time? Perhaps, Sunday at 8:00 PM? I’m sure they could bump “The Nature of Things”. I’ll get Olivia to call David – the last time I had his show bumped he was just a wee bit angry! He threatened to support Elizabeth nationally and I had to agree to bulk buy his latest book for our convention delegates – 4,000 copies. And he still wouldn’t give us a fucking discount!

I want to be bold with the shadow cabinet. For instance, I want a shadow cabinet minister for peace. Let MacKay and Baird talk all they want about freedom and democracy and all that shit. The NDP’s not fooled – we all know what that really means. I was thinking of Libby – after all she does have all those tie-dyed shirts and that incredible collection of peace buttons – but I think with all the yelling and screaming that she’d be better off as our chief whip, no? Call Dewar and let him know he’s our peace guy! He does like corduroy sports jackets. Do you think we can get him to smoke a pipe?

So, we now need a shadow minister for fair trade, a shadow minister for NGO outreach, a shadow minister for alternative energy, and a shadow minister for taxation. I’ll leave it to Mulcair - these would all be great jobs for some of the new MPs – but if I know him, he’ll just pick some names out of a hat.

Jack