Eric Turmelle

Liberals Table Plan to Replace Troubled Phoenix System with Random Number Generator

Tensions have been steadily rising over the last few years as the cost for the new Phoenix Pay System has ballooned out of control. The centralized system designed to compensate public servants is now expected to cost over half a billion dollars to fix. This week, however, the Liberal government is proposing a bold new system that will solve all of their problems: a random number generator.

Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, sat down with us late last night to discuss this bold new plan.

“It’s a very sophisticated system.” said Qualtrough, “it takes into account seniority, job type, bureaucracy rating as well as many other factors to generate a probable range of pay and then randomly selects a number from that range.” A system like this would be the first of its kind for any government – municipal, provincial, federal and even international.

“People were upset about letting the HR personnel go. The good news is that they are all back and working harder and more inefficiently than ever. They are indeed performing the highest level of public service possible! The amount of new jobs that Phoenix has created has been staggering. Of course, we have no way of knowing if or how the new hires will be compensated.

When asked about why the government cannot simply pay employees according to an agreed-upon salary, Qualtrough commented: “We’ve looked into this option extensively, it’s just not feasible in the long term”.

City to Build Rainforest on Sparks Street to Bolster Amazon HQ Bid

City hall approved a $110M proposal this morning to convert Sparks Street into an Amazon-esque rain-forest in an effort to secure the bid for the tech giant’s second headquarters. This is the latest attempt by the nation’s capital to secure 50,000 new jobs in the tech sector. Somerset Ward Councillor Catherine McKenney felt like the city had to up its ante in order to to compete with the likes of Stonecrest, Georgia who offered to change their city name to Amazon or Kansas City’s mayor who bought and reviewed 1,000 products from Amazon’s website.

McKenney’s ambitious plan is to create a large greenhouse on one of North America’s most popular pedestrian promenades using high impact plexiglass and various membrane materials. The proposal includes plans to fill the temperature-controlled greenhouse with 150 endangered animals, native to the Amazon. By purchasing 150 animals, this will allow the city to use the $28M remaining from Canada 150 celebration funds.

The Councillor has contacted many South American zoos to acquire several dozen jaguars, anacondas and other amazonian animals. The sanctuary is anticipated to cost upward of $45.6M to build, and will create an estimated 40 full time jobs in addition to the 50,000 Amazon jobs.

Some are praising the city for proposing to create a space to house endangered animals and creating new jobs. Others, including federal environment minister Catherine McKenna are criticizing the council for the estimated 225 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases that will be created annually to heat the sanctuary in the winter. A small price to pay, says McKenney, to turn up the heat in this Amazonian bidding war.

Trump Representatives Disappointed with Lack of Walls in Eastern Ontario

By: Eric Turmelle

As the President-Elect prepares to take office, he has taken the first step in delivering on his campaign promise of constructing a 40 foot tall, 1,000 mile long precast concrete Mexican border wall. Trump has created a task force to determine what this wall would cost the American taxpayer. After performing some preliminary calculations, it became evident that there was no way this concrete structure could be built for under 21 billion dollars, more than double the amount the Donald had predicted during his campaign.

The task force, primarily comprised of material science deniers, set forth to find more cost effective materials that could potentially be used for the wall construction. They left no stone unturned: they looked at “stone, clay, and many others,” they assured Ottawhat? News. Some members of the task force even travelled to Berlin to confirm the infeasibility of that wall. It was noted, however, that they did not travel to China. The President-Elect was adamant that he did not want a solution “made in CHIIIINA.” With the need to think outside the box, combined with warnings not to look overseas for any further help or ideas, researchers stumbled upon a google search hinting that there may a novel solution being implemented just hours north of the border, and a mere hour away from Ottawa.

The group undertook two weeks’ worth of research, and a very expensive trip to Eastern Ontario. When all was said and done, the task force was very disappointed to find out there was in fact no wall made of corn in Cornwall. A pilot project to test the idea of a corn wall could be arranged, however, this would take months, and the future president wanted to begin construction on the wall immediately after his inauguration. News of the task force’s failures were leaked to the satire news media this morning.

Trump, who received criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for rising costs of the wall task force took to twitter last night: “Those Snow Mexicans think they’re so smart with their deliberately misleading town names. Let me tell you something, I don’t think it’s funny. They think breaking NAFTA is going to be a big deal. Wait until they see what I got in store for them! The “corn wall” may be a reality soon enough. I’m thinking we may need one North of the border after all, and I got news for them, they’re going to pay for it!”

While the future of Trump’s “corn wall” remains uncertain, one thing is crystal clear: Cornwall is a disappointing place for anyone to visit.