According to a mail-out from Agriculture Canada and the government of Yukon, Canadians are now required to register their pigs. Under the National Agriculture and Food Traceability program, all pigs must be registered, for safety purposes.
They’re kidding right? This can’t possibly be the Harper government at work. Surely the champions of freedom who are in the process of dismantling the odious gun registry aren’t about to replace it with a pig registry? The Nordicity research team has been working on this day and night, and we have uncovered some shocking truths. For instance, pet pot-belly pigs, which are short as well as stout, are exempt from the registry. Which means, of course, that Canada is embarked upon a national long-pig registry.
Oh, fools, fools! Will they never learn? Once again the government is bent on making criminals out of ordinary law-abiding farmers. Don’t they know our pigs are tools, not weapons, that we have generations of experience in handling pigs safely, and a long lawful tradition of responsible pig ownership? Farmers grew up in an environment where pigs were a normal part of life, everybody had one and nobody thought anything of them, until they needed a Thanksgiving ham or a rasher of breakfast bacon.
The registry is only part of the picture. Our researchers have uncovered persistent rumours that farmers will be required to carry a pig licence, take a pig safety course, and comply with arcane and inconvenient pig-storage laws. In all likelihood we’ll be forced to keep the pig feed in a separate place from the pigs. According to our sources, farmers wishing to acquire new pigs will require a PAC, or pig acquisition certificate, issued by the government. Is this the Canada our fathers fought and died for?
The flyer that appeared in the mailbox a couple of weeks ago came from the agricultural branch of Energy, Mines and Resources (here in the Yukon, apparently, even if it can be grown it’s got to be mined), which is in cahoots with the feds in this attempt to kill freedom and stigmatize the ordinary, responsible swineherd. It claims that the long-pig registry is necessary because of “recent events in other parts of Canada.” Now where have we heard that before? The government isn’t saying, but our researchers are following a lead that the demand for a pig registry came from radical humanist agitators in Quebec.
So, because a bunch of liberal urbanites who don’t understand country life have their knickers in a twist over an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the government is rushing out to criminalize pig ownership all over Canada. Do they really believe registration will prevent pig crime? Do they think street criminals in major cities will register their pigs? Do they imagine that this registry will do one thing to stop the flow of illegal pigs across the US border?
If the Canadian government believes the Americans will join them in the criminalization of pigs, they’d better check what kind of bacon they’re smoking. In the land of the free, pig ownership is a sacred tradition, guaranteed by the constitutional Right to Bear Hams. The National Swine Association is one of the most powerful lobby groups in the country, led by some of America’s most influential swine. How will Canada stop the flow of pigs to our inner cities when anyone can walk into a pig shop in Michigan and pick up any kind of pig they want? And as everybody knows, when pigs are criminalized, only criminals will have pigs.
Clearly, the government has un ulterior motive in this. Register your pigs today, and when the crunch comes, they’ll know where to find you. Pig registration may seem harmless enough at the start, but sooner or later, it’s bound to result in pig confiscation. And what kind of world will it be when the government has all the pigs, and the people are defenseless? It’s a well-known fact that one of the first things Hitler did when he came to power was to initiate a national long-pig registry.
Canadians, resist. Don’t let your freedoms be trampled into the pig poop. Pigs don’t kill people, people kill people. The best protection against crime is a well-pigged citizenry. When they come to take away your freedom, stand your ground. Let them know in no uncertain terms: you can have my pig, when you take it from my cold dead hands.
Al Pope won the Ma Murray Award for Best Columnist in BC/Yukon in 2010 and 2002. His novel, Bad Latitudes, is available in bookstores.