By Repp Porter (Reporting In) – Email
Halloween has been cancelled this year in an unprecedented act of grumpiness from Conservative Minister of Holidays, Mel Perdador.
“Burn your costumes, throw away your candy, and tell your kids they’re staying home on the 31st,” Perdador said in a private press conference this morning. “If Canada doesn’t want to have fun with the Conservative party, it’s not going to have any fun at all!”
Posters announcing Halloween’s cancellation have begun appearing in bulk across Canada, especially near hubs of Halloween celebration such as university campuses and strangers’ backyards. The posters, which simply read “HALLOWEEN IS CANCELLED GO HOME” in particularly large font, have already caused a great deal of backlash against the Conservative Party of Canada, even if in their last few days of majority power. Party supporters have reportedly been the victims of all kinds of tricks (instead of treats) since the beloved holiday’s cancellation, including but not limited to being surprised by teenagers jumping out of bushes, and being haunted by the spirits who inhabit the burial grounds upon which they build their homes.
Yet the Conservative minister of holidays is in no way affiliated with the Conservative Party of Canada, according to fine print located at the bottom of Perdador’s website. Still, Halloween remains cancelled until the self-appointed minister of holidays is appeased by the mass dissatisfaction of the Canadian public.
UFV, which was to have been host to several Halloween-themed events this week, is projected to suffer a 200 per cent drop in student engagement due to the cancellation of every Halloween-themed event. Morgan Limberg, UFV student and member of the English students association, worries that “without our Halloween events, the campus will be dead. There will be nothing to talk about. The student new paper will have to rely on its satires for content, which I’ve noticed unfairly incorporate real people, and which are becoming increasingly self-referential.”
Perdador, aware of the particularly detrimental effects of her decision on “commuter campuses” like UFV, argues that it is the price Canadian students must pay for voting: “I have nothing against education. Cancelling Halloween is not a move against education but a move against students, who can sometimes be little shits who screw up elections.”
Justin Trudeau has responded personally to the Halloween controversy on his public Facebook page, shrugging off Perdador’s decision and promising that, as soon as he can, he will “look into” making Halloween a statutory holiday.
Critics fear this will be a slippery slope for Trudeau. “What’s next?” questions local expert Scott Protter in several passionate emails to The Cascade this afternoon, “Is Trudeau gonna make marijuana a food group and abortion a national sport?”
Perdador says yes; she has already issued a follow-up poster that says “BRACE YRSELF FOR THE ABORTION WAVE!” which she expects will appear in UFV hallways in the next couple weeks, just in time for Remembrance Day.
Although Halloween is cancelled, UFV’s clubs and associations insist they will move forward with this week’s events in spite of politics, and hope students will stick around campus to attend a few of them.
