OTTAWA – During yesterday’s cabinet appointments, former astronaut Marc Garneau was thrilled to discover that he had been made Minister of Transport, thus achieving his lifelong dream.
“I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it!” said a giddy Garneau. “Ever since I was a little boy I fantasized about exploring the final frontier of federal transport regulations.”
Garneau told reporters that the appointment finally gives him something to be truly proud of in his life, before opening up a bit about his childhood.
“As a child, I used to decorate big cardboard boxes,” said Garneau. “Then I would sit and pretend I was manning one of the ticket booths in Vancouver’s famous Pacific Central Station.”
“Some nights I would lay awake, staring up at the vast curtain of stars, wondering if any of those countless strange worlds had developed a railway air brake to rival that of George Westinghouse,” continued Garneau. “Did they understand the magnitude of that discovery? Were their trains safer?”
Those who know Garneau say that even as an adult he rarely speaks of anything but the enduring questions of transit. In the weeks leading up to his appointment, Garneau’s aides say he prepared a 700-page report on the ramifications of a national Pleasure Craft Operator competency standard even though no one had asked for it.
“He loved mass-transit. He loved the vastness of it,” said John H. Casper, commander of the STS-77 space shuttle mission. “He kept saying that we were wasting our time in space, that the real mysteries were on Earth. According to him, we already know more about space than we do about our own Port Authority system.”
For his part, Garneau has openly admitted that the only reason he agreed to join the STS-77 mission was because he thought it would help him study the effects of zero-gravity on overcrowded subway cars.
“Did I ever believe I would get this far? No,” said a wistful Garneau. “Look at me, I’m in control of Canada’s entire bridge infrastructure. After years of thanklessly toiling in space I had forgotten that, sometimes, dreams do come true.”
