OTTAWA – Employees of Whiteston Manufacturing who were told they were receiving a special Labour Day surprise at the factory today were delighted when that surprise turned out to be Prime Minister Mark Carney, who delivered a passionate speech about the importance of labour to Canada and then ordered them to get to work. Until they realized he wasn’t kidding.
“Unions and the workers they represent are the backbone of Canada. On Labour Day, we honour you, Canadian workers, and celebrate all of the work you do to make this country prosperous and strong. Now get back to work, you lazy bums!” Carney said, to rapturous applause from the factory floor workers. The applause began to die down when Carney pulled out a work roster and started handing out assignments, and ceased completely when he began to switch on the machinery.
“It’s Labour Day, we have the day off, Mr. Prime Minister,” said one worker, Elaine Smith, to Carney as he attempted to hand her a pair of work gloves. He stared at her for a full minute without changing his expression until she took the gloves and he proceeded to hand out more equipment to the rest of the confused workers.
Carney has previously made his disdain for Canadian workers clear when his government tried to deny Air Canada flight attendants the right to strike and ordered them to continue to do unpaid work for the airline. When they saw him in their factory, Whiteston’s workers expected him to gloss over the Liberals’ long-standing anti-worker policies and deliver generic statements about the importance of workers to Canada’s economy. Instead, he will be delivering the factory’s usual daily quota.
“I knew about the flight attendants, but I just assumed today was going to be a photo op for him to try to, you know, suck up to us workers,” said Whiteston assembly line technician Gareth Adkins, from his usual spot on the line. “Politicians are constantly coming here to take photos with us in front of the big machines. They really love wearing hard hats.”
“But the way he looked through us when he ordered us back to work, and then said the RCMP was ‘standing by’ and there would be ‘consequences’ to refusal, I don’t even know what that meant. So we all just got to work.”
Even Whiteston Manufacturing’s owner was confused, though happy, about the prime minister’s insistence on work commencing despite the holiday. “I mean, I’m certainly not going to pay them for this, so I’ll make a nice profit on everything manufactured today. So yeah, Mr. Carney, you have my thanks. Not my vote, though. I’m pretty sure the Conservatives will just do away with all public holidays next time they get into power, so I’m gonna stick with them.”
At press time, Carney had posted on X that every Canadian worker who took today off owes their employer eight hours of makeup time this week, or else.
