BBQ with the PMs

It is traditional to barbecue on Canada Day, and this year, Pointless Digressions thought it might be a nice idea to invite former Prime Ministers to the BBQ.  Not the former PMs still with us, but those who have ascended to the great Parliament in the Sky.  So, we rang up Mackenzie King's favorite medium and were put in touch with our guests.

Abbott, Thompson, Bowell and Tupper were the first to arrive, followed by Laurier and then, weaving slightly, Sir John A. Macdonald.  "Look," whispered Sir Charles Tupper, "it's Big Mac."

"Where's the bar?" demanded the Father of Confederation.

"As it's Canada Day," we said, "we're serving only Canadian rye."

"Good thing I had the foresight to bring my own flask of Laphroaig," said Sir John.

Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker collided at the entrance and exchanged withering looks.

"Hah!" said Dief, "I see they renamed that hockey award of yours for Ted Lindsay."

"May I remind you," said Mike Pearson, "that I still have the Nobel."

"I understand," said Dief, "they're renaming it for Henrik Sedin."

"Have a drink, Diefenbaker," said Sir John.

"No thank you, sir," said Diefenbaker.  "Lips that touch liquor will never touch mine."

"Thank God for that," muttered Pearson.

The door swung wide and in came Sir Robert Borden, possessor of the best moustache in Canadian political history.  "There he is," said R.B. Bennett, who had  arrived earlier in a Bennett Buggy, "the one whose face is on the $100 bill!"

"I'd like to have my face on a $100 bill," said Sir John.

"I believe you've had your hands on more than that," said Sir Wilfred Laurier.

"They tell me, Wilf," said Sir John, "that they're thinking of replacing your five-dollar bill with a coin."

"What's shaking, Old Shades?" cried a dapper Pierre Trudeau, making his customary dramatic entrance.

"Did you know, Pierre," said Mackenzie King, patting his faithful dog Pat, "that in their book ranking prime ministers Jack Granatstein and Norman Hillmer rated me as "great" and you only as "high average"? What do you say to that, Pierre?"

"Fuddle-duddle."

"Oh, enough of this," said Diefenbaker.  "Let's have some fun!  Let's have a singalong!  I'll begin with 'Dief Will Be the Chief Again'."

"And I'll follow," said Macdonald, builder of the CPR, sliding in at the piano, "with 'Take the John A. Train'."