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It's getting to the point that there's too much outsized material from the nation's capital to be reported with a straight face. It can't be done any more. The solution? Have the CBC give comic genius Rick Mercer a Daily Show à la Jon Stewart. The Mercer torrent of wit, sarcasm and satire is the only way to go.

Last week, Mr. Mercer was on about Speaker of the Commons Andrew Scheer, "our referee, our saviour of democracy." The Speaker acknowledges that his job is to maintain decorum in the House. Mr. Mercer says: "308 meth addicts on a dance floor have better manners."

And ensuring that government members even remotely address questions put to them? There's no such mandate, the Speaker says. But Mr. Mercer is closer to the truth: "It's been in his job description since 1894."

Interestingly enough, that issue with Mr. Scheer's authority could have been resolved with a motion the New Democrats put forward recently, specifying more powers for the Speaker. What happened? The Conservatives threw it out.

On the Liberal side, it was a brutal week for Justin Trudeau. There was enough material for a full Mercer hour on Mr. Trudeau alone. The Liberal leader should avoid trying to be funny. Remember his lead-balloon crack about Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine? That was nothing compared to the pillorying he's getting for his zinger about the Conservatives trying to show off by whipping out their CF-18s.

There's a case for saying the mission has been hyped. As Ottawa Citizen columnist Andrew Cohen put it, you'd think that the government was "assembling the biggest expeditionary force since the invasion of Normandy," as opposed to six fighter planes operating with little risk.

But you have to be careful with war jokes, especially when you're backing away from going to war. At least Mr. Trudeau was made to look good on one of his previous contentious observations. After the Boston marathon horror, he said it was time to look at the root causes of terror. He was roundly hooted by the Harperites for that one, but last week, we learned that the Tories have commissioned five studies on – no kidding – the root causes behind terror.

That wasn't the only favour the Conservatives returned.

A firestorm of criticism followed the news that the government intends to change Canada's copyright laws to allow the Conservatives to use content published and broadcast by news organizations, without permission, in attack ads. The legislation is reportedly being bootlegged into one of Mr. Harper's democracy-shredding omnibus bills.

Old Grit warhorse Ralph Goodale was in full flight on this one, saying the move "degrades integrity and freedom of the press." Why, he went on, "does this government behave like such a tin-pot banana republic?"

Then there was the imbroglio with the Parliamentary Budget Office, which used to be run by Kevin Page, who the Tories thought was some kind of Commie plant. What to think of the new guy, Jean-Denis Fréchette? The economy, he reported last week, will lose more than 9,000 jobs as a result of the government's maintaining higher than necessary employment insurance rates.

Of course, the Tories rejected this report. They also rejected – in this town, all critics and watchdogs are all-the-time wrong – the environment commissioner's findings castigating their lassitude on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

For all that went on, it was hardly an atypical week. So over to you, mother network. For everyone's sanity, give Rick an hour a day.

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