STRESS MANAGEMENT ADAPTABILITY RESPONSE TEST

TO BE TAKEN BY ALL LIBERAL BACK-BENCHERS

You are now a back-bencher, which means you are on the lowest rung on the Liberal leadership ladder. As such, until new opportunities arise, you will have no significant or useful duties other than to protect the Party and its hard-earned reputation for honesty, integrity and putting the interests of Canada before itself. This test has been designed to measure not only your ability to discharge that duty, but also to gauge your potential for reaching higher rungs on the ladder.

The answers you give will have much to say about you and what you can do for the Liberal Party, which is to say for the people of Canada. It all depends on you. Remember that in the Liberal Party no one gets to a position of power through influence or being the friend of anyone in high places. Do your best, think carefully, and Good luck!

There are 7 multiple-choice questions. Read each thoroughly. Place an X by the answer you feel is most correct in the given circumstances. Be prepared to justify your decision.

You have 4 minutes

(Don't turn the page until told to do so)

(1)  Eight months ago, as a reward for your diligence and hard work, you were made minister of a huge government department that has a yearly budget of $10 billion. Being busy on Party business, you have had little chance to meet with your deputy minister or talk with anyone in the department who might advise you as to what the department does or how it dispenses its huge budget. One day, during Question Period, a member of the opposition asks you as responsible minister, why $3.5 million of taxpayers’ money was sent to a Quebec riding to finance a gangster by the name of Rico Guttafucci, who used the money ostensibly to start up a new business, Uncle Gut’s Pizza Take-Out and Escort Service Parlour, which is next to a beautiful golf course in the Prime Minister's riding. You:
 

(A) Say: “Mr. Speaker, I know where every dime has gone. The programs being run by my department are working, and are putting Canadians back to work”

(B) Turn beet red, have an explosive coughing fit, which sprays on nearby members including the PM and Finance Minister, and wait for the Master - at - Arms to escort you out of the Commons

(C) Sit in your place, point to your throat indicating you’ve lost your voice, and wait for Herb Gray or Brian Tobin to come to your assistance

(2)  You are sitting in the Liberal Members’ Restaurant, having a get acquainted lunch/press conference with several members of the media including Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail, Terence Corcoran of The National Post, and Jason Moscovitz of the CBC. You are eating a hot enchilada salad topped with a creamy dressing of jalapeno peppers meringued in yak’s milk. This lunch suddenly reacts with your stomach contents left over from last night's Parliamentary Press Gallery Ball where you had far too many spritzers laced with vodka. Your sphincter suddenly loosens, and your bowels let go a high velocity wind that knocks over a nearby waiter and causes two tumblers on the table to shatter. You:

(A) Look accusingly at Terence Corcoran and ask if that is how he chooses to express his opinion of the Liberal Party

(B) Laugh it off, saying you’ll continue the press conference after the smell has gone away

(C) Brazen it out by standing proudly by the table and challenge anyone in the restaurant to do better

(3) You are at the rostrum addressing the founding meeting of the Canadian Liberal Associates Party (CLAP) on the topic How to Beat The Opposition, when suddenly there is general laughter and someone shouts, “Is that what you use to screw the opposition?” Taken aback you look down to see that your fly is wide open and little Johnny is peeking through the door. (If you are a female member, you will have to imagine that you are and have a male member.)  You:

(A) Zip up, beam proudly, and deliver the line that really breaks them up:  Yes, I'm going to be really hard beating on those bastards.”

(B) Pretend you see an enemy at the back of the hall, and when everyone looks around, you calmly put on your baggy raincoat and leave the hall

(C) Realize you might as well make the best of the situation, so you take out little Johnny and pee all over the rostrum. Then you say, “That’s what we’re going to do to Joe Clark and Stockwell Day!”

(A) Blame your temporary office helper, who has since gone back to resume his/her grade school education in another emerging country

(B) Blame it on Buzz Hargrove who must’ve put the wrong address on the donation

(C) Act dumb, claiming you have left all your accounting procedures to be managed by your wife/husband and that he/she is now suffering from Alzheimer’s

(5)  You are at a caucus meeting and listening to a long speech by the prime minister on something about 'beaten de balls off de turd party', when your eyes glaze over and your head suddenly finds itself nuzzling the shoulder of the Minister of Justice who happens to be of the same sex. You are jarred awake when you realize that the Minister of Justice has placed his/her hand on/up your crotch/skirt. You:

(A) Ask the prime minister if you can be excused, then head for the men’s/women’s room and make your escape out the window

(B) Take up the minister’s hand and look for the tell-tale line in the palm that shows her/him to be a genuine fruit-cake

(C) Leap to your feet and shout, “Mr. Prime Minister, a point of order! The Justice Minister and I have something we must discuss at once in his/her chambers!”

(6)  You are dozing on the back benches during the introductory remarks of the five hour budget speech by the Minister of Finance. You have been warned in caucus that you must leap to your feet whenever Don Boudria the House Leader does, and show wild enthusiasm by clapping, whistling, and shouting for a full five minutes. You are dreaming about the day you retire on a fabulous pension, still young enough to join a Liberal law firm and be on the boards of hundreds of corporations, where your new-found skills at influence peddling will ensure your will never have to worry about anything ever again. Suddenly, your dream is interrupted by the Speaker calling for order, because in your dream state you had fallen over onto the member snoring in his/her seat immediately ahead, and the two of you are so tangled up that it appears an unnatural sex act is taking place. This is disrupting the Finance Minister’s speech not to mention House decorum. Startled awake, you now find yourself the centre of attention, with both the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister giving you looks that could kill. You pull yourself together, stand in your place, clear your throat, and:

(A) Spend five minutes clapping, whistling, and shouting

(B) Pretend you are having a seizure

(C) Announce that you have decided to cross the floor and join the Bloc Quebecois but that you intend to retain your membership in the Liberal Party

(7)  During a blizzard on a bitterly cold February day, you are leisurely strolling down Metcalfe Street in Ottawa, nonchalantly licking a triple-decker, Heavenly Hash ice cream cone. Suddenly, appearing out of nowhere, a stern Joe Clark proceeds to give you a lecture. He is saying: “The totality of medical practitioners warn that eating ice cream cones while the wind-chill factor is at a numbing minus 47 degrees Celsius, can exacerbate long dormant, sub-clinical conditions of post-nasal drip, upper respiratory track colonic disruption, and ex-corpus distended bowel syndrome.” You:

(A) Counter his tirade by reading aloud a selection of promises from The Red Book II (the sequel)

(B) Offer Mr. Clark several licks of the ice cream cone

(C) Take what remains of the ice cream cone, jam it in his face, and run up Metcalfe Street shouting, “Gendarmes! Au Secours!”

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