In this satirical political commentary, the speaker likens the 2025 Canadian federal election to an episode of the 1970s children’s TV show The Friendly Giant. Three main characters from the show are used as metaphors for current political leaders: Mark Carney is cast as the calm, towering Giant, Pierre Poilievre as the loud, squawking Rooster, and Jagmeet Singh as the curious, marginalised Giraffe. The Green Party co‑leaders are briefly mentioned as the show’s two cats. Through these analogies, the speaker critiques Carney’s soothing but slow‑moving fiscal approach, Poilievre’s confrontational populism, and Singh’s limited influence despite his empathy. The monologue then shifts from metaphor to stark social realities—people working three jobs, families living in cars, and disillusioned youth—arguing that the election narrative must move from “looking up” at charismatic figures to “looking around” at those suffering. The piece ends with a call for voters to support leaders who create space for the marginalized, lowering the drawbridge rather than maintaining a scripted, exclusive power structure.
Chapters
Look up! Way up! Is it just me, or is this election starting to feel a lot like an episode of The Friendly Giant? If you're not Canadian, by the way, you don't know what I'm talking about. The Friendly Giant was an insanely popular children's TV show from the '70s. The slowest-paced show in history. Let's see if I can describe it. Basically, it's a giant in medieval tights playing music with a rooster and a giraffe. Yeah, that was about it. It was comfort TV for my generation, and now, oddly, it's sort of the perfect lens through which to see this election. Mark Carney is of course the friendly giant, in a blazer this time. Calm voice, towering presence, and a bedtime story approach to leadership. He talks fiscal responsibility like he's reading us Goodnight Moon. Soft and steady and painfully boring. The real friendly giant of course never had to battle inflation or a trade crisis. His biggest challenge was looking interested while Rusty the Rooster went on another goddamn harp solo. And now Carney's trying to lull a scorched economy to sleep with a soothing voice and a PowerPoint deck. And then there's Pierre Poilievre, and tell me this doesn't fit, but Poilievre is Rusty the Rooster. Loud, always squawking about gatekeepers or inflation or whatever the hell the CBC did to him that day. Rusty was always popping in and out of that book bag with hot takes that nobody asked for. Jagmeet Singh is Jerome the Giraffe. You're just having a regular day on the campaign trail when out of nowhere— Hi there, everybody! Like, where the hell did he come from? Jerome was the heart of the show. He was curious and kind. He would ask big questions, challenge assumptions. But like Jagmeet, he never really ran the show. He lived on the margins, peeking through the window, offering commentary, but he was never in charge of the storyline. Hell, they even had the co-leaders of the Green Party in there. Do you remember these guys? Two cats named Elizabeth May and the other guy? Did they ever say anything? I can't remember. So here we are. A well-dressed giant who means well but talks too slow. An uptight rooster with a megaphone and a persecution complex. And a giraffe looking at the camera with eyes that scream, "Is this seriously the show right now?" The Friendly Giant always told us to look up. Way up. And we did. Maybe now that we're in election though, it's time we stopped looking up and started looking around. Around at the woman working 3 jobs and still skipping meals. At the family living in their car parked outside a hospital. At the young people who see more promise in protest than in politics. The chairs in the castle are still there, carefully arranged, perfectly lit. But the script's on a loop. Rusty crows, Jerome sighs, and the giant decides who gets to sit. This isn't story hour anymore. The moat is rising. The castle walls are crumbling. And when you do go to vote, remember this: history never remembers the gatekeepers. It remembers the ones who made room. Lowered the drawbridge, and said, "Come in. Let me pull up a rocking chair. There's space for you too."
