The Prime Minister's Office of Jean Chrétien ordered $46,000 worth of neckties with a Canadian flag on them in 1998 through two Liberal-friendly firms that netted $13,000 on top of that in fees on the purchase. The 480 ties, which cost taxpayers about $120 each, were handed out by Canadian delegations in foreign countries. "I thought that Canada deserved a necktie that held its own," Jean Pelletier, the long-time PMO chief of staff, testified yesterday.I did not know we had a national need for recognition through neckties. I guess that is why we needed to pay $13,000 for the consultant to arrange the purchase of 480 ties because a direct purchase by government staff would have led to a farce, a tie that couldn't keep up, a tie that the Belgian and Thai ties would laugh at behind its back.
The National Necktie
Posted by on Tuesday, February 8, 2005 in - 5 comments
Comments
portland - February 8, 2005 10:14 AM
and who's going to wear a novelty tie with a big red maple leaf on it? clowns in the circus? jeez.
SayNay? - February 8, 2005 10:28 AM
What Canada actually "deserves" is a "necktie" that can "hold" Pelletier and his cronies.
Alan - February 8, 2005 10:45 AM
Are there neckties with one way ratcheting?<p>By way of tangent, wasn't "necktie" the slang for the placement of a burning tire on someone during the South African apartheid-era civil strife?
SayNay? - February 8, 2005 10:54 AM
Your absolutely right, and I was thinking of the kind that dangles through a trap door.
Dr_Funk - February 9, 2005 8:20 PM
I think that was actually called necklacing or a "Soweto Necklace". Something along those lines.
My personal favorite of the metaphorical neckties was "Sherman's neckties" which were twisted railroad rails, which were evidence of the passage of the Union Army through Georgia on Sherman's famous March Through Georgia. The rails had been put in a fire and then twisted so that they could not be reused.