I heard the following line on a CBC Radio newscast yesterday: “Stephen Harper says he’s the first prime minister since Brian Mulroney to make the environment a priority.�

Help me out here, because I want to get this right – we can just say stuff now and it will be reported as fact? Is that the new rule? I’m just trying to clarify. Because I’m thinking that I can come out and proclaim, “Scott Feschuk says he’s the first man since Warren Beatty to make naked celebrity starlets surrender not only their sexual inhibitions but also their power of attorney,� and our national public broadcaster would be duty-bound to put that declaration to air. (Which could work for me.)

Say what you will about Harper’s year in office: slam the guy, defend the guy, whatever. But I think there are three things that all Canadians would agree upon regarding the Prime Minister. The first thing is that Stephen Harper has not made the environment a priority. You know how you can tell? Because if he’d made the environment a priority, he wouldn’t be desperately trying to convince everybody that he’s going to be making the environment a priority.

Remember Harper’s five priorities? The environment wasn’t one of them. This is the man whose flagship piece of environmental legislation promised action on climate change by 2050, at which time he would be 91 years old and, given current trends in global temperature increases, broiled to a nice medium-well. In fact, the sum total of his dialogue on anything to do with the environment during the last campaign consisted of yelling at his aides to turn down “Hot in Herre� on the campaign bus. I’m not saying he’s been the furthest thing from a treehugger, but I personally witnessed him knee a spruce directly in the crotch.*

Second thing all Canadians would agree upon regarding Stephen Harper: we do not require him to tell us how much he’s enjoying the job of prime minister. I can’t stress this enough. Harper has been giving his year-end interviews this week, and in almost every story there’s been a lengthy passage in which he goes on about how awesome it is to be PM. Dude, you’re a prototypical control freak who has been given power over an entire country. We know you’re psyched. It’s like dropping Star Jones in front of a mirror and hearing her coo, “Ohh, who’s the pretty lady?� You’re in your element. We get it.

Final thing all Canadians would agree upon: Stephen Harper is not writing a book on hockey. I hate to be the one to break this to you, sir, but it needs to said. For two years now your aides have been peddling the notion that you’re researching and writing a book on the history of hockey. When you were in opposition, it was at least a plausible line. Plus it promoted to voters the notion that you are a) a good, old-fashioned Canadian, and b) probably human. But now? In one year-end interview, you told a reporter that you currently devote 15 minutes a day (and sometimes less) to your work on the book. The only way you’re producing a book on 15 minutes of work a day is if your name is Jim Davis and you’ve just come up with another wacky bit of mischief involving Garfield and a plate of lasagna.

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A new study has found that Canadian men are living longer and pushing the average lifespan beyond 80 - a record for our country. What are males doing with all that extra time?

• Writing a book on hockey (wink, wink).

• Totally thinking about getting in shape.

• Scratching selves at a slightly more leisurely pace.

• Eagerly awaiting the debut of the world’s first eight-blade razor.

• Delving more deeply into life’s most enchanting mysteries, such as the origin of the universe and which work colleagues they’d do.

• Vowing to lick that whole Caramilk secret once and for all.

• Removing shirts at professional sporting event despite sub-zero temperatures for some reason.

• Spending marginally more time per week ignoring Grey’s Anatomy.

• Pilates – if by “Pilates� you mean “napping.�

* I’m exaggerating. In reality, it was a glancing blow.