When Eastern Health was forced to cut costs this April, The Janeway decided to cut back on snacks and stickers for the kids. An internal memo published in the CBC stated, “I am sorry for the distress this may cause some of our clients.”

“It’s pretty easy for the higher-ups to dismiss the volatility of h’angry, cantankerous kids, with fewer free stickers to distract them from their rumbling tummies,” says one disgruntled Eastern Health employee, “the higher-ups don’t have to deal with these unruly kids. The screaming, and the shin kicks, and the not sitting still.”

It was around this time a lightbulb went off for Bennett and Ball: Kids cannot vote in the next election, they’re under 18, and should therefore be the target of much of government’s deficit-reduction initiatives. By the time they’re 18, the politicians whom today’s kids would revengefully refrain from voting for, will be long retired.

“Whoa! We figured, like wow!,” says a spokesperson for The Liberal government, “Why stop at stickers and snacks! Let’s go into these little buggers’ homes and steal half their toys – let’s decide that rich kids can keep 60% of their toys, and poorer kids 30% (in keeping with our tradition of favouring of the wealthy) – and let’s sell those looted goods off on Kijiji for our provincial kitty!”

In addition to the Under 18 Toy Reduction Program, government is also proposing a Temporary Bicycle & Tricycle Levy, wherein government officials seize the bikes of anyone in our province under the age of 18, forcing them to re-purchase their own bicycle “at a reduced cost compared to a new bike.”

“In cases where children display a sentimental attachment to their yesteryear bikes, we will allow them or their parents to buy them back from us at 75% the cost of what they paid for them. With receipts to prove value, of course. If the family chooses not to repurchase their bikes, or claim they cannot afford to during these hard times, parts will be sold off for money.”

It is believed the Under 18 Toy Reduction Program & the Temporary Bicycle & Tricycle Levy are what led to further cuts to quality of life for the province’s toddlers, teens, and preteens. The “Detailed Expenditure Reductions for Budget 2016-17” report states the Liberals intend to instate measures like a reduction in departmental school supplies.

“They’re a bunch of friggen kids,” the spokesperson said at a recent conference, “how much crap do they need to learn? They’ve got two eyes and a brain, what more do they need to learn from their teachers?”

That line of reasoning could explain why the budget also saw reductions in departmental discretionary funding for professional learning for teachers. “Again, they’re only kids, how smart do the people teaching them have to be?”

Granted, it’s not teachers’ brains we ought to be worried about moving forward, it’s their nerves: this budget will also “increase class size caps for grades 4 to 9, and the allocation ratio for high school.”

(THE TOWNIE TABLOID COLUMN IS A SATIRICAL SEMI-MADEUP SPOOF ON TRUE LOCAL NEWS.)