Rick Mercer Report Read online

  PRAISE FOR RICK MERCER

  “No one on TV has done more to teach Canadians about their own country than Mercer.”

  —Toronto Star

  “Canada's hottest TV comic.”

  —Maclean's

  “Week after week, Mercer continues to delight with his alternately giddy and cutting political humour.”

  —Canadian Press

  “Canada's leading political satirist.”

  —The New York Times

  “It is 2:30 a.m. and I am sitting up in bed reading Rick Mercer … I chortle, I chuckle and I laugh so loudly, I'm sure I've annoyed the couple in the next apartment.”

  —Lyn Cockburn, Edmonton Sun

  For the 308 members of Parliament—the good,

  the bad, and the indifferent, and in that order.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book took a lot of work and I would be lying if I said it was all on my part. I hit the print button and the excellent people at Doubleday Canada did the rest. Every word I had written over the past four years came out of the hard drive and my editor, Tim Rostron, valiantly sorted and cajoled them into an actual-to-goodness book. I couldn't have asked for a better editor if I'd called central casting and told them to send over a funny but brilliant bookish fellow with a penchant for words and a British accent. I thank Tim for making this such an enjoyable experience. The Doubleday team—designer Terri Nimmo, publicist Cathy Paine, and everyone involved in this project—exceeded my high expectations and I thank them for making it happen.

  Rick Mercer Report: The Show is not a one-man show, it just looks that way on television.

  The writers' room is small and dangerous. Paul Mather, Greg Eckler, Chris Finn, and Tim Steeves do the heavy lifting and make it seem easy week in and week out. If there are funnier men in the country, I haven't met them. If the walls in that room could talk, they would blush and then probably file some sort of harassment suit.

  The show itself would never get done if it wasn't for the crackerjack production team of Alan MacGillivray and Marilyn Richardson.

  Tom Stanley is RMR's associate producer and researcher. He spends a lot of time on the phone telling people my helmet size. If anyone else on the show gets hit by lightning, Tom has to fill in, because it turns out he can do anything. His secret weapon is Nik Sexton, his right-hand man in a two-man department.

  The actual rants are a three-man operation. I write them, John Marshall produces them and cameraman Don Spence shoots them. John has produced everyone in the country at some point and Don can make a parking lot look interesting. The three of us have spent far too much time together in alleys and on the road, but I have enjoyed every minute.

  The show itself is directed by Henry Sarwer-Foner. That's why it's the best-looking show on TV.

  Mike Burroughs and the talented crew in the CBC graphics department have always gone above and beyond for RMR, and usually when we need something we need it yesterday. If Mike designed everything, it would make for a sexier world.

  RMR is edited by Alan Maclean. Nobody looks over his shoulder, nobody bothers him, and in fact most people are not allowed in his little windowless room. He makes me look better than I deserve to, so whatever he wants is fine by me.

  And then there is George. Seventeen years ago George Anthony travelled to Ottawa and went to a small gas station-turned-theatre in Ottawa to see me perform in a one-man show. It was a pretty rough show and basically featured me on stage ranting about, of all things, the Meech Lake Accord. Despite the fact that I know George had no interest in the Meech Lake Accord, he told me then that I belonged on the CBC. I've been there ever since. Depending on how you look at things, George Anthony gets the credit or the blame.

  Gerald Lunz runs the operation at RMR, not only as my partner in crime, executive producer and show-runner, but more importantly, as the funniest guy in the room. It is his baby. Gerald produced that first play in Ottawa 17 years ago, and I have been taking his notes ever since. It's the perfect storm.

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS

  KILLING A TREE WITH ELIZABETH MAY

  NOT COMING ANY TIME SOON TO A CINEMA NEAR YOU

  HARPER VS. MARTIN

  AND THAT OTHER GUY

  ON THE ROAD WITH JACK LAYTON

  NETTING JASON KENNEY

  IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

  SAVVY TEACHERS' PLAN

  MY NEWFOUNDLAND, RIGHT OR WRONGED

  OFF-ROAD WITH DANNY WILLIAMS

  THE IGGY ENIGMA

  THAT OTHER GUY (II)

  FISHING WITH BOB RAE

  THE TRIALS OF LORD BLACK

  WAXING LYRICAL WITH CONRAD BLACK

  WOULD ALL THE PEOPLE WITH A KNIGHTHOOD PLEASE SHUT UP

  NATIONS WITHIN OUR NATION

  DOG OF A BLOG

  BULLIES

  TALKING TOUGH WITH JEAN CHRÉTIEN

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?

  TREATING US LIKE IDIOTS

  SCIENCE FRICTION

  FREEZING WITH DAVID SUZUKI

  SPENDING LIKE CRAZY

  THE UNDEKE-ABLE WOMAN

  SCANDALOUS BEHAVIOUR

  VISITING PAUL MARTIN

  LEST WE FORGET

  IN BED WITH STEPHEN HARPER

  SLEEPING OVER

  SO YOU WANT TO BE A SPEECHWRITER?

  ELECTION FEVER

  CHOOSING THE NERD

  DOGGING DION

  THAT OTHER GUY, AGAIN

  THE RISE AND STUMBLE OF STÉPHANE DION

  ON COURSE WITH ANNE MURRAY

  DOING SOMETHING RIGHT FOR A CHANGE

  A FEW MODEST PROPOSALS

  DIVING WITH ALEXANDRE DESPATIE

  THRONE FOR A LOOP

  IN THE ARMY NOW

  ON A ROLL WITH PIERRE BERTON

  OUR NEIGHBOURS TO THE SOUTH

  CANADA'S NEARLY NEW GOVERNMENT

  THE END

  INTRODUCTION

  The truth is I rarely know where I am going to be from one day to the next. My luggage has remained packed for over a decade and I have more long underwear than any city dweller in his right mind should need.

  Over the last five years, while on the job, I have almost lost consciousness midair while doing aeronautics with Canada's Snow birds, I have experienced intentionally induced hypo thermia at the hands of a celebrated university professor in Winnipeg, I have made a five-thousand-foot free fall out of an airplane over Trenton, Ontario, and I have done doughnuts in the middle of Halifax harbour while operating a tugboat. I have faced death (or at the very least the possibility of severed thumbs) when lying “nose down, bum up” on a skeleton sled while hurtling down a bobsled track in Calgary. In Rockland, Ontario, I signed a waiver and got behind the wheel and joined a demolition derby.

  My job description includes sleepovers at Stephen Harper's house and getting buck naked with Bob Rae.

  Despite the latter two, I am still convinced that I have the best gig in Canadian show business. And through it all I have managed to stay true to my one ultimate career goal—no heavy lifting.

  The travel is the best part.

  If you are lucky enough to spend time in the North, it will change you. It will inform the way you feel about the country in a way that no amount of reading on the subject ever can. When you spend time eating raw caribou north of the tree line with a politician in Nunavut or listening to an Inuit hunter before he heads out alone on the ice to hunt a polar bear—those things tend to stay with you.

  The same can be said for spending time on the Prairies, in Northern Ontario, in Newfoundland, in the oil sands of Alberta, or in any of the many Chinatowns or Little Indias that dot the country.

  Canada has so many problems—and geography is often the root cause. For the si
ze of the population, we are simply too bloody big.

  I can't count the number of times I've been in a situation where five people were busy complaining about what the problem was with another part of the country that they were happy to admit they had never visited.

  I've had cabinet ministers lecture me on why people in Newfoundland should never have control of their natural resources and then in the next breath tell me they have it on good authority that the province is very pretty. Not a surprise, really. Stephen Harper coined the phrase “the culture of defeat” about Atlantic Canada before he bothered to go there.

  Ottawa is a place that Canadians love to attack without having set foot there, and God knows everyone in Eastern Canada seems to have an idea of what Calgary is all about without ever having met the people whose drive and determination are responsible for our very own emerging superpower.

  There is no simple solution, of course. Again, size is to blame. It's easy to have an opinion on how Canada should deal with an issue in Nunavut, but actually going there requires a time commitment and an airplane ticket. Unfortunately, time and money top the list of what most people don't have enough of.

  We live in a country where it's cheaper to fly to Paris than it is to fly a few provinces over and see for ourselves what another part of Canada is really about. More Canadians visit Florida than Manitoba. In a country with unity issues, this does not bode well.

  I've been very lucky when it comes to exploring Canada. The show lets me experience another part of the country almost every week. And despite the occasional near-death experience and/or outbreak of nudity, every single week I become more enamoured with the place.

  This book is for the most part a collection of commentaries that I have written and performed on the show during the last five seasons or posted on my blog at rickmercer.com. It contains, for lack of a better term, my “rants.” When you follow politics in Canada either as a living or because it's just in your blood, you are never short of a reason to rant. The problems are legion and the situations are often absurd. The rants often write themselves. I started ranting about Canada a long time ago and I really don't see any end in sight. It's what I do and I have never lost sight of how fortunate I am to get to do it every week.

  And sure, on the surface Canada may appear hopelessly dysfunctional, but the more I rant, the more I realize that we are also spectacular in every sense of the word.

  Canada, for all its challenges, is worth ranting about.

  Rick Mercer

  HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS

  In a minority government timing is everything. And when a minority government looks like it's teetering on the brink of collapse, whether actually or imagined, orchestrated or not, you can rest assured that once the structural flaws are exposed a chorus of pundits will start to sing: “Canadians just aren't in the mood for an election.” Personally, I am always in the mood for an election—but that's a character flaw of mine. Most hockey fans would be happy with back-to-back play offs, and that is pretty much the way I feel about elections.

  Bring 'em on. It takes ten minutes to vote, folks, and the results are always worth it.

  AN UNELECTED IDIOT? | FEB. 2, 2004

  I've always thought that the worst thing that could ever happen to Canada would be that somehow a complete idiot got elected as prime minister. And so far we've been pretty lucky. Brian Mulroney was called lots of things, but stupid wasn't usually one of them. And Jean Chrétien made no sense whatsoever, but it turns out he was actually fairly bright.

  Which brings us to Prime Minister Paul Martin (not that he was actually elected). Watching him on the job for the last couple of weeks, I think we've all been thinking the same thing: we've seen brighter lights on small appliances.

  Here he is, a Liberal prime minister facing a united Conservative right-wing party, perhaps the most serious threat the Liberals have faced in over a decade. And what's he doing? Every time he turns around he's attacking Jack Layton and the NDP And the more he attacks the NDP, the stronger the NDP gets.

  Then it dawned on me: perhaps Martin's no fool. Perhaps he's been boning up on The Art of War and he's going to use the NDP to destroy the Conservatives. Sure, Martin would love to stand up and say, “Hey Canada, you want Conservative, vote for me. I'm more Conservative than Brian Mulroney ever was.” But he can't say that because the sign on the door to the prime minister's office says Liberal. So how's he going to get that message out? The NDP. So he's doing them every favour he can think of. Hell, he even tried to give them Sheila Copps, and that's a gift that keeps on giving.

  So don't worry Canada—no matter what you think about Paul Martin, at least we know one thing about him: like every great prime minister before him, at least he's not as stunned as he looks.

  MINORITY SHOW | OCT. 25, 2004

  Over one hundred of the MPs in Canada's 38th Parliament are brand spankin' new. Think about that. A third of our MPs have never done anything like this before in their lives. It's mind-boggling when you consider the layers of dumb that have yet to be revealed to us. Because that's the way it works: if you've got one hundred MPs, I can guarantee you twenty-five of them will be completely off their heads. And this is not me talking here—this is an established law of averages.

  Sure, they may look like normal, rational human beings. They might even sound like normal, rational human beings. But that is only because they haven't really said anything yet. But they're in there now, just waiting for the right moment to stand up, open their mouths, humiliate their party and reveal to the world just how completely bonkers they are.

  They can belong to any party. That's the beauty of it. And because it's a minority government, they will not be ignored. Their votes are far too important. So important that these unknown loose cannons who walk among us could very well end up running the place. When you think about it, this Parliament is very modern. It's not like a Parliament at all—it's like a reality show. All we've got to figure out now is where Canada fits in the grand scheme of things. In this show, are we the winners, the losers—or the prize?

  FOCUS ON DARREL | OCT. 10, 2006

  For those of us who enjoy Question Period for its pure theatrical value, it's nice to see that the Liberals are finally hitting their stride. For a while there in opposition they were pathetic. They were about as fierce as a bag of kittens. They finally figured out that their job is to oppose—to attack—but lately they've gone a little bit too far.

  This week they were all upset because Rona Ambrose, the minister of the environment, went out and hired this guy Darrel Reid to be her new chief of staff. Now the interesting thing here is, the Liberals aren't upset because the guy's not qualified—they're upset because he's too conservative.

  This is where the Liberals lose me. You can't not hire someone because of their views. This is Canada. We have laws against that type of thing. We just elected a Conservative government here, and when the big jobs become available they're going to go to Conservatives. That's just the way it works.

  Some people might say, “Hey, the minister of the environment needs a chief of staff—this person is going to run an entire government ministry—we need someone in here who's worked with big business and big environment groups.” Not this crowd. The Tories say, “This is a perfect opportunity to give a job to the former president of Focus on the Family.”

  You remember Focus on the Family. They're the ones who think that SpongeBob SquarePants is gay. Take a look at their website—these people think about gay sex more than gay people do. I only hope that when Darrel Reid is in his new job, he can take his mind off gay sex long enough to think about the plight of the chubsucker, which by the way is an endangered fish and not a lifestyle choice. Of course, that's not all Focus on the Family worries about. They do other good works. Focus on the Family International was one of the first groups to come out and support Mel Gibson after he revealed his views on our Hebrew friends to the world.

  Bottom line, though, is that Darrel is a good foot soldier for t
he Conservative party, and Stephen Harper wants him in Ottawa. In fact, they ran Darrel Reid in the last election. That ended badly when he lost the election and his campaign manager went ballistic and blamed the defeat on the Jews who control the Canadian media. But that's all in the past now. Thanks to Rona Ambrose, Darrel Reid—your Focus on the Family candidate—is going to make it to Ottawa after all.

  No surprises there, because this is a democracy, folks—and in Canada you get what you vote for.

  APREÈS DION | DEC. 5, 2006

  There's no doubt about it: big leadership conventions like the one we just saw in Montreal make for great TV. At least, for someone like me they do.

  If you like politics—and I'm certainly guilty of that—you must take your excitement where you can get it. And, tragically, watching a few thousand socially retarded adults jump up and down and wave signs with someone else's name on it is what passes for exciting.

  Although, as this convention unfolded, I couldn't help but think that I was not so much watching a vital political party in the midst of renewal as watching a bunch of dinosaurs in their death throes. If this party is not careful, you're looking at a future tar sands site.

  The Liberals had a chance at this convention to change the way they choose leaders so that in the future every single member would get a vote. And they took a pass. Now why they would do this I have no idea. Look at Alberta. The provincial Conservative party there just chose a leader, and 97,000 party members voted on the first ballot. That's just one province. At the Liberal convention in Montreal only 5,000 members voted, and that's for the entire country.

  In Alberta it costs five bucks to vote for the leader. Basically they'll take anyone with a pulse. In Montreal it costs almost a thousand bucks to get through the front door, and that does not include airfare, accommodations or escort fees. It adds up. And the only reason the Liberals can come up with as to why they chose to not go with a more open and democratic system is that Canadians like to watch an old-fashioned convention.