There was a big CBC radio contest in the early ‘70s to come up with a Canadian equivalent for the expression “as American as apple pie.” Obvious picks like maple syrup, street hockey or hypothermia were too unoriginal, and the winning entry came from a 17-year-old girl named Heather Scott, who offered the wry “as Canadian as possible under the circumstances.”
Which seems even more apt today then it did half a century ago due to *gestures broadly at everything.* She went on to have a career that included editing flamboyant hockey analyst Don Cherry’s memoir and inadvertently provided another potential contender: as Canadian as hoping “Coach’s Corner” fans are readers.
But a case could be made in the 21st century for “as Canadian as a beer commercial.”
It’s been 25 years since Molson Canadian came out with their wildly successful “I Am Canadian” campaign with a flannel-clad rando named Joe Canada giving an impassioned speech about how super awesome the place is. Sample line: “I believe in peacekeeping not policing, diversity not assimilation, and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal!” I remember feeling vaguely embarrassed as we don’t normally go in for rah-rah jingoism, but it launched right when there was a new appetite for reminding the world we are very much not Americans, who had just elected a president who — at the time — was the dumbest, most compromised commander-in-chief imaginable. (Fun fact: the ad debuted during the Oscar awards the same year the weirdly prescient “Blame Canada” won for Best Original Song.) It also helped the middling lager become the top-selling beer in the country, although the “I Am Canadian” slogan itself got poured down the drain after Molson Breweries hopped into bed with Coors a few years later.
It was such a big deal it even made the Penguin Treasury of Popular Canadian Poems and Songs. Beer ads don’t normally make the final cut for poetry anthologies, not even Bud’s Whazzup campaign, but it was included because “the open-minded reader will respond to the power of the words that express a human need to affirm an identity in the face of ignorance and indifference.”
An updated version called “We Are Canadian,” featuring the same narrator but with CBC radio host Jeff Douglas now using his real name, is currently causing a buzz online, and this time it’s selling viewers on the patriotic duty to fight back against Grampa Hitler instead of drinking a meh beer.
“Hey, I know it’s in our nature to, uh, cut a guy some slack, give him the benefit of the doubt,” he begins politely. “Like maybe he was confused or just joking or just really needed a double-double but this isn’t that guy.”
A double-double is Canadianese for coffee with two creams and two sugars bought from Tim Horton’s, and the line would’ve been funnier if Trump actually drank the stuff and/or if the country’s ubiquitous donut chain hadn’t itself hooked up with Burger King. He also name-checks beloved Gordons Lightfoot and Downie (two men famous for singing about nautical disasters) but the third member of the Great White North’s holy trinity of Gords has also been dragged posthumously into the fight.
You might’ve seen footage of comedian Mike Myers wearing a shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Canada: Not For Sale” during the sign-off at last week’s episode of SNL, but mouthing the words “elbows up” may use some Cancontext.
It’s a nod to hockey great Gordie Howe, who earned the nickname Mr. Elbows for his habit of wielding them as weapons when in a corner, and “elbows up” is easy shorthand as we figure out how to respond to the existential threat posed by the demented Russian asset squatting in the White House.
But while Canadians in general are gearing up for a worst-case scenario, some of our provincial leaders not so much. Nine out of 10 preems signed an agreement in January to keep all economic options on the table in a trade war, but two of them have since decided to personally nope out. Unfortunately neither of them are Alberta’s Danielle Smith. They all underwent a big team effort in the belly of the beast last month in DC to try to press the reset button, but Trump’s meltdown in front of Zelenskyy gives a pretty good idea of how that might’ve gone. Presumably none of them have even seen Hunter Biden’s bathroom although, being Canadian, they probably did needlessly say sorry a lot.
Anthony Furey was furious. “I mean it’s clear, right? The guy’s cracked,” the outgoing Newfoundland and Labrador premier told reporters about the man who prompted returning to his former career as an orthopedic surgeon. “I mean, maybe I can speak more freely now but he, you know, he wakes up one morning and says something, water, cars, tomorrow it’s going to be tuna, who knows? It’s just, that’s how erratic and confusing it is, which is why I think the Canadian response needs to be calm, cool, measured, balanced, but responsible, standing up to this bully, an erratic bully. It seems to be settling into everybody now that this guy’s a maniac and whatever he says one day is not going to be accurate the next day.”
Furey’s farewell comes shortly after Prince Edward Island boss Dennis King announced he was stepping down for the standard reason of wanting to spend more time with his family, although it will mean dragging them across the Atlantic with him for a since-announced gig as Canada’s new ambassador to Ireland. He’ll have some big shoes to fill because a previous one was the guy who went all Bruce Willis and took out a lone ISIS douchenozzle on a shooting spree on Parliament Hill a decade ago.
Kings aren’t typically well-received by the Irish but at least the PEI hire won’t have to deal with Trump 2.0 anymore, and Guinness sure tastes a lot better than Molson.
[Toronto Star / CBC / Bluesky]
