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Featured, Rick Mercer Report

Rick Mercer ponders what’s next

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We have a prime minister who can seemingly do no wrong. We have our southern neighbours engaged in an election campaign that feels like bad satire. We have a country of people with a story to tell. And we have CBC’s Rick Mercer Report, returning Tuesday, October 4, for its 14th season.

I spoke with the host himself when he was in Vancouver in June for CBC’s cross-country fall season tour, which happened to be the week after the Orlando nightclub shooting, among other violent events, and amid the U.S. primary campaigns.

Do you ever itch to be on TV when the world is going crazy?
Rick Mercer: Sometimes I itch to be on TV when I think there’d be something to talk about or explore. But then also I also itch to be on TV when we could be shooting outdoors in this beautiful weather. Not that I complain about winter, but our show is a fall and winter show. I have more long johns and winter coats than any man my age should really have who’s not, like, an Inuit hunter.

I love the adventures, I really do, and some of them are spectacular. More often than not I consider myself incredibly lucky to get to do it. But, occasionally, I think it would be nice to fall in the water and it’s nice, and they don’t measure how long you can be in the water in terms of survival rate.

When the news is this depressing, is there room to satirize it?
Satirists choose what they talk about. That’s the difference between a satirist and someone like Peter Mansbridge or David Common. David Common found himself in Orlando doing a piece for Marketplace. He drove by the nightclub an hour before the shooting took place. The minute the shooting started he was there reporting live for CBC. He doesn’t get to choose what he’s going to cover because he’s covering the news.

I don’t think satirists were clamouring over themselves the next day to say something pithy about that. I’m not saying it’s a subject that can’t be talked about or won’t be talked about, but everything has its time and place.

You’re an equal opportunity satirist—what does Justin Trudeau offer to you that Stephen Harper didn’t?
It’s early days with Justin Trudeau’s government. I haven’t really been on the air while he’s been on and I think he’s got it very easy, quite frankly. He’s got his sunny ways going on and that’s all fine and dandy. He’s a popular prime minister, and there’s a honeymoon period that all newly elected prime ministers and presidents get. But then what he has is something particularly unique in that he has no opposition. I mean he has literally zero opposition. I don’t know that that’s ever happened in Canadian politics before.

Jean Chretien used to march along like a peacock, like he was brilliant. The opposition, the Conservatives and the Alliance, were split, they were in disarray, but they existed. Whereas Justin Trudeau has no opposition. I mean you’ve got Tom Mulcair, who is perhaps the most effective opposition leader in Canadian history, and he is being neutered. I mean he’s essentially being brought to the vet and neutered by his own party. They fired him. So he is now the definition of a lame duck leader. And you have Rona Ambrose, and whether or not she is effective or not effective in the House of Commons is entirely irrelevant because she is not a real leader, she’s an interim leader. So Justin Trudeau can stand on his head and do fine. As we saw with Elbowgate. He can basically run around and move people about. He has no opposition. So everything will change once those parties get their act together.

Justin Trudeau can stand on his head and do fine. As we saw with Elbowgate. He can basically run around and move people about. He has no opposition.

You focus primarily on Canadian politics but what do you think of what’s happening in the U.S. right now?
I only focus on Canadian politics, but what is happening in the United States strikes me as something a bad satirist would have written five or six years ago. “And then Donald Trump becomes president …”. People sometimes trade in that kind of satire but I would always think, ‘Oh that’s too easy, and that’s never going to happen because at the end of the day American people are rational and they would never allow that to happen.’ So clearly I’m wrong. There’s a very good chance Donald Trump will become president of the United States and anyone who says otherwise I think doesn’t really understand what’s happening in America.

Who would you want to see prevail in the U.S.? Are you watching with interest?
Oh, of course I’m watching with interest. You know if you said that about Canada I’d never say who I was voting for but in the United States, given the choice of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton…

It’s not much of a question.
Well, this is the problem. Everyone in the media would say that uniformly: ‘It’s not much of a question.’ The reality is probably 50 per cent of Americans think it is a big question and a lot of them are voting for Donald Trump. Now I personally would plug my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton, and proudly. But I’d rather see Porky Pig be president of the United States than Trump. But it’s very dangerous, there’s lot of us, especially in the media, walking around thinking it’s just a joke and could never happen but it could happen in a heartbeat.

I’ve gone through my life, other than the war in Afghanistan, generally I’ve lived in peace time. I’ve only ever seen elections in the United States that have come and gone and cars have not been turned over, cities have not erupted in flames. I barely remember a few riots. So we get lulled into believing none of those things could happen. ‘Oh they happen—I learned about it in history—but it could never happen again.’ Well, it could happen again.

I think 9/11 was that moment for a lot of us who thought that kind of thing could never happen in North America, and then it did.
Although one of the proudest things, one of the things I thought was so amazing, after 9/11, there were not … I mean, there were isolated incidents of minority groups being targeted here and there but there was no widespread incidence of minorities being targeted. There were no public figures with any real reputation preaching hate on the Sunday morning talk shows. America, in fact, reacted with dignity. Never mind the war in Iraq, that came later. Never mind they invaded the wrong country, but that wasn’t the people on the street. Since 9/11 things have changed. People are much, much, much angrier. I don’t want to equate that 9/11 was the reason for that anger but people are very, very angry.

We saw this with Rob Ford in Toronto. I’m not equating Rob Ford with Donald Trump, but a lot of people voted for Rob Ford because they were really angry and they saw in him whatever they wanted to see, whatever the solution was. That’s when it gets dangerous, when there’s a lot of anger out there.

There are a lot of people saying that they speak for them, that they speak the truth, and it’s frightening to think that’s what people perceive as being the truth.
You know, Donald Trump has said a bunch of inflammatory things but he hasn’t actually said that much. So when people has a problem and say ‘he speaks for me,’ he hasn’t said much on a whole host of issues. He speaks for me on health care—well, what’s he saying?

I’m not surprised, I mean I lived in a riding in Toronto that was Jack Layton’s riding. People in that riding had a bit of money and they’re champagne socialists. They vote NDP. And Rob Ford did very well in our riding. He didn’t win it but he did very well. A lot of angry people.

The show makes us feel good to be Canadian and shows us things about our country we wouldn’t normally see. What’ve been the most interesting segments for you?
It’s hard to put a finger on it. We do so many different types of things. Spending time in a beautiful part of British Columbia with Rick Hansen, who happens to be a personal hero of mine, meeting the guy on camera for the first time and then getting to go bungee jumping with him, a fantastic adventure. That was right up there as a great day in my life. But that was very much me spending time with a quote-unquote ‘great Canadian,’ one that’s known all around the world.

RMR-Feb
Still winter

My favourite segments are, like, bumping into a lobster fisherman or an oyster fisherman, or spending time with a guy who’s 84 years old and races ice sailboats. That’s why I no longer worry about running out of material. I used to worry about that a lot in the first years of the show. I saw it as a fundamental problem—the business model is flawed. We will run out of things to do. There’s only one Snowbirds. Once I do the Snowbirds what do you do next? Then I realized I was completely wrong because the business model is such that I find interesting Canadians who have something to say and it turns out there’s what, 40 million people, and I think I could get a story out of 20 million of them. So I’m good to go. I no longer worry about running out of stories.

So you’re not going to pull the plug on the show anytime soon?
Oh, that’s quite possible. TV ends when you get fired, cancelled, or very rare circumstances individuals decide to pull the plug themselves. I voluntarily decided I was no longer going to do This Hour Has 22 Minutes, I voluntarily decided it was time to stop doing Talking to Americans and I could easily do that again. But I don’t know when that will happen.

Do you think about what’s next for you?
Yeah, I do and I think the thing I feel most lucky about is that I am probably in a position to try whatever I want to do and the only thing I need is time, which I don’t have now because I have this TV thing and the stage business [Mercer travels the country with a one-man show in the off-season]. Eventually, sometime, it’s inevitable, I’ll have lots of free time and then I’ll be able to do whatever I want to do. So it’s not that money is going to allow me the luxury of doing whatever I want to do, it’s the time to decide ‘Oh, I’m going to try to write a bad novel, or I’m going to write a play.’ That’s what I spent my time doing in my teens and early twenties, and maybe I’ll do that again.

I’ve always been obsessed with politics. I’ve had two passions in my life, television and politics, and I’ve been really lucky that I could merge the two.

Would you ever run for office?
I’ve always been obsessed with politics. I’ve had two passions in my life, television and politics, and I’ve been really lucky that I could merge the two. Anyone who’s an armchair critic or passionate about any subject matter you always wonder what it would be like to be in there. Just like a baseball fan thinks well, if they ask me to be the general manager of the Blue Jays I guess I’d do it. One of these days they’re going to read my sports blog and they’re going to come to me. So it’s always been in the back of my mind, but I will say the last number of years. I was less intrigued by the notion of being in politics than I ever was in my life. That may be a combination of me finding the climate less hospitable or maybe it’s just a level of maturity on my part.

But maybe when you have all the time in the world.
Well I will say this, there have been lots of examples of career politicians who have been very successful, Jean Chretien being number one, and there are lots of examples of politicians who have gone into politics at a very young age and had something to offer but I will say that I’ve always admired the most, and found the most intriguing, those who chose to go into politics much later in life. Now I’m not saying we should only have people over 55 in politics. I think that would be a huge mistake. But those people, one of the things I admire about them the most … I won’t say they all have their fuck you money but all are usually in a position to do what’s best and they’re not worried about keeping the job.

The danger in politics is you get people in there and it’s the best job they’ve ever had in their life and they’re terrified of losing their job because they don’t think they’ll ever get one as good, so therefore their number one priority is keeping their job. While that’s most people’s number one priority, and I understand that—whether you’re a waiter or the president of General Motors that’s one of your big priorities—it’s nice when politicians aren’t obsessed with keeping their jobs.

I would like to be able to say to the leader, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that. That’s never going to happen. Next!’

Rick Mercer Report airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Four in the Morning

Four in the Morning — The shadow knows…

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Well let’s get it out of the way right away; there is a lot of sex happening in Episode 4 of Four in the Morning. Orgasms, mistimed orgasms, fake orgasms and anti-orgasms. Then there are the conversations about the orgasms.

We also have shadows, and it seems Bondurant (Daniel Maslany) is able to read them. Good thing, because Mitzi (Lola Tash) is afflicted with a purple shadow.  Apparently, this means she is conflicted about something, and feels guilty. Well—DUH!—of course, she is! All of this shadow discombobulation means Bondurant and Mitzi are “off,” rather their timing is off, and it is getting worse the more they try (and they try a LOT!).

Meanwhile, Jamie (Michelle Mylett) has been keeping secrets … lots and lots of secrets! For one, she admits to  William (Mazin Elsadig) that she has never achieved an orgasm with him; she has been faking it all along. She also confesses to not one but two previous marriages, (we don’t count the third marriage) and each of those ended with her spouse committing suicide. It seems she is a “sexualcontrarian.” Despite her aphro-dipsomaniacal demands, Jamie can only achieve an orgasm at the precise moment her partner achieves an “anti-orgasm.” Her partners’ desires to see her satisfied drove them all to their ultimate sacrifice. William, determined to satisfy Jamie, fakes an anti-climax. And it seems his approach worked.

Practice appears to be approaching perfect for Bondurant and Mitzi, and whilst honing their timing, these two little lovebirds admit their love for each other. Bondurant invites Mitzi to come home for Thanksgiving, but the whole Julliard and pregnancy things are still not resolved.

I watched this episode twice before finishing the review. At first, I was overcome with all of the sex. Well, I was really thinking, “HOW in the HELL am I going to write about all of the sex while avoiding an R-rating?” So, after a bit of thought, and some self-censoring, I came to  this conclusion: Parker got in a couple more quirky portmanteaus and tossed in another confessional monologue. We can now consider whether or not we should completely sacrifice ourselves for a relationship and forgo our own happiness for that of our partner.

The pattern is now set. We have a rhythm. We know what to expect. Now I hope we can get into some really meaty storytelling. Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments below.

Four in the Morning airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Taken: Highway of Tears — Ramona Wilson and Alberta Williams

Episode 2 of Taken features The Highway of Tears; a stretch of Highway 16 located in northern British Columbia. Countless Indigenous women and girls have either gone missing or been murdered, but all have one link: this stretch of highway from Prince Rupert to Prince George. The topography in this area is especially suited for concealment; it is a neverending network of logging roads, ravines and rivers. However, as host Lisa Meeches points out, “these crimes of opportunity are about more than location. They reveal dark underlying truths about society.”

Tonight, Taken focuses on two separate cases from the Highway of Tears: Ramona Wilson and Alberta Williams. Both led happy lives surrounded by family and friends. Their murders devastated their families and in each case, remain unsolved.

Alberta Williams, 24, had been at a local pub on August 15, 1989, with family and friends, celebrating a last night with visiting friends. It was the last time she was seen alive; her body was found a little over month later near the Tyee overpass. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted. In addition to the officers working the case, Alberta’s sister enlisted the aid of private investigator, former RCMP officer Ray Michalko to try and find her sister’s killer

Ramona Wilson, meanwhile, was a well-loved child, active in sports and would often lose herself while composing poetry. On the  evening of June 11, 1994, at the age of 16, Ramona left home to go to a dance with her friends in a neighbouring town. She never arrived. It was not until April 10, 1995—almost a year later—that Ramona’s remains were found with her clothing neatly placed nearby. RCMP staff sergeant  Wayne Clary still believes Ramona’s case is very solvable. Many suspects have been eliminated but to date it remains unsolved.

These two cases highlight a social issue many communities face today: a lack of affordable transportation. How do you get from an isolated community to a neighbouring urban centre? Chief Terry Teegee of Carrier Segani Tribal Council—and cousin of Ramona—reminds us this complicates lives for many. Appointments may be missed, steady employment is difficult, it is hard to attend school, or to even get an adequate education. Due to the remoteness of northern communities, there are fewer opportunities for economic development. This results in a lack of affordable transportation, so many community members resort to hitchhiking despite the danger.

Craig Benjamin of Amnesty International Canada explains further: “The very fact that we are looking at rates of violence seven or eight times higher than all other women and girls in Canada means that this violence does not come from a single source but is pervasive … the very fact that this violence could go on year after year tells us that there is something fundamentally wrong here.”

Once again, I need to repeat, this program is not designed to entertain us, but rather is about sharing information. I do like the way each case has been chosen to highlight larger systemic problems. Many Indigenous communities face these issues that are a direct result of colonizing policy and practices still prevalent in Canada today. I am also very pleased APTN airs each episode twice in each time zone. If you missed it last week, you have the opportunity to see it again the following week.

Viewers are asked to visit the Taken website if they have any information.

Taken airs Fridays at 7 and 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.

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Auction, Featured, Four in the Morning

Comments and queries for the week of September 16

Kids Help Phone Charity auction

The Mr. D package is not allowing me to bid, not sure if something is wrong with the link, but “Bid Now” button not allowing to enter a bid. —D

Thanks so much for the support of this great cause, and for letting me know about the glitch. It’s been fixed! If anyone else is having problems bidding, please email me at the address below.

Four in the Morning

I was going to give this show a go but I forgot to set it to record on my DVR. Now I think I’m just going to let it pass me by. After reading your review I think it’s a show I probably won’t like and I’ve been a lot more fussy when it comes to shows to keep watching these days. There’s just too much TV nowadays. I still have 20 shows I’m behind on. I keep finding myself dropping shows I’m a number of episodes in on like Arrow, Playing House, Bitten, etc., because I realize there’s always another show I want to watch more. —Alicia

APTN’s Wild Archaeology entertains and educates

I am very happy you liked the show so much. Trust me when I say there is much more to see many more place we traveled and learned from all across Canada. —Jacob Pratt

 

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Amazing Race Canada winners Steph and Kristen plan their future

After travelling around it, Steph LeClair and Kristen McKenzie are on top of the world. The couple, who captured The Amazing Race Canada title during a wild final Leg in Montreal on Tuesday, were all smiles during a spate of media interviews on Wednesday.

As they explained during the After the Race special, they plan to pay off Steph’s legal school debt, travel for nine months and perhaps put a downpayment on a property. Here’s what they told us about their experience.

The Montreal leg … congratulations to the producers for coming up with a wide range of physical and mental challenges for the final three teams to do. The bagel challenge was deceivingly difficult.
Kristen McKenzie: Yeah, physical, mental and navigation. They’re all very different beasts and that was a real combo.

How hard has it been to keep your win quiet?
KM: It’s been so hard, especially because my sister and I are so close. That was the most difficult for me and challenging.

Steph LeClair: She was So. Mad.

KM: She was. She was like, ‘Really?! You couldn’t tell me?’ But I wanted to experience it with her and have it be a surprise for everyone. It was a fun moment last night. I think it was harder when we first got back because we had all of these amazing things that we wanted to tell all the people that we love.

SL: We ended the Race at the end of May, so it wasn’t too bad. But the summer has been tough because everyone’s, ‘OK, you made it on. What happened? Just tell us.’

You said last night on the after show that Steph is going to pay off her school debt, nine months of travelling and maybe buy a property?
SL: Well, travel for sure. And for sure debt. It’s especially great to pay that off because, being in this with Kirsten, I felt like it was a bit of a burden on me. I don’t want money to ever be an issue between us so it’s a relief to do that. And travelling, 100 per cent. And then coming back and figuring out what we want to do and where we want to end up. If the time is right, maybe buy something.

KM: We’ll definitely save some. We didn’t have this money before. We have it now. We can work for the rest of our lives and this as an opportunity that we can’t waste. I’ve never travelled before and I got bit by the travel bug on the Race, but it’s not really travelling because you can’t really take it in, although we tried as much as possible. We’re so grateful and feel so lucky; we want to make the most of it and create memories and not just get stuff.

race1

Are there some countries on your must-travel list that were some of the places you visited during a Leg of The Amazing Race Canada?
SL: Our list is probably 15 pages long. We’d definitely love to travel within Canada. The first time we went to the west coast was on the Race. We loved Haida Gwaii and I’ve never been to Vancouver. Jasper… I’d go back in a heartbeat. And the east coast. We’d love to stay in Canada, but we’d love to go back to Vietnam.

KM: Yeah. Havana was awesome too, although you didn’t have the best time… [Laughs.]

SL: We took our very first vacation to an all-inclusive in Cuba, and then that happened [Steph cut her finger on a machete and has the scar to show for it] and I don’t know if I want to go back to Cuba!

Coming from a softball background, teamwork came into play during The Amazing Race Canada. Even when you did get frustrated with each other, it didn’t last long. That was part of your game plan, I assume?
KM: Our experience being high-level athletes helped a lot because we really understood that, ‘You’re a team, and if you’re not acting like a team it’s going to do you no good. It’s only going to make things worse.’

SL: It’s hard because it’s so stressful. But you have to really learn to take it in, get a grip and move on. We definitely had moments, but at the same time, we had to reign it in.

KM: I think our biggest asset was our communication and the way we treated each other and supported each other. I felt supported the entire time.

This, I think, has been the most evenly-matched set of teams this show has ever had. You were battling it out with Jillian and Emmett all season, and Joel and Ashley were right in the mix too. Those teams really drove you all season long.
KM: We called it very early on. Jill and Emmett were very good at several of the things that Steph and I were good at, so we viewed them as a threat. Joel and Ashley were good at a lot of things that we weren’t, like dancing. I mean, we tried to U-Turn them both…

SL: … and that didn’t work!

KM: And then we ended up in the finale together. Frankie and Amy were sneaky good too. People underestimated them, but we didn’t.

SL: They flew just under the radar enough to chip away and were in the thick of things.

Are you friendly with the other teams? Have you kept in touch?
SL: Yeah, we actually have a group chat going on all the time. It was really fun to see everyone again last night. We went to an after party after the finale. It was so fun to see everyone.

KM: Brandon and Anthony watched the first episode at our place, so we’re good buddies with them. Frankie and Amy watched at our place when they were kicked off because they were in Toronto. We visited Antoine in Montreal and Jill came too. There are no hard feelings anywhere.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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