Snow days

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 8:40 PM - 46 Comments

Rick Mercer unleashes a Merceresque rant of his own.

It is ironic that while our parliament has been suspended we are a nation at war. On New Year’s Eve we greeted the news that five Canadians were killed in a single day with sadness but not surprise. We are at war because ostensibly we are helping bring democracy to Afghanistan. How the mission is progressing is open for debate but this much is certain – at present there is a parliament in Afghanistan that it is very much open for business. Canada has no such institution.

In Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s government faces fierce opposition at every turn; many of his cabinet choices have been rejected in a secret ballot by the more than 200 parliamentarians that sit in the legislature. Simply closing parliament down and operating without their consent is not an option for Hamid Karzai; to do so would be blatantly undemocratic or at the very least downright Canadian. If Hamid Karzai suspended parliament on a whim we might be forced to ask why Canadians are dying to bring democracy to that country.

Stephen Harper doesn’t have that problem. The Parliament of Canada has been suspended for no other reason than the prime minister simply can’t be bothered with the relentless checks and balances that democracy affords us.

'We deserve better'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 5:15 PM - 28 Comments

Beginning at about the 23-minute mark here—and after an interview with Michael Douglas—George Stroumboulopoulos unleashes a Merceresque rant on the proroguing of Parliament, then talks things over with our Andrew Coyne.

Slumdog Prime Minister

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 12:23 AM - 12 Comments

Rick Mercer foresaw this day.

Mitchel Raphael on a Rahim Jaffer joke

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Good sport Maxime Bernier

At the suggestion of Capital Diary, this year’s Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner was a different kind of night. Traditionally, party leaders have given funny speeches, but this dinner became a mock awards ceremony with lots of MPs and journalists taking to the stage (in part because fewer and fewer leaders were offering to speak at the event). Rick Mercer talked about all the gay staffers who work for Tory ministers “except Lisa Raitt. How do I know? Just look at her hair.” Other highlights included former foreign affairs minister and very good sport Maxime Bernier comically looking for his notes on stage. He found them and did not have to call Julie Couillard. Also, Scott Brison had some great lines: “I’ve put a lot of work into my speech,” said the Nova Scotia Liberal MP. “In fact, I even got together with former colleague Rahim Jaffer to do a few lines.”

How to get elected in Nova Scotia without spending a dime

The recent announcement of a by-election in Nova Scotia has all eyes in that province on one man: Bill Casey. Casey was the Tory MP who voted against the Conservative budget over the Atlantic accord and then sat as an Independent. He resigned this year, triggering the by-election in his old riding. He is now a Nova Scotia hero: any candidate that received his blessing would sail to victory. According to NDP MP Megan Leslie, “You wouldn’t have to run a campaign if Bill endorsed you.” Casey now works for the Nova Scotia government representing the province’s interests in Ottawa, so he has to appear neutral, but politicians at all levels of government in the province are keen to score even a photo with him.

Happy Birthday from Justin

During question period Justin Trudeau can often be spotted signing all sorts of things. (Most MPs do this, including the PM, who has been spotted signing photos of himself.) One day Trudeau had a huge stack of cards on his desk. Every Liberal supporter in his Montreal riding, he explains, gets a personalized birthday card. Recently, Trudeau popped by the seventh annual Champions of Mental Health awards at the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. His mother, Margaret Trudeau, got an award for being open about having bipolar disorder. Also on the awards list was Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of defence staff, for their work launching the Canadian Forces mental health campaign, “Be the Difference.” MacKay noted that the number of health care officials hired under his watch has increased significantly. Meanwhile, on the military mission front, Natynczyk told Capital Diary that he just wrapped up the mission in Bosnia a few weeks ago. He noted that when it comes to wars, politicians like to sprint, while the military run marathons.

His daughter and Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, will be out soon. So which NDP MP has a photo homage of Palin in his office? Peter Stoffer’s daughter, Amber Ocean Stoffer, once dressed up as the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, and the Nova Scotia MP keeps the snap in a prominent frame in his Hill office. She is called Amber Ocean, says Stoffer, because she was conceived on a cruise ship and the sunsets were a stunning amber colour. Stoffer has another daughter named Jasmin Aurora Stoffer; she was born in the Yukon during an aurora borealis.

What the Senator wore

Sen. Nancy Ruth showed up to the weekly Conservative caucus meeting with a T-shirt under her blazer that read: “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.” She showed it to a few MPs, but made sure not to flash the Prime Minister.

The marriage of institutions

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, October 26, 2009 at 8:27 PM - 0 Comments

The Dominion Institute and The Historica Foundation of Canada merged to create Canada’s largest history and citizenship organization: The Historica-Dominion Institute. A reception was held in the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse in Toronto. Below is board member Rick Mercer.

Continue…

The oldest young man

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 11:55 AM - 43 Comments

Rick Mercer celebrates Pierre Poilievre.

'Porky Pig is better suited to manage this economy'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 5:01 PM - 31 Comments

Rick Mercer’s rant this week.

Standing behind your leader

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 11:45 AM - 8 Comments

From last night’s Mercer Report.

The menu at Red Lobster

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 7:11 PM - 86 Comments

Rick Mercer unloads.

Maybe it’s time to ask not what is wrong with Canadians, but what is wrong with our leaders. Or better yet, let’s just start placing the blame squarely at their feet. It’s not like we choose the leaders, the parties do. And apparently this is as good as it gets…

Voting Conservative is not a problem for a majority of Canadians; we’ve done it before. Voting for an angry guy who thinks we’re stupid and will believe anything? That takes some getting used to…

Mr. Ignatieff is, as we speak, surrounded by a brigade of young people in pointy shoes and designer glasses who work for him, worship him and twitter about him. Why we should vote for him? I’ve read the tweets; I’ve yet to see an answer…

The problem with Jack is, we all saw how excited he got when he actually thought that he was going to be a part of a coalition government. It wasn’t a normal excitement; it was the kind of excitement that scares other passengers on a plane.

Gilles Duceppe goes unscathed. Which may or may not be Rick’s subtle way of endorsing Mr. Duceppe for Prime Minister.

New Liberal ads!

By Paul Wells - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 6:10 PM - 42 Comments

Courtesy of guess who. Ronald Reagan could have warned the Liberals this would happen.

Mitchel Raphael on the minister who made Flare’s list

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

The only place this MP can relax
Toronto Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay recently turned 50. For her birthday she received a hand-painted canoe paddle from her son Patrick Findlay. Her daughter gave her a framed photo of her canoe at sunset, which she plans to hang in her Ottawa office. Hall Findlay spent two years refurbishing the canoe, which used to belong to her father, stripping it down and doing the repair work herself. She was able to take some time off this summer and paddle the canoe around Georgian Bay, among the Thirty Thousand Islands. It’s the one way she can relax, she told Capital Diary. “I have a terrible time sitting still,” says the Willowdale, Ont., MP. “In the canoe I am forced to do nothing but think.”

The MP, his father and the Italian mountain
For their 10th wedding anniversary, Ontario Liberal MP Glen Pearson and his wife, Jane Roy, went to Italy for two weeks, the first real holiday they have taken alone without children or guests since they were married. The couple often travel to Africa and are usually accompanied by lots of other people. While in Sicily, Pearson and Roy climbed Mount Etna, Europe’s highest and most active volcano. Pearson really wanted to see it because it was around that site during the Second World War that his father landed with Canadian forces to fight. His father, who was wounded twice in the war, told Pearson he had seen Etna erupt. Pearson says climbing is in his blood because he grew up near the Rockies in Calgary. Etna is over three kilometres high, and it took the couple a full day to go up and down it. He says it was much easier than when he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2005. Pearson also visited the Commonwealth cemetery in the town of Agira where Canadians, including several of his father’s Second World War comrades, are buried. Pearson was so moved by the cemetery, which he discovered by fluke, that he sent a message to Defence Minister Peter MacKay to make sure he knew about it. MacKay, he says, appreciated the gesture. Continue…

The first step is admitting you've got a problem

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 11:12 AM - 25 Comments

I was to have spent part of this afternoon participating in the Public Policy Forum’s Back to School celebration (Kady’s there), specifically as part of an afternoon panel alongside Don Newman, Ian Brodie and Carleton’s Katherine Graham on the topic of how we might “improve the Canadian political system.” Suffice it to say I would’ve been the least insightful of the panelists and it’s largely for my own good that a scheduling conflict means I can’t be there.

All the same, here is what I would have said were I to be there. Continue…

How I spent my summer vacation

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 9 Comments

Click on the images to find out, in their own words, how each of these famous Canadians spent their summer.

Mitchel Raphael on three rain miracles

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Bow if they bow
Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Ottawa last week and were greeted at the airport by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon. Oda, the first Japanese-Canadian ever elected as an MP, joked to Cannon before the royals’ plane landed that in ancient times no one’s head could be higher than the emperor’s, “so you better lean down.” Oda said Canadian officials explained that the protocol with the Japanese royals was to take your cue from them. Bow if they bow or shake their hand if they extend it. Oda noted the rain stopped just as the emperor and empress got off the plane and did not start again until they were in their car. Both royals spoke English but at times the emperor would turn to the empress for the right English word. Oda speaks a little Japanese and understands most of it from having her Japanese-speaking grandparents living with her while growing up. At a special reception for the royal couple on Tuesday, the minister was allowed to bring a guest. She chose her 86-year-old mother Kaye Oda as her date. Continue…

Support for gay pride, no support for gay pride or both?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 10, 2009 at 10:35 AM - 3 Comments

Having slept in his house, Rick Mercer attempts to get in Stephen Harper’s head.

But in the case of the Pride financing, Mercer believes the joke’s on us – either in the media or in the audience. It’s a classic case of sending two messages, Mercer thinks – first giving the money to gay activists and then, in a rare act of tolerating outspoken MPs, also conveying the message that Conservatives didn’t like giving the $400,000. ”He’s managed to have his cake and eat it too,” Mercer says of Harper. “He’s managed to give them the money and act like he didn’t give them the money.”

Toronto Pride: So this is what the Conservatives helped fund!

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 1:50 PM - 25 Comments

There’s been much  drama over this year’s announcement of the Conservative government funding Toronto Pride. But just who was at this mega gay parade? Men in leather jockstraps, drag queens and  porn stars, naturally. But also pro-Israel groups, anti-Israel groups, gay Anglicans—and the Canadian Armed Forces doing recruitment. Several on-duty police forces wore festive gear. While politicians from the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, the Liberals and the NDP were out in full force. And Rick Mercer.

Iggy at Toronto Pride.

Toronto Liberal MP Bob Rae shows off his huge umbrella.

NDP leader Jack Layton, with his MP wife Olivia Chow, shows off his huge rainbow umbrella.

Continue…

Comedian Rick Mercer recommends ‘The Kid Stays in the Picture’ by Robert Evans

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 10:22 AM - 0 Comments

“It’s probably my favourite show business autobiography. Robert Evans was a film producer—he did The Sun Also Rises, Chinatown and The Godfather series. He was a bad B-actor who ended up running a studio and changed Hollywood completely. He was also a huge ladies man. He was power hungry and power mad. And he hung out with the likes of Kissinger. He liked to pretend all these people did his bidding. He took a very bad turn with cocaine. Eventually, he was thrown out of Hollywood in disgrace, and managed to crawl his way back. He’s a larger than life character with a fascinating story–all of which, I think, has probably a 50 per cent bulls–t ratio. I would not take his side of the story for gospel. But still, it’s a fun, fun picture. It’s candy, you know? It’s a junky book with lots of anecdotes that are amusing and outrageous. He collected powerful friends and beautiful women and also was responsible for producing some of the greatest movies of an era.”

MPs, gay rights and underwear models

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

The gay advocacy group Egale held its first-ever large-scale gala in Toronto’s Le Meridien King Edward Hotel to mark the 40th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. Conservative strategist Jaime Watt, who is chairman of the Navigator communications firm, was presented with the group’s inaugural Leadership Award for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) human rights. Justin Trudeau was the keynote speaker. Designer John Walke served up a fashion show with his Superstein label.

'He drinks espresso'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, May 25, 2009 at 12:18 PM - 44 Comments

Rick Mercer talks politics, the Mercer Report and those ads.

“Have you gone to the website?” Mercer asks. “They have stuff in there like ‘He lives in a building, not in a house. He drinks espresso. Can regular Canadians understand a guy like that?’I mean, espresso? Really, it’s nothing to do with anything except the guy is well-educated and well-travelled. I don’t think Stephen Harper will be upset if his son is so academically inclined that he can study at Harvard and then could possibly teach at Harvard. I don’t think anybody would say ‘Oh my God, we’ve raised a terrible child. What a terrible road he’s gone down.’ I would think they’d be proud of that. It’s just a bad message.”

Through the looking glass in Cannes

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 9:47 PM - 0 Comments

A scene from Alain Renais's 'Wild Grass'

Aside from inventiveness with which filmmakers portrayed brutal violence, the other prevalent trend in Cannes this year was the camera’s tendency to turn on itself. So many movies contained references to cinema, and quite a few had stories that revolved around a film within a film, or at least a show within a show—notably Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Tsai-Ming Liang’s Visage, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro and Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It makes you wonder if world cinema is fleeing the world, and happy to lose itself in its own reflection, like the characters who plunge through the funhouse mirror of Gilliam’s Imaginarium. Quite the vicious circle. You’ve got several thousand film critics obsessively watching films that are obsessed with film. One of the French soldiers in Tarantino’s movie is a film critic. And Isabel Coixet’s Map of the Sounds of Tokyo drew a big laugh from a mass audience of critics with this line: “How can you trust a guy who spends all day in a cinema?” Precisely.

In this incestuous mix of art and life, nothing was spookier than seeing Heath Ledger’s last performance in Imaginarium. His character makes his entrance dangling from a noose. And the film contains references to dead movie stars like Valentino and James Dean finding immortality on the silver screen—allusions that now seem like morbid premonitions. But then movies lend themselves to meditations on mortality. And these days, when every auteur seems obsessed with the Death of Cinema, it was thrilling to see a film by an old man that celebrates its life—Les Herbes Folles (Wild Grass), a gem by 86-year-old French master Alain Resnais, who’s most famous for Hiroshima Mon Amour. Resnais’s movie emerged as the festival’s sleeper hit, and after catching up to it late in the week, I can see why.

Continue…

Dueling rants: Mercer on Ignatieff

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:36 AM - 13 Comments

From this week’s episode.

Dueling rants: Mercer on Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:35 AM - 0 Comments

From last week’s episode.

BTC: Optimism alert

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 3:51 PM - 17 Comments

From the Globe’s Adam Radwanski.

“As it sinks in that minority parliaments are more than just a blip on the radar, Canadians may start looking for someone to navigate them with some semblance of magnanimity and a willingness to engage those with different perspectives. Mr. Dion — a poor communicator lacking in charisma — was clearly not the one to sell a new way of doing politics. But a more gifted politician may just find an audience.”

In this regard, that Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae have apparently negotiated some sort of non-aggression pact is probably to be applauded. Of course, that two competing politicians would now have to negotiate such an agreement and that it would then be applauded as rare cause for hope is altogether depressing. 

But let’s say Adam, among others, is right and there’s a burgeoning desire among the population at large for something better than what we have. And let’s assume that, while it took the most disastrous presidency in half a century to get America to demand change and we seem to be approximately four years behind them at this point (our election just past was, in all sorts of ways, a re-running of the U.S. election in 2004), we can get there without something vaguely cataclysmic. 

Is that even remotely possible without at least a minor revolution in the way we (in the occupational sense) cover politics in this country? Or, put another way, wouldn’t that change be a lot more likely if we went ahead and dramatically overhauled the way we cover politics in this country? Continue…