Talking to Americans

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Talking To Americans was a regular feature presented by Rick Mercer on the Canadian political satire show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. It was later spun off into a one-hour special that aired on April 1, 2001 on CBC Television.

It consisted of interviewing Americans on the street and convincing them to agree with ridiculous statements about its northern neighbour. The intent was to satirize perceived American ignorance of Canada. Examples included:

persuading Americans to congratulate Canada on legalizing VCRs or adopting the twenty-four-hour day,
various political controversies involving one or more Canadian states,
congratulating the Canadian government on building a dome over its "national igloo" (apparently a downsized version of the United States Capitol made out of ice) to protect it from global warming,
agreeing that the U.S. should bomb Saskatchewan or send ground troops into Gilles Duceppe,
proposing the idea that a Canadian company actually had the mining rights to Mount Rushmore,
congratulating Canada for officially joining North America,
controversy around the reconstruction of the historic "Peter Mann's Bridge", named after "Prime Minister Peter Mann" (actually a pun on the name of Canadian journalist Peter Mansbridge),
asking if Jean Chrétien-Pinochet should be charged with crimes against humanity,
asking Harvard students and professors to sign a petition asking Canadians to discontinue the practice of abandoning the elderly on ice floes,
congratulating Prime Minister Tim Horton on getting a double-double (a coffee with two creams and two sugars or, according to Mercer, 'support on both sides of Congress'),
the coronation of Svend Robinson as King Svend I,
wishing Canadians a "Happy Stockwell Day"
congratulating Canadians on classifying Labrador Retrievers as elephants, to prevent them from being used for hard labour

In fact, some of the Americans interviewed seemed just to be playing along, although professors at distinguished American universities always seemed to be taken in by absurdities like the Saskatchewan seal hunt. The only Americans who were shown outsmarting Mercer were a university student who spends her time laughing at him, and a small child who pointed out to his mother that Canada has provinces, not states.

The most famous segment, aired in 2000, featured Mercer asking then-presidential candidate George W. Bush – who had previously stated that "you can't stump me on world leaders" – for his reaction to an endorsement by Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine", as well as to report the "traditional visit to the US" of the "King of Canada", Lucien Bonhomme.

Bush said he looked forward to working together with his future counterpart to the north, praised his support of free trade, and looked forward to the King's visit. That said, Bush never actually used the name of Poutine and only failed to correct Mercer on the name. A few years later when Bush made his first official visit to Canada, he said during a speech, "There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine."

The special was a co-production between Island Edge Inc and Salter Street Films. It made news on both sides of the border.

Although the show received Gemini Award nominations, Rick Mercer thought it would be inappropriate to make fun of American-Canadian relations so close to the events of September 11, 2001 and requested that the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television pull the nominations.

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