Everybody who knows me knows that I am more than a little enamored with our upstairs geographic neighbor. Being a comedian, I get to spend a considerable amount of time in Canada every year. If you’ve never been there, I suggest you visit, you know … before these ham-fisted Trump tariffs mess it up for everybody.
In 2016, a lot of people were saying that if Trump got elected, they were moving to Canada. I was not one of them. I wanted to move to Canada long before then. Yeah, even when Obama was president. Not that I’m being unpatriotic. I just really want and need to psychologically fornicate with other countries for the sake of our relationship. I’m a firm believer that if you’re a flag-waving patriot who proclaims that America is the greatest country on earth, and yet you don’t have a passport and have never visited another country or two or five, then you are just taking that whole “Greatest Country in the World” thing on faith and propaganda, huh? Because I’ve been to Mexico, Canada and around the United States, I can tell you with complete and total honesty that America is definitely and solidly in my top two. And if I ever get to Europe, South America, Africa or Australia, there’s a good chance that’s probably going to change.
But today I’m talking about Canada. I’m not trying to tell anybody to move to Canada, mostly because I think a massive influx of Americans would ruin the vibe that makes Canada so cool. Plus, a lot of you, even if you were inclined to do so, can’t or won’t be able to do it. I could probably make that move but I really don’t have the resources in place to make it work. But we can all dream, can’t we?
Most Americans know squat about Canada, like the really important fact that if you have a DUI on your record, they will not let you enter. You’d be surprised at the number of Americans who don’t figure this out before they get to the border and try to push their way into Canada despite a rap sheet. Yeah, Canadians aren’t having any of Ωit. On the other hand, canadians tend to be more informed about the world around them and, as a result, tend to be a more-welcoming and less-arrogant society.
I was performing in Toronto the week Trump got elected. It was surreal. The atmosphere in the clubs went from happy hour to funeral wake in the span of 24 hours. Suddenly Canada’s downstairs neighbors didn’t seem so much fun to watch from so close a distance anymore. Our devotion to gunfire, institutional racism and overpriced healthcare was one thing, but the ascendency of Trump to the White House was a lot like knowing your crazy-ass neighbors were hell-bent on deep frying a turkey in their garage for Thanksgiving and they’re probably going to end up burning down a sizable chunk of the neighborhood in the process.
There’s a clip on YouTube from the night after the election of me on stage telling the audience, “You’re freaked out? I have to go back to that dumpster fire on Monday!”
Being an American hanging out in Canada for weeks at a time, I notice a lot of the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between my home country and the country with which I’d love to cheat on it. The audiences and the comedians I see in the major Canadian cities are far more diverse than what I see here in the States. And that makes for a better experience, for me and for the audience. One time I was in Toronto and within 36 hours of arriving, I had seen more Asian comedians on stage than I had seen in the previous three years in the U.S. Also, there are far more Muslim comedians up there than you will ever see in the States. The gay and lesbian comedians you see in Canada are performing in the mainstream clubs and not sequestering themselves to gay events or venues.
When I stand on stage in cities such as Toronto and Ottawa, I see people in the audiences in numbers that are rarely or ever seen in comedy clubs in the United States (with the possible exception of New York City): Sikhs, Muslims, Indians, gay couples, Asians, Native Americans, Europeans — all hanging out together and having a good time. I have a theory about why that is: Comedians up there don’t target those demographics like they do in the States. If you go to any comedy club in the States and there are turbans visible in the audience, your average straight male comedian will go after them with some stereotypical hack humor just for being there and visible. The same would also happen for gay and lesbian couples. In Canada, it’s not their get-down to pick on a minority from a position of power. Watch Canadian television and you’ll see that the casting is far more diverse and less stereotypical than what you see in the States. There is more room made for different ethnicities in the fabric of their media.
Then there’s Canadian socialized healthcare. I have no first-hand knowledge of the system, but a comedian I know suffered a heart attack while visiting Canada and spent at least a week in the hospital. And because they weren’t a Canadian citizen, they were on the hook for the medical bill, which ended up being in the neighborhood of 5,000 Canadian dollars. Is there anywhere in the USA where you could walk out of a hospital after a week’s stay, uninsured, for anything less than five or six figures? I doubt it.
I’m not saying Canada is perfect. It has some faults. Their treatment of their native indigenous populations throughout their history has been atrocious. But here’s the thing: Their current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has apologized for the injustice and it seems to be something that Canada wants to rectify. Oh, and their winters can be unforgivingly brutal.
I’m not going to pretend that there isn’t racism, crime or gun violence in Canada either, but it’s not the frothing, rabid, confrontational, daily, reflexive, epidemic-level kind we have in the States. Here’s the really important part: Canadians as a whole seem genuinely embarrassed and ashamed of the relatively scant few mass murderers, Nazis and simmering bigots they do have running loose up there.
But the USA has its finer points too, even from a Canadian perspective. For example, my Canadian friends are genuinely amazed and awestruck by the amount of relatively cheap and massively portioned food and booze we are able to shovel and pour into our eager gullets.
So yeah, there’s that.
The USA: all you can eat.