This week, John Oliver took on the impending Canadian national election. We should care about this, he said, because Canada is not only our largest trading partner, we share the largest common border in the world. Oliver explained that Canadians do not directly elect their Prime Minister, the Parliament does. However, Canadians do elect individuals for Parliament, which gives them some say in the matter.
The current frontrunner is liberal/progressive Justin Trudeau, son of revered ex-PM Pierre Trudeau. His main opponent is the conservative incumbent, Stephen Harper who has been in office for 10 years already thanks to Canada’s no term limits electoral system. Clearly no fan of Harper, Oliver points out that not only has he weakened Canada’s environmental protections and cut back health coverage for immigrants, earlier this year he introduced the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultures Act, which, among other things, prohibits Islamic women from wearing the Hijab when taking the oath of citizenship.
None of this is despicable as Harper’s band, Herringbone, which mercilessly tore apart “Sweet Caroline” during a Jewish National Fund’s Negev dinner in Toronto. Oliver summed up how Americans should feel about the prospect of Harper’s re-election thusly: it’s like your next door neighbor is dating a total dickhead, despite that he tells her what to wear and make her listen to his shitty band.
Oliver concluded his bit on the Canadian Election system by flouting its weirdest law: Anyone from outside of Canada who specifically told Canadians not to vote for a particular candidate can be fined $5,000 and/or six months in jail. This resulted in a bizarro grand finale/anti-Harper rally featuring a beaver playing “Sweet Caroline” on a keyboard, a Moose getting a colonoscopy courtesy of Canada’s single payer system, and Canada’s “greatest son”, Mike Myers, dressed up like a Royal Canadian Mounted Policemen and driving a snow plow. Bottom line: Canada has some stupid laws, and those laws can only be changed by a new Prime Minister. — MEGAN MATUZAK