Rick Mercer talks about the federal election, the importance of voting, and coming to Ottawa on November 2nd.
For the first time in 26 years, we do not have Rick Mercer’s rants on the Rick Mercer Report to help us make sense of (or get relief from) the turmoil of what is a federal election. But, says Mercer, that doesn’t mean he isn’t ranting. “Oh I’m ranting. No wonder there’s not a noise complaint from the neighbours.”
Mercer still has just as much to say as he did on his 15 seasons of RMR. He is, and has always been a huge advocate for a legal voting age of 16. And after asking his opinion on the federal election, it was clear that he still has no time for political antics, especially the ones we say during October 7th’s debate.
“I think that the format was atrocious. It just didn’t work. But sadly what you see now, and this is all of the leaders – I believe this is all of their strategy – they’re just looking for the sound bite that will air on the news the next day or the day after that. So this is why right out of the gate, Andrew Sheer just started calling Justin Trudeau names. Which is technically not what you’re supposed to do that in a debate. (Laughs) You’re not supposed to say ‘You are a phony’ ‘You are a fraud’. That’s not in any rules in any debate anywhere. And it actually comes across as rude but, they crunched the numbers and said well, its fine, we’ll look rude but this will be a clip that gets aired on the news for the next couple of days. It’s a win win for us.”
In the interview, he also took on those who don’t vote, especially those who say that they don’t like any of the candidates. A notion that is not so hard to understand.
“Well I always think that not voting is really a mistake. The main reason people give for not voting is they say because it doesn’t matter, or they’re all the same. Well that is never true for any election: municipal, provincial, federal. There is always a huge difference and this election is no different. Andrew Sheer and Justin Trudeau. Other than the fact that they are both white guys, the similarities pretty much end there. They have a completely different idealogical perspective, and they’re very different and their governments would be incredibly different. Likewise for the other candidates, I don’t want to dismiss them. Because although I make the point that the chance of any of them becoming Prime Minister is next to zero, the chances of any one of those people being very powerful in a minority government are very high. Any one of those people could have huge impact on the next government. So yes, people should absolutely vote.
I think people who don’t vote, they should, instead of coming up with some other excuse, should just say “I’m too lazy to vote”. (Laughs)
Okay well, thats the only excuse I’ll take.”
Mercer comes to Ottawa on November 2nd as the host of the Just For Laughs Comedy Night in Canada starring Ivan Decker, Debra DiGiovanni and Ali Hassan, where he will be doing some stand-up and introducing some other great Canadian comedians.
