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There is an expression in Ottawa that every member of Parliament believes they should be in cabinet and every member of cabinet thinks they should be… - Rick Mercer
" "There is an expression in Ottawa that every member of Parliament believes they should be in cabinet and every member of cabinet thinks they should be prime minister. The exception is any member of Parliament from Newfoundland. They go to bed at night thinking they should be ambassador to Ireland.
What a job it would be, lying around the fancy house in Dublin, representing the not very pressing interests of Canada in the land of your forefathers. The spare bedroom in the house would be filled with a steady stream of relatives and old high school buddies hell-bent on having a party and finding out where their great-grandparents are buried. The best Newfoundland musicians would be at the embassy, hobnobbing with their fiddle-playing Irish counterparts. The kitchen parties would be epic.
Mother Ireland. The Emerald Isle. The Land of Saints and Scholars.
She's easy on the eyes and hard on the liver.
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About Rick Mercer
Richard Vincent "Rick" Mercer (born October 17, 1969) is a Canadian comedian, television personality, political satirist, and author. He is best known for his work on the CBC Television comedy shows This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Rick Mercer Report. He is the author of four books based on content from the shows and the two part memoir consisting of Talking to Canadians (November 2021) and The Road Years (October 2023). Mercer has received more than 25 Gemini Awards for his work on television.
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Richard Vincent Mercer
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Additional quotes by Rick Mercer
What does it mean to be a Canadian? Not only is it a wildly pretentious way to start a book, it is also a question that has beguiled us since day one.
Canada has been called a lot of things. We have been called one of the world's greatest democracies. We have been called a shining beacon of hope for those fleeing tyranny. Readers of the Toronto Star will know us as an evil construct built on the shame that is colonialism.
And, of course, we have been called stunningly beautiful and a terrible place to winter.
We are nothing if not self-deprecating. We pride ourselves on not taking ourselves too seriously.
Over the last thirty years, I don't think I have ever visited Ottawa and not taken a stroll around the buildings for a gawk. If you find yourself in the nation's capital on a fine, brisk day, I recommend you walk across the Alexandria Bridge over the Ottawa River to Quebec. From there, you will get the greatest view: the back of the buildings, even more magnificent than the front, and they jut out dramatically over the river's escarpment. Also, from this angle you see the beauty that is the Parliamentary Library.
I feel about these buildings the way some people feel about sunsets. The way Justin Trudeau feels about mirrors. I can gaze at them all day.
"But legend has it that when Sir John, or JohnJohn as he was known to friends, signed the country into existence, he eloquently defined what it meant to be a Canadian. Unfortunately, the next day, crippled from the sauce, nobody could remember what it was he said. "I remember it was jolly good," said Sir Edward Barron Chandler. "Mais oui," said Sir Jean-Charles Chapais. "Magnifique!" They then had a round of straighteners and started all over again.
The answer to what it means to be Canadian was lost to the ages.
For his part Macdonald had no recollection of signing anything important, let alone saying anything profound. In fact, he only learned he'd helped form a country when he read about it in a day-old newspaper on the train home. That's a hell of a thing to find out you've done while you're nursing a hangover. Also, he was missing a shoe.
Personally, I blame this prime ministerial blackout for the fact that, 150 years later in 2004, nobody had answered the question yet."
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