Canada Punks Palin. Again!
25 11 2009
Last time it was two DJs from Montreal who cooked up a prank that had Sarah Palin VP candidate on the phone with someone she thought was French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Not so, much to the amusement of many.
This time it’s comedian Mary Walsh in her character ‘Marg Delahunty’ that got the last laugh. She asked Sarah Palin if she had any words of encouragement for conservative Canadians about their socialized health care.
Of course, our neighbors to the north (or in my case, to the east) are basically pretty happy with their health care system, and look at ours with even more horror and disgust than we do.
Palin strolled over, looking down on Walsh and her crew to tell them that “Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.”
“Basically, she said government should stop doing the work that private enterprise should do,” Walsh said.
In addition to those comments, Walsh said, she found it equally bizarre that no one was allowed to ask Palin any questions at the book-signing.
“It was great fun, but also very strange,” Walsh recalled.
“We’re in a bookstore, at a public event, in a place one would think was a bastion of free speech. And no one was allowed to ask questions. What are they afraid of?”
They are afraid, my Canadian friend, that she will answer them.
So, yet again Canada comes through and gives us all a chuckle. It makes me proud that I can see Canada from my house.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:45 AM
I hail from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and am a big fan of Mudflats for a while now. Thank you for your kind words about your Canadian neighbour.
Far from being a Palin fan, I am so proud of the fact we have been able to dupe the infamous crackpot from Wasilla. Our Mary Walsh is a wonderful comedian – she is such a hoot! You can’t help laugh at this latest episode as many Canadians think she is a total farce! We just keep shaking our heads in disbelief that she was so close to the Presidency. Argggg!
I’m equally a proud supporter of our health care system. And as you pointed out, more than a majority of us Canadians are. I do hope my neighbouring American friends are successful in obtaining your much improved healthcare system as we do. Keep up the fight! You are making a difference!
November 26th, 2009 at 9:54 AM
From Mary Walsh:
“In addition to those comments, Walsh said, she found it equally bizarre that no one was allowed to ask Palin any questions at the book-signing.
“It was great fun, but also very strange,” Walsh recalled.
“We’re in a bookstore, at a public event, in a place one would think was a bastion of free speech. And no one was allowed to ask questions. What are they afraid of?”
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/11/24/11913421-cp.html
November 26th, 2009 at 11:16 AM
“Gasman Says: My Canadian wife nearly coughed up her spleen when she heard Palin’s suggestions for Canadians.
So, Sarah’s brainpower has determined that Canadians should voluntarily lower their life expectancy, raise their infant mortality rate, decrease coverage, and make it more expensive, even unaffordable to as many as 40% of its citizens. Gee, I can’t figure out why the Canadians aren’t dismantling their healthcare system as we speak.”
That was too funny. Thank you. I live in Montreal and I agree the Canadian Health Care System is not perfect but I would never want to go back to the U.S. one. I lived in Las Vegas for a decade and health insurance was horrible.
What strikes me as odd is she is wanting private companies to make a profit on people’s health. Really? And nobody is calling her out of it? She is not saying they need to go private for better care or access or shorter waiting list. No. Go private so companies can turn a profit? That is disgusting.
November 26th, 2009 at 12:45 PM
Mary Walsh and Rick Mercer started on This Hour Has 22 Minutes in 1993.
The format of The Daily show is taken directly from this program.
They excelled in spoofing/pranking Canadian and American politicians, but Mercer’s “Talking to Americans” was the most popular.
Here is the YouTube link to hilarious video clips of the program:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Talking+To+Americans+Rick+Mercer&search_type=&aq=f
Rick Mercer ran the Talking to Americans interviews
asking Americans what they felt about the Russian invasion of Chechnya and Saskatchewan.
persuading Americans that Canada is getting a five-dollar coin. It would have had a maple leaf on it and it would have been called the “woodie”.
getting several Americans to say that Edmonton should be bombed.
telling residents of Chicago that Canada was considering changing its name to Chicago, and asking them what they felt about that idea.
asking if Americans should try to liberate Nelson Mandela.
persuading Americans to congratulate Canada on legalizing VCRs or adopting the 24-hour day (ex-Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack was fooled by this one).
various political controversies involving one or more Canadian provinces.
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 (one of the interview subjects so fooled was Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, of whom Mercer later stated in an interview, had asked off-camera if this was a “controversial igloo”).
(Huckabee is as dumb as Palin)
agreeing that the U.S. should bomb Saskatchewan or send ground troops into Gilles Duceppe.
having Americans congratulate Canada on legalizing insulin (although it was a Canadian who first discovered the substance).
proposing the idea that a Canadian company actually had the mining rights to Mount Rushmore due to the plutonium within (plutonium is also a synthetic element).
suggesting that when Canada would make a replica of Mount Rushmore, they might add William Howard Taft, Richard Nixon, and Brian Mulroney – at one point, a woman objected to Taft, saying that he did not best display American qualities, but she was fine with adding Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada.
congratulating Canada for getting its first university.
congratulating Canada for getting a grade 9 and a volunteer fire station.
changing the words in the Canadian Anthem and asking Americans to sing it.
congratulating Canada for officially joining North America.
congratulating Canada on reaching a population of 1,000,000, even though Canada has a population of over 30,000,000.
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 students and professors at Columbia University 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’).
congratulating Canada on legalizing the stapler.
the coronation of Svend Robinson as King Svend I.
congratulating Canada for moving the capital city from Kingston, Ontario to Toronto (the actual capital is Ottawa, and then-Vice President Al Gore failed to correct Mercer regarding Toronto being the capital).
asking university students and professors to sign a petition against the Saskatchewan seal hunt and the Toronto polar bear hunt.
asking Americans how many states Canada has (Canada has provinces and territories, not states).
wishing Canadians a “Happy Stockwell Day”.
congratulating Canadians on classifying Labrador Retrievers as elephants as to prevent them from being used for hard labour.
congratulating the newly-elected prime minister of Chinese descent.
tricking Americans into thinking that Canada did not have “high-tech” things such as airplanes, paved roads or FM radio.
asking if Canada should replace its propeller planes with jet planes.
saying that the country was allowing its Irish citizens to vote, stating that it was previously prevented by the French Canadian separatist movement.
stating that in the last 30 years Canadians did not have any election recounts because Canadians use birch branches or pine cones as voting tokens.
congratulating Canadians on offering bilingual tours of Joe Clark’s Hole.
asking if Canada should have a navy even though it is a land-locked country.
(Canada is not in fact landlocked, it has the longest coastline of any nation, having shores on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and has a navy, the Canadian Forces Maritime Command or MARCOM)
Professors at Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford University were consistently fooled by absurdities such as the “Saskatchewan seal hunt”.
The only Americans who were shown outsmarting Mercer were: a university student who spent her time laughing at him (before finally answering), and a small child who pointed out to his mother, who was also tricked, that Canada had 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”.
Bush said he looked forward to working together with his future counterpart to the north, praising free trade and Canada.
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.”
November 26th, 2009 at 2:02 PM
What arrogant gall that woman has. Imagine telling Canada now to dismantle their successful system so some privateer can make a PROFIT????!!!!
Palin Punked, could go on forever, she just doesn’t get it and never will. She is unteachable and at her age that could be a sign of early dementia – or continuing dementia – born that way and nothing will help her.
She was a special needs child with eyes that didn’t track and no one got her the special care she needed…huh? So forever after she see things all lop-sided and askew and developed her mentality to match. What the hell, hide it with glasses and go forth to destroy everything in your path…you can always claim that your life is run by God, so anything you do is what God wanted you to do…also. This makes your enemies, God’s enemies, so there na na.
November 26th, 2009 at 3:03 PM
Huffington post now has this story and the trolls are out big time defending Palin saying that she is right….Canada is going broke…bla, bla, and they can’t afford healthcare anymore…bla, bla, bla.
Mind you, these are American right wingnuts who are spewing off about Canada and things they know nothing about.
If you are Canadian, you might just wonder over there and put some truth out for those trolls to read.
November 26th, 2009 at 3:44 PM
Mary Walsh and Rick Mercer started on This Hour Has 22 Minutes in 1993.
The format of The Daily show is taken directly from this program.
They excelled in spoofing/pranking Canadian and American politicians, but Mercer’s “Talking to Americans” was the most popular.
Here is the YouTube link to hilarious video clips of the program:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Talking+To+Americans+Rick+Mercer&search_type=&aq=f
Rick Mercer ran the Talking to Americans interviews
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 (one of the interview subjects so fooled was Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, of whom Mercer later stated in an interview, had asked off-camera if this was a “controversial igloo”).
(Huckabee is as dumb as Palin)
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”.
Bush said he looked forward to working together with his future counterpart to the north, praising free trade and Canada.
November 26th, 2009 at 5:41 PM
Wow! Lots of Canucks here, eh. Without election reform, changing the healthcare system in the US is just about impossible. Too many of your politicians care more about election funding that they do about their constituents. As a Canadian, I cannot fathom how any person with the ability to support a public healthcare option which will save lives and improve the standard of living for so many can harden their heart and LIE about the situation. I am so sorry that for so many million Americans, employed or not, your lives and the future of your families are of such little value to the insurance industry and your elected officials. What is freedom or the pursuit of liberty without LIFE. I am appalled by your system and honestly Republican or Democrat, without election reform, without removing the ability of corporate American to control the way your government treats its citizens nothing, I’m sad to say, will change.
November 26th, 2009 at 6:40 PM
Unfortunately foe $’err0r, Canada’s health care has no cure for hoof in mouth disease.
Not even the insurance company owned health care of the USA can’t cure it either.
Tell ‘em, Marge!
November 26th, 2009 at 11:35 PM
It has been a very long couple of weeks and I have much catching up to do, but thanks, AKM for this line:
“They are afraid, my Canadian friend, that she will answer them.”
That was the truth and the laugh I much needed this evening.