PEERING INTO THE DARK SIDE
Brown’s Canadaland podcasts, book and live show target our most cherished institutions, from John A. MacDonald to Justin Bieber. Even the polite Canadian stereotype gets a reality check
If The Vinyl Café created the template for mild-mannered Canadian storytelling, juggernaut podcast Canadaland is here to completely upend convention with iconoclasm, cursing, heckling and yelling.
“I don’t have a passive audience and I would expect no less,” said Canadaland founder Jesse Brown, who is on a cross-country tour in support of his new book, The Canadaland Guide to Canada.
The tour lands in Montreal at the Rialto Hall on Saturday.
“Telling tarsands jokes in Edmonton, I was worried whether I’d get out alive, but everyone seems to know what they’re getting into, and it’s been a good time,” Brown said. “It’s a roast, really.”
In Canadaland’s crosshairs, as far as the book and live show are concerned, are our most cherished institutions, from John A. MacDonald to Justin Bieber. Even the polite Canadian stereotype gets a reality check.
With the federal government going full bore with celebrations for 150 years since Confederation, now is the opportune time to riposte tacky jingoism with a critical re-assessment of our nation’s history.
“The impression I get is people aren’t thinking about (Canada 150),” Brown said. “It’s half a billion dollars just from the government. Then every company, bank and Roots are trying to market the hell out of this thing and it’s a complete circle jerk where the government is promoting Labatt 50, which isn’t even a Canadian brewery anymore. As long as you put a happy maple leaf on your brand, right?
“Billions are being spent trying to get Canadians to have patriotic erections. But God bless Canadians, they don’t like patriotism, and most people are walking right past this stuff. We’re not patriotic, and that’s great. It’s my favourite thing about Canadians.”
This is familiar territory for the podcast, which has been looking to tell Canada’s unheard stories since 2013, and has since expanded into a mini-media empire of free content primarily funded by voluntary donations. Canadaland comprises four weekly programs, which form Canada’s most popular podcast network, six full-time employees, a stable of paid freelancers and a news website known for breaking its own stories.
Not bad for a project that began as a longtime journalist’s bone of contention with the Canadian media bubble.
“A lot of people responded to it, not just because they agree with me, but because there was a spark of hope that we could finally shake things up,” Brown recalled.
“We could finally have real, urgent conversations that aren’t guarded and boring about our actual lives, institutions, organizations and culture.”
There are plenty of recent examples of how Canadian media has changed since Canadaland joined the fray, from the swift resignation of Walrus editor-in-chief Jonathan Kay for his part in the “Appropriation Prize” late-night Twitter fiasco, to Andrew Potter stepping down from his position at McGill following a controversial article about Quebec’s “social malaise” in Maclean’s.
Brown is proud of the diverse set of voices Canadaland has welcomed aboard, but is also quick to credit Twitter as being the true soapbox where academics, journalists, firebrands, radicals and funny people share equal footing.
“A lot of the tumult and public drama playing out in Canadian media are very much post-Canadaland episodes,” Brown said.
“These are things that weren’t talked about five years ago. They didn’t get people fired or even held accountable. It was all on the hush, and there was a much clearer divide between who had the microphone and who didn’t.”
Brown is no stranger to being on the receiving end of criticism for his words. For instance, there was a Potter-themed episode titled Quebec is Butthurt Again.
“I didn’t feel like apologizing for everything I said, and we could’ve done some things differently, but everything is an opportunity to open ourselves up more and dig deeper,” Brown said.
Upsetting people, he admitted, can be a source of inspiration.
“We talked a lot about how misunderstood Quebec is,” he said. “I’m not trying to heal the world; I’m trying to tell stories. Quebec is filled with fascinating personalities. There’s money, celebrity and power in a way that’s more dramatic than elsewhere in Canada, and we were wondering about whether we should tell more of these stories to the rest of Canada, breaking the solitudes.
“The response was an overwhelming yes.”
Telling tarsands jokes in Edmonton, I was worried whether I’d get out alive, but everyone seems to know what they’re getting into, and it’s been a good time. It’s a roast, really.