Generosity flows through Canada, says Rick Mercer
Grape Grower’s luncheon featured comedian
For 15 years on the highway, travelling across Canada from the far north to Niagara’s vineyards, Rick Mercer says he was trying to answer a single question.
What does it mean to be a Canadian?
He’s tried to answer that question by watching the first territorial elections in Nunavut, by playing ball hockey in the Prime Minister’s residence, by jumping from planes, visiting factory floors and getting Pierre Berton to roll a joint for the nation.
But the question remains as elusive today as it did 15 years ago when the famed comedian launched The Rick Mercer Report on the CBC.
“I don’t know what it means to be Canadian, but I know when I see it, and I know when I hear it,” said Mercer, speaking before the more than 500 people who squeezed into the ballroom at Club Roma in St. Catharines Wednesday for the annual Grape Growers of Ontario celebrity luncheon. “I never answered the question about what it means to be a Canadian, but I came to the conclusion that I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”
Mercer spoke for over an hour about his career in television, the origin of his iconic show and how
he crisscrossed the nation to show viewers parts of Canada they might not otherwise see. Over that time and distance, he said he saw that despite sometimes radical regional differences, Canadians are bound by some shared values, including a “river of generosity” that flows through the country and drives people to help others in need.
Mercer said Canada is a difficult country explore. It is so vast, with so many out of the way places, that a person could spend a lifetime travelling the nation and still not see it all.
“I like to think of myself as a modern day voyager, but you know, voyagers were a bit different. They travelled exclusively by canoe,” he said. “I’m like that, except I travel by Air Canada.”
When he told people his job was to travel across the country and he asked what the best way to do it was, he got an answer familiar to many Canucks.
“What’s the best way to travel across Canada? Cut through the United States,” he said. “How’s that for national pride?”
Mercer said he pitched the
Rick Mercer Report to CBC as a show so unapologetically Canadian that non-Canadians wouldn’t be able to follow what was going on. The network loved the idea, and for the next 15 years, Mercer’s show became a staple for Canadian viewers.
“When we launched the show I decided to take a shot at answering that age-old question ‘What does it mean to be Canadian?’ Because that’s the thing with Canadians when you ask that question. We had a royal commission on what it means to be a Canadian, they spent $25 million, produced 18 phone books and they never answered the question,” he said. “So I said I was going to take a shot at answering it.”
The event was also the official announcement Chris Van de Laar has been named the 2018 Grape King, following in the footsteps of his father Peter Van de Laar, who was the 1985 king.
“We are thrilled to have Chris serve as the 2018 Grape King and act as the ambassador for our industry for the next year,” said Grape Growers of Ontario chair Matthias Oppenlaender.
Van de Laar is a third generation farmer and was officially crowned Grape King at his family’s Niagara-on-the-Lake vineyard after the luncheon.