'EXTREME WOKENESS': Bill Maher calls Canada 'a cautionary tale' for America
'There's only one problem with thinking everything's better in Canada: It's not'
Author of the article:Mark Daniell
Published Apr 15, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 5 minute read
Bill Maher
Bill Maher has warned liberals about being the ideological "gas pedal" in politics.
Bill Maher took aim at Canada calling the country a “cautionary tale” and warning that its embrace of “extreme wokeness” is forcing voters to the right.
During a monologue last week on Real Time With Bill Maher, the late-night personality compared Canada to America and carefully demonstrated how high unemployment, unchecked immigration, skyrocketing debt and lack of productivity are seeing the country falling further and further behind its G7 counterparts.
“If we want to save our country, we should learn from other progressive nations and pump the brakes on extreme wokeness,” Maher wrote in a caption that accompanied a clip posted to YouTube.
“If we want to save our country, we should follow the advice good liberals have given for decades and learn from other countries. Especially those beacons of progressivism like Canada, England and Scandinavia, and I agree we should, as long as we’re honest about the lessons we’re learning and as long as we’re up to date on the current data,” Maher began his eight-minute warning.
Maher then compared the unemployment rate in America (3.8%) and Canada (6.1%), and revealed that his neighbours to the north has more cities with worse air pollution than in the U.S.
He was careful to say he wasn’t trying to pick on Canada. “I love Canada and its people,” Maher said. “But I hate zombie lies. That’s when things change, but what people say about them doesn’t.”
For decades, Vancouver “seemed idyllic,” he said. But that’s no longer the case.
“Canada was where all the treasured goals of liberalism worked perfectly. It was like NPR come to life, but with poutine,” he quipped.
“Canada was the Statue of Liberty with a low-maintenance haircut and cross-country skis, a giant idealized blue state with single-payer health care, gun control and abortion on polite demand. Canada was where every woke White college kid wearing pajama pants outdoors who had it up to here with America’s racist patriarchy dreamt of living someday. I mean, besides Gaza,” Maher joked as his audience broke into laughter.
“There’s only one problem with thinking everything’s better in Canada: It’s not. Not anymore, anyway. Last year, Canada added 1.3 million people, which is a lot in one year — the equivalent of the U.S. adding 11 million migrants in one year. And now, they’re experiencing a housing crisis even worse than ours and we’re sleeping in tents. The median price of a home here is $346,000. In Canada converted to U.S. dollars, it’s $487,000. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn’t be able to afford her dream house and Ken would be working at Tim Hortons.”
Last month, the Canadian Press reported that people in Ontario and British Columbia increasingly missed payments on mortgages and credit cards in the fourth quarter of 2023, citing stats from Equifax Canada.
In Ontario, the mortgage delinquency rate was up 135.2% compared with a year earlier, while B.C.’s rate rose by 62.2%.
“It definitely is a worrying trend,” Rebecca Oakes, vice-president of advanced analytics at Equifax Canada, told CP.
Maher noted that because of mortgage debt, “Canada has the highest debt to GDP ratio of any G7 nation.”
He then took aim at the country’s “vaunted health-care system.”
“(It) ranks dead last among high income countries, and access to primary health care, and the ability to see a doctor in a day or two. And it’s not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13% of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care. Look, I’m not saying Canada still isn’t a great country, it is, but those aren’t paradise numbers. If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be: ‘America adjacent.'”
With his audience breaking into gales of laughter, and one of his guests, Piers Morgan, also started to grin, Maher continued.
“Honestly Canada, I’m not saying any of this because I enjoy it. I don’t because I’ve always enjoyed you. But I need to cite you as a cautionary tale to help my country. And the moral of that tale is yes, you can move too far left,” Maher warned. “And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right. At its worst, Canada is what American voters think happens when there’s no one putting a check on extreme wokeness,” he said, citing Ontario trans teacher Kayla Lemieux, who went viral worldwide after images circulated of the instructor wearing massive prosthetic breasts in the classroom.
When it comes to showing proof her Z-cup breasts are real, controversial teacher Kayla Lemieux says the public is going to have to take her word for it, writes columnist Joe Warmington..
Oakville Trafalgar High School teacher Kayla Lemieux in shop class. Twitter
“What about the children?” Maher asked. “Who says, ‘When it comes to huge, ridiculous t—, let’s save that for the kids?’ … This is why people vote for Trump.”
“They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal, and conservatives are the brakes, and I’m generally with the gas pedal, but not if we’re driving off a cliff,” he said.
Jumping to immigration, he cited Sweden opening its borders to “over a million and a half immigrants since 2010” which led to “20%” of its citizens being foreign born, its education system “tanking,” and Europe’s leader in “gangland killings.”
“One result is that the far-right parties are in the government now there for the first time. To which liberals say blaming immigrants for the rising crime rate is racist. Yeah, but is it true? Of course it’s true. It’s not a coincidence the quality of life went down after the Somali gangs started a drug turf war using hand grenades. Calling it racist doesn’t solve the problem. It hands future elections to someone who will solve the problem and who I promise you’re not going to like,” he said, flashing a photo of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“I’m a college educated Canadian, who works 40 hours per week in a white collar job, and I can’t afford to live in the country I was born in. Tough to date from your mom’s basement. America, do not go down the road we went… Bill is not wrong,” one person commented on YouTube.
“Eight years of Trudeau destroyed this country,” another added.
On X, Maher’s comments went viral, drawing nearly 42 million views and nearly 5,000 comments with many calling the TV personality’s assessment spot on.
“He’s 100% correct. This current government is running our country into the ground,” Canadian human rights campaigner Yasmine Mohammed wrote. “When I left four years ago, everyone abroad was so surprised ‘but Canada is so great’ ya, no. It’s great at propaganda. It’s hanging on to ‘zombie lies’. We were great. I hope we will be again.”
mdaniell@postmedia.com
Bill Maher took aim at Canada as being a "cautionary tale" saying the country's embrace of "extreme wokeness" is forcing voters to the right.
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