The Ottawa Citizen has taken a length swipe at CBC satirist Rick Mercer.

Fellow Newfoundland comic and former 22 Minutes colleague Mary Walsh suggested to Maclean’s last month that Mercer has stopped being satirical, that he appears to have decided getting people outraged is no longer a smart thing to do in a conservative climate.

Mercer’s departure from that role is a sad spectacle. It is sad because political satire is such a rare and precious thing, especially at a time when there are so few satirists and so much that is satirizable. Satirists on top of their craft — think Juvenal in ancient Rome, think Jon Stewart in the U.S. — do not get cosy with their subjects, do not worry about ruffling political celebrity feathers.

In his prime, Mercer used to ruffle feathers relentlessly. But his Rick Mercer Report is no longer a sharp jab into the pomposity and self-delusion of politicians, having evolved into a celebration of The Star’s camaraderie with the pompous and self-deluded. The boyo with the rant no longer seems interested in keeping the celebs from running away with themselves. In fact, he provides the track and the shoes. Any sharp jabs he’s still capable of are reserved for non-politicians and non-celebrities who criticize him.

You can read the full article here.

What do you think of CBC’s television satire shows like the Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and The Royal Canadian Air Farce. Have they been losing their edge?

While the union many of Canada’s TV actors has told its members not to report for work today, programs like the Rick Mercer Report and the Royal Canadian Air Farce, will not be disrupted by a strike because ACTRA and CBC have an interim agreement.
     Members gave its union an overwhelming 97.6 per cent strike mandate and a limited work stoppage has begun in four provinces.
     ”Across Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, our members are being told now that they cannot report for work, unless they’re working for producers who have been engaged with ACTRA on an interim agreement,” said an ACTRA official. ACTRA is set to strike in Quebec on Wednesday, with other provinces following from there.
     Jeff Brinton of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association has said producers would seek a judge’s order to force actors to perform in the event of a mass walkout.

If it seems that this Ontario teen’s take on the Conservative government’s Kyoto action is oddly reminiscent of Rick Mercer’s trademark walkaround-rant, that’s no accident. Not only does this guy have the walk/rant down pat, he even takes a jab at the government (albeit the Liberal government, at the time) for hiring Mercer to act as a spokesperson. “Hiring a comedian for $85-grand to do basically what I’m doing right now . . . is not really helping.”

The video was produced by high school students as part of a CBC special called Making the Grade which runs on Toronto’s CBC News at Six.
     This is the second time the series is running. In the first, CBC journalist Mike Wise (who covers the Ontario provincial legislature) arranged with the three political parties to entertain ideas for private member’s bills submitted by Ontario high school students. More than 160 ideas were submitted. “After negotiating with the three parties,” Mike told InsideTheCBC.com, “We arranged to have each party introduce one bill each. They gave them first and second reading, and more importantly, gave the students and our audience a great insight into how politics works.”
     This time around, instead of ideas for bills, CBC asked students to produce short videos about the kind of change they want to see in their school, community, or province. They were told to upload the videos to a YouTube group set up by the CBC and the program intends to air them on the newscast.
     You can watch more videos at that group.

The time slot hosting The Rick Mercer Report and This Hour Has 22 Minutes is now beating the American programming it competes against every Tuesday night from 8 to 9 p.m. The St. John’s Telegram newspaper calls it “a herculean feat for Canadian programming.”

Nearly one million Canadians tuned in Tuesday night to watch Rick Mercer sleep over at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s house. Mercer’s show reached its highest ratings so far this season. The Hallowe’en night program featured Mercer in flannel pyjamas listening to Harper read him a bedtime story — the federal Accountability Act.