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Headshot of me wearing red lipstick Kara Babcock

How I'll get through this government

I have discovered how I will get through the next six months. Or year. Or two years. However long it is until Stephen Harper tries to get a majority again. I will watch CBC comedy news shows.

What would I ever do without The Rick Mercer Report or This Hour Has 22 Minutes?!

For my American friends, The Rick Mercer Report is similar to The Colbert Report. Mercer does a lot less in-studio, however, and has more clips where he goes out and meets people, politicians((Yes, I am implying what you think I'm implying)), goes to schools, and gets naked.((Really. But I won't tell you any more than this, because now you'll waste half an hour searching the Internet to find out. Muwahahahaha!)) He has a regular photo challenge on his site where anyone can edit a photo he posts, and he'll put them up in his gallery.

I don't know what the American equivalent of This Hour Has 22 Minutes is. You've got a cast of news anchors who know no boundaries in "reporting" current events. When I was younger, I grew up on Royal Canadian Air Farce; I didn't watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes much. However, as Air Farce declined, I started watching 22 Minutes more and more, and now I watch it exclusively. Some of their sketches are quite creative. And they are Canadian, so obviously Canadian. It's wonderful.

There's clips (pretty much full episodes broken down by sketch) for both the Mercer Report and 22 Minutes on their respective CBC websites. Not sure if non-Canadians can watch them, but it's worth a try if you're interested.

These sort of political commentary shows, in both Canada and America, can do something regular news corporations cannot: they don't have to impartial! And that makes it so much more fun. Moreover, these comedians can poke and pry into issues that might be too sensitive or not "politically correct" enough for the evening news. Whether or not you agree with these comedians' perspectives or laugh at their jokes, they do us a great service in a society where freedom of speech is eternally at risk.