Canada Recast: Satirical Lenses with Rick Mercer and Sabrina Jalees

What is our country made of?

As Canada marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders hosts a series of onstage conversations with pairings of uniquely situated guests who will look at the country from inside and outside, from past and future, with raised eyebrows and raised fists.

March 15: Satirical Lenses with Rick Mercer & Sabrina Jalees
March 27: First and Next Canadians with Paul Martin & Wab Kinew
May 3: Alternative Futures with Drew Hayden Taylor & Camille Turner

Canada is an absurd impossibility, a cobbled-together fusion of peoples and places that often defies the laws of common sense. Perhaps that is why Canadians are pioneers in the satirical and comedic arts. This conversation brings together two of the best.

Rick Mercer, originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, is the host of the Rick Mercer Report, and a founder and veteran cast member of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Sabrina Jalees is a Los Angeles-based comedian and writer, born and raised in Toronto and known for her work on MuchMusic, the CBC, YTV, and in the Toronto Star. She has also appeared on Amazon’s Transparent and is currently a writer on NBC’s Powerless.

About Rick Mercer

Rick Mercer’s top-rated, award-winning CBC show, the Rick Mercer Report, now in its fourteenth season, features his trademark rants, hilarious (and informative) fake newscasts, commercial parodies, and comic encounters with famous Canadians, talking about Canada. Born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Mercer has won over 25 Gemini Awards for his top-rated CBC series’ The Rick Mercer Report, Made in Canada, and This Hour has 22 Minutes.

Mercer also starred in Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans, which was watched by millions, attracted attention across North America, and remains the highest-rated comedy special in Canadian history. In 2014, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Mercer is the author of three national bestsellers, Streeters, The Rick Mercer Report: The Book, and 2012’s A Nation Worth Ranting About.

About Sabrina Jalees

Sabrina Jalees is a comedian, actor, writer, and keynote speaker based in Los Angeles. A native to Toronto, Sabrina got her start on Canadian shows such as Much Music’s Video On Trial and YTV’s In Real Life. She has since gone on to appear on VH1’s Best Week Ever, MTV’s Failosophy, Comedy Central’s Adam Devine’s House Party, and The Nightly Show.

As a stand-up, she’s toured North America, England, South Africa, and performed at the prestigious Montreal Just For Laughs Festival several times. She’s appeared on Flashpoint, played a pregnant teen in Lifetime’s Mom at Sixteen, and joined the cast of Amazon’s Emmy-winning series Transparent for a very *climactic* role in its third season. She recently wrapped up a writing gig on NBC’s Crowded and is now working as a staff writer on NBC’s newest comedy, Powerless.

About Doug Saunders

Doug Saunders is the Globe and Mail’s international-affairs columnist and an author whose work focuses on cities, migration, population, and policy. A native of Hamilton, Ontario, he has reported from more than 40 countries after serving for 15 years as the Globe’s London-based European Bureau Chief and as its Los Angeles Bureau Chief. He has won the National Newspaper Award, Canada’s counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize, on five occasions.

He is the author of Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World (2010), which visits 20 cities on five continents to examine this century’s historic shift of populations from rural to urban areas, and the factors that turn immigration into a success; and The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012), which explores the effects of, and responses to, the arrival of religious-minority immigrants. Later in 2017 he will publish Maximum Canada, a book examining Canada’s crisis of underpopulation, its history, and its solutions.

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