Dave Thomas: “Harper is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to Canada.”

Dave Thomas

May 30, 2012

In a wide-ranging interview, SCTV alumnus Dave Thomas - who with Rick Moranis created the iconic Canadian characters Bob and Doug Mackenzie - says that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper is probably “the worst thing that’s ever happened to Canada.”

Thomas made the remarks on the longform interview podcast, “A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume,” (available on iTunes). http://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/dave-thomas/id305634745?i=115911961

The two and a half hour discussion ranges over Thomas’ entire life and career, including the time he spent growing up in segregated Durham, North Carolina in 1959, where his father, a philosophy professor, was working at Duke University; the family’s return to Canada, where Thomas had a career in advertising as one of Canada’s top copywriters and his move into comedy and in creating the now legendary series, SCTV.

When the discussion ranged into politics, Thomas criticizes both Obama’s inability to curb or regulate Wall Street’s excesses, as well as the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

At 1: 35: 30 into the interview, host Ken Plume says, “You can’t even say the grass is always greener, because Canada’s had a Conservative Government.”

Thomas responds, “Oh, yeah. Canada’s just such an absolute suck-up to America. This guy that’s in there right now, Harper, is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to Canada.

And where Canada had a definition and an identity at one time, with people like Pierre Elliott Trudeau, now it’s just like you’ve got this bird-eyed freak running the country - that’s just - he was in Bush’s pocket, he’s in the pockets of big business. He is the most insidiously conservative - eroding the liberties of Canadians at such an incredible rate that it would make Americans go to their cellars and get their muskets and start shooting. It’s unbelievable.”

Listen to the clip here:

http://thewhimsiad.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Dave-Thomas-A-Bit-of-Chat.mp3

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