A message from the alley... pic.twitter.com/rMnDIEqjmd
— Rick Mercer (@rickmercer) September 25, 2017
The idea of the CBC Tuesday night lineup not being lead off by the Rick Mercer Report feels like a gigantic hole. This is the last season for the program that debuted on CBC in 2004.
Rick Mercer was one of the founding members of This Hour Has 22 Minutes in 1993. Mercer spent 8 years on that show. His other show Made in Canada ran from 1998-2003.
Mercer is known for his rants in the alley. You can find them on YouTube. The video above is when he announced his farewell but that is the famous alley for the rants.
He also made a name for himself with Talking to Americans, though he hasn't done that in over 16 years.
The last episode of the Rick Mercer Report airs April 10. 2018. Whatever Mercer wants to do, Canadians are sure to follow. You will be missed on a weekly basis.
NAFTA talks head to Canada in Ottawa
CanadianCrossing.com Canadian politics coverage
219.63%
Boeing wanted a 79% tariff against Bombardier over the C-Series commercial jet into the United States. The U.S. Department of Commerce gave a 219.63% tariff instead.
The response was over Delta ordering 75 C-Series jets from Bombardier. What makes this scenario even more ridiculous is that Boeing doesn't even have a comparable product, so the idea that Boeing is being hurt by this move is literally not true.
The U.S. Commerce Department added another 79.82% tariff against Bombardier's C-Series jet on Friday.
The U.S. argument is that Bombardier is subsidized by the government. But the U.S. system is different in that tax breaks are the subsidies, not direct government support. Either way, companies are subsidized.
The U.S. International Trade Commission will issue a final judgment on the tariffs in early 2018. Canada has several remedies and should win any case. But the proposed tariffs will have a short-term financial impact on Bombardier and its workers.
"We won't do business with a company that's busy trying to sue us and trying to put our aerospace workers out of business," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. At stake is a sole-source purchase of Boeing Super Hornet jet fighters.
One ally in the Bombardier corner is British Prime Minister Theresa May. Wings from the planes are made in Northern Ireland in crucial ridings for May's slim majority in Parliament.
We don't take sides in trade battles since no country is free of faults on trade. But when there is egregious nonsense in a trade decision, it might seem like we are picking sides just because the decision is so ridiculous.
In the meantime, the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) kicked in last month with tariffs being reduced to zero. Trudeau and May talked about the start of a potential Canada-United Kingdom deal that would kick in once Brexit happens.
Trudeau heads to Washington tomorrow for NAFTA discussions.
CanadianCrossing.com MLB coverage
The Toronto Blue Jays finished 76-86, 17 games out of the American League East. Thanks to a win on the final day of the season, the Blue Jays finished in 4th place. Toronto was 42-39 at home but 34-47 on the road.
We don't know if Jose Bautista will come back, but Marco Estrada will return.
The Jays need a leadoff hitter, preferably a second baseman or a right fielder (if Bautista leaves). Teoscar Hernandez has looked good in a September callup after being acquired from the Houston Astros, but Hernandez isn't the answer in the top spot in the batting order.
If you need a sense of hope for 2018, the Blue Jays will be back in Montréal March 26-27 at Olympic Stadium for exhibition games against the St. Louis Cardinals. This is the 5th year for the Montréal preseason series: previous opponents have been the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Red Sox, and Pittsburgh Pirates.
The previous games have run Friday and Saturday. With the MLB season starting on a Thursday, the Cardinals series will run on a Monday and Tuesday. The attendance might spike as a result but we will see come March.
CanadianCrossing.com film coverage
The 2017 Chicago International Film Festival has 3 Canadian films on its 2017 schedule, 0 of them in French. The festival will feature Black Cop, Never Steady, Never Still, and A Moon of Nickel and Ice.
Black Cop was a film coming out of TIFF that I was very excited to see. Never Steady, Never Still was a film I was aware of but not as excited to watch. A Moon of Nickel and Ice is a film that I had not known and doesn't have any visible Canadian content; the film is a documentary set in Norilsk, Russia.
We'll have updates from the first 2 films in the weeks to come, especially before the annual trip to Windsor. The Chicago International Film Festival runs October 12-26. The 2017 Windsor International Film Festival runs October 30-November 5.
Twitter capture: @RickMercer
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