Canadians are generally a pretty chill bunch, and it takes a lot to get us offended. All bets are off when you come for Quebec, though. On last week’s episode hosted by Issa Rae, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch called “Canadian News Show,†in which Bowen Yang and Kate McKinnon play Quebecois news anchors on a CBC program called “Bonjour Hi.†For those who don’t know, you really will be greeted with “bonjour/hi†when you enter many businesses in Montreal, a little dose of bilingual accommodation that offends some French Canadians so much, they want to pass a law to criminalize the addition of “hi†and make it just “bonjour.†Anyway. Bowen Yang clearly went to the Rita Baga School of Elocution to nail his French Canadian accent, while McKinnon kind of just does a French-French accent while making totally irrelevant French-French jokes about Peugeots. Furthermore, they make a joke about Montreal bagels, which are scientifically, factually, literally superior to New York bagels … but they use a Jerusalem bagel to illustrate their point. The sacrilege! It’s the inaccuracies like these that got Quebecers up in arms: The Montreal Gazette published a column calling the sketch “punishment for our sins,†and Global News took to the streets of Montreal to allow viewers to voice their dissatisfaction. The fact that the sketch (which was co-written by Canadian writer Celeste Yim, by the way) was covered this extensively in Canadian news ultimately proves the sketch’s main joke, which is that Canada has, compared to the States, some very slow news days. At least this sketch will direct search traffic away from Quebec’s own surreal, French version of SNL, which is our best-guarded secret.
Watch the SNL Sketch That Has Quebecers Going Tabarnak!
