The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - At The Beaverton, Politics Is a Laughing Matter

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

For 15 years, the satirical news outlet has been skewering Canadian politics and culture, amassing a loyal following. How does the country's "most trusted, least accurate news source" manage to find the humour in grim times, and what serious lessons can we learn from comedy? We discuss with co-founder and editor-in-chief Luke Gordon Field and contributing writer Clare Blackwood. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies. It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. For 15 years, the satirical news outlet The Beaverton has been skewering Canadian politics and culture, amassing a loyal following. How does the country's most trusted, least accurate news source manage to find the humour in grim times?

And what serious lessons can we learn from comedy? Joining us to discuss are co-founder and editor-in-chief, Luke Gordon-Field, and contributing writer Claire Blackwood. It's great to have you two here. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. OK, Luke, let's get into it. 15th anniversary now, right? Yeah. 15th, so how did this thing get started in the first place?

Oh, well, it got started with a brilliant guy named Laurent Noonan, who's unfortunately no longer with us, who decided Canada needed this and that there was, you know, so much great satire happening in this country, but nothing like what the onion was doing in the United States and that that kind of like biting take no-prisons approach would work well here despite our polite sensibilities and there was a lot of doubt at first and basically he started with no money, no anything, and he just started dressing up in a beaver tuxedo and walking around Toronto handing out hard copies of our paper like a full lunatic

and walking around Toronto handing out hard copies of our paper like a full lunatic. And somehow the thing caught on, and we're here 15 years later, and I'm old. Excuse me, how old are you exactly? I'm 38. I'm about to be 39. You're about to be 39, and you think that's old? I mean.

That's interesting. I've got socks older than you, OK? I'm never the youngest person at the table. How nice. But you are today. I am today. How lovely. Wow, OK.

I mean, was there an inspiration for this thing when he started it? Yeah, I think it was just really wanting to see the kind of satire that he and I, because I joined just a few months later, he and I grew up loving. And as great as some of the Canadian examples were, like Air Force 22, et cetera, we hadn't seen some of the kind of approach

that The Daily Show and The Onion were doing in the United States. Canadian examples were like Air Force 22, et cetera. We hadn't seen some of the kind of approach that The Daily Show and The Onion were doing in the United States. And so we thought, you know, why not try it here? We were in the comedy scene in Toronto. It was a bunch of, you know, just idiots trying to make each other laugh. At first, we met at a pub behind Honest Eds

that gave us 10% off chicken wings, which is a very old sentence, because I said Honest Eds and existing. But so, you know, it was just really an excuse for all of us to get together and try and make each other laugh with the, you know, kind of outlandish dream that maybe someone other than our friends and family would one day read the thing. And you know, a few thousand articles later, here we are. There we are, 15 years later.

How did you get attached to this? I got attached because I'd loved the Beaverton a while, and a friend of mine saw the show. Well, he's now a friend of mine, and he complimented my show. And I said, hey, I know you write for the Beaverton. How do I get in? How do I get my foot in the door there? And he kindly offered to help. He was like, give me some headlines.

I will pitch them to my editors at my pitch meeting. And he did, and they liked them. And I came in for a meeting meeting and then the rest is history. What do you like about it? I, okay, I like yelling at politicians for money. I think that's the simplest answer. I like making jokes. I like making people laugh.

I like, like nothing makes me happier than when somebody posts an article I've written and I'm like, hey, this made my day. I was having a really bad day. This made me laugh. Thank you very much. And I like skewering people in power who really can't say anything about it. Deep down, do you love and respect them, actually?

That's a fun question. Some, some of them. I think I can lovingly skewer people, and then I can skewer people, and then I can skewer people with hatred. OK. Name names. Who's in the love category, who's in the hate category?

Oh, boy. OK. Well, let's just say Pierre lost his riding last night, and I am thrilled. Harsh. Rough room. Rough room. Harsh.

How about you? You love the, I mean, at the end of the day, do you love and respect them? No, I don't love and respect any of them. I mean, to love a politician is asking to be hurt and let down. It's like loving a rock star or a celebrity. And we're like, I can't believe Dave Grohl did that. Yeah, you can. He's a rock star.

He's going to do what he did. And politicians are the same. They're always going to let you down. To love and adore them is, I think, a fool's errand. The goal should be you can respect them, but you should always try and hold them to a cap. And comedy can be one very silly way to do that, and that's the approach I take.

So I can't think of any politician I love myself. Just to let you know, I'm a Sinatra guy, okay? And you just dropped Dave Grohl's name. And I know there are lots of people that think Paken has no idea who that is, and they may be right. So I'm gonna take, I'm gonna do a little, I'm gonna get, is this Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl? Yes, that is who he is.

Okay, I passed the test there. You did great. And if you know the story I was referring to, we don't need to talk about it. Okay, that's pushing it. I don't know the story. Generally speaking, Claire, what makes for a good target for your satire? In my opinion, it's who's in power,

who has control over somebody else. That's the art of punching up versus punching down, right? And so you want to punch down on the people who deserve it, and generally those people are those trying to punch down in the most vulnerable, essentially. So you want to punch up, actually? Yeah, well, I want to... You want to punch at people who are powerful

who are above the rest of us? Yeah, like you want to skewer them because of what they're doing to people who don't have a say. I see, okay. So when you just punched down on Pierre Poliev, that was very unfair of you, wasn't it? He doesn't have power anymore.

Mm-mm, oh, he still has power. He's going to stick around. We don't know how long, but. What do you think? What makes the best targets for your satire? I think everything Clear said is great. I would also just add hypocrisy. When you have someone who is, you know, taking, you know, standing on a soapbox lecturing

the rest of us and then it comes out that, you know, they're completely doing the opposite of what they said and they're, you know, the emperor has no clothes, et cetera, et cetera. That, I think, makes a great target. And the great thing about that is that spans across the political ideology. You don't have to be left or right to have that. We're all hypocrites, excuse me, and politicians even more so.

How do you have enough material to work with because there's so little hypocrisy in politics these days, you know? You know what, between politics and the media, I mean, somehow we scrape by. Very good. OK, let's see. You want to bring this up, Sheldon?

We've got to show this graphic here, because your headlines are circulated on social media. And there's a bunch of them there. Pauliev rushed to safety after actual journalist question makes it past security. Ah, I get what the joke is there. OK. Mark Carney questions why

struggling young Canadians not setting up offshore tax havens. That's a good one. We tried to write a debate analysis but Jagmeet Singh kept interrupting us. I think I'm aware of what that's a reference to. Green Party threatens to keep adding co-leaders until they're allowed to participate in debates again. I will say that one was mine. Yeah, that's a good one. That's very funny, kids. All right, so let's follow up. What makes for a good headline, Claire? I think it immediately gets the point of view of the writer

across, because I think a lot of times, people don't read the actual article. And so it has to be snappy. It has to be punchy. It has to be like, ah, I know what this is going to be about. And then you lure people in with the headline and they hope, you hope that they read your jokes that you've lovingly crafted in the article itself. But yeah, it's just like, what's the target?

What's a funny little joke that you can throw in? What's the comedy math of it all? And then you just put it out there and hope that people go for it. Well that's what I want to find out about now. Luke, when you put it out there, I want to know if you hear back from the actual people you're skewering in one of two ways. Do they get back to you and say,

that was really funny, good shot? Or do they get back to you and say, that made me cry, you're so not nice, you people. We usually hear from, when we're talking about powerful people, it's usually not them directly. It's usually like an underling who's like, hey, we really laughed at that in the office. But we didn't want to tell the boss about it.

So we've heard from Trudeau's people that every once in a while he's gotten a chuckle out of ours and also been pissed off at ours from time to time, excuse my language. We've definitely heard, my favorite story is that one of the things that kind of launched us from, like I said, a completely unknown entity to a somewhat known entity was we wrote a viral article

about Chris Hadfield coming back. We came back from space because he'd been tweeting and posting videos to this massive Rogers data bill for a roaming bill, ha ha. So we thought, oh, funny little joke. It went viral around the world, and a lot of people thought it was real. And so we heard from his social, not his social media team,

his PR people that everywhere, for a year or two, everywhere he went after that, people would come up to him and say, like, I'm so sorry about that his social, not his social media team, his PR people that everywhere for a year or two, everywhere he went after that, people would come up to him and say like, I'm so sorry about that phone bill, man. So he took that in great spirits, because that was the best. So he wasn't mad about it at all, but I do regret the inconvenience we caused,

even though it was very important to us, to have that kind of success. But yeah, so there's been fun elements. And then of course there's, you know, some lawsuit threats here and there too. Is that right? Oh, of course. Yeah. Really?? I mean it's supposed to be funny. Yeah it's always just businesses because businesses have no sense of humor as

entities so it's never anything that's gone anywhere so it's it's it's fun to laugh about but yeah there's definitely been ones where people are like you know we're gonna sue you and I go all right and then they don't. They love to kind of just go slander libel all that kind of stuff, and throw those words out as if we're going to be intimidated by it. And I'm like, do you know how many people at the Beaverton are also lawyers? You guys aren't lawyers.

I am. You're a lawyer. Yeah. You are a lawyer. I know. So you are actually able to say to them, excuse me, I know a little bit about the law, and you don't worry me too much.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't practice anymore, really. But back in the day, I was a litigation lawyer. So it was always fun to be like, all right, you can contact me at this law firm and serve your statement of claim any time. I'll accept on behalf of the company. And yeah, people tend to shrink a little bit

when they hear that. Right. Claire, the world is a very unhappy place these days. So in some respects, we need you more than ever because there's so much death, destruction, and misery all over the place. is a very unhappy place these days. So in some respects, we need you more than ever because there's so much death, destruction, and misery all over the place. And I wonder how or whether that makes your job more difficult

and whether you ever have those moments where you think, this just may cross the line because it's just too much. I think you're right. There's a lot going on to be sad about, and I think almost, I don't think it makes my job harder, I think it makes it more important, I think art is more important than ever,

I think comedy's more important than ever. If anything, it galvanizes me to write more, to create more, because like I said, if I can give someone a laugh, sometimes that's all that matters. I think satire is very important. It can serve a lot of purposes, but sometimes you just need a laugh in your day

when the world is on fire. So I mean, that's basically how I feel about it. Is anything off limits? No. No. Nothing's off limits? No, there's just things that you have to be considerate about more than others.

If you're gonna make a joke about Tim Horton's food sucking, not that big a deal. If you're going to make a joke about something really tragic or tumultuous in the world, you have to think about it a lot more and you have to have more eyes on it to make sure you're, as Claire said, punching up, not punching down and walking the right path. But there's no subject that's off limits. I always kind of look at it as like, I agree, I don't think anything's ever off limits. It's just sometimes I have to ask myself myself am I the right person to make this joke I think that's always it you can make jokes about everything it's just who

gets to make the joke and why. You gotta push back a little on that I like the Russia Ukraine war you guys would go there? Of course we can't make fun of Putin yeah that's too that's too harsh I'm not gonna make fun of innocent Ukrainians being bombed by Russia but we we can't make fun of Putin. I mean, you know, there's absurdities in everything. I mean, there's so many great dark comedies about war. I mean, yes, there's tragedies too, but there's great comedies. I mean, Catch-22 is one of the funniest books ever written, and it's about the absurdity of the military and the absurdity of war. So, you know, there's comedy in everything. It's just, and sometimes the darkest subject matter

makes the best comedy. I was watching Blackadder the other day, and I'm like, this is a satire of war as well. And it's dark as heck. But like, yeah, absolutely. It's just, who do you punch up? Let's talk about Putin. Let's talk about his actions.

Let's talk about who is funding that war. That's who we attack. Do you try to be nonpartisan? No. No. I don't think that's helpful. I think, especially with the Beaverton, I think we skewer everybody.

So then you are in some respect. Well, yeah, but I think each individual headline has its own bias. I think comedy without a point of view is boring. I think art without a point of view is boring. I think art without a point of view is boring. And so I don't think we can come at political topics from a completely neutral standpoint. I think you can try, but at the end of the day,

satire comes from truth. And there's, most of the time, an objective truth about something. So is that to say you will have one particular politician or party in your sight lines more than others? Is that fair to say? I would say one party gives us more material to work with. OK.

But also, I relish that, oh, no, I'm not going to show my hand too early. But like, I think, that, oh, no, I'm not going to show my hand too early. But we're always more than happy to, god, we make fun of the liberals all the time. Yeah, I think, I mean, you read our headlines, and obviously we took on all the parties there. You did.

Except for the block, but that would probably not translate too well into French. But the issue with, as Claire said, the issue with trying to be, to use the Fox News term, fair and balanced, is that at the end of the day, if you try and just be everything to everyone, you're nothing to anyone. So we are who we are, we have a point of view. But I will say, there are writers of the Beaver Team

who absolutely have a point of view that's far more right wing than mine, that are conservative leaning. And I don't sifle their point of view. As long as the joke's good, I'm for it. But my point of view, I'm never going to pretend that I'm, oh, yeah, you know, I'm right in the middle. No, I'm a full lefty.

So that's who I am. You guys have a lot more fun skewering the conservatives than you do anybody else. That's fair to say. Yes. Yeah. And you don't apologize for that. No.

I don't see the point. You know, I'm not going to start writing headlines about, you know, making fun of trans people just to keep things fair and balanced on both ends. I don't see the point, you know, I'm not going to start writing headlines about, you know, making fun of trans people just to keep things fair and balanced on both ends. I don't see the point in that and I think that does way more harm than good. Well that gets back to your punching up versus punching down. Yes, exactly. There we go.

Okay. Why is there not, in which case, more sort of conservative leaning satire in Canada? I mean, Canadian conservatism has traditionally been something that defends institutions, that defends order, that defends peace, order, and good government, right? The old Toryism that dominated for so long until arguably recent years.

And comedy defending institutions and defending order and defending the things we hold dear is inherently pretty weak. You can have comedy that's very edgy, that goes after the left, and I would argue that, as Claire was just saying, would often be punching down, but you do see it, and you're starting to see it more.

I don't think there's any equivalence in Canada yet to like a Babylon Bee, which is a very right-wing satirical website in the United States that does what the onion does, but from a Christian conservative perspective. But I don't think it would necessarily fail here. I think there is a market for that. If someone wants to start it, they should feel free.

I will not be doing that with my time, but that's just because that's not my point of view. But I don't think there's any reason it can't succeed. It's just that traditional conservatism in Canada, I don't think, leads well to comedy. But the poly-air, poly-ev, excuse me, edge of conservatism, I think comedy and memes and what Canada Proud does, for example, I think it is heading in that direction. So I wouldn't be shocked if you see something like that soon.

Yeah. I think, I just find, because like you said, I mean, we welcome conservative headlines. Absolutely. Nobody is better at attacking the left than the left. And I think there's so much the conservatives just on that point alone could skewer the left. And I think there's so much the conservatives, just on that point alone, could skewer the left for. But I find that so much of the time, conservative and right-wing, they're different, but their sides are the same coin. Right-wing comedy tends to be more focused on attacking than actually making a solid point. Like you were talking about the Babylon Bee, they have two jokes. It's, my pronouns are blank and I identify as blank. That doesn't help.

That doesn't, what are you trying to say? That's a cute line. That's a cute line. Come on. And they've done 6,000 articles. Yeah, and they just make the same two jokes over and over and over again. Okay, well we should do some, I'm not going to say serious analysis because I don't want that from you, but we should do some analysis about last night's election.

Nuts. Darn it. Now I think, you know, obviously I was flipping around last night and caught a lot of the channels and saw all of their very serious earnest analysis of what Canadians decided last night. I'm looking for a somewhat different take from the folks from the Beaverton. So okay Claire as you were watching the returns come in last night, what was either intriguing, amusing, you? Oh okay well I love the fact that they called the election pretty much eight What was either intriguing, amusing, you? Oh, OK.

Well, I love the fact that they called the election pretty much eight minutes after the polls closed. We were sitting there being like, oh, man, it's going to be hours. We're not going to know. And they're just like, well, liberals won. And we're like, oh, god. OK, great.

You know what I'm happy about? I'm happy that we're going to, you know, there's going to be a couple leadership changes, I think. Oh, I do tell. I mean, I mean, well, at least jug meat stuff down. And I am genuinely looking forward to seeing where that party goes because it's just where it ended up is so sad from where it was even just a couple years ago. You said a couple leadership changes.

Oh, well. What's the second one? I will be, OK, maybe I. This is your fervent wish just coming to the surface here, as opposed to. We're talking about Bernier, right? I don't know, Grace. Yeah, I don't know.

You know what? I won't maybe say change, but I will be curious is to see what happens with Poliev, because he clearly made a very defensive statement last night in his concession speech. And I'll be kidding. Defensive? Well, I think so.

What do you mean, defensive? Well, it was very much, it was very, you know, it was nice that he said congratulations, Carney. But it was also just coming out and saying the exact same stuff that he's been saying this whole time. We're going to fight. We're going to fight, fight, fight. We're going to make sure that we get all the criminals

off the street, just kind of his usual talking points. I like the end with bring it home, which it's like, he did end with bring it home. The home is gone. You left it on the curb. It ain't coming home. Oh, you know, something I did find was funny is that he ended it with Canada first, Canada always,

because I think probably somebody on his team told him, don't say Canada last. That's weird. Don't put Canada last. But he did sort of plant the flag to suggest that I'm not going anywhere I want to fight it's gonna take a long time and I intend to stick around yeah I'll be curious to see what happens with the leadership review with him hmm okay what did you as you

were watching the returns last night what stuck out for you I mean I forget that this is gonna happen every election but I'm always led by it during that that that two-hour window where like polls are closed on the East coast and nothing and everything's about to close across the country except for BC, but all we have to talk about is the East coast and like there'd be like five votes in from Miramichi and everyone's like, what does this mean? And it's like, I don't know. The McKisick family voted.

Like that's what it means. It's like, it was just like, it's one of those things where like every time we overreact so extremely to the East Coast polls, and then I love again at the end of the night, they go back to the election analysis guy at the board and he's like, oh yeah, all those East Coast races we thought were swinging, they went exactly how they always go,

and there was no change in the East Coast at all. And we're like, yep, we spent two hours just painlessly breaking down house by house so people were voting, because we don't have any results anywhere else to talk about. And every time it's just like oh yeah that didn't mean anything we just spent two hours talking about it. Have fun. But the East

Coast gets represented. Real hard for two hours. It's their time to shine for sure. Yes indeed. Now of course with the American comedy shows and comedy and satirical press you know on the one hand they were mortified when Donald Trump won but on the other hand they thought this is gold. We've got four years of fabulous nuttiness to write about. And I don't know if you have that now. I mean, do you know whether Mark Carney is a particularly funny guy who is going to be a joy to skewer for the next however long this lasts?

I think we find joy in skewering everybody. But to be perfectly honest, in this political climate, somebody boring right now, I think, is what we need. Let's make fun of the fact that he's boring. Like, that's fine with me. But I think I would push back just a bit on the idea that people on comedy shows like The Daily Show, John Oliver, like a lot of them say,

we don't want to talk about Trump anymore. Like, when Trump got elected, people are like, oh man, this is so good for you. This is so great for comedy. And they're like, if I have to write one more article, enough is enough. I hope Donald Trump, I'm going to lose my mind, which is kind of how I feel about poly-F I'm just like, I don't want it or Doug Ford, especially, you know, I don't want to write these. I want them gone.

I want boring politics that takes care of people, that watches out for its most vulnerable citizens. We will always have things to skew. Are you sure you worked for the Beaverton? That was like a responsible thing you just said. Oh no. Yeah. This is where I rip off my mouth. Reveal yourself as respectable.

Yeah, you're actually Campbell Clark from the Globe and Mail. Oh, strange. Oh no. Last 30 seconds to you. In terms of worrying about Carney, I think there is a phrase in satire that is bad for the world, good for us. So the worst things can be good for satire writers because people want, you know, if you're not laughing, you're crying.

So there's subject matter when it's bad for the world and we can make people laugh about it. That is very good for, you good for traffic and all those things. Carney is, I would say, the definition of a blank sheet right now. We elected him because he wasn't Trudeau and because he wasn't Poliev and because he wasn't Trump. And we're gonna find out who he is

as he's our prime minister. And that's gonna be fascinating. And we're going to have a lot of fun making fun of that as we go. I bet you are. I look forward to reading it. Luke Gordon-Field, Claire Blackwood, happy 15th anniversary to you two and the Beaverton.

Thank you. Thanks for coming in tonight.