Standing up for Canada

The Eh Team: A Celebration of Canadianisms from Elbows Up to Poutine
by Charles Demers

Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2025
$26.95  /  9781778403743

Reviewed by Ron Verzuh

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At the end of Vancouver comedian Charles Demers’s new book, I felt the urge to sit in the audience of CBC’s The Debaters, the comedy show where he has performed for the past 20 years, and hear it rather than read it. Sometimes the medium is the message, to quote another famous Canadianism, and in this case I might have preferred to experience Demers Live.

Demers is self-described as “a fat man with type 2 diabetes standing in front of a massive cache of fried dough,” but that hardly does justice to his charm and on-stage presence as one of Canada’s top-tier funny men. He’s also one of our more astute political observers and commentators, one that expresses progressive views on many Canadian issues.

What will also appeal to British Columbians is the passionate defense of his Vancouver home from all those who criticize it from “Back East.” He credits the “Terminal City” with inventing the California Roll, calls Canadian Tire “Crappy Tire” (“Canadian Tire has more actual real money than God”) and celebrates Tim Horton’s “Double-double” (“the salt-of-the-earth-and-the-winter-driveway coffee”). He salutes his city as “Hollywood North” along with Toronto, the not so good as they think they are.

Any negative sentiments about Eastern Canada do not include Montreal: Demers’s family’s roots with its Quebecois heritage. He carries that proudly and cherishes it. In “Bagels,” for example, he positions the Montreal variety near the top of a hierarchy of great things about the city. No, not quite ahead of the Montreal Canadiens or the defunct Montreal Expos, but the St. Viator bagel is nudging them for the title.    

In a nod to the “eh” in the book’s title, Demers shares his patriotic side noting that “we say ‘eh’ precisely to remind ourselves and others that we’re Canadian.” In “Elbows Up,” he throws his up against “the decidedly non-angelic countenance of a bellicose U.S. president.”

This was also a hat’s off to Saskatchewan for producing elbows up hockey champ Gordie Howe. Demers also covers most other provinces and territories with recognition for what they have done for Canada. Newfoundland takes the prize for Demers’s most cherished province (outside BC, that is), home of the “slightly off-brand white people.” Manitoba gets cheered for electing Canada’s first aboriginal premier, Wab Kinew.

Did you know that an Ontarian invented “Ketchup chips”? Yukon poet Robert Service gave us the verb “moil” as in moiling for gold from the everlasting The Cremation of Sam McGee. BC is ticked for Victoria, “arguably Canada’s most photogenic city” and the island’s second city for “Nanaimo bars.”  Alberta is recognized for changing tar sands to the softer “Oil patch.” Moncton, New Brunswick, is recognized as “Hub city.” It’s “just like me: half French, half English, and really not in very good shape.” Nova Scotia: “Halifax is a terrific town to be drunk in” and home to the best donair.  

Demers frequently quotes A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historic Principles in which “hoser” is defined as “an uncouth and dim-witted young person, usually a man.” He thanks SCTV’s McKenzie brothers, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, for giving Canada that “non-pejorative equivalent of the term ‘redneck’.” 

Other fellow standup comics are also cited, including Mike Myers of Elbow’s Up fame after rubbing shoulders with Prime Minister Mark Carney on primetime. Rick Mercer is there as well. Although Demers does not say it, Mercer deserves Canada’s eternal gratitude for the referendum to change Conservative leader Stockwell Day’s name to Doris.

And that isn’t the only historical reference. In fact, the book is full of such reminders of our past. “Separatism” covers one of them. “Sovereignty” another. “Stubby” beer bottles and “Syrup” are two other bits of our history. “Just watch me” is yet another. And the “Potlatch Ban” rightly takes a beating. 

I’m missing many; there are more than 100 in all. I’m also leaving out the entry on “Red,” not for communism but for Liberals, the ever hopeful Maple Leafs, poutine, the Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, Heritage Minutes, the Junos, Medicare, and the Loonie. But hey, let’s leave the last laugh to Charlie. May he one day win his Juno.

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Ron Verzuh is a writer and historian who has attended more than one rally where Demers appeared on the correct side of the protest sign. [Editor’s note: Ron recently wrote about Tom McGauley and has reviewed books by Graeme Menzies, Angie Ellis, Mark Waddell, R. Bruce Macdonald, George M. Abbott, and Barry Potyondi for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

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