'You’re Better Than Anyone Down Here'
What Canadian Olympians and comedy gods have to teach us about going big from home
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I am prepped and ready for the next couple of weeks.
I’ve bookmarked CBC Gem’s Olympics streaming schedule, actual real Canadian Olympians’ posts are starting to overtake my fake Heated Rivalry Olympians on socials, and I’m revisiting those moments that make me proud to have the Maple Leaf on my passport.
As I settle in to watch, I’ll also be thinking about legendary SNL and David Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer and something he said during the Toronto International Film Festival last September.
I was there with friends at the Royal Alexandra Theatre for the world premiere of the documentary You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way).
The show is legendary in North American comedy circles because it headlined a bunch of unknown Canadian kids and two notable Americans, some making their professional debuts and some starring for the first time in a major production.
Those kids – and they were kids in their late teens and early 20s – were Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber, Paul Shaffer, Jane Eastwood, Dave Thomas, Avril Chown, and Gilda Radner.
The thing that sticks with me from that afternoon at the Royal Alex is something Paul Shaffer said.
He was the musical director for Godspell and after its 14-month run, he was the first of his friends to move down to New York, where fellow Canadian Lorne Michaels hired him to be the band leader for Michaels’ new late night comedy show, Saturday Night Live.
Shaffer said he called his friends back in Toronto, urging them to come to New York because, and I’m going to paraphrase him, ‘I think you’re as good, or actually better than anyone down here.’
And of course, as history has shown us, they were.
They are.
In the world of entertainment, we are accustomed to Canadians standing in the spotlight – and it is the same with the Winter Olympics.
We have no trouble believing Canadians can skate a little faster, jump a little higher, risk a little more.
We trust our athletes to push past the edge of what seems possible.
Culturally, we already know how to think big.
Economically? Not so much.
Projects take forever. Housing starts lag. Major investments stall or die by delay.
In the resource economy, proponents complain – not entirely without reason – that it is now next to impossible to get a project approved, let alone built.
Meanwhile, technology and tariffs gnaw at people’s sense of security. We talk about productivity, but what many workers hear is that their job may be automated or offshored.
It’s hard to spend, build, or bet on the future when you’re not sure you have one.
We are not short on values. We are short on confidence.
The confidence and self-belief that we can be big – punch above our weight, as former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna used to say – is evident in the Canada we show the world in our sports and on our screens.
But I hear a different story when I talk with business owners and corporate executives.
They describe a country where it is easier to say no than yes. Where, even when the fundamentals are solid, everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move.
That’s not the Canadian character Paul Shaffer displayed when he picked up the phone in the mid-1970s.
It’s not the character we see and hear when hockey superstars and proud Nova Scotians Blayre Turnbull and Sidney Crosby speak of playing for Canada at these Olympic Games.
Our artists and athletes aren’t just interested in making the hometown crowd proud; they want to shine on the international stage.
They want to go big – so they prepare, nurture their self-belief, and take great risks.
That is the Canadian character made real – a combination of pride and principles at play.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll cheer for Canadians who have spent years quietly doing the work, trusting that when the moment comes, they’ll be ready.
The question for the rest of us is whether we’re prepared to do the same – to emulate our artists and athletes and say to ourselves and to our changing, chaotic world: we’re really good at this.
Now stand back and watch us lead.
Before you go, we’ve got one more thing worth celebrating.
It’s Side Walks 1st anniversary today, and to mark it I’m resurfacing my first column.“We’ve Got to Play Our Game, Canada” is a rallying cry about confidence, collective strength, and refusing to let bigger, louder forces dictate how we show up.
If today’s column is about trusting in ourselves that we’re ready to go, this earlier piece is about lacing up and taking the ice regardless of the size or presumed strength of our opponent. It also includes a short video – and the same unapologetic belief that Canada does its best work when it plays its own game.
Revisit it here, and help Gina & I celebrate one year of Side Walks. Thanks for your early support. Let’s keep going big. 🇨🇦
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Summary: As Canadians tune in to Olympic coverage on CBC, this column draws a line between the country’s cultural and athletic confidence and its more hesitant economic life. It recalls how figures such as Paul Shaffer and his Toronto Godspell castmates Martin Short, Eugene Levy, and Gilda Radner left home, trusted their talent, and helped reshape North American comedy, while athletes like Blayre Turnbull and Sidney Crosby embody that same belief on the world stage. The argument is simple: Canada’s next chapter of growth will depend less on caution and delay, and more on the self-confidence, risk-taking, and readiness that already define its artists and Olympians.
