Been wondering where the prime minister has been hiding?
The answer tonight at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT) as Justin Trudeau guests on CBC’s special, hour-long, New Year’s Eve edition of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
The title — 22 Minutes New Year’s Eve Pregame Special — refers to the big World Junior Hockey Championships tilt between Canada and the United States airing live later tonight on TSN. Both teams have, surprisingly, lost one game each already making this game count even more as teams head to the elimination round.
Speaking of which, Trudeau has been in the elimination round for months now as calls continue to come in by the hour for him to step down as prime minister. Mark Critch reminds the PM that it was 40 years ago when his father, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau — took a walk in the show and came to the decision to end his political career.
Justin reminds Critch that, when his father was Justin’s age (53), Pierre still had another 12 years of prime ministering in him. To which Critch reacts the way a lot of Canadians appear to be reacting right now.
Good to see the PM can still laugh. Keep in mind that the sketch was taped Dec. 9 in Montreal, prior to when Christa Freeland resigned as Trudeau’s finance minister.
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This Hour has 22 Minutes, in its 32nd season, will have plenty of other targets to aim at in this hour-long special, including Trump’s constant social media taunts about Canada becoming the 51st state. Goodbye health care, hello hand guns! Also, if that happens, who will TSN show fighting against each other on skates on New Year’s Eve?
Besides Critch, the special stars Aba Amuquandoh, Stacey McGunnigle, Trent McClellan and Chris Wilson, the latter playing double duty of late as both Trudeau and the leader of the opposition, Pierre Poilievre. In a nod towards equal time, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh also appears in a sketch. So does comedian and former 22 Minutes desker Colin Mochrie, as well as The Great Canadian Baking Show’s Alan Shane Lewis.
Slotting 22 Minutes into New Year’s Eve gives English Canadians some choice to watch Dec. 31 besides Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve with Ryan Seacrest and other American staples. Carrie Underwood and Lenny Kravitz are among Seacrest’s headliners.
For years, CBC had great success on New Year’s Eve with The Royal Canadian Air Farce aiming Chicken cannons and F-bombs on the year’s worst newsmakers. Scheduling 22 Minutes into that same mix seems a fitting way to carry on with the tradition of sketch and satire. Too bad the tradition will end next new year’s eve when Poilievre axes the CBC!
In Quebec, the biggest audience in all of Canada will be tuned to another Bye Bye New Year’s Eve special as 2024 comes to an end. The show begins at 11 p.m. on Radio-Canada ICI Télé with Guylaine Tremblay, Claude Legault, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse and Pierre-Yves Roy-Desmarais as the main comedy troupe.
Where ever you watch, have a safe and happy New Year’s eve.
