Canada has, once again, become the butt of American late-night television jokes — this time with the focus squarely on the nation’s capital, aka “the city fun forgot.”
A segment on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver skewered Ottawa over news that the city may be the infidelity capital of the world.
“Interestingly, this story may be bad news for one city in particular: Canada’s capital, Ottawa,” Oliver, who hosts the weekly HBO show, said. “The town known by locals as the city that fun forgot, and which once genuinely adopted the slogan ‘Technically Beautiful.’”
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(It was 2001 and the city was a tech hub.)
The host used his platform to reach out to the citizens of Ottawa, urging married couples to remain faithful.
“You cannot let this skeezy website destroy your marriages. Don’t take this lying down, beneath some stranger wearing a wedding band,” he joked. “The city council of Ottawa needs to fight back and perhaps we can help.”
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The segment moves to a PSA-style advertisement. You can tell the people behind the ad are serious, because they ask the lumberjacks to turn off their chainsaws and the hockey players to stop skating for a second (that sentence, of course, completed with the requisite “eh.”)
“Moose, you just keep on moosin’. This doesn’t concern you,” the ad’s narrator continues. “This is for the married people of Ottawa.”
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There’s a simple cure for anyone in Ottawa tempted to have an affair —the city is just dripping in romance, the ad insists.
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“Go take a sexy walk by the Parliament buildings,” the narrator suggests. “Surprise your spouse by knowing the clock tower contains 53 bells, eh.”
Then, reality.
“OK look, we get it. Ottawa is a depressing, frigid s**thole and always has been. But having an affair is downright un-Canadian … Ottawa is about watching your life float by like so much dirty river ice.”
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