A comic with serious views about what makes us special

Some weeks writing a column is fun and some weeks it’s even funner. This week I got to talk with Canadian comedian Ron James, live from his Toronto condo. He’s coming to Ottawa for a show at the Meridian next week (buy tickets!) and what better opportunity to chat about politics and Ottawa and being an artist and everything else we could think of.

I wrote a column about our conversation but there was much more that wouldn’t fit in the newspaper so here are a few extras for you, because I love you.

In our conversation, he shared insights about his professional journey, including what happened after he came back to Canada following a few years in Los Angeles chasing a sitcom dream.

We also yammered about what makes people funny, the influences that shaped him, and how today’s political climate is more challenging than it used to be.

He says the role of comedians is to speak truth to power and not only do I agree but I insist the same is true for columnists. If we stopped to think about whether what we’re saying might potentially offend someone, we’d never say anything or get anywhere.

Ron James has very strong opinions on everything, especially politics. When got to Ottawa-centric themes at some point and he had choice words for the convoy people who jammed our fair town a couple of winters ago.

Humour can be a powerful tool in addressing serious societal issues and I for one am very grateful we have wonderfully funny folks like Ron James to keep us real.