A Plea From a Member of the ‘51st State’

ABLUpdated 2 days Ago5 Mins read1

It’s apparently not well-known among Tom Green fans that he’s Canadian. The comedian, best known for the early-aughts MTV phenomenon The Tom Green Show and his cult-classic 2001 film Freddie Got Fingered, has never kept his identity a secret, but he belongs to a long line of Canadian comics who, by virtue of primarily working and finding success in the United States, are assumed to be American by default. But he’s recently endeavored to change this. In 2021, after living and working in Los Angeles for 21 years, he purchased a farm near his hometown of Pembroke, Ontario, and moved back to run it. The move inspired both his 2025 Amazon Prime reality show, Tom Green Country, and parts of his 2025 stand-up special, I Got a Mule!

In January, amid the escalation of diplomatic tensions between Canada and the U.S., Green released a song titled “I’m a Canadian” that put to bed any remaining ambiguity about his identity. He has spent the subsequent months on a U.S. stand-up tour, giving him a unique vantage point on how people on both sides of the border feel about President Trump’s hostile tariff policies and “51st state” rhetoric. (The president is a former colleague of Green’s, as Green was a contestant on season two of The Celebrity Apprentice.) Over two conversations in March and April, Green shared his thoughts on these policies and how they are disrupting the Canada-U.S. alliance he has traditionally been so proud to uphold.

I’m on tour in the U.S. right now — a tour that was planned a year ago, long before the tariffs were implemented. I’ll run into people who have been fans of mine for years, and they don’t realize I’m Canadian, because Americans don’t really pay attention to that stuff. The No. 1 thing that people say to me when they find out that I’m Canadian is, “We’re sorry about what’s going on right now. This isn’t our choice.”

I don’t do a lot of political comedy, but I do have a joke I tell because of the situation we’re in right now: “I live in Canada, the 51st state — the only state in the union where nobody in it wants to be American … except for Jordan Peterson, Wayne Gretzky, and that guy from Shark Tank.” I’ll get a confused laugh. Half of the audience actually understands the full depth of the joke, and the other half is realizing for the first time that not everybody from every other country in the world dreams of being in America. After being told you’re the greatest country in the world your entire life, well, it’s a completely shocking statement.

I have not told that joke in Canada yet, but I can guarantee you, when I tell it, people will be laughing for a different reason. Canadians have always been a little bit more understated. American comedy is much more aggressive and on the nose. But our comedy has a silliness that’s just woven naturally into it, because there’s somewhat of an insecurity there — a humbleness that is masked in absurdity. We’ve never said, “We’re the greatest country in the world!” We’re not screaming it from the rafters, because it’s impolite. We assume if you’re from Sweden, you think Sweden is the greatest country in the world, and if you’re from Great Britain, you think Great Britain is the greatest country in the world.

Now, maybe some of these people coming to shows have tacitly heard of the tariffs. But I don’t think they realize that it’s this existential threat that Canadians are facing right now. Americans think, We’re going to bring more manufacturing back to the United States and therefore improve our economy. But they’re not thinking about how Canada is the biggest consumer of American goods outside of America; we buy more American products than any other country in the world, followed by China and Mexico. With our border being so huge, and our population living so close to the U.S., and our friendly relationship — up until now — people in Canada have always wanted to buy U.S. products. Americans don’t realize that their government is actually punishing America’s own businesses.

The thing that gets lost here is that Canadians have traditionally been very proud of being allies of America. I’m from a Canadian military family. My dad served in Vietnam and Cyprus with the Canadian Armed Forces. My great-uncle, Daniel Green, has a reservoir named after him in Saskatchewan. He was killed in World War II fighting alongside American forces as part of the fabled Devil’s Brigade, a joint Canadian and U.S. Special Forces task force that went over and fought Nazis in World War II. So, when all of a sudden, it gets framed by a podcast or a 24-hour news cycle that Canada doesn’t have a military, or “America protects Canada,” it’s highly offensive. The fact is we went over and supported the U.S. in Afghanistan. Canadians are not upset, because it’s an “us-versus-them” thing. It’s more like if your brother turned on you: We were there in battle together. Before there’s anger, you’re kind of sad about it. Did you forget about what we’ve done to support you?

Most Americans just don’t understand Canada beyond being another piece of land that is attached to the United States. But we have so many things that make us Canadian. I grew up playing hockey outside, walking to school through the snow, eating Canadian food, and celebrating Canadian holidays and Thanksgivings. We didn’t have MTV where I grew up; I grew up watching Much Music. Watching Canadian television, you realize, We’re not American. There’s a national identity that Canada has that’s sort of an underdog mentality. Though not so much these days, because we’re angry.

I haven’t seen any of the other big Canadian comedians acknowledge this publicly in the U.S. — other than the Canadian comedians in Canada, where that’s all we talk about. The only person I’ve seen acknowledge it publicly in the U.S., other than myself, is Mike Myers when he put his “elbows up” on Saturday Night Live. But this is a thing that’s going on right now, not just with Canadians but also with Americans: They’re afraid to voice their opinion. I was on The Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump, so I know the president of the United States. I have material on Trump. But other people don’t want to talk politics because of the way the internet works now. Nobody wants to get dragged into that potentially volatile space. Once you get too angry in comedy, people don’t want to laugh. You see this a lot when comedians become political commentators. You’ve got to always be careful as a comedian to not get so drawn into the emotion of it that you end up being not funny.

But when you don’t grow up being told over and over that you’re from the greatest country in the world, it’s easier to be self-deprecating. Canadians have always been good at that. We are looking at the United States through an outside lens, noticing the little absurdities about American life that people in America would never notice because it’s just so normal to them. Since we can identify it, we can kind of make fun of it or poke fun at it or send it up.

There’s lots of ways this whole thing can unfold, so it’s better for people to educate themselves on what’s going on and really understand that Canada is a friend of the U.S. I’m actually trying to make a point in my comedy right now — without belaboring it all — to encourage people to get on their social media and say they’re not for what’s going on. Hopefully, everyone will figure that out. But I lived and worked in the United States for 20 years of my life, and four years ago, I moved back to Canada. I’m glad I did.