For all in Canada who happened to be watching Saturday Night Live, that March night was an unforgettable moment.
Mike Myers, the one-time SNLer who’d performed in the opening skit as a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk, stood onstage with the rest of the cast at the end of the show as they all waved goodnight.
Then he did it.
As millions watched, the Toronto-born Myers opened his jacket to reveal a black T-shirt underneath bearing that red-and-white maple leaf flag and the phrase “CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE.”
He then flexed his arm in the air, pointed at it and mouthed the words “elbows up,” an old-time hockey term meant to signify punishing one’s opponent. It happened as U.S. President Donald Trump’s antagonistic threats to annex Canada were reaching their apex.
“It was just, ‘Leave us alone,'” Myers told CBC News, explaining the shirt. “We love Americans. But we can love Americans and not want to be Americans, you know what I mean?”
#TheMoment ‘Elbows Up’ became a rally cry against Trump
Myers, who holds multiple citizenships — Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. — has never been shy about his love of his birth country. Trump’s rhetoric on Canada angered him enough that he looked around for a T-shirt, found one on Amazon and wore it to the show that night.
The message was Myers’s salute to everyone watching back home. Revealing it on live television was a spur-of-the-moment decision, he tells CBC News in his first on-camera interview about that night. He says he had no idea it would catch fire — let alone spark a wave of Canadian patriotism not seen in decades.
The actor has popularized many phrases before, though more comedic in nature, through various characters on SNL, then later in Hollywood blockbusters such as Wayne’s World and Austin Powers. But now he had suddenly — and inadvertently, but with a kind of patriotic fervour — created a forceful political slogan.
“Elbows up” became an instant catchphrase throughout Canada, sprawled on T-shirts, ball caps, coffee cups, bumper stickers, even chocolate bars, underlining as much as anything else, an attitude.
‘I just got more and more angry’
To this day, Myers emphasizes it’s that attitude that matters. “It’s not about me,” he insists. To him, it’s more about Canada and Canadians — and the imperative to speak out, stand up and push back.
And when Myers woke up the morning after that appearance on SNL, he was oblivious to any of the fallout from what he’d done. He got a phone call from one of his brothers who told him, in effect, ‘You’ll never believe what’s happened.”
After that first moment on SNL, more would follow. A subsequent appearance brought another T-shirt, this one bearing the logo of Canadian Tire, which, says Myers, was meant to signal “Buy Canadian,” at a time Trump was threatening tariffs on Canadian goods going into the U.S.
Then came that ad for Mark Carney during the federal election campaign, with the prime minister and Myers acting as hockey dads watching a game rinkside and Myers wearing a jersey with “Never 51” emblazoned on his back.
‘It’s blowing up’
Political messaging may be a new path for Myers, but despite his having now lived in the U.S. for many years, with an American wife and American children, he has never shied from his roots nor his belief in all things Canadian.
The U.S., he says, is simply where his livelihood — the entertainment industry — has taken him.
He’s long demonstrated that his heart has always remained north of the 49th. His 2016 book, Canada, is broadly described as a love letter to his home country.
“[It’s] a kind, truth-speaking nation,” said Myers. “There’s a sanity, a reasonableness; there’s a grown-upness that is unique to this country.”
Mike Myers: ‘I would be nothing without Canada’
Indeed, he’s adamant that his messaging on it now is neither anti-American nor even anti-Trump, but rather pro-Canada.
“I like our vibe, I like who we are.”
It’s also clear he’s somewhat humbled by the explosion of the elbows up movement, downplaying attempts to give him too much credit for igniting such patriotism among his fellow Canadians.
To those who’ve said “Canada needs more Mike Myers,” he responds simply: “I’m nothing without Canada.”
Still, his made-in-Canada passion has rarely been as forceful as it is now, driven by Trump’s continued talk of it becoming the 51st state.
On his way home from the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., on June 17, Trump met with reporters and was again asked about Canada and his thoughts on it becoming the 51st state.
“It’s a much better deal for them,” he said onboard Air Force 1 as it flew back to Washington.
‘It’s not gonna happen’
Myers begs to differ.
And amid all the political division, he points to a positive which, for him, has become the focus.
“I have to say, this generation of Canadians is so inspiring to me. They know what they have. They don’t want to lose it.”
