Jay Baruchel's CanCon Manifesto

Feb 16, 2026

Jay Baruchel, Canadian actor and writer known for Knocked Up, BlackBerry and voicing Hiccup, riffs on Canadian cultural history and nationalism. He dives into a lost 1920s film and early anti-American censorship. He reflects on Montreal roots, English Canada versus Quebec cultural development, and how national identity shapes art and ambition.

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ANECDOTE

Lost Canadian Epic: Carry On Sergeant

Jay Baruchel recounts Carry On Sergeant as a lavish 1920s Canadian war epic built to show Canadians themselves on screen.
He explains its spectacle, fantasy sequences, and how audiences wanted to see their fathers and brothers reflected, not just film craft.

INSIGHT

Distribution Killed A National Film

Jay Baruchel links the film's failure to theatre exclusivity deals that prioritized American content across Canada.
He argues those distribution structures enabled an ongoing American cultural dominance in Canadian screens.

INSIGHT

Pragmatism Stunts Cultural Ambition

Baruchel diagnoses Canadian cultural deference as 'pragmatism to a fault' that discourages big ambitions in arts and industry.
He says Canadians often give up before creating a scene, accepting American output as the path of least resistance.

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Jay Baruchel, if you don’t know that name, you likely know his face from the string of hit movies he’s been in: Knocked Up, This Is The End, Blackberry, Million Dollar Baby, Almost Famous, and Tropic Thunder, among many others. He’s been in the belly of Hollywood’s beast for over two decades.

But he’s also a self-proclaimed Canadian patriot with the maple leaf literally tattooed over his heart. So who better to join us to try and figure out where Elbows Up goes from here, and tease out some of its unlikely roots. Hint: Canadian censors were already cutting American flags out of films in the 1920s…

Host: Stephen Marche

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

Featured Guest: Jay Baruchel

Fact checking by Julian Abraham

Additional music by Audio Network

Photo: Gage Skidmore

More information:

Elbows Up! Canadian Voices of Resilience and Resistance — McClelland & Stewart

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