John Oliver, Mike Myers tackle Canadian election

Stephen Harper has been the Prime Minister of Canada since 2006, a position he could very well continue holding following the results of Monday’s federal election.

However, on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver urged Canadian voters to head to the polls to vote for anyone but the incumbent Harper, citing a number of unpopular policies, including Harper’s increasingly unfriendly position against Muslim Canadians. Recently, a woman named Zunera Ishaq was forced to challenge the Harper government when she was told she would have to remove her niqab while taking the citizenship oath. Later, Canadian conservatives pledged to create a “barbaric cultural practices” tip line in order to, as immigration minister Chris Alexander said, “stand up for our values. We need to do that in citizenship ceremonies. We need to do that to protect women and girls from forced marriage and other barbaric practices.”

WANT MORE EW? Keep up with all the latest late-night coverage by subscribing to our newsletter. Head here for more details.

As it turns out, it’s against Canadian law for persons residing outside of Canada to “induce electors to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate,” the penalty being a $5,000 fine or a six-month jail term. So, Oliver decided to use that $5,000 in the best way possible: by bringing a beaver into the studio to play “Sweet Caroline” on the keyboard while a moose received a colonoscopy thanks to Canada’s single-payer health care system.

Finally, “one of Canada’s finest sons,” Mike Myers, rode into the studio on a snowplow while dressed as a Mountie to tell Canadians that he loves his home country, but “the fact that it has a law banning outsiders from telling Canadians how to vote is one of the least Canadian things possible. … Oh, and don’t vote for Stephen Harper.” Why? Because “Stephen Harper doesn’t care about black people,” declared Oliver, sending Myers into a fit of Kanye West-induced trauma, before the Last Week Tonight host corrected himself: “Stephen Harper doesn’t care about Muslim people!”

“Totally fair,” Myers conceded.