John Stackhouse, being Canadian at the TIFF premiere of ‘John Candy: I Like Me’/Courtesy

By John Stackhouse

September 7, 2025

I love movies, and I love film. There’s a difference. Movies entertain you. Films challenge you.

Sometimes, a film or movie can do both.

That magical intersection was on my mind during the opening night this week of the Toronto International Film Festival. I’ve been going to TIFF since it was based in Yorkville in the 1970s and ‘80s. It’s part of my September, just as the baseball playoffs are part of my October. It’s always helped me return to film after a summer of movies.

This year, TIFF kicked off its 50th anniversary (Tifty!) with the world premiere of John Candy: I Like Me, which both entertained and challenged. The title comes from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which is on my forever Top 100 list, not just because it’s brilliant comedy; it’s a rollicking trip through the human condition.

The line, and the documentary about Candy, mark the difference between movie and film. It comes in PT&A’s cathartic scene, in which the Canadian icon absorbs verbal punch after verbal punch from Steve Martin, another comedic wonder. Sure, your insults may have merit, but who cares? I actually like me.

Eating my popcorn, I reflected on whether it’s a metaphor for Canada. Donald Trump can insult us all he wants. We like Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney set the tone at the TIFF premiere when he introduced the film with an impressive take on the Candy canon. Clearly, the PM knows his SCTV, from the Schmenge brothers to the Mayor of Melonville. The TIFF crowd gave him a spontaneous standing ovation (and I’ve been to enough TIFFs to know when the Standing O is impulsive, although I think in this case it was as much a cheer for Canada.)

Eating my popcorn, I reflected on whether it’s a metaphor for Canada. Donald Trump can insult us all he wants. We like Canada.

Carney went on to make an important point about power imbalances, using Candy to speak to the current state of affairs. Despite Candy’s size, he mostly played passive, even submissive, characters — but never wavered from his core values. Those characters, like the star, were rooted in decency, humility and kindness.

Sound like a country you know?

I grew up in Scarbough, not far from where Candy, a decade earlier had come of age. Carney compared Canada to some of Candy’s characters, including Del Griffith in PT&A. “Don’t push a Canadian too hard.”

Ryan Reynolds, the Vancouver-born star who produced the Candy film (and wore a maple leaf t-shirt to the opening), shared how he, too, was shaped by late-night SCTV.

It’s one of the reasons Canadians identified so quickly and sincerely with Candy, back to those SCTV days. He spoke to the everyman that, at our core, is Canada.

For me, Candy, like Mike Myers who also grew up in east Toronto, captured the suburban, working-class culture that shaped Canada in the second half of the 20th century. Hosers were us.

Watching Second City TV in those years, my friends and I never needed an explanation for Johnny LaRue, Edith Prickley and Stan Schmenge; we could rattle off people in our neighbourhood who were them. And that’s what made John Candy more than a movie star. He spoke to our humanity.

Who knows? That may be what sees Canada through this tempest with America.

I was struck in I Like Me to see the attraction of America for Candy; he even tried to sign up for the U.S. military in the Vietnam War years. And yet, he continued to come back to Canada, even buying the Toronto Argonauts. Hollywood gave him the bright lights and sunshine. Canada remained home, because he remained true to his character.

It’s why we like him still. And why film helps us see ourselves through him.

John Stackhouse, Senior Vice President in the Office of the CEO at Royal Bank of Canada, is also a former Editor-in-Chief of the Globe and Mail.