Talking to Americans

Talking to Americans was a regular feature presented by Rick Mercer on the Canadian political satire show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes". It was later spun off into a one-hour special that aired on April 1, 2001 on CBC Television.
The purpose of the skit was to humorous display Mercer's view that Americans are ignorant, especially in the area of geography. Mercer's It consisted of interviewing Americans on the street and convincing them to agree with ridiculous statements, amongst others, about their northern neighbor. It uses clips from "22 Minutes" and exclusive clips for this special, which was shown to the studio audience of "22 Minutes". "Talking to Americans" was nominated for a Gemini Award, but following the 9/11 attacks Mercer declined the nomination and decided to stop doing the feature.
Content.
The intent was to satirize perceived American ignorance of Canada and the rest of the world. 
Professors at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, New York University and Stanford University were consistently fooled by absurdities such as the "Saskatchewan seal hunt". The only Americans who were shown outsmarting Mercer were: a university student who spent her time laughing at him (before finally answering), and a small child who pointed out to his mother, who was also tricked, that Canada had provinces, not states.
George W. Bush.
The most famous segment, aired in 2000, featured Mercer asking then-presidential candidate George W. Bush – who had previously stated that "you can't stump me on world leaders" – for his reaction to an endorsement by Canadian Prime Minister "Jean Poutine", which was a play on the name of then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (Poutine is an order of French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy).
Bush said he looked forward to working together with his future counterpart to the north, praising free trade and Canada. That said, Bush never actually used the name of Poutine and only failed to correct Mercer on the name.
A few years later, when Bush made his first official visit to Canada, he joked during a speech, "There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine."
2001 special.
The special was a co-production between Island Edge (Rick Mercer's production company) and Salter Street Films (at the time the producer of "22 Minutes"). The special produced and directed by Geoff D'Eon, who also produced and directed the segments for "22 Minutes".
Although the show received Gemini Award nominations, Mercer thought it would be inappropriate to make fun of American-Canadian relations so close to the events of September 11, 2001, and requested that the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television pull the nominations. Nonetheless, the CBC repeated the special on occasion well after those events.
"Talking to Americans" attracted 2.7 million Canadian viewers, making it the highest-rated television special in Canadian history.