"Blame Canada" is a satirical song from the 1999 animated filmSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, written byTrey Parker andMarc Shaiman. The song satirizesscapegoating and parents who fail to control "their children's consumption ofpopular culture", with the fictionalSouth Park parents, led bySheila Broflovski (Mary Kay Bergman), blaming the nation for children imitating theTerrance and Phillip filmAsses of Fire.

"Blame Canada" was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Song at the72nd Academy Awards. Parker andMatt Stone arrived at the ceremony in dresses previously worn byJennifer Lopez andGwyneth Paltrow, and later claimed to be under the influence ofLSD while on the red carpet.^[2]

An8-bit remix of the song appears in the 2014 gameSouth Park: The Stick of Truth, included as one of the overworld themes for the Canada level. The song appears again in the game's 2017 sequel,South Park: The Fractured but Whole, near the Canadian wall.^[3]

Shaiman wrote new lyrics for the song in 2023 reflecting conspiracy theories about theCanadian wildfires that year.^[4][5]

Blame Canada was referenced in the 2025 teaser trailer forSouth Park season 27.^[6]

The song was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Song at the72nd Academy Awards (1999). This created controversy because all nominated songs are traditionally performed during the Oscar broadcast, but the song contained the wordfuck, which theFCC prohibits using in prime time broadcasts. At the awards ceremony, comedianRobin Williams performed the song with achorus that gasped when the word was to be sung (Williams turned around at the crucial moment and did not actually sing it). He included digs atMargaret Trudeau andBryan Adams, partially taken from lyrics ofSheila Broflovski's reprise of the song in "La Resistance". He referencedCeline Dion as well.Mary Kay Bergman, the voice actress who sang the female parts in the song, committed suicide months before the performance, forcing the organizers to search for a replacement for her andTrey Parker, who did the male voices. Williams introduced the song by speaking withduct tape over his mouth so that his speech resembled that ofKenny McCormick, then tearing it off and finally sayingStan Marsh's trademark line, "Oh my god! They killed Kenny!"

There was also some concern about the fact the song referred to well-known Canadian singerAnne Murray as a "bitch", but Murray indicated that she was not offended by the tongue-in-cheek lyric (Murray was invited to sing the song herself on the Oscar telecast but had to decline due to a prior commitment).^[7] When asked, the CanadianConsul General (and formerprime minister)Kim Campbell said that she was not offended by the song since it was clearly a silly satirical piece and not intended to insult her country. This is made clear in the final line of the song:

We must blame them and cause a fuss.
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!

Coincidentally, the Canadian Oscar telecast in which Williams sang the song included the premiere of theMolson Canadian "I Am Canadian" rant advertisement, which counters many perceivedCanadian stereotypes.

The song lost toPhil Collins' song "You'll Be in My Heart" fromTarzan, which was parodied on an episode ofSouth Park released the following year, "Timmy 2000", as "You'll Be in Me".

• Anti-Canadian sentiment
• Moral panic

• Johnson-Woods, Toni (2007).Blame Canada. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.ISBN 978-0-8264-1731-2.

• 1999 songs
• 1999 singles
• South Park songs
• Canada–United States relations in South Park
• Songs written by Marc Shaiman
• Songs about Canada
• Songs written for animated films
• Fiction about racism
• American satirical songs
• Anti-Canadian sentiment

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