"I always liked politics as my sport," celebrity speaker Rick Mercer says in a new interview on the CBC. For Mercer, the old adage to never talk about politics at the dinner table was a rule often broken. Getting into heated debates over the hot-topic issues of the day with his family was what sparked his passion for delivering hilarious, yet relatable, rants on his show The Rick Mercer Report. Those rants have now been assembled into a new book called A Nation Worth Ranting About. While he does get worked up in these trademark rants, Mercer said they don't all come from an angry place. Rather, he explains that he likes to debate what's going on in parliament—and the world at large—because there are few people that do.

"The strategy now is to intentionally get people disengaged," he says of the political party's agenda. "A completely engaged electorate is unpredictable and [the politicians] don't like that." While there used to be more debates and discussion about laws politicians were trying to pass and agreements they were trying to sign, Mercer says there is a great deal happening that many people aren't hearing about—and a great deal more they aren't speaking out against. Although he admits many do care, it can often be hard when life's other commitments take precedence. Mercer, however, hopes that when something really does bother us, we will speak up more. "It's dangerous to be complacent," he says, "if we're complacent it'll be used against us."

Rick Mercer wants us to be a "nation of ranters"—not in the sense that we're always angry and complaining—just that we don't take everything at face value and question what goes on around us. Mercer uses a unique blend of humor and intelligence to share his opinions through his rants and in his highly sought after keynotes. As Canada's most popular political satirist, his standing room-only keynotes illustrate all that's great (and sometimes not so great) about our nation and guide us on what we can do to take part in the politics of our future.