Justin Bieber, Chad Kroeger, and Avril Lavigne all prove Canada still a joke to the United States

How else do you explain our neighbours down south going back to the same well whenever it’s time to report on the Great White North’s music scene?

Consider the past couple of weeks. Guess who’s been in the spotlight on Entertainment Tonight? And, no, the answer isn’t the New Pornographers, Fucked Up, or that Sheepherder band from Buttnugget, Nowhere, that no one cared about 10 seconds after its Rolling Stone cover hit the streets.

Instead, it’s been the usual suspects: Nickelback, Justin Bieber, and Avril Lavigne. Seriously, is that all we’ve got to offer?

Even sadder is that each frequent flyer has shown up as a punch line, reinforcing the world’s long-standing conviction that Canadians are basically America’s dimwitted cousins.

In fairness, our favourite pop-music newsmakers have done their best to keep things fresh. Nickelback’s contribution has been to give the people in the anus of the world known as Detroit something to be incensed about, other than the fact they live in Detroit. To the outrage of every moron who’s ever gotten stinko at a Lions NFL football game, Chad Kroeger and company have been enlisted to play the team’s halftime show at Thanksgiving. Evidently, Insane Clown Posse was too busy stocking up on Faygo and greasepaint.

That Lions fans have launched an online petition to stop this from happening raises an interesting question: what the hell did Kroeger ever do to make himself so reviled? It’s not like he pissed on the White House, called Tom Hanks a twat, or killed Michael Jackson. But some Stroh’s-slurping loogan in the Motor City starts up a petition, and it’s considered news. Here’s suggesting the real reason Kroeger is hated: because he’s Canadian, right down to his taking every potshot in the nards with a smile. You can bet that ever-opinionated caveman Liam Gallagher and that wig-wearing fuck Axl Rose wouldn’t be nearly as gracious if they found themselves in Nickelback’s situation.

Meanwhile, that rude little snotbag Lavigne is all over the intraweb for getting shit-kicked in a bar fight. That, admittedly, is better than making headlines for playing empty hockey rinks.

The interesting thing about Lavigne’s beatdown, at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, is that it’s confirmed that she has a problem telling the truth. After being bitch-punched in the head—and, hopefully, kicked once or twice in the snapper—pop music’s most famously horrid troll told anyone who would listen that “I don’t fight. I don’t believe in it.” Funny, then, that a couple of years back, when the world still cared, she told Blender that she’d met her then-husband, Deryck Whibley of Sum 41, after being kicked out of the Roxy in Vancouver for fighting. Still, give Lavigne credit for keeping herself on page 19 of entertainment sections across North America. She’s certainly doing better these days than Fefe Dobson.

Finally, we’ve got Bieber, who’s coming into that difficult age when—as Danny Bonaduce can attest—former teen idols start beating up transvestite prostitutes during coke-fuelled benders. Suggesting that he’s the kind of virile young man able to sink battleships with a single shot, Biebs has found himself in the centre of a paternity battle, accused of fathering the newborn child of a 20-year-old California woman. If this is true, good on him; it’s nice to know there’s one guy out there who’s still enough of a gentleman to deposit his baby batter where it belongs. Thanks to what they’ve learned from Internet porn, everyone else is busy pulling out and playing amateur face-painter.

Still, really, is this “scandal” worth reporting, especially since, in the tradition of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Bieber seems like a squeaky-clean teen idol who’s saving himself for his wedding night? The odds of him having fathered a child during a backstage liaison are roughly equal to those of Taylor Swift signing on for the next sequel to Cousin Bubba’s Country Corn Porn.

Wake up, America, Canada has plenty of worthy pop-music stars making the kind of news that should have the producers of ET popping a pup tent. Like, for Christ’s sake, hasn’t anyone heard that Hedley just released a new album?

Follow Mike Usinger on the Tweeter at twitter.com/mikeusinger.