Norm Macdonald (1963)

 early life

Macdonald was born and raised in Quebec City. His father was Percy Macdonald, a Scottish-Canadian who served with the Canadian Army during World War II and helped liberate the Netherlands. His mother is Fern Macdonald (née Cohen), an Irish-Canadian. Macdonald has two brothers, Leslie and Neil, who are both journalists with the CBC.

In the early 1970s, Macdonald attended grade school where his parents taught at Alexander Wolff School, on Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, outside Quebec City. Macdonald has said that he was a student in his father's class, and that he had to call him "Mr. Macdonald" while in class. His father, often described as a very strict man, was his homeroom teacher for two years . After completing 7th grade, Macdonald attended Quebec High School in Quebec City.

 early career

Macdonald began performing stand-up at clubs in Ottawa. His first big break was at the 1987 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

 politics

Despite referring to himself as apolitical, Macdonald has made controversial references to politically-charged issues. At the end of the last Weekend Update segment before the 1996 presidential election, Norm urged viewers to vote for Bob Dole , though hinting that he had solely said it so that he could continue impersonating him.

On the November 16, 2000 episode of The View Macdonald said that he thought George W. Bush was "a decent man" and he called Bill Clinton a "murderer" . Macdonald later stated in Maxim magazine that he is completely apolitical, and that he was joking when he said Clinton "killed a guy" . In a phone interview he later clarified his views on George W. Bush and the Iraq war thusly: "I wish there was another president, a different president engaging the war, since we're in the war because I don't think Bush did a very good job with it. The war itself, you know, if it works it was worth it. But I don't know if it's going to work, so I don't know."

In 2003, Macdonald appeared on Barbara Walters's program The View, publicly renouncing his Canadian citizenship as a joke over his home country's decision not to participate in the Iraq War, stated his belief that Ronald Reagan was the greatest president ever and said that he would be becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States. Later he affirmed that he was joking about renouncing his Canadian citizenship, stating in a telephone interview that "I'm not an American citizen. I'm a Canadian citizen. I just keep renewing my green card... I don't want to be American." He further burnished his apolitical stance in regards to both America and Canada saying that he was not eligible to vote in American elections and never voted in Canadian elections either: "I figured since I never did when I was in Canada... I never voted because I don't want to make a mistake. I'm so uninformed that I don't want that on my hands, you know?"

On the January 2, 2008 episode of The O'Reilly Factor, Macdonald stated that he is "very pro-life, but against the death penalty." His friend Artie Lange would soon afterwards confirm these opinions as sincere on The Howard Stern Show.