This time they're out for blood, and Sugar Sammy is front and centre.

Relax. This is not a posse being led by Sammy detractor and Journal de MONTRÉAL columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté. Then again, Bock-Côté may not be thrilled to learn that Sammy has just been selected to be a poster boy for Héma-Québec's annual blood-drive campaign.

Beginning Monday, billboards will be going up around the province with a smiling Sammy, cosying up to a smiling Dominique Michel, both resplendent in red T-shirts. The campaign will also have billboards pairing Céline Dion and Kent Nagano.

That's some pretty heady company for Sammy. Despite what Bock-Côté ruminated in the Journal last month — “Si Sugar Sammy représente l'avenir du Québec, le Québec n'a plus d'avenir” — it's become abundantly clear that Sammy is very much viewed as part of the future in this province.

After all, Sammy could also be a poster boy for Bill 101: a child of immigrants, he attended French primary and secondary school and his mastery of the language of Molière is not questioned. He is equally comfortable performing in French as in English, not to mention in Hindi and Punjabi as well. Like so many other Montrealers, he sees the world through a multicultural lens.

And, oh yeah, Quebecers of all cultures love him. The people have spoken, with their ballots anyway, and Sammy was deemed the most popular comic in Quebec at the recent Gala Les Olivier. He nabbed the two top prizes there — despite the fact the awards are intended to honour only French comedy in the province. But they couldn't stop regular folk from pissing their pantalons with Sugar's hit show En Français SVP. The public voted, and he won the Olivier de l'année for both the show and his body of work. The industry voted his show the Olivier for Spectacle de l'année.

Look for Sammy to be up for more awards at next year's Gala Les Olivier. He has created a franco TV show for the V network, a buddy comedy in the spirit of Swingers and Wedding Crashers to be shot in single-camera style like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm. His co-star, co-writer and series director is Simon-Olivier Fecteau. Shooting begins next month, and the 10-part series will begin airing in February 2014.

Doubtless, anglos and francos in the province would also present Sammy with an award for his smash bilingue solo spectacle, You're Gonna Rire — which began as a one-show experiment and has since mushroomed into a 60-show bonanza, and counting.

So once again, Sammy is building bridges where some would have no bridges built.

“Winning at Les Olivier was a huge surprise — I never expected it,” says Sugar Sammy, 37, over his favourite beverage, soda water, at his favourite haunt, La Taverne sur Le Square. “But most importantly, it definitely validated my work on the French side.”

Nor is he deterred in the slightest by criticism from the likes of Bock-Côté: “Some people just don't get my jokes. Pauline Marois got the joke to the point that she accepted to do a funny number with me at Les Olivier three years ago. And Jean-François Lisée publicly acknowledged that he was proud of the fact that an anglo won at Les Olivier this year, that it breaks down those lines between anglos and francos.

“Most in Montreal get it. They see that life has changed. Others just don't or won't get it. I believe that 95 per cent of us like to live in this beautiful compromise that is life in Montreal. But five per cent, on both the anglo and franco sides, don't want to make it work, to coexist. I think we should all learn to be tourists in our own city. Anglos could learn something hanging out on occasion in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and francos should check out life on Monkland in N.D.G.”

Sounds like Sammy is ready to take a stab at politics? “No way!” he fires back. “If I become a politician, there's a serious problem in Quebec.”

Yes, and his point would be what?

“If I got elected, it would be really scary. Let me get the comedy down pat first.”

Fact is: You're Gonna Rire is really more than a comedy spectacle. It is also a bold and unique Montreal cultural experience. A sociological experience as well. While some might choose to deny the multi-layered character of this city, he chooses to celebrate its cultural richness. Most in the concert business were aghast when he first proposed the concept of meshing anglo and franco shtick in a live show. Clearly, the public thought otherwise and expressed their enthusiasm by shelling out for tickets to make every show a sellout.

Sammy sees his coming and, as yet, untitled show (my suggestion for Sel et Sucre was met with a little skepticism) on V as a bridge-builder, too. He has a hunch that anglos will cross the dial to catch the show. “I hope it's like the same situation where every anglo I know watches the Habs on RDS with Pierre Houde.

“The show is going to be in the same vein as shows I'm a fan of. The fact that V jumped on board and is making it one of its flagship shows is absolutely amazing.

“I'll be playing myself as well as Simon will be playing himself. It's a buddy comedy about two guys who are very different from one another, who come from opposite sides of the tracks. But they end up making their friendship work — despite their differences. It's reality-based, since Simon is one of my best friends.”

The guys also have super chemistry. They did a riotous roast together at the last Les Olivier in which they took shots at the likes of such luminaries as Patrick Huard, Mike Ward and Lise Dion, who were all in the room. (Catch it at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpSNFTzA6_Y)

No rest for Sammy after shooting wraps on his TV show in September. He will be spending much of the fall touring the province with En Français SVP. By the end of the year, he will have done 130 of those shows in French. He will also be bringing back You're Gonna Rire, Dec. 18 to 21 at L'Olympia.

To date, these two Sammy shows have sold more than 135,000 tickets.

Ever the entrepreneur — he stages his stand-up shows without a middleman, dealing directly with the theatres through his production company — Sammy has filmed both solo concerts for TV and is currently negotiating deals.

Also in the works is another series of You're Gonna Rire shows in Montreal next year, as well as a plan to bring the show to bilingual parts of Ontario, Manitoba and the Maritimes. Plus, an offensive into the U.S. is being studied. And a French assault on France. Oh, and can't forget, his performances, be they in English, Hindi or Punjabi, in India, not to mention the Middle East and pretty much every other part of the planet.

He just returned from a series of gigs in India in conjunction with Comedy Central. “First, they didn't believe I was Indian, because I looked too well fed. They don't see that many Indians who are 6-foot-3 and weigh 195 pounds walking down the street. They want to know if I've been overindulging on sacred cow. And I have.

“Really, all I want to do is perform for the rest of my life, be it in Quebec, the States, India. As long as I get to be up there on stage as much as I want, I'm in heaven. But to be able to survive at my craft at home is something really special.”

However, no matter where he performs or in what language, he takes the same tack: he makes fun of his audiences and he makes as much fun of himself in the process.

“And audiences everywhere seem to really love it and get it. In fact, the cultural groups I don't make fun of get upset when I don't pick on them.

“People love being part of the joke. Even my manager Martin Langlois, who voted ‘yes' in the last referendum, gets the joke and loves it. About the only people who do get mad when I pick on them are some fringe radicals here. That's okay. It just provides me with more material. And maybe, hopefully, even enough material for yet another show,” he cracks.

To wit: “While everyone is having fun at the party, Mathieu Bock-Côté is all alone seething in the corner, because the foreign-exchange student brought hummus.”

Sugar Sammy's You're Gonna Rire returns Dec. 18 to 21 at L'Olympia. Tickets range from $37.69 to $57.69 and are available at admission.com, or by calling 1-855-790-1245. En Français SVP tours the province, including Montreal, in the fall. Details at www.evenko.ca

Photograph by: John Kenney , Montreal Gazette