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Director Michael Moore arrives at the 84th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, February 26, 2012.LUCY NICHOLSON/Reuters

Sometimes, the irony writes itself. Twenty-five years ago, Michael Moore launched his rollicking documentary Roger & Me at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, a wry portrait of his depressive hometown of Flint, Mich., after General Motors closed its factories there, also launched his career: Moore went on to produce TV, write books, and direct more documentaries, including the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine. In Toronto for a special TIFF anniversary screening of Roger & Me at the Ryerson Theatre on Monday night, Moore gave interviews on Sunday at the luxury Shangri-La Hotel – only days after Warner Bros., the studio re-releasing the film, told its employees that layoffs were on the horizon.

Is it weird for you, to be doing interviews here at the Shangri-La, knowing that the studio will be laying off hundreds of people?

First of all, Warners has been very good to me, and to this movie since the very beginning. I mean, they did something that nobody else was going to do – they said they would guarantee putting it in 800 theatres. For a documentary in 1989? Unheard of.

Right – as Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times when the film came out, a documentary was usually a film that opened on Friday, and showed up on public television 10 days later.

Haha! Right. So, they ended up putting it on 1,300 screens, and I asked as part of my contract, would they pay the rent or mortgage of the four families in the film who were evicted, and they did. I asked them to make it available throughout the country to anybody who showed up with an unemployment card, so they could see the movie for free – and they did. And Warners, too, their history, back to the '30s, they were the studio that really was willing to grapple with the social and political issues of the day. You just chart the whole history of it – they care about these things, and even though the corporation has changed and gone through many hands, they've maintained certain parts of their DNA.

True enough. Still, that doesn't address the layoffs…

[Warners] seems to be fine [financially] – which was my point when I made Roger & Me, I said: "When this film came out, the year before, G.M. had made a profit of $4-billion. So – why are you laying off people when you're making $4-billion?"

According to the Warners memo, they're doing fine.

Well, if it's the same story, then ask the question of them: Why are you laying off people if you're making $4-billion? So you can make $4.5-billion? That's wrong, it's morally wrong to do that. You're getting by on $4-billion, you know. But then, once I start that argument, I'm trying to argue within the confines of capitalism. And they'll say: We're responsible to our shareholders, Wall Street is downgrading us because we're not making more than last year.

When Roger & Me came out, Canby suggested you were part of a tradition that included Mark Twain. He referred to you as a humourist – as if that were distinct from a journalist.

I didn't see them being two separate things. Mark Twain was a journalist. This was not uncommon in the 19th-century and in the early part of the 20th-century, where a journalist, especially on the op-ed page, would use humour, would use satire. It was an accepted form of journalism, satire.

Over the past 25 years, there's been an explosion in political pamphleteering – outlets such as Fox News – along with the voices like yours that combine journalism and humour. Some have suggested that's helped fuel greater divisiveness in America. If so – do you regret playing a part in that?

It was necessary. In a democracy, you want divisiveness, you don't want everybody thinking the same thing. The whole idea in a free society is to have a free expression and debate of the ideas that help the society progress, hopefully. I've never really gotten bent out of shape about Fox News, because I always figured they'd lose the debate. And I always figured the so-called 'culture war' would be won – I don't want to say by "us," but by people who aren't bigots and haters and filled with venom. Now, we're at a point where Fox News and right-wing see that their days are over. Gay couples are getting married in Iowa, okay?

Well, that's the social aspect – the "culture wars." But there are also other political dynamics. As you've suggested in your Twitter feed – you've been tweeting about the coverage of ISIS – that whenever one bad thing goes away, you're suggesting they come up with another bogeyman.

Well, of course! I started out making [Roger & Me] but you know, I ended with Capitalism: A Love Story, because that's really the problem here. The problem is an economic system that encourages greed. These industrial military complexes need an enemy. There's way too much invested in the trillion-dollar industry, to not have an enemy. So, there was a lag there, after the Cold War, that al-Qaeda came in and filled for us, and now it's ISIS and tomorrow it'll be –

As you say, another bogeyman. Are you not concerned about ISIS?

Well, that's like – after 9/11, [asking], 'Are you not concerned about al-Qaeda?' – and my answer would be: 'I'm concerned about Al Gore and why he didn't fight to get…'

You think the threat of ISIS is overblown.

Of course it is! Are you sitting here worried about it right now?

Not at this very moment. But when I read about ISIS, I am.

Awww, then they've got you, at that moment!

But, you know – as the saying goes: Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean it's not true.

Yea, but that's the way porn works.

I'm sure I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Haha – porn is based on hooking you, knowing what our basic human instincts are. Fear is a big one! Fear is a good thing. We're given fear as part of our DNA, to essentially protect us from the sabre-toothed tiger that is running after us! It's good to be afraid! But we don't really have that kind of fear anymore, but the button keeps getting juiced by this fake fear. And they know that it'll work on us – just as if a naked person walked in the room right now. If I said to you, there's a naked person walking in right now, don't look –

Honestly, I'm too focused on this interview to look away.

You would look! It's just human nature!...But it's awfully hard for me to throw a stone, as an American. We Americans, in the last decade, have killed far, far, far, far more people than ISIS have or probably will kill.

You used to be a big fan of Canada. Given that our foreign policy has shifted over the past decade, and we often seem more aligned with interests on the right, do you still feel the same way?

I'm disappointed. It is sad to see Canadians adopting the worst parts of us. I get the fact that you have 'SportsCentre' – and it's spelled 't-r-e' – and you have your own sports center network. That's cool. I love when you copy that stuff. But when you start doing the other things, when you start snipping away at your social safety net? When you start asking questions, 'What's the bottom line…?' Well, some things, like your schools and your roads and your health care – those things don't exist to make a profit, they're supposed to lose money.

You still structure yourself very much around the concept of 'We.' You know, communal responsibility, if that person is sick, they have a right to see a doctor – a human right – and not have to worry about paying for it. Whether they're homeless or make a million a year. And we Americans are structured around 'Me' – 'Pull yourself up by your boot straps!' 'How does this affect me?' 'What am I getting out of this?' And the more you become like that – you will just become the 51st state that we intended you to be.

It's interesting, that poll [the Greatest Canadian Poll, in 2004], who's the most important Canadian of all time? It was Tommy Douglas. I can't imagine Americans naming somebody who did something like he did – for the greater good. You know? Ours is going to be a general, or a first lady, I don't know – but he did something for the greater good. And that's your history, and I'm sorry that a lot of Canadians seem to have forgotten that. And if you want to be more like us, then go right ahead, and you can watch the murder rate going up in Toronto each year now. And you can watch crime go up – you can watch these things happen, you can watch all the ills that we have to deal with, can come here. If that's what you want. I don't know why you would want that. Take SportsCentre from us, take a few other things, but maintain your Canadianness. Why didn't you have a crash in '08? You structured yourself differently. Why would you want to go down our road?

This interview has been condensed and edited

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