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It may be that the leader of the Conservative party has been preparing for the job of prime minister his whole life. He once entered an essay contest about “If I were prime minister,” advocating for making Canada a bastion of freedom. As Andrew Lawton, author of the new biography, Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life, discusses with Brian, the now opposition leader’s crusade hasn’t much changed since then. Along the way, as Lawton details, Poilievre has innovated new ways of campaigning, messaging and communicating that have devastated his opponents. The Liberals have never faced a competitor like this before. And while they’re working overtime to make Poilievre seem scary to voters, they might be more scared for themselves. (Recorded May 30, 2024)
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He gets away with wearing blackface while calling other people racist. He spoils himself with opulent trips abroad and refuses to answer for it. As Stephen Maher, author of a new book, The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, explains, the prime minister has always seen himself as having been born into royalty — and he’s acted like it. That lofty self-image has given Trudeau preternatural confidence and bravado, but it’s also made him capricious and vain, as Maher tells Brian, as they recount the moments in the prime minister’s political life that show why Trudeau isn’t like the rest of us. (Recorded May 31, 2024)
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They sound like a bargain: Cheap Chinese EVs selling in Canada for around $15,000 each. They’re an even better deal for the Chinese, because our government promises to pay them more than that sale price for every EV they sell here, as Flavio Volpe tells Brian this week. The president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association explains how the ultra-low price is made possible by China’s dubious business practices and its aggressive plan to dominate strategic industries, dumping boatloads of cars here that will overwhelm North American businesses and workers, all while raking in subsidies from Canadian taxpayers. A worried Washington just whacked Chinese EVs with a 100-per-cent tariff. Canada is doing nothing — something Volpe says needs to change “yesterday.” (Recorded May 17, 2024)
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Polls suggest the Tories are just too far ahead for Liberals to avoid a decimation in next year’s election. The prime minister seems defiantly bound to leading his party into 2025, even as his attacks against Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre grow more incoherent, as Chris Selley discusses with Brian this week. The big problem, Chris suspects, is that the Liberals have no better option — no obvious candidate who could outdo Trudeau. Chris and Brian also talk about the Liberals’ denial of a growing sense of Canadian lawlessness — from campus invasions to killers out on bail — and Poilievre’s intriguing and unprecedented promise to use the notwithstanding clause to get tough on crime, if need be. (Recorded May 16, 2024)
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Praising terrorist “martyrs,” open praise for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and inciting violence toward Jews: social media platforms have been flooded since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, with alarming and disturbing content that American online platforms seem unable to control. Tal-Or Cohen Montmayor, whose organization CyberWell deploys open-source monitoring of antisemitism on social media, joins Brian this week to explain how Hamas and its backers exploit weaknesses in online content screening. And, she says, they can leverage the algorithms in TikTok, Twitter and Facebook to spread messages that promote terror, spread misinformation and fuel the hatred seen at protests gripping our cities and our university campuses. (Recorded May 2, 2024)
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 fIt wasn’t just that funding for the out-of-control opioid crisis flowed to those promoting radical, unproven policies. Advocates leading the charge to B.C.’s doomed drug decriminalization experiment were personally investing in businesses to supply opioids to addicts, profiting off the back of a massive social crisis, as Vancouver psychologist Dr. Julian Somers tells Brian this week. Meanwhile, leaders promoting ever more “safe supply” grew too friendly with pharmaceutical producers. Somers, an addictions specialist, explains how this complete abandonment of harm-reduction principles, including any focus on recovery, created the catastrophe that has B.C. now desperately reversing course — even as other Canadian governments plan to repeat its mistakes. (Recorded May 2, 2024)
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