Full Comment with Anthony Furey

Pierre Poilievre's Conservative party, with the campaign's momentum and tightening polls, could yet declare victory in the federal election. But the party infighting that started early in the campaign already has some sniffing around a potential leadership change, as the Political Hack newsletter's Tasha Kheiriddin and Stuart Thomson discuss with Brian this week. Our 2025 election panel also gets into the surprises that could come with last-minute voters, the curious advertising blitzes of the two front runners in the race's dying days, and Liberal Leader Mark Carney's exorbitant platform promises and his growing smugness about his standing. They also consider the new, likely power status of the Bloc Québécois, should either party need the separatists to sustain a minority. (Recorded April 25, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If there's anyone other than U.S. President Donald Trump who can take credit for helping the Liberals try to hang onto power, it's NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. After years protecting the Liberal government from falling in the House, Singh spent last week's debates inexplicably assisting Liberal Leader Mark Carney, as Brian discusses with Tasha Kheiriddin and Stuart Thomson from the Political Hack newsletter. They consider whether Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's performance moved the needle enough to overtake this new Liberal-NDP alliance in the federal election, and the difference voter turnout will make. They also get into other interesting developments, from Poilievre's advocacy for the notwithstanding clause to Carney's curious defence of tax avoidance and the disgraced gun buyback. (Recorded April 18, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a rare, casual interview Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre talks to Brian about what it's been like campaigning for an election with his wife and kids, what he thinks about people saying he's too “angry,” and what he does to stay in shape during the race. He also discusses what he makes of provincial conservatives in Ontario publicly criticizing his campaign, and fear tactics being used against him to scare seniors about their benefits. Of course, Poilievre also gets into his plan for handling President Donald Trump, the problem of younger Canadians losing hope in the future of their country, and his plans to improve housing and the cost of living. (Recorded April 12, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The latest questions about his support from China and his corporate tax dodging have had Mark Carney stumbling and snapping at reporters, even suspending his campaign to seek refuge in the image-friendly prime minister's office. But the bigger question is whether he can avoid fumbling his front-runner status in the last two weeks of the campaign, as Brian discusses in our weekly election panel with Tasha Kheiriddin and Stuart Thomson from Postmedia's Political Hack newsletter. They also consider whether Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's campaign will finally get the boost it needs with the coming leaders' debates after weeks of struggling against U.S. President Donald Trump's intrusions and irksome infighting conservative infighting. (Recorded April 11, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Things are happening in the election campaigns behind the headlines that may reveal a different version of what's showing up in the polls. Stuart Thomson and Tasha Kheiriddin, the team behind Political Hack, Postmedia's politics insider newsletter, join Brian to talk about some of the challenges inside Liberal Leader Mark Carney's campaign, which Stuart travelled with this week. Brian and Stuart discuss the fragility of a Liberal polling lead that relies on President Donald Trump's seemingly softening tariff attack, while Stuart talks vulnerabilities in Carney's campaigning abilities. And Tasha and Brian consider the supporters who might not be counted in surveys, and could be Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's secret weapon. (Recorded April 4, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In any other election the kind of poll numbers Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives are putting up would be cause for celebration. And their campaign so far has been perfectly executed, as Stuart Thomson and Tasha Kheiriddin from Postmedia's Political Hack newsletter discuss with Brian this week. Meanwhile Liberal Leader Mark Carney has stumbled and underwhelmed. But the dynamics of this race in the first week played entirely to the Liberals' sole advantage and they're dominating the polls. So far Conservatives have mostly stuck to their main pre-Donald Trump message of affordability and change. On our Election 2025 panel this week, Tasha, Stuart and Brian hash out whether Conservatives should pivot or stay focused, while waiting (and hoping) for a shift in voters' thinking. (Recorded March 28, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's finally dead… or is it? New Liberal Leader Mark Carney reduced the carbon-tax rate to zero before calling an election, but as Franco Terrazzano tells Brian, there are still questions about what Canadians will pay. Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, is author of the new book Axing the Tax. He discusses how the federal Liberal government snuck in the carbon tax and managed to convince everyone (even Conservatives!) that it was popular, effective and affordable — until a new Tory leader, Pierre Poilievre, exposed the lie. Now Carney wants a tougher business carbon tax claiming it's necessary not for the environment, but for trade. And again, Terrazzano says, Liberals are hiding the truth about what it will really cost us all. (Recorded March 20, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada's crucial relationship with the U.S. is in its worst crisis ever. And Mark Carney's first urgent trip as prime minister is … to Europe. Brian talks with John Ivison and Lorne Gunter this week to assess Carney's first curious moves as the newly selected Liberal leader. But while Carney's already saddled with loads of negative baggage — and just added more with some cabinet picks — none of it may matter, they say. Climate-regulatory alarmism like Trudeau on steroids? Weak French? Soft on crime? Cosy with China? Carney can skate past all of it by calling an election soon, as long as Trump keeps threatening us and Liberals keep persuading voters Carney's the right man to handle him. (Recorded March 14, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shock and awe followed by erratic moves is how Donald Trump is used to negotiating, as historian, businessman and Postmedia columnist Conrad Black (who occasionally speaks with the president) tells Brian this week. Trump is determined to end the era of other countries picking America's pocket in myriad ways and is using tariffs to do it. Black says he gets the impression the Trump administration wants out of this Canadian trade war. But that doesn't mean we'll get back the free-trade world we had. So, he advises, Canada had better adapt to the dramatically changed economic and geopolitical reality and get a prime minister who can build our economy despite Trump (and Mark Carney isn't it). (Recorded March 6, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want a thriving fentanyl trade in your country, attracting heavily armed cartels, super labs, and a large and growing market of users subsidized by the government and unimpeded by law enforcement, just do everything Canada's been doing. So says Marshall Smith, former chief of staff to the Alberta premier, a former addict, and a prominent dissenter from the entrenched harm-reduction dogma of addiction treatment. Smith discusses with Brian how the fentanyl situation became so cataclysmic in Canada that our burgeoning drug exports are now aggravating Washington. Smith also explains how the Alberta model of enforced treatment, while getting serious about drug crime, is proof that the crisis can be turned around if governments are finally willing to take it seriously. (Recorded February 27, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They said his calling an early provincial election was hubris, and yet Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford may win an even bigger majority on Feb. 27. They scoffed when he claimed a vote was needed to fight U.S. tariffs, but that turned out to be all Ontarians were thinking about. And, as Brian discusses this week with Postmedia's Ontario columnists Chris Selley and Lorrie Goldstein, Ford's tough-talking tariff campaign has only boosted his popularity. One reason they suggest Ford is winning could be that Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie and NDP Leader Marit Stiles can't understand what voters see in the guy. But they also weigh whether voters have simply lost faith in idealistic politicians promising they can fix things, anymore. (Recorded February 21, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The premiers blitzing the U.S. capital wasn't the pointless fiasco reports made it out to be, and President Trump's plan for Canada may not really about tariffs or fentanyl. In this special episode, Brian reports from the ground in Washington, D.C. where he interviews Canadian provincial and business leaders who were there and hears about their actual progress in trying to dissuade the Trump administration from a trade war. He also sits down for an eye-opening discussion with Steve Bannon, Trump's former confidant and strategist. Bannon explains why he thinks the president's fixation with overpowering Canada is, at root, about the pivotal position we would play in what Trump thinks will be inevitable global confrontations with Russia and China. (Recorded February 14, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It might seem unbelievable, but some Americans, including President Donald Trump, really think it's possible that Canada, or parts of it, might join the U.S.A. Joel Pollak, California-based editor for Breitbart News and author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, tells Brian that the president's unexpected, confrontational tariff pressure on Canada isn't just another of his many early tactics to keep rivals and partners unbalanced while he aggressively advances a drastic agenda (although it is that, too). As Pollak explains, tariffs are Trump's way to get us all following his radical new rules, as he overturns conventional thinking on everything from free trade, to foreign aid, to China, to Gaza to … annexing Canada. (Recorded February 7, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the deal no one thought they wanted and one the Biden administration couldn't get done. Then Donald Trump showed up, sending his envoy Steve Witkoff to force it through. Soon, the hostages starting coming home, in their tortured bodies, telling their unspeakable stories. As Vivian Bercovici tells Brian from Israel, where she was formerly Canada's ambassador, everything has changed now. Many hard-right Israelis who opposed the deal suddenly support it. People are swallowing the revolting prospect of freeing murderous Palestinian terrorists to rescue Jewish innocents from hell. Bercovici and Brian also discuss Trump's determination that Hamas will not keep Gaza, and his unprecedented proposals for extinguishing the Palestinian death cult once and for all. (Recorded January 31, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not just about tariffs. If you examine what the America First advisers around Trump really think, you'll understand their determination to undertake a sweeping overhaul of the global economic system — and why they're starting with Canada. Brian's guests this week, trade researcher Carlo Dade, from the Canada West Foundation, and Ian Lee, public policy professor at Carlton University, have done their homework. That's unlike many of our political leaders, who seem oblivious to the real threats — or who, worse, like certain Liberals, think they can exploit a destructive tariff war for partisan gain. As Ian and Carlo tell Brian, the people around Trump aren't scared of higher import prices, and what they're really interested in from Canada doesn't even seem to be on Ottawa's radar. (Recorded January 24, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was a photo of Mark Carney with Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend leaked by Chrystia Freeland's team? Who sent the Rolls Royce to Carney's campaign launch event? Is Karina Gould's candidacy just a strategy to undermine Freeland? Brian talks with Liberal strategists Sharan Kaur, who worked inside the Trudeau government, and Kieran McMurchy, consultant at Navigator, to break down the hits and misses in the first days of the front-runner Freeland and Carney campaigns — and how their duel could get much dirtier. They also consider the bemusing other candidates in the race to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. Plus, they ask the biggest question of all: Whether any winner could salvage the wreck Trudeau made of the Liberal party. (Recorded January 17, 2025) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By sheer force of will, Paul Godfrey built a Major League Baseball team in what was then Canada's sleepy second city, when everyone doubted it could be done. (He ended up in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and the Blue Jays would go on to win two World Series.) He helped shake up a staid and boring local newspaper scene with the scrappy Toronto Sun, before going on to build a national media empire. Now, after 14 years at the helm of Postmedia, Godfrey is pivoting again. The legendary politician and businessman talks with Brian this week about his astounding rise from his humble start in local government to where he is now. And he says one of his next projects will be to trying to once again help Toronto, the city he loves, which he says has become a city in decline. (Recorded December 18, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some of the best episodes of 2024, which in December marked the fifth anniversary of the COVID virus escaping China and wreaking global havoc. We're still learning how institutions and officials politicized science during the pandemic to justify economic lockdowns, border closures, school shutdowns and other measures that lacked supportive evidence but carried grave consequences. Vanessa Dylyn is the award-winning director of the documentary Covid Collateral, which shows how real scientific methods and debate were sidelined, even banished, as governments faked expertise during COVID-19 with the help of compliant doctors and journalists. She joins Brian this week to talk about the shocking things she discovered while investigating the official responses to COVID; the damaging public health policies that continue to affect individuals and our society; and how we can hopefully prevent this all from happening again when the next pandemic comes. (Recorded June 27, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the holidays, we're looking back at some of the best episodes of 2024, a year that may have marked the beginning of the end for left-wing political censorship, especially by professional bodies. Last January, the courts shut the door on overturning a decision by the College of Psychologists of Ontario that ordered Jordan Peterson into a mandatory rehabilitation program for his politically incorrect tweets, which had nothing to do with his practice and involved none of his patients. As Peterson tells host Brian Lilley, his options are now to either lose his licence, try moving somewhere else or submit and undergo “re-education” for his controversial opinions. But even more importantly, Peterson says that if Canada's speech police can come for a famous psychologist and bestselling author like him, they can certainly come for anyone — including you. (Recorded Jan. 20, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

His finance minister has quit in disgust. He seems only able to come up with increasingly bad ideas. His government is in disarray, with crises in immigration, housing, the cost-of-living, deficits, debt and more. And the U.S. is about to hit Canada with economy-killing tariffs. Yet, as Brian discusses with Postmedia's Lorne Gunter and Chris Selley on our year-end political panel, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems determined to tough it out and stick around as long as he can. The trouble is, Trudeau's refusal to admit to his disastrous defeat — and his party's unwillingness to force him out — is seriously hurting innocent Canadians. (Recorded December 19, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadians have been deceived into believing that having strong, stable banks means sacrificing competition, as Andrew Spence, author of Fleeced: Canadians Versus Their Banks, tells Brian. So, we have no real competition, which means we pay more — loads more — for ATMs, Interac, mortgages, NSF fees, exchange rates and more, than people do in comparable countries. No wonder Canadian banks are making out like bandits relative to their U.S. and U.K. peers. Yet, it doesn't have to be this way, Spence explains. Especially as new, disruptive fintech firms are ready to offer us better, cheaper and more convenient banking services. But the Big Six are doing everything they can to stop that from happening. And they're succeeding — with the government's help. (Recorded November 29, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine Indigenous people getting to vote for the first time — and voting for John A. Macdonald. Many did. And it was Canada's first prime minister who gave them the vote. The Conservative leader also kept Aboriginal communities fed (against fierce Liberal opposition) when the buffalo disappeared and protected them from disease, as Patrice Dutil, author of the new book, Sir John A. Macdonald and The Apocalyptic Year 1885, tells Brian. And, yes, Macdonald also offered Indigenous children schooling: a well-intended initiative he's now being vilified for. But Canada now unfortunately privileges ahistorical, ignorant, and often spiteful slanders against John A. while lionizing a murderous secessionist like Louis Riel. As Dutil explains, Macdonald was a fascinating, brilliant, and benevolent founding father. It's time we remembered that again. (Recorded November 28, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What was once the best immigration system in the world has been turned on its head, former immigration minister and premier Jason Kenney tells Brian this week — all because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has preferred pandering platitudes over practical policy. After eight years of mass migration, Canadians everywhere — including immigrants — are suffering with problems in housing, health care and employment. What's more, all these millions of temporary residents and unverified asylum-claimants he let in know we lack the capacity to make them leave. Now, Kenney warns, with Trump about to start deportations, we could soon be flooded with hundreds of thousands — or even millions — more. (Recorded November 29, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're not welcome in “so-called Canada.” That's what academics and activists call this country, which they declare “illegitimate.” And, as Adam Kirsch, author of the new book On Settler Colonialism tells Brian, these people aren't using metaphors. They truly see anyone who isn't Indigenous as an active colonizer and criminal who doesn't belong. The idea is steadily gaining currency in our schools, society and government, and it's brutally playing out against Israel, where Hamas supporters euphorically envision forcing out all Jews (despite the Jews' own indigeneity). But don't kid yourself, Kirsch warns: They're working to dismantle other countries, too — especially this one. And with every land acknowledgment and libel against our nation's history, we're helping them do it. (Recorded November 15, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The federal Liberals are likely facing an even less friendly Donald Trump administration than last time. And they're in an even weaker position than they were then, as Brian discusses this week with Postmedia columnist Chris Selley. Their minority government is teetering, mounting scandals are weighing them down, and their mass-immigration and anti-oil policies have hobbled our economy. Meanwhile, Republicans are steamed about our neglect of defence and security, and the president-elect will remember that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent the last four years using “MAGA” as an insult. With Washington likely to become extremely pushy and protectionist, Ottawa could get crushed. (Recorded November 15, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The presidential election came down to the clevers versus the normals, guest John Robson tells Brian this week. Those succeeding in the establishment's ever more complicated system of official and unofficial rules around work, business, education and identity politics went for Kamala Harris. Everyone else —feeling left behind, ignored and scorned — went for Donald Trump. Including many minorities. Robson, an American historian and National Post columnist, says Trump is clearly unfit for the White House, so it should petrify Democrats they're seen as worse. But it shows that the anti-Western, woke-activist, mass-immigration, climate-obsessed political package repulses people everywhere. And, as the Trudeau Liberals are discovering, the common-people counter-revolt is building in Canada, too. (Recorded November 8, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the final hours of a “dumpster fire” of a presidential election, as guest and American political writer J.D. Tuccille calls it. And it's hard to imagine a worse one. Democrats are back to comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, and Republicans say the Democrats are communists. The vice-presidential picks JD Vance and Tim Walz have had minimal impact while the U.S. media has again beclowned itself running interference for Kamala Harris. But, as Tuccille discusses with Brian, there are serious issues facing America, including uncontrolled immigration and runaway living costs, not to mention serious foreign crises. Voters are left to sort through Harris's “word salads” and Trump's bluster to decide which of the two is the least inadequate. (Recorded Oct. 31, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, the rebels in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's caucus couldn't convince him to quit. But they're still fed up, and they still have forceful ways of showing it, as veteran Postmedia politics columnist John Ivison discusses with Brian this week. That may just include sabotaging a confidence vote that could bring down their own government. Now Trudeau is desperately trying anything to survive — including reversing key policies and playing politics over foreign interference. Backtracking on his beloved carbon tax may even be next. Meanwhile, the House is paralyzed in a procedural standoff and prorogation seems like the best option for Trudeau in what Ivison says seems like the “end of days” for this government. (Recorded October 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prioritizing medical expertise and skill in doctors is so passé. If powerful activists pushing to redesign Canada's physician regulators get their way, tomorrow's doctors will be focusing on promoting anti-oppression and anti-racism. Dr. Mark D'Souza has been on the forefront of the fight to prevent that. He explains to Brian how the radicals' plan could endanger patient health by sidelining merit in medical schools in favour of equity quotas, while eliminating critical distinctions of sex in diagnosis and treatment. The good news? D'Souza, author of the new book Lost and Found: How Meaningless Living is Destroying Us and Three Keys to Fix It, believes most Canadian doctors oppose the changes. The bad news is they're cowed from speaking out. (Recorded September 13, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British Columbia voters are so unhappy that they might elect a party this week that barely existed two years ago: the Conservatives led by John Rustad. No wonder. As veteran B.C. politics columnist Vaughn Palmer tells Brian, voters see crime as out of control; drug decriminalization creating no-go zones everywhere; and immigration soaring even as the housing crisis seems worse than ever. Meanwhile, their made-in-B.C. carbon tax has become punishing. NDP Leader David Eby appears desperate to disown his record since taking over as premier last year. But, as Palmer explains, although Rustad is less polished and has some problematic candidates, the surprising closeness of this race speaks to how bad things seem to so many. (Recorded October 10, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The now legendary “firewall letter” stunned Canadian political watchers. Officially called the Alberta Agenda, it called on the province to start taking back powers from the federal government, refusing to be taken further advantage of. And for 20 years, Alberta governments largely ignored it. But as former provincial finance minister Ted Morton discusses with Brian, Alberta's UCP government is finally changing that. He was one of the letter's signatories, along with Stephen Harper, who later became prime minister. As Morton discusses his new memoir, Strong and Free: My Journey in Alberta Politics, he explains how a new conservatism is changing his province — and Canada. (Recorded September 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'd have to be a fool not to see how the UN has been taken over by malevolent dictatorships. But rather than give up on the ideals the United Nations was founded on, Hillel Neuer forces the world body to face its hypocrisy, antisemitism and despot-worship. The Montreal-born executive director of UN Watch joins Brian this week to talk about his work in Geneva, where he tirelessly torments corrupt UN bodies and delegates by revealing their complicity with the worst human-rights abusers and terrorists, while persecuting liberal democracies — especially Israel. Neuer discusses the many ways Iran, China, North Korea and Russia pervert the UN's noble ambitions and what can be done to make it live up to its noble aspirations. (Recorded September 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Conservatives' attempt to bring down Justin Trudeau's Liberal government with a non-confidence motion was virtually DOA when the Bloc Québécois quickly said it would refuse to support it. No wonder: With no NDP deal to back the Liberals, the Bloc suddenly finds itself with significant power over the Liberals, as Brian discusses in our politics roundtable with columnist Tasha Kheiriddin and Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson, the team behind Postmedia's Political Hack newsletter. They also get into what the recent Montreal byelection says about how badly Liberals are losing Quebec to the Bloc. And why the recent Winnipeg byelection shows that the Tories' big challenge in many ridings come the next election will be winning over alienated New Democrats. (Recorded September 18, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've ever wondered how some self-proclaimed feminists can defend the brutal rapists of Hamas, or how people can passionately believe men can get pregnant, Gad Saad has an explanation. As an academic researcher in behavioural science, Saad has spent his career studying how perceptions and ideas can produce biological effects. He joins Brian this week to discuss how “woke” concepts like postmodernism, moral relativism and social constructionism act like pathogens on people's minds. He explains how wokeness can spread, damaging people's ability to think rationally, in the same way that other dangerous ideologies have warped the minds of masses in the past. And he talks about how he, and others, are working hard to save society from the disease. (Recorded August 30, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The leader of the federal NDP has spent two years thundering righteously against the Liberals —while propping up their minority government through a supply-and-confidence deal. Now, Jagmeet Singh has said he's for sure, no-joking, super-duper fed up with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and he's cancelled their bargain, which means giving up his leverage to advance NDP priorities. As former, longtime NDP power-player Karl Bélanger discusses with Brian this week, Singh is out of excuses for denouncing Trudeau while backing the government on confidence votes. Bélanger says the NDP leader will destroy his credibility if he keeps exuding hypocrisy. But he also stands a chance of turning around his party's unpopularity and salvaging its fortunes for the next election. (Recorded September 6, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fast enough to make your head spin, Canada's “harm reduction” approach to helping drug addicts went from a few safe injection sites to giving away powerful opioid drugs to addicts. As Adam Zivo, journalist and director of the Canadian Centre for Responsible Drug Policy discusses with Brian, ideologically radical public health officials now even insist that any addiction treatment other than giving addicts more free drugs is racist and colonialist. And despite overdose deaths rising and more addicts being created by the diversion of so-called safe supply, Zivo says these drug-policy extremists won't stop until they make all dangerous street narcotics legal — and as easy as possible for anyone to get. (Recorded July 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're still learning how institutions and officials politicized science during the pandemic to justify economic lockdowns, border closures, school shutdowns and other measures that lacked supportive evidence but carried grave consequences. Vanessa Dylyn is the award-winning director of the new documentary Covid Collateral, which shows how real scientific methods and debate were sidelined, even banished, as governments faked expertise during COVID-19 with the help of compliant doctors and journalists. She joins Brian this week to talk about the shocking things she discovered while investigating the official responses to COVID; the damaging public health policies that continue to affect individuals and our society; and how we can hopefully prevent this all from happening again when the next pandemic comes. (Recorded June 27, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not long ago, our practical, moderate approaches were considered exemplars that countries around the world tried to emulate. But as Postmedia's Tristin Hopper discusses with Brian this week, in just a few years Canada went from paragon to cautionary tale. A model of how one should definitely not handle drug policy, euthanasia, housing, online censorship, gender policy, immigration, and more. Sure, some of this is the work of an activist federal government, Hopper says — but not all of it. Social-policy extremists have infiltrated myriad levels of Canadian policy-making. Ending the havoc might take more than a change in government, he predicts. It may require a new quiet revolution led by a (still-moderate) Canadian majority. (Recorded July 29, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The statistics are undeniable: married people tend to be happier, amass more wealth and live longer, healthier lives than unmarried people, as sociologist Brad Wilcox tells Brian this week. Marriage also reduces child poverty and makes communities safer. So why are so many so-called progressives in politics, the media and other influential spheres so invested in destroying the traditions of marriage and familyhood? There's something bizarre afoot, notes Wilcox — author of the new book Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization — when society's elites are predominantly married with children, gaining all the benefits that come with that, even as they discredit traditional families … for everyone else. (Recorded June 27, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chrystia Freeland talks like a patronizing schoolmarm. Mark Carney comes off like a visiting aristocrat. Yet, the federal Liberals face a reckoning sooner or later, and they'll eventually need someone to replace Justin Trudeau. Having turned his party into a suppressive cult of personality, however, Trudeau has thwarted the rise of any real heirs or heiresses apparent. This week, Brian and former Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella feverishly scour our list of rumoured contenders for a would-be leader to rebuild from the wreckage when Trudeau's reckoning finally comes. The pickings are worse than slim, but there may be one of two with just enough brains, charm and non-radioactivity to offer the Liberals a new ruler with some real royal jelly. (Recorded July 30, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the honeymoon quickly fades for the unelected but anointed Democratic candidate, the ugly truth about Kamala Harris is emerging. As U.S. political columnist J. D. Tuccille details with Brian this week, Harris has proven herself to be alarmingly unserious and personally difficult, with a problematic record on rights. And for Americans who want change, Harris looks like Biden rebranded. Her one advantage, Tuccille says, may be that Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential candidate, a mediocre senator and speaker who does little to broaden Trump's appeal. Meanwhile, Harris still has a chance to pick a strong veep — if her party's antisemitic faction doesn't tie her hands. (Recorded July 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been three years since the bombshell media reports first spread claims there was a “mass grave” found at a former Kamloops residential school, and the truth has been playing catch-up ever since. But as our guest this week explains, anyone with knowledge of history should have known the grisly allegations that residential schools had been disappearing children and secretly disposing of them didn't make sense. Tom Flanagan, co-author of Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools), discusses with Brian how the country was seized with moral panic that overrode skeptical questions. Even as the facts come out now, says Flanagan, there are those in power still working to keep false narratives alive. (Recorded June 20, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices