Afleveringen
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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)
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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)
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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