Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "The Next Canadian PM” with Jen Gerson

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"The Next Canadian PM” with Jen Gerson · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  G'day, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
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  And Ochovoire Monsieur Trudeau, this weekend, Justin Trudeau, ends his 12 years as the leader
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  of the Liberal Party in Canada, and almost a decade, as its prime minister. He said he
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  was going to resign and this weekend is the weekend when Liberal Party members will
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  go to the polls and select his replacement. Who exactly is running to replace him? What
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  do they believe and how will they fare in a face off against the Canadian Conservatives,
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  which will subsequently take place? A lot of Canadians are frustrated and exhausted and
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  exasperated that this political circus and election malaki is coming at precisely the
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  moment when their closest ally and neighbour, the United States, is launching an unpreth
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  that entered trade war against them and they're all scratching their heads, sort of having
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  to rethink and reevaluate their economic future and their strategic future. It's an
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  extraordinary time in Canada. So I wanted to understand it and see if it has any lessons
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  for all of the rest of us and understand the Canadian point of view on Donald Trump
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  and his tariffs and his trade war. Jen Gerson is the ideal person to speak to. She's
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  an absolute delight. She has written for the New York Times and the Washington Post and
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  the Economist. She previously worked for the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail and
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  the National Post, but now she is a freelance writer and she has co-founded a sub-stack called
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  The Line, which is a Canadian commentary website and podcast. It is fabulous. She is fabulous.
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  I hope you enjoy as much as I did. The one on only Jen Gerson.
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  I think it's a straightforward sigh of relief about what we would call the identity
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  in politics or the woke left, the breaking of the hold of that kind of cultural, the
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  breaking of that, the hold of that whole cultural milieu on, it's like a term elite thought
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  or intellectual thought. And there's a lot of emotional resonance that goes along with
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  that. The problem is that of course in a desire to let go of one illiberal impulse, these
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  people are aligning themselves with a team that's arguably worse and more liberal. And
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  that's, I think it's pretty hard for a Canadian conservative not to see that because like,
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  as I said, his version of America first doesn't include us yet anyway. So like we're not
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  American. So therefore, you know, that's like great. You got rid of woke. You got rid
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  of the AI. Congratulations. Like those were problematic. Now you have something that wants
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  to crush you personally in your homes. Super thin. All right. Anyway, we can get into it.
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  But it's extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know what to make of it. I don't really
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  understand. I don't really remember anymore why people were so agitated about wokeness.
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  I mean, I do, of course, it's fucking irritating. It's annoying. But like, I think that's
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  probably also because I don't think it took hold in Australia in the same way that it
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  did in North America. Maybe. I don't, I don't think that, I don't know because I won't
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  not in Australia, obviously. But the degree to which it, it essentially consumed a huge chunk
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  of the cultural power structure and the cultural zeitgeist for years. I mean, there's a bit
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  right now. There's a bit of a, I would say a kind of post-hawk gaslighting that's happening
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  that's saying, oh, this was always a minor fringe thing. It's bullshit. It wasn't a minor
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  fringe thing. It was an absolutely mainstream thing. And especially in places like Canada,
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  which were already very progressive compared to a lot of places in the United States, it
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  was all consuming for a few years. It was totally all consuming. So the backlash that's
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  happening is totally understandable to me. It was one thing that I think my co-founder and
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  I met were warning about for the last five years. We're like, guys, this is backlash
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  to this is coming. And it's come. And it's now gone. And now what we've embraced in,
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  or not we, but what people are embracing in order to try and steer away from some of the
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  extreme left positions that they had adopted and that the culture had adopted in recent
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  years is an extreme right position or right in, in, in, in, in scare quotes, because I
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  am not sure it's conservative in any meaningful sense, but it's a, it's a popular, popular,
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  it's a populist, authoritarian, the liberal backlash. That's what's happening. And it's
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  just as scary as some of the extreme stuff on the far left, if not worse.
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  Is that manifesting itself in Canada, Jen? Not the same way. I don't think it's the
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  same way. I mean, we can talk about the Canadian conservative movement in my history.
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  Let's talk about it, because we'll, I won't do an intro here. So we can just, I mean,
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  I'll probably use this if that's okay with you. It's interesting. I mean, if you want,
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  if you want, we can go like, I'm not giving you much of a lead into a lot of the thoughts
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  on these. No, that's okay. We'll get there. Okay. So yeah, just finish that thought.
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  How is that backlash against cultural, against the sort of hegemony or dominance of cultural
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  leftism manifesting itself in Canada at the moment? Well, look, I mean, there, I would say
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  up until recently, there was a kind of a Canada Canadian mega crowd, sort of a crowd of people
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  who got very pro Trump. And I don't think they encompassed the entirety of the conservative
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  base or anything like that. But there was that there was an aspect of the conservative
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  base that was kind of pro Trump, pro mega. Good on him. Thank God, we got this guy,
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  this balsy guy coming out there blowing stuff up, you know, saying the things that need to be said,
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  breaking the hold of the cultural elites, breaking the hold of this woke politics, that kind of
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  I'd. And I mean, my co-founder, Matt and I have never been Trumpers. We've never been
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  mega people. And we've always been deeply skeptical of the Trump phenomenon because
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  fundamentally we saw in it the same, if not worse, the liberal tendencies to what we had
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  were concerned about from the sort of extreme left side as well, right? So we were always kind
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  of these these pokey annoying centrist who could never make friends. We were like, yeah, no,
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  we actually kind of believe in basic liberal values. And like, you know, like free space is kind
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  of a good thing. And we were uncomfortable with coding that value as a right wing value because
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  we thought that, you know, once the right wing inevitably gained power, they would weaponize it.
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  And it's what they're doing. But so anyway, there was there was there was there was always I think
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  a contingency of of Canadian conservatives who were so fed up with, you know, what you would call
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  wokeism or what I would kind of call it a more neutral way. Identitarian left and leftist politics
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  that they saw Trump as like a breaking of the hold of that politics over the culture. And they
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  cheered it on. They were emotionally relieved and gratified when someone like Trump came forward
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  and just blew all that apart. The concern that that I had and that that Matt haven't we both had
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  was that when Trump starts talking about America first, like, dude, he's not talking about you.
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  You're a Canadian. You're a foreigner. To Americans foreigners aren't real. We're like birds,
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  man. Like we're we're holographs in the sky. So when Donald Trump comes in and says America first
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  and we're going to make make America great again. And he's talking about this in a zero sum game.
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  He means he's going to do it at your expense. And he doesn't care if you're a left wing Canadian or
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  a right wing Canadian. You're all non people to him. So is the is the Canadian for to the Canadians who
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  have an affinity for Donald Trump or who admire him. Is it that they want him to be the president of
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  the United States and they think that's going to be good for Canada or is it that they find his style
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  of opposition to wokeness. I think refreshing enough that they want to they would like to replicate
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  it in Canada. I think it's more the left. I think they're sorry the latter not the former. I
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  don't think that there was any particular illusion that he was going to be great for Canada.
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  I think they underestimated the degree to which he was going to be a potentially huge economic
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  problem for Canada. They underestimated risk he represented hugely.
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  You know we had a leader Doug Ford who's the premier of Ontario recently been reelected the
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  premier of Ontario and he just came out of a successful election campaign. And one of the
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  opposition drops that landed on him was this clip of him saying I'm going to paraphrase here
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  not a direct quote but he was asked to respond in a private conversation to how he felt about
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  Donald Trump and he was like something to the fact of oh yeah I was so happy that he got elected
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  until he stabbed us in the gut right so there's there's I think there's a contingency of Canadian
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  conservatives that that feel yeah I was on your side man emotionally and then you you turned
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  around on us. And was this opposition research against the premier on the basis of the fact that
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  because it was damaging that he liked Trump or damaging that he said that Trump stabbed him in the
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  gut. No it was damaging that he liked Trump. Okay right. Because remember what's happened since Trump's
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  been elected and Trump started musing about Canada becoming a 31st-aid and talking about bringing
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  these really catastrophic tariffs on us which he's now done is that there has been an enormous
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  sort of gathering of national unity and national pride around essentially screw these guys like
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  there's a sense of just genuine and I think quite personal betrayal that the Americans are doing
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  this to us because for 80 plus years you know we've been the closest to friends the closest to
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  allies and our economic integration has only grown tighter over time. So we've become interdependent
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  but of course it's an interdependency in which they hold the the the bulk of the leverage just
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  because they're economically and demographically so much larger than us and we've built our entire
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  society really around this assumption of friendship and interdependence with the United States
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  and its economy and so to have them elect someone who turns around and says no fuck you and we're
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  going to screw over your auto sector we're going to tear a few to the help we see you as an enemy of
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  our economic interests not only does that potentially make you know represent a real significant
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  impact on my quality of life and the quality of life of my family and that one that will hurt me in
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  the grocery stores and the bills that I pay and the clothes that I buy and everything I do so not
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  only does that have a material impact on me but there's a real sense of emotional betrayal
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  like a genuine sense of you know like it's it's if China had screwed us over that's one thing like
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  China's not our brother not a friend but like imagine like you're like you being betrayed by your
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  best friend or being betrayed by by by a lover like it's it's that kind of a thing it's like
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  these these people were supposed to be our if not our brothers or cousins we were so culturally
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  similar we know we consume the same media we speak the same way you know we have many of the
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  same values I mean Canadians are a little bit inflected to the to the left of Americans on a
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  lot of cultural issues and so there are some differences but the differences were never that stark
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  and to be screwed over by by people who whom you have such a long and historic relationship with
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  is a real emotional blow and it's I think it's just forcing Canadians to have a total existential
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  conversation with themselves about what the hell we're doing here and whether or not
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  when you say allowed ourselves to become way too dependent on the Americans economically and
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  maybe culturally as well when you say that there's a sense that you've been screwed over by people
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  who you trusted is there a way to separate the American people from the leadership I mean is
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  there a is there a segment of Canada that is able to say well Trump is this kind of Sui
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  generous thing and yeah but they elected him they elected him it's not like he didn't come to power
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  in a military coup right and so like I'm not going to speak to for all Canadians because all Canadians
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  like everybody's emotional spaces are different here but I can tell you there are Canadians now
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  who feel very icky about traveling to the state's convocation which they wouldn't have done six
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  months ago yeah I can tell you that there is a there are real I mean I think largely symbolic
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  boycott campaigns where it's like we're not buying American ketchup or buying Canadian ketchup
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  and it's becoming a thing there are now by Canada campaigns where there are people who are boycotting
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  American brook goods and products again how what of impact this is going to have economically is
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  almost peddling but it's it's it's something that's happening locally nationally now I mean my
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  Facebook feed is now covered with people waving Canadian flags now there's a contingent within
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  Canada who are actually intrigued by the idea of becoming a 51st state we can get into that if
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  you want but I think the vast majority of national unity is coalescing around team Canada
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  screw those assholes as you would expect it to coalesce in any other kind of crisis or emergency
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  situation which is how this is being perceived for us you know this isn't just like oh you know
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  you're going to increase the price of you know a car by x percent like we are so economically
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  interdependent with with America that if they put on 25% or god help is worse tariffs on us that
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  represents potentially major existential economic threats to us that is a potential collapse in my
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  quality of life the quality of life of my neighbors right that's a collapse in the quality of my
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  dollar how much money I can what I can afford to buy globally and like because America sorry because
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  Canada is is you know we don't we're winter country we don't produce produce I mean like
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  it's a lot of our food comes from America so you know if if we try to do retaliatory tariffs
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  in ways that impact the Americans I mean I think that our leadership so far is actually
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  been reasonably intelligent and trying to do targeted retaliatory tariffs so it's targeting goods
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  and services that have that are designed to hurt specific Republicans in specific districts
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  so like bourbon for example was a pretty classic example of a retaliatory tariff I mean bourbon
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  isn't like no one's no one's going to go broke on bourbon you know um but if those retaliatory
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  tariffs escalate or or or potentially get worse or you know if we just start to see the economic
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  viability of Canada decline over time because these these tariffs become prolonged like we
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  potentially we see for example investment not come here because uh they want to avoid tariffs
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  by taking investment to to the states or investment fleas Canada for for a lot of different reasons
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  I mean that's that's that's the ballgame for us right does anyone have a strategy Jen
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  not I mean yes yes and no yes and no um I think the first couple of months after Trump was
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  elected there was a real vacuum of of moral and and strategic leadership from the federal
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  government and and as a result of that you saw each of the individual provinces try to do their
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  best by adopting their own individual strategies for coping so and sorry can you just give us can
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  you just jump in and give us a sense of the political persuasion of the provinces is there
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  are there any that are long-term conservative provinces and long-term
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  yeah so I mean I mean I'm I'm in Alberta right and Alberta is considered to work in yeah it's an
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  oil province so it's a more conservative province relative to Canada um you have Ontario which is
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  where the bulk of the population is in the huge amount of the economic center and it kind of
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  goes left and right but it's a bit more of a centrist province you've got BC which is a bit more
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  west coast style so west coast tends to be a bit more uh lefty progressive or more experimental
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  lefty progressive um you have the Atlantic provinces which have a tendency to kind of vote liberal
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  but they're sort of pragmatic central centrist liberal and then the the prairie provinces can kind
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  of go which way or that depending on on any kind of number of of economic conditions right
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  got it so their response yeah their responses to yeah so I mean in my province we had Danielle
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  Smith who's the premier of Alberta she and also can remember that uh Alberta is hugely dependent
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  on our oil exports and our oil exports are intimately not tied into American Americans oil and
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  energy infrastructure so if America were to cut off our oil tomorrow we'd be bored and I mean
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  that very significantly bored it's it makes up a significant aspect of Alberta's GDP
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  a huge chunk of our provincial budget comes directly from oil revenue oil tea revenues
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  resource revenue revenues so like our ability to fund our health care system
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  and our education system rests on our ability to sell our oil to the Americans and by the way
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  it's probably worth just noting that I mean I've seen some things some sort of bombastic
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  nationalist canadian memes going around when the initial tariff threat was made that were like well
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  if Trump wants to mess around with us doesn't he realize like how much of Americans natural resources
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  come across the border from Canada and you know we send them this much of this and this much of
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  this and I kept thinking yeah but if you stop selling it to them then you also don't make any
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  money well also it's worse than that because if we were to shut down the oil going south firstly
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  that does two things but the other thing is it invites America to a retaliate by shutting
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  natural gas going north and when if you look at a map of how integrated the energy markets are
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  and I don't know how nerdy you want me to get here but imagine a giant loop right so the oil
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  and the gas in Canada doesn't I mean there's some pathways but it doesn't really go east west
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  because that's not the economically viable route what's happened is the oil is going north south
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  so our energy infrastructure is all tied in and it's kind of a very complicated north south loop
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  where a lot of a lot of Canadian oil gets and crude gets sold into the American market at a
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  significant discount to global prices because Canada's proven inability unable to sell or build
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  into the infrastructure required to sell our product internationally for that's a whole other
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  conversation let me tell you but anyway as a result we're landlocked into the American energy
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  infrastructure we sell it to it we sell our oil and our crude to Americans at a significant
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  discount to global markets the Americans refine it in kind of mega refineries that are especially
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  equipped to handle our kind of low quality crude and then they either sell it internally to themselves
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  on the domestic market or they'll sell it on the world market depending on where the world market
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  prices are so what those hyper patriots don't quite quite realize is that yeah we could potentially
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  cut them off going south then there's nowhere else for the oil to go guys we cut ourselves out
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  we we we landlock ourselves but then also what they also don't realize is that if America were to
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  cut off natural gas supplies supplies going north hope you enjoy heating your house without natural
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  gas and winter this is not a problem that you have in Australia that much yeah but let me tell you
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  it's real cold yeah I spent I spent spent spend spend some winter time in Calgary and
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  Toronto yeah yeah yeah you don't want to be now we're where where I yeah where I would live
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  would be fine I live in the in the gas and oil producing regions and we would probably be fine
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  but we can't ship enough natural gas east west to heat central Canada the pipelines aren't there
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  and we don't have enough trucks and roads to do it so like it yeah and you can't in other words you
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  can't escalate like escalating you can't well we can't wait to we can't escalate there are
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  things that we can do to escalate to hurt the Americans absolutely but the problem is that we're
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  still dealing with an interdependent economic situation with a group of people who are richer
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  and larger than us by a factor of 10 to 100 depending on how you want to calculate it so we
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  would need to escalate 10 times more than anything they did to us for them to even feel an impact
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  and the American economic situation is so much more wealthy so much more powerful has so much
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  more access so much more dynamic and innovative than ours than ours is so much more productive
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  that they would just adapt and the other thing that I think a lot of the people who want to
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  shut off the oil aren't factoring in here is that if Canada shuts off the oil and we become an
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  unreliable source of crude to the American refineries down south and they have to put in the
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  hundred billion dollar investment that would be would be required to reject their own internal
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  infrastructure would they could would that hurt them for a year or two maybe five yes
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  and once they made those infrastructures in those plays work it out potentially forever
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  and can we throw a hundred billion dollars around to reach our entire energy infrastructure
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  not as easily as the Americans can there's just way more money down there right so it like we're
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  in this really uniquely vulnerable situation on the energy side we're in a uniquely vulnerable
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  situation on goods and services and we're in a very particularly vulnerable situation in terms
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  of auto parts and car manufacturing and like the the other thing that people don't realize is that
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  the the American and Canadian auto sector has essentially become integrated so like car parts
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  will pass over the border multiple times like dozens of times in order to create a full-size car
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  because it's just we just treat this as like a like a single market yeah we treated essentially
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  like a single market so when America starts terrifying auto parts and making it too expensive all
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  the margins of the car part of the car parts companies or the car companies begin to collapse right
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  so they have to start now ensuring and I mean ensuring is even the wrong word because not even
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  like there's not even sure it's the same god damn sure yeah but if they have to if they have to
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  onshore of their auto our auto parts creations yes that potentially does increase investment in
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  American auto sector and auto parts but this is going to be a massive headache for American
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  car companies as well and I'm not going to start pushing back against Trump and going I would do
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  this is not feasible this isn't working workable but but but but none of Trump's policies are
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  fundamentally rooted in economics they're rooted in perception and emotion so what's he like he
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  doesn't care what does he care well it depends what the dollar does I suppose well but but I mean
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  also ultimately this is the thing that really got me because I was listening to the the
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  Trump addressed the joint chiefs I mean it was one misleading comment after one misleading
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  comment after one misleading comment after one lie after another he's he's crafting his own
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  reality so if Trump says your economic situation is better than it was five years ago under that
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  terrible Joe Biden the people who matter to him will just believe it well you know he's been in
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  office for three seconds and so they'll believe it until they until their wallets tell them that
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  they can't believe it anymore I'm not sure that's even true I'm not even sure that's true I think
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  that this guy is is a remarkably competent marketer I think he's very good at crafting perceptions
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  of that certainly true but I mean at some point you know there's only so much marketing you can do
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  before you know new coke or whatever that stupid product you've developed is this is a temporary
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  this is temporary pain everything will get better in the long run if you just if you just do it
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  do what I tell you this is just a temporary headache it's okay I'll hurt and hurt in the short
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  short term but oh and then okay so maybe your wallets were soft but believe me and as a whole
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  of the American people are better off look at all these jobs we've brought back from Ontario
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  we've brought back 20,000 more jobs from Ontario the the rust belt is thriving and of course
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  most people are never going to drive through the rust belts and decide for themselves how
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  thriving or not he's crafting his own reality he's crafting his own perception of reality
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  yes that's what he's doing so I'm not even like this is where I get really pessimistic because I'm
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  not convinced that people are rational actors rational economic actors I'm not convinced that
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  they're going to respond to a significant decline in their quality of life appropriately I think
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  they're going to listen to this guy telling the telling everyone that I think they're going to a
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  lot of people not all but a lot of people are going to listen to Donald Trump insisting that life
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  is better now and they're going to accept it regardless of what the empirical or objective data
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  of their wallets tell them some people will that fraction of his base will get smaller and smaller
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  depending on how dire the circumstances in their lives get you know the true believers will be left
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  of course but maybe six weeks in Jen hold out some hope for you know eventually reality reality
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  is going to reality at the beginning of every administration the president gets to call the
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  shots because the president is the person who's in charge and they get to dictate everything but
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  eventually things happen terrorist attacks happen pandemics happen national security unexpected
• 24:48
  things happen the shit hits the fan somehow and eventually after months or years they own it they
• 24:54
  have to own it okay but you got to remember here it's March I'm living in Canada it's really bleak
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  right now I'm speaking to you from sunny summer in Australia with my glossy sheen my rose tinted
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  spectacle yes but on the plus side we don't have the terrible animals and bugs that's true this is
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  true that the frigid expanse of death manages to kill everything that that wants to kill us and I
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  literally kind of sterility that I'm looking for in my planet but my seven-year-old my seven-year-old
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  son for Christmas literally got a snake Jen so I live with a python so you don't need to tell me
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  but it's least it's in a cage it's in a cage yeah although it escaped it escaped it escaped it's
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  escaped I look all I'm hearing all I hear is that you can't bring food to the beach in Australia because
• 25:39
  of the bugs in the sand and that freaked me right the hell actually not terrible in comparison to
• 25:44
  Canadian summers I've got to say one of the worst bug experiences I've ever had was going camping
• 25:48
  and hiking in BC in the middle of summer the mosquitoes don't make this don't make this worse for me
• 25:55
  Josh I'm already in a bad enough place okay don't make this worse for me look I mean look I mean
• 26:00
  yeah okay look it's it's I I'm hoping that look the Trump phenomenon is a reactionary backlash to
• 26:08
  a unique moment in history and that the fever dream breaks and we all go back to normal whatever
• 26:13
  normal looks like after this but what I'm also perceiving as a Canadian is okay but what if we don't
• 26:21
  hmm sure and just to clarify my claim isn't that the fever will break and we'll go back to normal my
• 26:26
  claim is just that he's gonna run into an increasing difficult yeah that's right and the briar patch
• 26:31
  is gonna take us somewhere different than where he thinks he's going I'm not saying that it'll
• 26:36
  everything will be hunky-dory but it's not gonna go the way that he wants it to or he gets replaced
• 26:39
  with JD Vance who's worse and what we're seeing here right now is the beginning of a of a medium
• 26:46
  to long-term trend in the way that America wants to go and how it wants to govern itself and if
• 26:51
  it wants to become a much more insular and protectionist oligarchic I mean arguably autocratic state
• 26:59
  is that if that's the direction that it wants to go in which case you know poor little Canada over
• 27:04
  here is like you know a moth and a cage with the gorilla and what do we do how do we respond to
• 27:12
  right I mean I think the only answer for us is we have to we have to hope for the best but
• 27:17
  assume the worst we have to operate under the assumption that this is the direction that America
• 27:22
  wants to go in and the only way that we can credibly respond to that is to make ourselves as innovative
• 27:29
  productive and economically resilient as possible so that whatever America chooses to do we don't
• 27:35
  have to necessarily become a slave to it right I just think that's the only that's our only
• 27:41
  response here that's our only play yeah I mean you probably to be honest you you probably do
• 27:46
  something akin to what Australia has had to do as a result of just being located where Australia is
• 27:51
  which is you get more innovative about long supply chains and you look to you pivot to Asia and
• 27:57
  you sell a lot more stuff to China and you knit yourselves together with Europe more closely and
• 28:03
  you become an independent I mean you've got everything going for you and educated population lots
• 28:08
  of resources you know there's no reason why you can't be rich well I mean don't don't get me
• 28:12
  started with the issues we're having in Canada there there are significant cultural and economic
• 28:19
  problems we have here with with with with gross as lack of ability to build things lack of ability
• 28:23
  to function appropriately lack of ability to move quickly like we have problems that this crisis
• 28:28
  is going to force us to confront right I I have concerns I have concerns but you're right I mean
• 28:38
  if you're playing the video game if you're playing civilization like you want to play Canada
• 28:45
  yeah this is the place to this is the place to begin I mean in theory in practice I really do
• 28:51
  think that Canada's squandered every advantage that we've had and we've allowed ourselves to
• 28:55
  become slow moving fat and complacent and a lot of that has to do with the fact that you know we've
• 29:01
  had the luxury of sitting next to the world's biggest most powerful most economically resilient
• 29:07
  superpower for generations now okay let's talk about Canada then instead of Donald Trump let's talk
• 29:12
  about the elections this weekend so what exactly is happening just to take us through remind us
• 29:17
  those of us who've only paid scant attention to the elections and the demise of Prime Minister
• 29:23
  Trudeau what's going on oh god well we're not talking literal demise I do hope but um god where do I
• 29:29
  even begin with that so just logistically so okay just explain what the party is doing this weekend
• 29:35
  and who okay just just like the straight the straight top line okay so essentially the
• 29:41
  Justin know finally decided that he needed to resign uh he resigned at a fairly late juncture
• 29:49
  um in terms of our needs to fund parliament and also deal with the trade war that we're now
• 29:57
  in with with Donald Trump and I can get into the the nitty gritty of that if you like um after he
• 30:03
  resigned uh essentially four technically five but four people have credible people who stepped
• 30:09
  forward as a potential replacement to him one of them is obviously uh Mark Carney who is both the
• 30:15
  former Bank of um Canada and Bank of England governor a very impressive very credible albeit sort
• 30:22
  of elite CB so to speak other one is Kristia Freeland who was both uh Justin Trudeau's key
• 30:31
  secondhand woman right hand woman for the for the entirety of his and his governmental tenure
• 30:36
  for while she was nicknamed like the minister of everything because she seemed to be the only
• 30:40
  competent person in his cabinet and as a result wound up doing almost every minister
• 30:46
  she was the foreign minister wasn't she foreign minister finance minister deputy minister she
• 30:51
  is literally the in a minister i i'm not gonna waste your time listing all the was the head of um
• 30:58
  who she's an interesting character we can get into her there's Karina Gold and there's a
• 31:02
  Frank Bayless now these are kind of fringe figures who are probably running in order to increase their
• 31:05
  own profile and their own stature in a future government because they you know they're not really
• 31:09
  the most uh they don't have the profile required to um replace Trudeau okay and who votes uh
• 31:15
  who votes on the weekend okay so the people who are voting on the weekend are members of the liberal
• 31:20
  party you could sign up for the liberal party basically by going to the liberal website you sign up
• 31:25
  you put thing and you there has been some verification that these are people who are
• 31:29
  of age citizens although i think it's going to be debatable as to whether or not enough
• 31:33
  verification has been done but that's a whole other side conversation essentially liberal party
• 31:36
  members are deciding who who would have replaced Justin Trudeau with and is that a large
• 31:40
  proportion of the electorate the way it is in the United States or is it a tiny like it is in
• 31:45
  other it's it's not tiny um my guess is that it will be in the hundreds of thousands okay so no
• 31:51
  it's it will be a it will be a sizable chunk of the uh of of of people okay so that's basically
• 31:58
  a primary and when is the federal election well don't get me started about like Canada's
• 32:03
  weird attempts to hybridize its political system between the uh uh uh uh uh UK Westminster
• 32:08
  parliamentary system and the American primary system because it's it's not going great let me just
• 32:12
  tell you but stick stick with Westminster parliamentary guys don't try and like democratize it
• 32:17
  do you have do you have fixed terms do you have fixed terms at a national level or is it a
• 32:22
  it can they prime minister announce that when kind of yes but kind of no and and this is the great
• 32:27
  thing about the Canadian system is that it's totally opaque and no one can follow it unless they live
• 32:31
  here um so there are constitutional limits on how long a term can go there are also legislative
• 32:37
  limits on how how long a term can go and also because it's a Westminster parliamentary system as in
• 32:43
  the Australian system you know if the governing party loses the confidence of uh of of
• 32:49
  parliament an election is called automatically so what's probably going to happen is it's
• 32:54
  probably going to be a marked carney victory and the rumor has it right now that carney is going
• 32:59
  to call a snap election which means we're probably going to um be calling an election in the
• 33:04
  midst of a trade with America which is just awesome for us it's great right and just to clarify
• 33:09
  so normally the prime it would be normal for the prime minister to call an election anyway
• 33:16
  that he would call one earlier than might have been expected because in a state in a state or
• 33:20
  in the UK I think also there's like a nine month window in which the government can call an
• 33:24
  election and they just do it whenever they want to yes sort of yes sort of no so I mean if we
• 33:30
  were going by the legislative limits we would be expecting an October election so the October
• 33:35
  of this year is sort of when when we we would be expecting to call it and I think they would have
• 33:40
  to pass a legislation in order to push it further than that but I don't think that's realistic so
• 33:46
  normally we were expecting an October election but what's happening now is that the reason why
• 33:51
  Trudeau essentially had to resign is because back in December Kristia Freeland I mentioned her
• 33:58
  she resigned from cabinet basically saying this should be bananas um after about more than a year
• 34:05
  and a half of sort of tanking pool numbers for Trudeau Trudeau has become personally very very
• 34:09
  unpopular and why is that really oh where do I start I don't even know how to start so let me
• 34:17
  let me give you the short answer the short answer on this one is that like essentially the short
• 34:20
  answer on this one is like look he's he's been Prime Minister for nine years Canadians get sick
• 34:24
  of their leaders after about nine years we're just done it's still who doesn't we're tired of
• 34:30
  seeing the sky we're tired of his face and we're tired of his voice okay it's time for someone new
• 34:35
  so that's the short answer but I can get into greater detail later so anyway December first
• 34:39
  if Kristia Freeland quits says this is bananas I'm out I'm outy
• 34:43
  um pool numbers are absolutely tanking the the liberals look like they're absolutely ready
• 34:50
  for a shallacking and in the meantime we've got a very very chippy conservative leader who's
• 34:55
  um like 20 points ahead of the liberals and the polls and has been trying to um challenge the
• 35:01
  current government with confidence motion after confidence motion after confidence motion
• 35:05
  that have only succeeded because the liberals have managed to have like a very narrow coalition with
• 35:11
  the um NDP with the new democratic party which is kind of a socialist party but the new democratic
• 35:16
  party said that they were going to rip up their their their their confidence and supply agreement
• 35:20
  like way back in September even though they're still voting with the government on the last
• 35:24
  couple of confidence motions don't get me started it's a whole big mess this is all a bit arcane
• 35:28
  for Americans but it basically means the opposition is is challenging is forcing parliamentarians
• 35:34
  to vote in favor of the government and the minority coalition partner the socialist party is
• 35:39
  threatening to defund to stop funding for the government affairs is that right okay
• 35:49
  we don't have to go back do you want me to get into it do you want me to get into it
• 35:53
  in your face that this is not the death but the death inside yeah no no I can go there
• 35:58
  I can go here okay I can go there and I can make this interesting if you want yes but essentially
• 36:03
  in 2000 and god 19 the liberals won with oh god it wasn't even 2019 I've got literally a stopwatch
• 36:12
  to give you the number of seconds to make it interesting okay and the last in the last election
• 36:17
  the conservative or sorry the liberals only one of minority government which means the only way
• 36:20
  that they could manage to to maintain the confidence of the house which was with the coalition
• 36:24
  with the NDP which means they needed to create something called the confidence and supply agreement
• 36:29
  so the NDP agrees to prop up the liberals with a majority on on on confidence motions in exchange
• 36:35
  for little like goodies on the side in September this the leader of the NDP comes out and says we're
• 36:40
  ripping up the supply agreement we're no longer voting and supply basically means the supply of
• 36:44
  government for the government to function the supply of money that's correct that's right and if
• 36:48
  you can't supply the government with money you lose the confidence of the house and you have to go
• 36:52
  into an election right so the so the the the NDP leader says no we're not doing this anymore the
• 36:57
  conservative says so does that mean you're going to vote against the government and you're going
• 37:00
  to vote for an election and the leader of the NDP is like yeah not really so the conservatives
• 37:06
  have been playing this game where they've been running confidence motion after confidence motion
• 37:10
  after confidence motion trying to force the NDP to vote against their coalition partner
• 37:14
  god it trying to break the coalition which trying to break the coalition which the the governing
• 37:19
  party needs because they don't have enough seats to rule in their own right exactly that's right
• 37:26
  so what's happened after multiples of these of these votes and it's all been just it's it's it's
• 37:31
  it made parliament into um a bit of a disaster where nothing was really getting done
• 37:35
  whole bunch there's a whole bunch of other side side quests in this whole drama but um as a result
• 37:41
  of this this this ever actually did up the pressure on the on the liberals who were continuing to
• 37:45
  tank in the polls finally you've got christie freeland that says this is bananas i'm out i'm quitting
• 37:50
  true i was like i'm going to think about my future he goes on a ski holiday comes back from
• 37:55
  vacation and then says i guess i'll be resigning then um which was a bit of a weird strategic
• 38:03
  and catastrophic mistake for reasons that i can get into but essentially it it pushed uh Trudeau
• 38:08
  to finally admit that he was not going to be the guy who was going to be taking the liberals into
• 38:14
  the next election what and sorry why is that a mistake i would have thought that if you can see
• 38:18
  the writing on the wall and you think you're going to lose an election you would want to bow out
• 38:22
  before you take the party to catastrophe well because what was happening is that the conservatives
• 38:28
  over that ski like that ski holiday said we're going to pass a another confidence vote motion
• 38:34
  in a committee meeting which means that when parliament was supposed to come back on on January 22nd
• 38:40
  they were going to have a confidence motion for the part for the government to vote on right away
• 38:45
  and this was after the ndp partner coalition said um well we're not voting with the government
• 38:51
  on a confidence motion again so essentially they were going to force the government to fall in
• 38:55
  January and so Trudeau rather than face the music and allow the government to fall and then go into
• 39:02
  an election honorably into co-town with his ships so to speak he said screw that i'm going to
• 39:08
  provoke parliament so he went to the governor general said stall out government all operations
• 39:14
  of government lock the doors and where i'm going to quit and then that will give my my party
• 39:20
  a couple of weeks to try and select a new leader and that they can bring back parliament with
• 39:25
  a new leader okay now i'll just i'll just like say there there was an alternative interpretation
• 39:32
  of Trudeau's actions where you're being critical of him for not going down with the ship
• 39:37
  but a Trudeau supporter would presumably say don't drag the party to an electoral defeat
• 39:43
  like bmn get out so goodbye i've done my bet give hand it over to somebody else and see if they
• 39:48
  can do a better job well i suppose that i mean guess i guess i mean maybe that will work out for
• 39:54
  them in the long run but i mean i think it the problem that i have with it is not that the Trudeau
• 39:58
  is resigning i think that Trudeau has every every right to resign i think he should have
• 40:01
  resumed seeing the the writing on the wall and resigned back in September and given his party an
• 40:06
  actual credible period of time to run a proper leadership because what it says in the liberal
• 40:11
  parties own internal party constitution is that leadership races have to be 90 days long
• 40:16
  but Trudeau only actually gave his party something like 70 days to run a leadership between his
• 40:23
  furrowing parliament and when parliament needs to come back to pass the annual budget
• 40:29
  so he hasn't he didn't give his party enough time to run a really strong credible leadership race
• 40:34
  okay nonetheless this happens all the time and then and then he'll have a three seconds before
• 40:38
  the election yeah well and look at how well that worked out for you know i get it i mean well this
• 40:42
  is and this is all happening in the midst of a potentially existential economic crisis in the
• 40:47
  midst of a trade war so parliament's locked we have no ability to actually to do certain types
• 40:53
  of actions like like we can do some sorts sorts sorts of retaliatory tariffs on using orders
• 40:58
  to counsel and things like that but we we're not we're not parliament's not sitting there's
• 41:02
  there's the the actual leadership vacuum and avoid is total because we're now in the midst of
• 41:07
  a liberal leadership race that is consuming all of the domestic air in the room and it's not clear
• 41:13
  that even if the Americans couldn't negotiate with us who the hell is there to negotiate with with
• 41:17
  I mean we don't even know the next leader of the prime minister's in the next prime minister's
• 41:20
  just to just to clarify Jen when then when this leadership race is is over this weekend next week
• 41:28
  that person does that person become the prime minister until the next election
• 41:32
  that person becomes the prime minister even though that person will probably might be Mark Carney
• 41:37
  so he hasn't won an election to have a seat and seat in parliament so he'll become prime minister
• 41:41
  prime minister of the party but he won't be sitting in parliament how can that happen you kind of
• 41:45
  a prime minister who I don't know and yes you kind of can I guess I mean everyone's doing this
• 41:51
  by the seat of their pants right so what has this never happened before I you know I don't know
• 41:57
  offhand I should know that offhand but it's it's not he can become prime minister he can
• 42:02
  certainly become leader of the party he will be treated effectively as prime minister normally what
• 42:06
  would happen in this kind of situation is you'd you'd have him run in a in a basically an instant
• 42:11
  by-election the party would call a by-election yeah right the guy would run in a by-election and then
• 42:16
  he'd win the but it would be in a safe liberal seat yeah yeah then be able to just take it out that's
• 42:21
  normally how you how you think that would have to happen legally in Australia I don't think you
• 42:25
  can yeah I think the party can elect a leader who's not in who's not a parliament apparently
• 42:30
  candidates just making it up as we go along so they would become so theoretically if Kanye
• 42:35
  becomes PM next week yeah or or Christian Freeland then they could call a snap election and then
• 42:43
  the election take place in six weeks time and they they would have been prime minister for just
• 42:47
  six weeks without having had a parliamentary seat no because this because the second the second
• 42:51
  you call the election you're no longer prime minister oh I see like like like it could be listed
• 42:56
  like would he be listed on a list of Canadian prime ministers yeah the second yeah 24 hours before
• 43:01
  calling elections he they'd have to make the portrait and everything like they'd have to paint
• 43:04
  the portrait and put them in the hall so like even if he's even ever running for parliament
• 43:10
  I think so yeah and pretty wild so like you just like this is just this is chaos upon chaos upon chaos
• 43:17
  in the midst of a really chaotic moment and like my criticism of Trudeau is not that he step down
• 43:22
  it's that the writing was on the wall for Trudeau for the last year and a half and if he it's like
• 43:26
  he's he's now survived multiple attempted spills um that didn't go anywhere multiple attempted
• 43:32
  caucus coos it should have been obvious to him I would think of June of last year that he needed
• 43:37
  to step down and go and and run a credible replacement campaign even September of last year would
• 43:42
  have been fine instead he's doing this to maximize the chaos and like by the way he's still prime
• 43:48
  minister yeah he's resigned from the party but he's still prime minister you know he's out there
• 43:53
  and he's announcing these well he's announced his resignation from the party or he has resigned his
• 43:57
  future resignation right so he's still the leader of the party he's still a prime minister he's still
• 44:02
  the prime minister like ducks happen all the time yeah it's just six weeks it's just really a bad
• 44:09
  it's a bad time to be having a lean duck sure okay so let let me just let's just talk the election
• 44:14
  then just so that we get a snapshot of what we should in how we should interpret things depending
• 44:19
  when we wake up next on monday or on sunday or whatever and we see who the winner is what should we
• 44:24
  understand if it's carney versus freeland what does that mean that uh liberal party voters
• 44:31
  have well it'll probably it'll be it'll be probably be corny and the reason why i'm saying that is
• 44:35
  because the fundraising totals have come out and um you know the situation is not as dire for
• 44:41
  freeland as the initial totals were suggesting that she's raised decent money but corny's so
• 44:47
  upset stripped her in fundraising that it would be pretty impossible it would very unlikely for me
• 44:52
  it's clear to me that was a clear indicator that the enthusiasm is for corny not for a freeland so
• 44:57
  I'd be very shocked if it weren't free if it weren't corny enthusiasm in terms of small dollar donations
• 45:02
  or enthusiasm in terms of big corporations going carnies uh no there are our our corporation um
• 45:07
  sure our our funding limits are pretty strict okay so no i i almost all this would be good
• 45:13
  and what do you think people are seeing in carney that they're not seeing in christia freeland i think
• 45:17
  they're seeing um he's portraying himself as the adult in the room who can manage a crisis
• 45:23
  right i i have i'm ahead of the bank of whatever whatever i'm credible i'm basically it's
• 45:29
  it's it's calming technocratic daddy voice right that's kind of the vibe that he's giving me
• 45:35
  i have concerns that i'm not sure that he's got any more of a plan in terms of how to deal with
• 45:40
  the trend situation than the conservatives do but he's got a much more impressive
• 45:46
  credential set of credentials and cvs and just to clarify the bank thing the governor of the
• 45:51
  reserve bank in canada and the uk would be the equivalent of the chairman of the federal reserve
• 45:55
  in the united states right so for americans it's like it's the chairman of the fed so you
• 46:00
  he would be in charge of interest rates yeah this the correct yeah so this is this is where he would
• 46:05
  have been so a steady pair of hands someone who's uh an institutionalist essentially and then
• 46:09
  absolutely how is he polling if he were in a head-to-head against the conservatives for the general
• 46:15
  i think the polls are really all over the map there's definitely been a post-trudeau bump for the
• 46:21
  liberals generally um in fact some polling suggested that you know uh and remember that the
• 46:26
  the conservatives have been ahead by like 20 plus points on 10 to 20 points for more than a year
• 46:30
  like it's been a very very strong lead um and there has been some suggestion that since karni came
• 46:36
  to uh or sorry since trudeau left and brit trudeau himself was personally very very unpopular
• 46:42
  that the liberals are bumping up again now even some polling suggesting that there is a bit of a
• 46:47
  honeymoon period after trudeau left that they are as high as as the conservatives that they're now
• 46:51
  running a more competitive um race i don't think that's gonna hold i think that the the liberals have
• 46:58
  just been in power for a really long time and i don't think that karni is enough of a charismatic
• 47:03
  or enough of a transformational figure i don't think he's distance himself enough from the previous
• 47:07
  trudeau government to be able to overcome some of the general fatigue that people have with this
• 47:13
  current government and who's the who's the conservative leader and how presidential is that person
• 47:19
  oh man okay i'm gonna need to sip a tea before i get over it all right all right i hope there's
• 47:25
  gin in the tea hmm i might have to be okay so pier polyf is the head of the conservative party
• 47:32
  pier polyf has been uh in pot Canadian politics since he was like basically a 24 year old
• 47:39
  okay so the vibe of the pier called do you have like something called like young conservatives in
• 47:43
  australia like yeah sure like like school groups that that's recruits and train yes and coming young
• 47:50
  go getters who are their first time ran about not knowing anything like they were bow ties they like
• 47:55
  to do that they like to do debates like that kind of stuff yeah so that's that is pier that's that's
• 48:01
  who he is he's he's the young conservative he's been in in politics he actually i think one is
• 48:07
  first election at 24 i think like it and he has been a lifelong parliamentarian who has
• 48:13
  finally honed his ability to operate within Canadian political system to a very fine degree and i
• 48:20
  think that um gosh do we need to get into internecine political sort of conservative infighting
• 48:26
  do we do we do we do we need to do that okay so the conservative party after steven harbour you
• 48:32
  may recall steven harbour is a former prime minister basically went through 10 years of vicious
• 48:36
  infighting and several leaders and finally pier polyf emerged with an argument that's like we
• 48:42
  need to stop trying to win by being liberals we need to win by being conservatives however
• 48:49
  conservatism is defined in a Canadian context we need to be scrappy we need to be plucky we need to
• 48:53
  be willing to kill the sacred cows and you know destroyer to supply management anyway no we need to
• 48:59
  kill all of our sacred cows we need to be more aggressive and assertive we need to stop tiptoeing
• 49:03
  around what we believe we need to not be ashamed of what we believe we need to be conservatives
• 49:07
  and because this guy came to his leadership at a moment when people were just absolutely
• 49:13
  exasperated by the liberals and everything they stood for kind of in the tail end of like what I
• 49:18
  would call the woke or identitarian swing he he's coming in very much as a oh thank god someone
• 49:24
  who just says what he thinks you know there's there's there's a bit a bit of that there's also he's
• 49:28
  also I would say ironically for someone who spent his entire life and career in the institution
• 49:34
  he's branding is sort of anti institutional so he has sort of a similar anti elite the similar
• 49:40
  kind of populist branding um he operates you know he's got he's very skeptical of the mainstream
• 49:46
  media he's very critical of the mainstream media he wants to defund the cvc he wants to act the
• 49:51
  carbon tax he wants to talk about building homes for young Canadians in fact there's a real sort of
• 49:56
  yin b kind of vibes he's he's he's younger than Trudeau there's a bit of a let's build all the
• 50:02
  homes let's be innovative let's follow up what there's a lot of that which I think is quite positive
• 50:07
  I don't think that his attacks on the mainstream media are are positive I think they're
• 50:11
  there's there's that vibe of of of kind of taking some cues from Trump in that regard
• 50:17
  and also I mean one of the things that I think really set people off about Pierre was I don't know
• 50:22
  if you recall the convoy the trucker convoys that happened a couple years ago this was this was
• 50:27
  big and when we had anti-COVID protests that essentially shut down Ottawa and shut down many of
• 50:32
  our major borders with the United States you know Pierre went and kind of met with the convoys and
• 50:38
  expressed kind of the tacit support for what they were doing and I think that that that really
• 50:42
  set a lot of the institutionalists off by expressing if not a right solidarity then certainly
• 50:50
  sort of tacit support for those groups so um you know definitely it's it's being the ironic
• 50:57
  thing is is you know for for Pierre to present himself as a as a populist is kind of funny because
• 51:03
  of course he's he was in parliament under there's a cabinet minister under the Harper government
• 51:08
  you know I mean like he's been there for decades um but it is shaping up in the way that these two
• 51:14
  people are presenting themselves to be sort of Mark Carney as I said technocratic daddy voice safe
• 51:19
  pair of hands institutionalist protector of the Canadian institutions um versus uh Pierre Pauliev
• 51:28
  who's a much more radical vision of tearing stuff down and and you know canada is broken this
• 51:35
  isn't working anymore we need to fix things it's so interesting Jen isn't it because it's it's
• 51:39
  it sounds like it's symptomatic of this strange shift that's happened between left and right
• 51:44
  over the past yeah a few decades where you know the the old buttoned up institutionalists who were
• 51:49
  defending a small sea conservatism used to be the conservative side of politics yeah yeah
• 51:54
  the ones who wanted to change everything and you know throw sand in the gears and go out and party and
• 51:59
  like you know shake everything up well the were on the left and yeah and and that's shifted
• 52:05
  and the other interesting thing that's that's switching and I think you're seeing this in American
• 52:08
  politics but you're seeing this in Canadian politics as well is where um blue collar labor is going
• 52:14
  right so blue collar labor traditionally we're we're associated with leftist politics in Canadian
• 52:19
  in in Canadian in the Canadian system um but what I think has started to happen is as the left
• 52:25
  became more culturally alien to blue collar workers and at that by that I mean they became more
• 52:31
  woke if you prefer or identitarian left kind of if you prefer that was very alienating to a lot
• 52:37
  of blue collar Canadians so you're finding there's the now a realignment of of blue collar Canadians
• 52:41
  around conservative values mostly conservative values um so they're saying we're seeing that shift
• 52:47
  happened in Canada quite strongly which is why what you're also seeing with with with with Pierre is
• 52:52
  an unwillingness to go after labor right there's there's there's an alignment particularly with private
• 52:58
  labor which will be really really interesting to see how that plays out because I mean Canada civil
• 53:03
  service has become enormously bloated and frankly not very effective and one of the things that I
• 53:09
  actually expect a conservative leader to do is going to be taken the hatchet to it um and is there any
• 53:15
  difference is there any difference between the parties on issues of social welfare and economic
• 53:20
  justice um we you know it inch wide you know mile wide inch deep right you know like we're
• 53:27
  I think that on the conservative side you generally find that there's a much more a much greater
• 53:31
  willingness to talk about for example um private delivery of a public health care system so this
• 53:37
  would be uh talking about reforming the existing Canadian health care system to allow certain private
• 53:44
  for example cataract surgeries or private hip surgeries to happen within a single pair system so
• 53:48
  it's not it's not an American style system it's more of a you know you're still paying your taxes
• 53:53
  but then the administrative apparatus within the public system or it's going to contract out certain
• 53:58
  right but it's nothing major yeah yeah but that is major like that's that would be a major shift
• 54:03
  for I mean we do this in some provinces already um with more a greater degree of success so like
• 54:09
  that is a pretty significant reform to a Canadian system for a long time the Canadian health care
• 54:13
  system was very it was a very religious topic in Canada um and very very resilient resistant to
• 54:18
  any kind of reform or or innovation on that status but what I mean by not major is it's hard to
• 54:22
  demonize it's hard for the left to demonize as being something that's going to ruin the
• 54:26
  lady in safety net no no it's it's it's not hard for them to demonize it they can be nice very
• 54:31
  effectively I mean the other thing I would say the other big distinction between the two in terms
• 54:35
  of social welfare policy would be on drug policy real sharp divides on on drug policy in recent years
• 54:41
  Canada's particularly on the left has adopted more harm reduction style policies um and we're
• 54:49
  starting to see a clawback of those policies even in some some of the provinces that embrace
• 54:54
  them most heavily because they're being met with concurrent major issues with social disorder
• 55:01
  that are are not being haven't been effectively addressed and so when you have conservative
• 55:07
  conservatives coming together they're saying um harm reduction policies aren't working we're going
• 55:12
  to take more of a of a rehabilitation style approach so we're going to start funding more
• 55:17
  centers for treatment and rehabilitation um so like that's kind of where the the the
• 55:25
  division lies so it's not like you're not having conservatives come to power saying we're going
• 55:29
  to lock up everybody who's on drugs you're having more conservatives coming forward with we need to
• 55:35
  treating and rehabilitating this and not not so not creating um mechanisms for normalization of drug
• 55:40
  use right uh and that's very starkly at odds with with where the left spin on on a lot of the drug
• 55:46
  policy issues and this is particularly salient in places like Vancouver and British Columbia where
• 55:51
  the drug abuse issues are pretty extreme and thinking about where the way that the conservatives
• 55:56
  are positioning themselves for the election this year where are they on things like immigration
• 56:01
  and you know when you think about the sort of populist rhetoric of the the far right and make
• 56:06
  America great again how do they relate to that and isolationism and like Ukraine and NATO and
• 56:11
  that grab that stuff you know one of the things that I get a little bit emotional about is that
• 56:15
  I think that Canada had probably was one of the few countries that had long lasting consensus on
• 56:20
  immigration is good and we had a strong bipartisan consensus on immigration is good and the reason
• 56:28
  why we did is because we were quite ruthless with our immigration system we were you know economic
• 56:32
  point-based um fairly rational for reasonable and everybody was on board with you know I don't care
• 56:39
  where you're coming from in the world you come to Canada you make a good life for yourself you
• 56:43
  you raise your family here you're a Canadian as far as we're concerned um and we had a very positive
• 56:48
  very healthy approach to that for a really long time and what happened under the liberal government
• 56:54
  is that uh in order to essentially backstop our declining per capita GDP we started bringing in
• 57:02
  lots of people we we radically increased our immigration um I mean I don't even think we know
• 57:06
  how many people have come in the last year but it's it's it's it's over a million in a year
• 57:10
  in a province in a country of 40 million and what's also happened in the midst of all that is
• 57:15
  is our housing and our infrastructure have been fundamentally unable to keep up we can't build houses
• 57:19
  fast enough for the number of people we're we're taking it and as a result our housing prices are now
• 57:25
  completely bananas um like you need a million dollars to buy a house a basic basic this is all
• 57:33
  extremely familiar to us right anyway well yeah you're here you're you're you're you're you're on
• 57:37
  time we're talking about but I mean in America they talk about the housing crisis in America and
• 57:40
  how housing prices are out of control and I'm like bitch yeah like come here and talk to me about
• 57:45
  housing prices being out of control yeah so as and this is a this I mean there's a lot of economic
• 57:49
  reasons why that's happened the house prices have been going up for for a really long time but
• 57:53
  everything has been hugely exacerbated by a really radical increase in immigration policy and as a
• 57:59
  result the the bipartisan consensus that we had on immigration I think it's not even that it's
• 58:07
  crushing because the the liberals have sort of themselves admitted that this isn't working like
• 58:11
  the liberals themselves are now walking back a lot of their immigration policies like they
• 58:15
  themselves have said we can't continue to take people at this pace while we're while we can't
• 58:20
  build houses like this is obviously a problem I mean this is happening in the labor party in Australia
• 58:24
  and in the youth as well everyone's realizing that it's untenable yeah it's untenable essentially
• 58:30
  as a situation so like I mean also remember that Canada's always had the luxury of being surrounded
• 58:33
  on all sides by oceans and a giant American border so um and we had something called the the
• 58:39
  safe kind safe um first country agreement sorry I miss I'm I'm I'm butchering that but you know
• 58:44
  we haven't had the mass uncontrolled or um flows of immigration that America has had to deal
• 58:49
  with in the south so it's been really easy for northern Canadians to get smug about our about our
• 58:55
  welcomingness our welcomingness to immigration because we don't have mass uncontrolled
• 59:00
  immigration and anything close to the scale that the Americans do we just don't um and so we've
• 59:07
  been very smug about this and then that smug this I think is starting to wear off as we're
• 59:11
  suddenly realizing that we've taken people into the rate that we can't actually sustain just
• 59:14
  from a pure infrastructure point of view right but is that reassessment being conducted
• 59:18
  coolly or is they history on X and populist tubs up there I don't I don't I don't think there's a
• 59:23
  lot of history on X on this in fact I think part of the reason why there's not a lot of history
• 59:26
  on X on this is because even the liberals themselves have kind of conceded the point at this right
• 59:30
  so like it's it's I don't think that the I'm not seeing I'm not seeing um the conservatives try
• 59:37
  to uh generate a lot of enthusiasm or hysteria on immigration specifically um the conservatives have
• 59:46
  their own issuing issues around positioning as a result of Donald Trump that's its own kind of thing
• 59:52
  but it's not yes let's so let's just wrap up the our analysis of conservatives with that what
• 59:57
  is the relationship you know have have have the Canadian conservatives been tanked as a result
• 1:00:02
  of them being associated with the right side of politics which is now associated with Donald Trump
• 1:00:07
  and the attacks I think the liberals would like them to be um definitely but if you and I think
• 1:00:13
  that the conservatives have been very slow to pivot the the conservatives have been slow to react
• 1:00:17
  appropriately to Donald Trump they've been slow to take on the team Canada screw the Americans
• 1:00:23
  mantle I don't think that's because they're necessarily pro Donald Trump or pro becoming the
• 1:00:30
  51st state Pierre Paulier has been very emphatic about not wanting to become the 51st state and
• 1:00:34
  standing up he's now he's no kind of pivoting his whole future campaign to a Canada first campaign
• 1:00:39
  which kind of rhymes with the America first campaign of of of of Donald Trump but is very clearly
• 1:00:46
  in opposition to Donald Trump ironically which is kind of interesting um but definitely the way
• 1:00:53
  that the liberals are going to frame the conservatives is these guys are are just mega light their
• 1:00:58
  best buddies with Donald Trump they're they'll sell Canada out um in in an instant they can't be
• 1:01:04
  trusted to deal with Donald Trump or negotiate with them which is a very effective positioning for them
• 1:01:09
  right um I don't think that that is correct I think that uh the conservatives are just just patriotic
• 1:01:15
  and as as anybody else in Canada but um it it's going to be really interesting to see how those
• 1:01:22
  there's different perspectives and narratives kind of position themselves yeah I mean I don't
• 1:01:25
  think it's a very hard sell for a conservative to say that nationalism does not mean that you side
• 1:01:30
  with the nationalist in the other country who's bullying you it means that you become a nationalist
• 1:01:35
  for your own country that's right so you can both be right-wing nationalist if you want to and
• 1:01:40
  you know it's a zero-sum game but it doesn't mean you're a trader well exactly and the problem
• 1:01:44
  that the conservatives ran into is that they were expecting to run the next election on the carbon
• 1:01:48
  tax like they're acts the tax they had the t-shirts built up they have the signs done they were
• 1:01:53
  going to go in on acts the tax baby like affordability issues putting butter stuff and like all
• 1:01:59
  the sudden we've got Donald Trump coming in being like yeah I'm going to take over your state
• 1:02:03
  and like like use economic force to to plummet you into oblivion and then you had like like
• 1:02:10
  Pierre Paulier for the longest time going put acts the tax we have such a good slogan
• 1:02:16
  we were having such a great t-shirts made like like I got into like I got into like literally a
• 1:02:22
  yelling match with a conservative MP about this like a couple of months ago I was like you guys
• 1:02:26
  get that it's not the acts the tax election anymore right like we're facing an existential threat
• 1:02:31
  here when you say existential threat Jen what do you mean well I mean look the economics of
• 1:02:37
  the situation are our our potential we have to rethink ourselves as a country in relation to our
• 1:02:44
  greatest friend ally neighbor we have to think about what we're doing here Bob and we have to
• 1:02:50
  I think really radically ask ourselves the degree to which we've allowed our ourselves to be
• 1:02:57
  defined by a social safety net that may no longer be sustainable there are deep questions there
• 1:03:04
  and then of course you know when everybody talks about the 51st state they say well that'll never
• 1:03:09
  happen I don't know man Donald Trump is still talking as if he's expecting that to happen
• 1:03:16
  and I think that there are some real um internal shatter points in the Canadian political scheme
• 1:03:25
  that you know if everything were aligned in exactly the right way could make us very vulnerable
• 1:03:31
  to something really radical happening um that concerns me like that keeps me up at night
• 1:03:38
  uh you know I'm being asked to you know argue in a debate next month about whether or not Canada
• 1:03:47
  should become the 51st state I'm taking the no profit position which which might let me tell you
• 1:03:52
  it's pretty rare it's pretty rare for me to take the the the room pleasing position on any
• 1:03:57
  particular debate but uh that's going to be a real shift I mean who's on you yes well I don't know
• 1:04:03
  yet but there are people who are going to make the yes argument you know there are kind of fringe
• 1:04:08
  people right now in Alberta who are going to go down to America and make the case for yeah we want
• 1:04:14
  to join the 50 we want to join you guys I think that's crazy right now I don't know why in the world
• 1:04:20
  you would trust these people who are in power in America right now they're they're not good faith
• 1:04:25
  and why would you want to import all of America's problems I mean Canada might have problems but it
• 1:04:29
  doesn't have problems on the scale I don't think of American democracy uh different kinds of
• 1:04:34
  problems right I mean that's yeah you know what you're gonna have to invite me back okay okay we
• 1:04:40
  can have a follow up after the election I'll follow up back I'm interested in the identity you
• 1:04:44
  you said at the beginning of of this conversation um when you were saying like we can talk about
• 1:04:49
  workness or like you called it identity and leftist politics and you say I just think it's a less
• 1:04:53
  I think it's a less emotional yeah I think that's fine yeah I don't like and I'm also a Canadian I
• 1:04:57
  want to be polite about it you know although identitarian leftist politics does lack a certain
• 1:05:04
  catchiness and also an illusion to the cancellation hysteria like the well it doesn't sound as
• 1:05:11
  sensorious like it doesn't quite it's not just about the fact that people were conceiving at
• 1:05:16
  themselves as identities it's the fact that they insisted on their worldview being to the
• 1:05:22
  exclusion of all others and that people can be fired and hounded from the public square yeah and
• 1:05:26
  this all became and this all became um legitimate tactics and a war for ideas right yes so
• 1:05:33
  so how much how much credence should we give to the claim that that phenomenon that what we're
• 1:05:38
  currently living through is just essentially a predictable backlash to that cultural wave that's
• 1:05:44
  that's I mean it's I mean it's it's it is a backlash but it's the problem with it is that it's
• 1:05:50
  a backlash that risks being worse than the thing that it was reacting to right that's that's my
• 1:05:55
  fundamental concern I mean we started the line Matt and I we started the line in result as a
• 1:06:01
  direct result of what was happening in our cultural institutions that there was a sense of of
• 1:06:09
  it's a hard thing to it's a hard thing to put words to because a lot of it was actually kind of
• 1:06:14
  emotional but there was a sense of closing in and self-censorship and fear that started to happen
• 1:06:20
  especially for people who were kind of center center right um and a sense of not of being
• 1:06:25
  booted out of unofficially out of um established institutions um that was real that was a real thing
• 1:06:34
  that occurred and I think it probably occurred more strongly in places like Canada than in the United
• 1:06:38
  States because we've much smaller cultural institutions and much fewer people who were much more
• 1:06:43
  inclined to to to that kind of politics and that that that argumentation um America is a much
• 1:06:49
  bigger place with more resilient institutions I think in a lot of ways and maybe there's a cultural
• 1:06:53
  tendency to be more conciliatory and conformist in yes absolutely yep absolutely yep a hundred
• 1:07:00
  percent there is there there's a higher degree of I think that's correct um so as a result I think
• 1:07:06
  that the woke stuff in a lot of ways was was culturally more difficult in in a place that Canada
• 1:07:11
  than it was in the United States um so I do think that that's real and I think that people who are
• 1:07:18
  trying to say well the woke stuff was always just this fringe phenomenon by a handful of people
• 1:07:23
  who never had any power and the right is using that to weaponize their authoritarian march I think
• 1:07:29
  those people are not being honest with themselves I I think that that's gaslighting I don't think
• 1:07:33
  that's true but the problem is that the way that the right probably speaking is reacting to that
• 1:07:40
  backlash risks being ten times more sensorial ten times more liberal and ten times more dangerous
• 1:07:47
  than any than than than than the woke phenomenon I mean yeah I mean close the woke phenomenon
• 1:07:52
  was at its peak and I think that the the onus is going to be on you know sensible people who
• 1:07:59
  oppose the liberalism of that ascendant progressive movement to also demonstrate a commitment to
• 1:08:07
  those liberal ideals now that this pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction and to not allow
• 1:08:12
  yourself to get sucked up into the desire for revenge or to get sucked up in a desire to well they
• 1:08:18
  would do this to us so therefore we're going to do it ten times harder to you now that the political
• 1:08:23
  and cultural power is swinging in a favorable direction for us we have to be much more willing
• 1:08:29
  to call out our own side and say you guys have lost the goddamn plot um then we were to call out
• 1:08:37
  the opposite and I think that that is going to be the test of moral character and the test of
• 1:08:41
  the test of of um no people like me going forward right how do you feel about the accusation
• 1:08:49
  that those of us who were focused on the illiberal excesses of the left during the social justice
• 1:08:55
  awakening are somehow responsible for the current moment of populism by having joined in a chorus
• 1:09:03
  of condemnation that ended up ballooning into this yeah but that's that's just a way of that that's
• 1:09:11
  just a way of deflecting their own responsibility right they don't want to take responsibility for
• 1:09:17
  their own liberalism so they're going to deflect it upon the people who are calling out their
• 1:09:21
  liberalism no like like that's I don't accept that well I suppose I'm talking about okay so what
• 1:09:27
  but I mean what was the answer so so people were just supposed to go along with the liberalism
• 1:09:31
  of the left indefinitely in order to prevent the liberalism of the right like no like no you call
• 1:09:37
  out a liberalism whether or not it's coming from the left or the right that's that's the purpose
• 1:09:41
  of the exercise yeah you call out a liberalism regardless of what tribe it's coming from I think
• 1:09:47
  their sense is that we made too big a deal out of it and thereby gave fuel to a to a moral panic
• 1:09:53
  that that turned into trumpism yeah well I'm writing a book about moral panic so let me tell you
• 1:09:58
  that moral panics are never one-sided they participated in the moral panic as well that's that
• 1:10:03
  was that was the crux of the argument that I think people like you and me were making like years ago
• 1:10:10
  years ago at least in Canada you and I were saying guys you can't you can't use tactics on your
• 1:10:17
  ideological enemies that you don't want used against you because the second you normalize the tactics
• 1:10:23
  against your ideological enemies they will be used against you so you cannot do that
• 1:10:29
  and I'm going to continue to make that argument to the people and the assholes on the right who
• 1:10:33
  try to use that for exactly the same reasons like you have to preserve some guardrails of liberal
• 1:10:40
  normality of civic society and you have to preserve these guardrails regardless of who's trying
• 1:10:47
  to abuse them right like to do anything else is to allow your society to devolve into a pure
• 1:10:56
  will to power tribalism in which it's just the argument of all against all and whomever has the
• 1:11:02
  most money in the most power wins at suppressing the side they don't like that's not a society I
• 1:11:07
  want to live in that's not a good at that's not a good outcome it's not it's like that no I'm going
• 1:11:14
  to fight for a third path here and the third path I'm going to fight for is a is a small L liberal
• 1:11:21
  democratic society in which ideas can be contested and where it is okay to contest ideas and I have
• 1:11:30
  full faith that that's shit crazy and absurd autocracy that we're now seeing
• 1:11:35
  foment on the right of the United States can and will be challenged in that in that
• 1:11:46
  arena of ideas and it will it will not succeed in the long run that doesn't mean that we're not
• 1:11:51
  in for a really nasty 10 years I think we are I'm not optimistic about what the next 10 years
• 1:11:56
  are going to bring for us but I don't think that the answer lies with with you know
• 1:12:03
  key hold losers on the right and I don't think the answer lies with perpetually giving the
• 1:12:11
  liberalism of the left to pass because it's well intentioned yep I often say that like when the
• 1:12:19
  when the current populist right-wing moment falls apart we have to be ready not just with
• 1:12:25
  resistance but with an alternative and that alternative ought to not be yet more another swing
• 1:12:32
  as far back in the in the opposite direction as we just all wouldn't that be nice wouldn't that
• 1:12:37
  be nice would be nice if we could just have something resembling an idea going back to the idea
• 1:12:43
  that like opinions and people are nuanced and people can have disagreeing points of view
• 1:12:49
  and we hash things out and it like civilized human beings without resorting to
• 1:12:57
  stupid nonsense could that be great if we could just go back to that here's to a future in which
• 1:13:04
  reasonable sensible people like Canadians and Australians and I don't know like the scots and maybe
• 1:13:11
  the Belgian's all the rules again there we go with sensible centrist policies
• 1:13:17
  Jen thank you for for for explaining everything to us it's fascinating to talk to you and
• 1:13:21
  love it and it made you good luck this weekend whichever way it goes and good luck in the election
• 1:13:27
  well I don't wish me luck I'm not running I just good luck you on that I just I just I just
• 1:13:33
  write stuff man that's all I do well thanks for explaining it to us thank you