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00:00:01
Wildcat
71 Plays4 years ago
Progress Report host Duncan Kinney appears on the very good podcast 49th Parahell to talk about the NBA wildcat strike and what workers can learn from it, why Chrystia Freeland's Nazi collaborator grandfather matters in 2020, the Conservative Party of Canada's new leader Erin O'Toole and where the conservative movement in Canada is going.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:15
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, and we're recording today here in Amiskuchi with Skygan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. It's a little different episode this week as we are repurposing my appearance on the very good 49th Parahel podcast for this episode. So on this pod, I talk with Rob Russo, the host of 49th Parahel, about a couple things, the NBA Wildcats strike and what workers can learn from it, you know, why Christian Freeland's Nazi collaborator grandpa matters in 2020.
00:00:44
Speaker
the Conservative Party of Canada's new leader and thumb, Aaron O'Toole, and really where the kind of conservative movement in Canada is going. But I also want to take this opportunity to talk about some original content that we have on theprogressreport.ca that we're quite proud of. We broke the story of the Edmonton Police getting a new tank.
00:01:02
Speaker
and Jeremy Appel wrote a very nuanced and well-researched piece on the Krista Freeland Nazi Grandpa stuff that we really like, we really think you should read. So please head to theprogressreport.ca and check that out. And we've taken kind of a bit of a minor step back over the summer from the podcast, just for vacation, workload, mental health, and health reasons. But we are working on some like absolutely blockbuster, really big stories that are gonna come out in the fall. So please keep an eye out for that.
00:01:29
Speaker
And if you like what we do, there are a few things you can do to help out. Please smash that like button and share our content. It's very helpful. Word of mouth advertising is obviously the most and best advertising we can get for our little independent media project. If you have the time, please take a minute to leave a review on your kind of Podcatcher of Choice or Apple Podcasts.
00:01:51
Speaker
And the biggest thing you can do to help us is join the 250 and closing in on 300 folks who donate every month to help keep this independent media project going. So to do that, you go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, put in your credit card and contribute.
Worker Strikes and Political Implications
00:02:05
Speaker
We would really, really appreciate it. It keeps, you know, Gemini fed and clothed in house. So please, please help out there if you can.
00:02:11
Speaker
Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear, you can reach me on Twitter, where I am, unfortunately, way too often, uh, at Duncan Kinney. And you can reach me by email at Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. But without any further ado, here's my conversation with Rob Russo of 49th Parahel.
00:02:40
Speaker
it's incredibly encouraging to see them come together, to see a sense of collective struggle amongst those players, and to see them do a Wildcat strike. Arguably, this is someone else's joke on Twitter, but the one instance of the nickname for something being actually as cool as the thing that it is describing.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's a lesson to everyone that's in any workforce right now. They're like, hey, if we just withhold our labor, that can kind of grind the whole economy to a halt. And we can maybe use that power that we have to extract some kind of political change. It'd be interesting if more people kind of grasp that, the power that they have as workers. Are you a teacher? Are you worried about reopening schools?
00:03:25
Speaker
because I would fucking be. And if you're a teacher, I mean, I think you can look, like hilariously, you can look at the NBA and a Wildcat strike that's happening right now and be like, yeah, this is a way, this is a tactic, this is a strategy that we can use to get what we want. I mean, I think every teacher wants to go back to work and teach, but I don't think they want to die from coronavirus, you know what I mean? And I think there's probably a way where we can
00:03:54
Speaker
reopen schools and have it be safe, but I mean especially in Alberta where we live like it's been a fucking joke and the reopening plan has been Yeah, just let's like here you go here a couple masks a couple thermometers and some hand sanitizers go nuts Yeah, and that's kind of the extent of what's being thrown at this problem
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, and you saw I saw just before we started talking an interview with Doug Ford in Ontario, just basically saying that, like, you know, everyone else has stepped up the nurses that the frontline health care workers, the doctors, the people in grocery stores and people that are, you know, putting themselves in harm's way.
00:04:32
Speaker
All this time, now it's time for the teachers to sacrifice and step up. And it's like, well, Doug, I'm not sure it's quite so simple as that when they're, the teachers are not being put in a position to make sure that things are as safe as possible. Nurses are getting medical grade PPE, you know, like the teachers are getting a cloth mask and a jar of hand sanitizer. Yeah, exactly.
00:04:56
Speaker
Well, that's it. That's the kind of cool thing about that NBA Wildcats strike. Even if it does end up being short-lived, it's a very profound lesson that people can learn about the type of power they have by withholding their labor. So it would be interesting if more people kind of grasp that. But that's enough about the NBA.
Chrystia Freeland's Historical Controversy
00:05:11
Speaker
It was an interesting storyline, obviously. But there's a couple other things that I wanted to bring you on the show to talk about that we should probably get to. And number one, frankly, Duncan, I'm going to have to call you in.
00:05:23
Speaker
for going after our very inspiring girl boss, Deputy Prime Minister, and now finance minister as well, with some some Russian propaganda. I was very, you know, I consider you a friend. I you know, I enjoy your work you do for the most part, but I saw this play out. It was very disappointing.
00:05:44
Speaker
What do you have to say for yourself when you use this vile attack on Kristia Friedland to talk about just the minor inconvenience of her grandfather being a Nazi collaborator? What do you have to say for yourself, sir? Yes, how dare you, sir? How dare you, sir? I must apologize. Yeah, as a feminist, I take full responsibility for my crimes.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yes, I will never mention the fact that Christia Freeland is an unapologetic booster of her Nazi collaborator grandfather, which was the series of tweets that got me in trouble a little while back with a bunch of very online liberal types who do not like to be reminded of
00:06:28
Speaker
the inescapable truth that not only is, okay, so the fact that Christian Freeland's grandfather is a Nazi collaborator, whatever, right? Like, we all have shitty family members in our orbits, right? That we are not, sure, definitely not responsible for.
00:06:44
Speaker
Um, you know, um, but it, that's, that's not the context of this criticism of her, right? Like Christian Freeland through her actions and her communications is part of an ongoing political project to whitewash the crimes of Nazi collaborators. Like.
00:07:04
Speaker
like her grandfather. And the reason why this all came up, right, was because of, it's really, it's just like every year this pops up, she will say something about it, but it's Black Ribbon Day, which is essentially a day of remembrance, a holiday, if you will, that was, essentially compares and equates the crimes of Stalinism and authoritarian communism and the Nazis' final solution and Nazism.
00:07:32
Speaker
And this is a very deliberate political project of kind of like far-right Eastern European nationalists. And they kind of frame it as like, never again will we let authoritarianism murder people. It's the frame, and it's really easy to understand why they would approach it like that, right? Because it's like, how can someone argue against the fact that Stalinism was bad or that Nazism was bad?
00:08:00
Speaker
But there is obviously a kind of very key difference between those two political projects and like, yeah. Well, and also the fact that like, you know, Stalin and Stalinism was technically played a huge role in defeating the Nazis and ending World War II. I mean, that's right, that conversation.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, like the broader context of like Black Ribbon Day like the Black Book of communism shit is is like insane when you just kind of like think about it for a second, right? Like Hitler and Eva Braun were technically victims of communism of the yeah hundred million people who were killed by communism or whatever the Yeah, it's like had amount to kind of soft Holocaust denial really when you get into it
00:08:39
Speaker
Yes, and people have made that argument that this kind of equating the crimes of the Final Solution, Nazi Germany, the Shoah to authoritarian communism and the crimes that they committed, they are different and they are different in very specific ways that need to be remembered.
00:08:55
Speaker
And by directly comparing the two to each other, it excuses the actions of Nazi collaborators. And the reason why the story actually came up is because here in Canada, we have multiple monuments to Nazi, specifically Ukrainian, Nazi collaborators, right? And this was really my entrance to the story and really why I went down the rabbit hole on Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.
00:09:23
Speaker
is because here in Edmonton, we have two, we have two separate monuments to Nazi collaborators. We have a bust of Roman Shukovich, who was a man who wore a Nazi uniform, was trained by the Avware, you know, Nazi military intelligence, and who was responsible for the murder of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Jews, as the military commander of the UPI. I can't remember what that actually stands for, but the UPA, essentially.
00:09:53
Speaker
And so we have a lovely bust of him here in Edmonton. And then we also have a monument to the 14th Waffen SS division, which was the kind of the Waffen SS division made up of Ukrainian volunteers.
00:10:08
Speaker
And the issue was kind of brought forward into the national discourse by a story by David Pugliese. Some enterprising young folks, I assume they're young, spray painted the words Nazi monument, I believe, on a Cenotaph that was dedicated to this 14th Waffen SS division.
00:10:30
Speaker
And amazingly, the local police were investigating this as a hate crime until David Pugliese for the Ottawa Citizen wrote his story and everyone kind of pointed out that you're going to have to really explain to us how spray painting Nazi monument on a Nazi monument is a work is a hate crime. Yeah.
00:10:53
Speaker
Well, it was an incredible moment, too, because it was for for a lot of people in this country, it was this kind of like wake up call to like, hey, why do we have these monuments in this country? Why was I not aware of this? I'm not really comfortable with this. Because until then, I think it was something that a lot of people take for granted. You know, if we're in Canada, we were obviously against the Nazis.
00:11:14
Speaker
We clearly obviously we don't have monuments to Nazis in this country, but that article led to a whole lot of people realizing they're like, OK, what's what's going on with this history here that I was not totally aware of? Yeah, we do have monuments to Nazis or at least Nazi collaborators. Right. And and like the Ukrainian diaspora here in Canada, it kind of came here in three waves. You've kind of got the like pre World War One
00:11:39
Speaker
like Austro-Hungarian, Habsburg Empire kind of folks who came here for free land, mostly illiterate farmer types here out in the, especially out on the prairies, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. And then you've kind of got an interwar wave of Ukrainian settlement here in Canada. Those tended to be like members of the Canadian Communist Party, to be honest. They tended to be quite kind of left.
00:12:00
Speaker
part of setting up things like Ukrainian labor temples. And then finally, you've got the post-World War II wave of Ukrainian settlement here in Canada. And that one was dominated by refugees from kind of Nazi occupied Ukraine, sorry, Soviet occupied Ukraine.
00:12:20
Speaker
And it was a very deliberate political project of Canada at that time to be importing folks who were, you know, not communists. And one way to make sure that these folks that to make sure that you were bringing in folks who were not communists was to bring in Nazi collaborators.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. Well, no, that's it's a funny thing because when I, when this story broke and I was, I was talking about it online, I had people saying like saying to me online, like, Oh no, these weren't, these were not Nazis. You see, these were simply, um, uh, anti-communist militias that, uh, worked with the Nazis to carry out, you know, various crimes. And it's like, Oh, okay. Well, that's in that case, then I guess it's good that we have monuments to these folks. Thank you for that important clarification, sir. Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah.
00:13:10
Speaker
But yeah, it is wild. This is the world we live in. And by and large, the Ukrainian diaspora community has not really reckoned with their role in the Holocaust. Germany has kind of had a proper sit down and has kind of mostly gone to therapy and dealt with the fact that they murdered six million Jews.
00:13:29
Speaker
But the Ukrainian far-right nationalists sure as hell haven't. And they have not really had that moment for reflection. And then when you bring up the fact that these monuments to Nazi collaborators exist, they dismiss it out of hand as a Russian op. It's all a Russian op, essentially.
00:13:50
Speaker
And that was essentially the same line that Freeland used when this was brought up back in 2017, this kind of original, this story when it was originally kind of in the media in the discourse three years ago. Freeland's response was, nah, it's all a Russian op. And then it kind of became
00:14:10
Speaker
Inescapable, the academic record on this is incredibly clear. Her grandfather's papers were essentially given to the Provincial Archives of Alberta, and those papers included all of the newspapers that he printed when he was essentially the head of a newspaper slash propaganda operation in Lviv, as well as Vienna.
00:14:29
Speaker
And so it became kind of inescapable that the facts were true, regardless of whether the Russians were peddling these facts. The facts, the facts, the history is the history. Mikaylo Chomiak, Christian Freeland's grandfather, was
00:14:50
Speaker
was a Nazi collaborator, the record is clear. And there's really, calling it a Russian op is just a very stupid and simple obfuscation and really just like dodge, right?
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and you pointed out how Ukraine never really has had a, or sorry, the Ukraine. I don't mean to screw that up. I know that's the proper terminology. But you mentioned how there's never really been a reckoning for the crimes that were committed in that era. And, and Friedland's really emblematic of that and her, the way she talks about the relationship with her grandfather. Because as you pointed out,
00:15:24
Speaker
no one I think would hold it against Friedland for having a relative that was a Nazi if she was kind of contrite about this or kind of, you know, it indicated that she was like opposed to his views or the things that he did and or said in his life. But really, this is someone that she's kind of celebrated and talked about as being an inspiration, and has downplayed any of these these, you know, factual crimes that we know happened.
00:15:48
Speaker
Uh, and that's why, uh, I die. I don't believe it is, uh, you know, unfair to continue pointing this out, especially when she's peddling this stuff about Black Ribbon Day, the big, black, white communism, victims of communism and stuff like this. Um, you know, I think that's a pretty clear line between the way she's defended her.
00:16:06
Speaker
her grandfather's career and some is an inspiration with what she's currently doing with regards to talking about communism and in terms of the role she's playing in our foreign policy, trying to overthrow the government in Venezuela and Bolivia and these socialist nations. There's a direct link between the ideology there that's going along through the generations.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, it took us a while to get there, but that is the core of it. The reason why Krista Freeland's Nazi grandfather is important and why we need to talk about it is because of what she has said about him and what she has said about him publicly as part of her political persona, as part of her political messaging.
00:16:48
Speaker
Like there's a quote I have, there's a quote that's from a 2016 tweet that she put out in regards to Black Ribbon Day. And it is, let me just pull it up here. It's a great one. It's freedom and democracy, here we go. So this is a 2016 tweet from Christia Freeland from her Twitter account. She's talking about her grandparents.
00:17:14
Speaker
They were forever grateful to Canada for giving them refuge and worked hard to bring freedom and democracy to Ukraine. I am proud to honor their memory today. Hashtag black ribbon day. You might want to ask the Jews of Ukraine about the freedom and democracy that Michaela Chomiak brought to them because they were murdered.
00:17:33
Speaker
or driven out of the country. And he was, you know, printing anti-Semitic, you know, articles and packages and recruiting for the sending out, like putting out promotional material for the 14th Waffen SS division. You know what I mean? Like her Black Ribbon Day, you know, seeks to kind of make this equivalency between communism and Nazism. That tweet makes you kind of think that her father may have been a victim of Nazism. Grandfather was not a victim of Nazism.
00:18:02
Speaker
She was a willing collaborator, one who collaborated for five years before coming to Canada. This is why it is important. And she said, like other things, there's a David de Mistrache piece that kind of goes into this in detail as well, about kind of what she said about her grandfather. Yes. Yeah, that was in passage. I shared that today as well, that everyone should check out.
00:18:28
Speaker
So, regardless of the fact that this is indeed important to talk about, and not irrelevant in any way to her current political persona and the political project she's pursuing here and abroad,
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, just to interrupt, she's also the second most powerful elected official in Canada. When people like, oh, well, my grandfather was, I'm not a member of the Hitler Youth, or whatever, pick out my grandfather was a piece of shit. It's like, sure, but you are not the second most powerful elected official in Canada, and you were not part of an ongoing political project to whitewash his crimes and not account for them, you know what I mean?
00:19:10
Speaker
Yes, yes, and very much in line to be our next Prime Minister too. I'm sure in the behind the scenes- Oh, so many liberals are, yes, very much, I think, getting sick of JT and would love the strong, competent management of our neoliberal order from someone like Christian, definitely. Yes, yeah, definitely.
00:19:32
Speaker
Um, so regardless of the fact that you were kind of in the right on this, you did end up getting like dog piled a little bit, uh, for pointing this out. Um, what was that like? Like, what was the, what was the response like, uh, to, to these statements that you made, even though I know it's, I think it's ridiculous because it's all, I mean, yeah, Twitter actually gave me a quite handy pop and it's like, seems like you're getting a lot of replies. Uh, would you like to turn a filter on and you can turn, if this ever happens to you, turn on the filter where, uh, if you, if they don't follow you, you can't see their tweets.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yes, I've had to use this many. In fact, this is the only way I'm able to use Twitter now, so I would recommend that as well. Turn on that filter. It's fantastic. Anyways, but yeah, this is bullshit. Who cares, right? It's just like liberals angry at you or just kind of using bad faith arguments that you're being sexist. You're trying to drag down this woman.
00:20:19
Speaker
um yeah like the fact that she's a woman does not excuse all of the like has nothing to do with what we're talking about like you just don't want to see her um like you know held to account which is like that's on you that's not on me
00:20:32
Speaker
Yes. And who was the guy that I'm just looking at it. There was this liberal guy that, that juxtapose your comments on this with Ezra Levant, who was actually agreeing with Friedland about the whole black ribbon day and being like, I think this is good. And I agree with it. Oh yeah. And then said, this is, this is proof that the far right and the far left are just the exact same completely wrong conclusions from this whole thing.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of smooth-brained liberals did that. Steven Carter, I think, is the one you're thinking of. He's a prominent kind of Alberta-based political strategist. He has a podcast called The Strategists as well. He was like the chief of staff to Allison Redford, if you want to go back, and four or five premiers back in Alberta's history. Yeah, but yeah, essentially not even reading
00:21:18
Speaker
Like, like, I mean, this is a problem for a lot of things, but people just like reacting to something and like, this is how I feel about it. I feel that horseshoe theory is real. So I'm going to make this, uh, this comparison when it's like, yo, like, um, the Ezra Levant is the one agreeing with Christia Freeland on black, black ribbon day. I'm the one dragging Christia Freeland for first hands on black ribbon day. Like the centrist and the far right fucking loser are agreeing. Like you're, we're proving fish hook theory here, not horseshoe theory. Exactly. Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I also saw your mom got in on the stockpile of your statements here. Was that okay? Did you patch things up with your mom after? Yeah, we talked about it. I mean, my mom's on Twitter. It's not ideal. I mean, she is not as deep in the weeds on far-right Ukrainian nationalism and Nazi collaborators as I am, but it's like whatever. It's just Twitter, man.
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I hope I did. I do hope you've patched things up with your mom. That was unfortunate. But in any case, like, you know, you know, you did, you did nothing wrong. You were pointing out a very factual point that I think undermines a lot of what Friedland has to say about her, the political project she's pursuing here and abroad. Like I mentioned, when you're, when you're unfairly or incorrectly equating the crimes of Nazis and
00:22:45
Speaker
and communists in the and then using your power is controlling our foreign policy to undemocratically overthrow socialist governments in Latin America, where Canada and the United States have a long history of doing that and leading to much misery and death and murder and violence.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah, like speaking of fish hook theory, right? Yeah, like Krista Friedland was our, she was our Minister of Foreign Affairs for a couple of years, right? And like, I don't see really any difference between her support for, you know, the coups in Venezuela and Bolivia
00:23:21
Speaker
then you would see from any kind of rabid,
Canadian Conservative Movement Dynamics
00:23:24
Speaker
rabid, uh, like between her and Elliot Abrams, let's say, you know, what's, what's, what's, where's the daylight between their positions? Well, it's one thing that, that I find kind of, I guess it's not funny because then maybe that's a bit morbid, but, uh, the idea of, of Trump kind of unexpectedly winning in 2016 and how I think that that kind of whole,
00:23:47
Speaker
plan with the Lima group, which has been started well before Trump was elected probably would have been enacted with under President Hillary Clinton as well. Oh, and probably would have had more of a facade of like this kind of neoliberal, you know, legitimacy to it. But because Donald Trump is Donald Trump, he just has to hire these like fucking cold war monsters from the 80s, the exact same people that are directly responsible for human rights atrocities in that area in that area.
00:24:15
Speaker
in the 1970s and 80s. And just that that exposed their whole plan for what it really is. So so clearly, but because this this kind of plan was already in place, they couldn't really like back out of it. So you had Friedland and Trudeau kind of trying to give this progressive veneer to or to the coup that they were trying to participate in. But Donald Trump
00:24:37
Speaker
just completely expose that for being just a crass and cynical ploy to overthrow the government and install a neoliberal government that's going to be more friendly to the extraction interests here in the United States.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, Trump is nothing if not direct in his communications on his pretty scatterbrained foreign policy. I don't think he has too many strong thoughts either way. He just is like, yeah, we're doing a coup baby. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
00:25:09
Speaker
Um, and then like Christian Freeland and Justin Trudeau are like, you know, kind of tugging at their collars. It's like, no, we're, we're, it's like, we're supporting democracy in the transition to blah, blah, blah. Just completely, it completely upended the idea that what was happening had anything to do with like the human rights of Venezuelans or any of these kind of these like bullshit lies that they tell to try and justify what they're doing. It completely upended all that.
00:25:33
Speaker
Exactly. And again, to come back to kind of like fish hook theory, like find me the daylight between, you know, Christian Freelance and our federal liberal government's policy on, you know, South American coups of socialist leaning governments. And like, for instance, our new elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, you know, Aaron O'Toole. Yes. And he was even the foreign affairs critic as well.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, like you pointed out, there's very little daylight between their actual positions on this. It's not like if the conservative government had been in charge as that was taking place, like they would have done anything differently. In fact, they probably would have just gone more in the Trump direction and been more overt about what their goals were. But that was an excellent segue to Aaron O'Toole, because that's another thing I wanted to talk to you about on this show today.
00:26:24
Speaker
Because of course we had the conservative leadership Contest this week that's been kind of a few months in the making since since the election and
00:26:38
Speaker
You know, obviously I'm very plugged into these conversations and I know exactly who all, you know, what these people are about and what the intricacies of the conservative power struggle. But like pretending that I'm, I have no clue what Aaron O'Toole's deal is or what he's about. What can you tell us about, about the new leader of the conservative party and how he ended up winning this position and this leadership contest?
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean with the caveat that this is all very distant analysis and then my kind of analysis of conservative politics is not anything with like where I talk to people or actually kind of deeply consider these issues because fuck those guys. Yeah, I try to avoid talking to conservatives myself, so I wouldn't hold that against you.
00:27:21
Speaker
Exactly, but I did call it for O'Toole from the beginning and I called it for O'Toole from the beginning because of the fact that he had Jeff Ballingall on his team and Jeff Ballingall is the guy behind.
00:27:34
Speaker
Alberta Proud, Canada Proud, Ontario Proud, all the various proud properties and their related bullshits. I think the power and the influence of those Prouds is definitely overstated by the media and political operatives in the context of general elections.
00:27:53
Speaker
And even provincial elections, I think their influence and power to actually move voters is overstated. But I think in the instance of something like a conservative leadership race, that is the highest leverage point for what those Facebook properties do, which is essentially build massive lists of likely conservative members. And you know exactly what makes them mad and what they respond to and the messaging and the
00:28:18
Speaker
The the things that will get them to click because the conservative party at this moment Is really just a you know a collective mass of angry people on angry old white people on Facebook, right? Yes, and and that is what the crowds are Speaking to and that's what they are manipulating and that's what they're that's the content that they're producing is designed to inflame the like lizard brain part of those people
00:28:46
Speaker
And so, yeah, when I learned that Jeff Ballingall was a part of O'Toole's campaign, I definitely clocked that as like, oh, that's important. And then the other thing that I think led to O'Toole's win was that he and his team made the right overtures to social conservatives to essentially give them the Harper treatment. I won't kick you out of the party.
00:29:06
Speaker
But maybe I'll give you something you want maybe And I'll say the words that you want to hear but it was much like in shears election It was the case of the social conservatives being the kingmaker again You know I get the emails from because I am a sucker for punishment because these are the people I keep track of I get the emails from
00:29:26
Speaker
anti-abortion campaign groups. Like right now is one, I get another one called the Wilberforce Project, which is an Alberta-based one. And these two anti-abortion groups, and I assume very many other kind of like outwardly evangelical Christian and hardcore Christian kind of conservative political groups, essentially they were saying, fill out your ballot like this. It would be Sloan, Lewis, or Lewis and Sloan, and then O'Toole is your third, and then leave
00:29:55
Speaker
leave McKay off your ballot altogether. And so based on that guidance, I don't think how you can look at the results and how the kind of third ballot played out and just not see the social conservatives of the Conservative Party being kingmaker. Once again, it was how it worked for, it was how it worked for Scheer too. It was those votes that put him over Bernier because Bernier was definitely not a SOCON.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. So what does this, what do you think this means for the conservative movement in this country? Because I think since I've started doing this show, I've been kind of waiting for our Trump moment, for like the conservative movement to really fall off the cliff and really just embrace this kind of id.
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't get the impression that Aaron O'Toole is that exactly, but is it kind of a step in that direction?
Trudeau's Political Challenges and Future
00:30:42
Speaker
Especially when you talk about his associations with Ontario Proud and these right wing meme groups on Facebook. To quote Joe Biden, I don't think anything will fundamentally change here. I think O'Toole is very much going to run the Conservative Party like Andrew Scheer ran the Conservative Party, and I think they're just going to run back
00:31:01
Speaker
the same campaign they ran in the last election and just kind of hope they get five more seats in the like 905 or whatever, you know, like, I don't think, like the conservatives have a one in four shot of winning almost any Canadian federal election. And that is because they have a very kind of strong, rump kind of donor and voter base of around, you know, say 25%. And then, say 25, yeah, they're like voter bases say around 25. And they have the people who will give them money, like they raise money like demons.
00:31:30
Speaker
And then the media also automatically treats any leader of the Conservative Party as a credible Prime Minister candidate. And those kind of two factors combined to give them that floor of just like, oh, they could potentially win any federal election. It really depends on whether the federal liberals are a mess, whether they're infighting or some latest bullshit corruption scandal.
00:31:52
Speaker
Or or even if the NDP run a good campaign like if you get a couple things and say the conservatives run a good campaign You know they could win so they don't necessarily have to change very much to Potentially take government next election or the election after that right which is why I don't think you'll see I mean You're worried about this kind of like Trump like populist turn. Is that what I'm hearing?
00:32:14
Speaker
Well, yeah, because I think there's that element in the in this country that there's there's definitely a group of like right wing, there's like a right wing constituency that definitely I think would appreciate the kind of go ahead from political leaders to just more be more open about their intolerance towards
00:32:32
Speaker
migrants and people of color and indigenous people and drug users. Those people are definitely Conservative Party of Canada members. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering for when that figure is going to come along that's going to really give those people the kind of wink that Trump has given to the far right in the US.
00:32:50
Speaker
Or if it's not possible here, or if we have still kind of a vague infrastructure in place to kind of prevent that kind of thing from really spreading here. I think our institutions are pretty shitty. But I mean, Leslyn Lewis was essentially that candidate. She had essentially her essential kind of hook to voters and why she did so well in Alberta and Saskatchewan was no more hidden agenda. Just say you're going to criminalize abortion.
00:33:15
Speaker
You know? We're just going to stone gay people. I mean, she didn't literally say that. That's an exaggeration. That was still part of the hidden agenda. Yeah, but her whole shtick was, and one that really flew under the radar of Canadian media, to be honest, was how fucking radical her policy was and what she was campaigning on was. It was literal mask off.
00:33:41
Speaker
social conservative in his name fucking Gilead stuff. No one really clocked that. It's just like, oh, here's a black woman Toronto lawyer running. She didn't run on the fact that she was a black woman or Toronto lawyer. She ran on the fact that she was unapologetically going to give SOCONs whatever the fuck they wanted.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah. And she got second place in Alberta and she won Saskatchewan, you know, like. Wasn't there part of that ballot where she was leading at one point as well? There was some kind of weird trick with the ballot that ended up.
00:34:16
Speaker
I didn't see that, but I mean, she did better than expected, right? I think that is the kind of narrative that comes out of this. I think she's going to have a prominent place in the conservative party as it moves forward, which maybe speaks to your concerns. I think there are some historical things that make it hard for that type of thing to win, specifically like Quebec.
00:34:37
Speaker
existing. I don't see how less than Lewis led conservative party does anything in Quebec, but I mean, again, I'm just some fucking idiot from the prayers of the communications degree. Like, I don't know. Sure. Yeah. Well, it's like, as I say, it's disappointing to hear you diminish the career of another potential girl boss in our political life. So I'm going to need you to do better on that, unfortunately.
00:35:02
Speaker
No, I think that's it. I think it's something that I've been concerned with. I always get the sense that we're sort of just a few years behind where America is politically, and in that sense, the Trudeau is kind of like our Obama figure, and we all remember how that went. But that's it. It kind of changed when Trudeau won reelection. That was kind of the main thing that I was kind of not expecting. So it's something that I'm concerned with, but I'm still not sure what the result's going to be.
00:35:30
Speaker
But I guess that's that's what another thing I was wondering though because as much as Trudeau has been enmeshed in this this scandal the we scandal Which I feel like in previous eras probably would have toppled a lot of prime ministers
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. I got a riff on the Wii scandal that I got to get out. Oh, okay. Sure. Let's hear it. Which is this idea that it's this total kid glove, kindergarten scandal, that it's this small ball. Oh, it's so Canadian. Look at your stupid Canadian scandals compared to whatever latest crime Donald Trump is doing. Yeah. I'm not saying that. I know. I know. But this is the discourse. How it's been downplayed. Yeah, exactly. By our baby brain kind of mainstream Canadian media.
00:36:15
Speaker
This is not a very complicated corruption case. This is a dodgy organization directly paying off family members of the prime minister and it sounds like the finance minister to get a huge no bid government contract. That's like textbook fucking corruption. You don't have to get into the details of this person or this organization paid this person to speak or whatever.
00:36:35
Speaker
Fuck the details. That's all you have to say. A dodgy organization directly paid the family members of the prime minister, and the end result was they got a huge fucking no-bid contract worth, what, $40 million, $42 million or something? Doing work that the fucking government should just be doing on their own in the first place, so they don't need to contract these weird, like, Coney 2012 asks private charities to do.
00:36:59
Speaker
Exactly right and and so like there's a reason like there is a reason why the finance minister resigned it wasn't just because it was like a Thing like it wasn't just a personality conflict between the two though. They're probably likely was It's because this was a serious fucking issue. This is a big corruption scandal Yeah, and and I think the media and the kind of discourse did not treat it as such
00:37:23
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And yeah, it was interesting to see anytime like Jagmeet Singh or anyone the NDP brought this up, this like very real and troubling corruption scandal just being dismissed as like, oh, you're the exact same as the conservatives. As a lifelong NDP voter, I am disappointed in you, Jagmeet, for saying this objectively true thing. Those are the most, perhaps the most annoying people on the hell site that is twitter.com.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But so despite all this, and I think you're right that it's been downplayed by people in the media, interestingly, but throughout all this crisis, the whole pandemic and everything that's happened over the last six months or so, Trudeau has, I believe his popularity has just increased, partially because he's been using ideas that the NDP has been floating and kind of pushing him on.
00:38:16
Speaker
as part of his COVID response, like the Serb and the, you know, the various ways they've responded to that in a productive way. And there was ever a time for mild social democracy. It would be in the middle of a fucking global pandemic. Yeah. And yes, yes. But now he's in this situation where, okay, so he's pro-rog parliament and the word, like what they're saying is that we're going to come back with like a big, bold progressive agenda. And because partially because I think he sees that he's kind of losing confidence of people.
00:38:44
Speaker
Maybe he senses that he could be vulnerable and wants to now go ahead with what they're framing as a populist, progressive economic plan. How do you see that working out for Trudeau and the Liberal Party?
00:38:59
Speaker
I mean the caveat here is that I live in Alberta and federal politics fucking joke and that like we have one non-conservative member of parliament out of I don't know 30 MPs or something so like they're largely a bore and I try not to pay attention to them because there's no real local action so with that out of the way
00:39:18
Speaker
I mean, maybe it's happened before in history, which is a good indication of things happening in the future. If there could be a national childcare program, a farmer care program that Trudeau uses to improve people's lives because this is the time to do something like that. Whether it will be good, I mean, no, it just won't be good. It'll be run by the federal liberals and it will be fucking triangulated and means tested to death.
00:39:47
Speaker
But it might it might improve people's materials conditions more than you know the the shit that they're already in Which is probably all the best you can hope for from the liberals, but I could see it But I mean he's also Trudeau's also all talk.
Universal Basic Income Debate
00:40:02
Speaker
You know he's the fake woke Prime Minister guy so like he could it could all just be fucking messaging and bullshit which is something that they love doing too so like I
00:40:10
Speaker
Again, I don't have any insight in the federal liberals. I don't talk to those people. I don't pay attention. I'm not in Ottawa. I'm very far away on the prairies dealing with our own very bad regional politics and our premier, Jason Kenney.
00:40:26
Speaker
Well, in terms of like a possible economic response, I don't know if this is going to happen. I'm not sure I believe that, but this idea of continuing the CERB or the SERB indefinitely and creating some kind of a basic income, that's picking up steam on the NDP side.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's very possible. I would love to see it, obviously. Anything that can make people less precarious, full support. Yeah. Yeah, I was just looking up the MP. Oh, Heather MacPherson's idea, was it? Yes, yeah, exactly. The lone tiny spot of orange in the sea of blue and on the prairies.
00:41:05
Speaker
Well, Leah, Leah Kazan also who tabled emotion in the House of Commons to convert it into a guaranteed level of basic income. Like in terms of your like, regardless of like how, how politically possible that is, like in terms of what you see is like a
00:41:22
Speaker
social democratic response because there's been kind of like a Debate about basic income on the left and whether this is just something that's gonna kind of allow this zombie Exploitative capitalism to continue and kind of placate people Or whether that's something that that the left project that the left should be pursuing like where do you where do you stand on that?
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. I've seen the arguments on both sides, and I think on the whole I would rather have it than not. I mean, we are not in power, right? Like, leftists are not in power. So it's a question of what can you get, and if this is a thing that you can get, I think you probably fight for it. I think it is not the game changer that we would want it to be, and like, true liberation comes from, you know, actual
00:42:09
Speaker
liberatory and revolutionary movements and direct action and being in the streets and you know assuming the means control of the means of production blah blah blah but with that out of the way like I think I brought I think I think I lean towards UBI rather than not
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, we just I will say just as a I've been as someone who's benefited from the Serb It has been just like an interesting experience to just have that Kind of because i'm a freelancer, you know, I don't I don't make a lot of money uh annually so as such Uh, even though i'm in a pretty stable situation, you know with my family and my partner and everything I still have deal with a lot of like precarity in terms of like how i'm going to pay my bills and and all that
00:42:56
Speaker
And just like having that be alleviated for a few months was, was, was like very revealing to say like, Oh, cause you know, there's, there's many people in this country that are, that are hurting far, far worse than me, obviously. And the idea that we could have a government program that really like, doesn't just like, you know, give people fucking tax credits or some things, test his bullshit, but just gives people a way to just completely alleviate that kind of stress they have about their material conditions. Like there is something kind of like.
00:43:27
Speaker
Powerful about that. I think huge huge. I mean my partner works in theater There's not a lot of fucking theater going on right now and so the serve was a fucking godsend for her right and so I definitely like it's you know, it's probably a temporary measure, you know much like the the dictatorship of the proletariat but towards kind of full-scale liberation, but I I
00:43:48
Speaker
I tend to lean towards a UBI or something like a UBI rather than not, though I do understand the arguments against.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah. And if there's going to be a UBI here or anywhere, it needs to be done in conjunction with a robust welfare state and health care in conjunction with different things. Free transit and pharma. Yeah. Free transit. Exactly. Because there's a whole libertarian movement that has kind of adopted this from the right as a way of kind of abolishing the welfare state. And that's just a fucking disaster. Let's just fire every social worker and get rid of every program. And yeah. And just have you. Yeah. I mean, that's the that's the like the shithead side of the UBI argument, which is the which is the one that I mean, your
00:44:28
Speaker
People are right to be wary of and suspiciously, quite frankly. Exactly.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:44:33
Speaker
Well, Duncan, thanks for coming on the show and talking to me about all these things. It was great to catch up with you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
00:44:43
Speaker
Do you just want to let everyone know where they can find your work and whether they can follow you and back you up the next time you get dogpiled by weird Canadian liberals? Of course. On Twitter, you can reach me at Duncan Kinney, D-U-N-C-A-N-K-I-N-N-E-Y. Not Kenny, I am Kinney with an I. The organization I work for is called Progress Alberta. That's just at Progress Alberta on Twitter. We're on Facebook, Instagram, all the other things.
00:45:09
Speaker
The thing that we are really spending our time on, especially over the fall as we relaunch and pivot, is TheProgressReport.ca, and that is our media project. That is essentially a newsletter podcast plus investigative news outfit. We cover politics, social movements, and media out here in Western Canada.
00:45:29
Speaker
If you're out here in Western Canada, give it a follow, donate to us. Obviously, if you like the work we do, like the story we just broke on the City of Edmonton's new tank. Those are my plugs. Great. Well, thanks again for coming on the show. It was great to talk to you, Duncan. I'll talk to you later. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye.