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Episode 19 - It's Trudeauver
59 Plays15 days ago
Wait. Are we a current events podcast now? Justin Trudeau has resigned and we're here to talk about him, his resignation, Pierre Polievre, the previous foes of Trudeau as Liberal leader, and thoughts on how progressives have not only gone nowhere in Canada but worldwide.
Featuring guest, Kelly from the Canuck Is A Slur podcast!
https://linktr.ee/CanuckIsASlur
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Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Trudeau's Retirement Speculation
00:00:00
Speaker
Some insiders were saying that Trudeau has decided not to make any announcement until after the federal budget expected about the end of February. That's not soon enough for a lot of Ontario backbench Liberal MPs. They say they're going to tell Trudeau at the Liberal caucus this coming Wednesday that he must announce his retirement soon if the party is to have any chance against the Conservatives in the next federal election. I'm not retiring. I'm going to stay on Prime Minister for a few more months and then I'll work at something else. What do you have in mind? What else? Any offers? I'm waiting for the best. My friends, as you all know, I'm a fighter.
00:00:35
Speaker
Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians, I care deeply about this country, and I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians. I've also had a chance to reflect and have had long talks with my family about our future.
Leadership Transition Plan
00:00:56
Speaker
I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister,
00:01:01
Speaker
after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process.
Podcast Introduction
00:01:17
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Schwinnigan Moments. My name is Heather and I she or they pronouns. My name is Tamarack. I use they them or it its pronouns. And live from Rideau Hall, we have soon to be former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Well, we don't have Justin Trudeau available for this one. And we can't get Pierre Trudeau available either. But we do have a guest. We do have a guest. Why don't you introduce yourself? I heard you wanted a member of a dynasty.
00:01:51
Speaker
Shit. Put a Kennedy in, oh my God, in Sussex Drive in 2025. Wow. If I had been prepared on that, I could have made that rhyme really well. I was just like, I was like, no, it's not in the White House. It's not the Blue House.
Guest Introduction and Podcast Discussion
00:02:08
Speaker
It's what color is the house? And it's just like, it's just the... This is an awful brown. Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
it's just It's just your standard upper upper Canadian home. I guess because I didn't really soon think about this, but the the actual infrastructure we have is different in that like the residence isn't the office. like You're still working out of Parliament, right? like The PMO is out of Parliament. Yeah.
00:02:34
Speaker
so you were like yeah yeah Well, because, like, the prime minister is separate. You didn't tell us who you are, though. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you should probably introduce yourself. Oh, god, yeah. We have former not-assassinated president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. No, I was just trying to be a Kennedy, like a different Kennedy. OK, sorry. My name's Kelly. I do a podcast called Kanaka Zisler. And I do all these different bits if you want to, like, I don't know, hire me on cameo, but.
00:03:03
Speaker
There was a, I remember, I think it was one of the, like this was one of the pre-Trudeau liberal leadership races. I think it was like the one that Stephane Dion won or something. And there was a Kennedy. It was like, no relation. It was just a Kennedy who was running it. Oh, oh, oh. I know you're talking about two and I can't remember his name either.
00:03:22
Speaker
Cool. Well, we got that out of the way. I know. You know, it's funny, the last time we had an Irish person in office would have been Mulroney, unless I'm forgetting somebody else. And well, we all know how that went down.
Comparing Political Resignation Speeches
00:03:37
Speaker
In fact, I actually have a clip of Mulroney resigning right here for everybody so we can just compare. Earlier today, I advised my party and caucus that I would be resigning as party leader and prime minister soon after the party had chosen a successor.
00:03:52
Speaker
eight and a half as Prime Minister. The time has come for me to step aside. I've done my very best for my country and my party, and I look forward to the enthusiasm and renewal that only new leadership brings.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, when you mentioned in the chat earlier that that Justin's ah resignation was a lot closer to Mulroney's than Pierre's, like, I gave him a listen and holy shit, it it is uncanny. It's very strange. And the funny thing is, though, is like, um There's a lot of similar circumstances between Mulroney's resignation and Trudeau's. Mulroney resigned as ah a leader of the Progressive Conservatives, the former Tories of the time, you know, that was over. He was unpopular over the GST. ah NAFTA was coming into play. It was just the start of a massive recession. And, you know, he basically
00:04:53
Speaker
handed the party off to our first and only woman prime minister Kim Campbell and learning micro secondd And now the PCs are no more yeah, I remember when conservatives were progressive I remember that Yeah, well progress of conservative has always struck me as a little bit of a little bit of a ah oxymoron there And I don't think you're the only one to to
Political Branding and Perceptions
00:05:21
Speaker
observe that. But it also, maybe this is why like I kind of grew up with the idea that like progress is just this word that everyone, like everyone believes in some form of progress, right? And of course you would call yourself progressive. like To call yourself politically progressive is just like almost a truism. like Everyone thinks they're doing progress.
00:05:42
Speaker
And I think that was like reinforced by the fact that even the conservatives tried to brand themselves in that way. And I remember it was, this is a very specific thing to remember, but it was when I was like first getting onto Twitter and I'm like, I'm really into like Firefly now and I got into Adam Baldwin's Twitter.
00:06:01
Speaker
<unk>s ok And that was like ah for anyone not familiar at all he was yeah He was like an old-school gamergate guy, and he was like one of the rare Just Hollywood like far-right people especially just publicly at the time like there was just not It was just not common to go on to like this person is on TV I'm gonna go look at their Twitter feed and they're like holy shit this person is just foaming at the mouth and And I specifically remember he was like using progressives as like a pejorative term like, oh yeah, progressives want this.
Republican vs. Democrat Strategies
00:06:33
Speaker
And I was genuinely confused. I'm like, are you seeding the ground that these people are progressive? Like, don't you want to say that?
00:06:41
Speaker
Like the alternative is like literally announcing that your political project is like outward regression, which it kind of is nowadays, or like pure nihilism. We believe in nothing, only power, which is also kind of true for the other half of the conservative law. Yeah. And my just tiny little poor innocent brain at the time was like, Oh man, like I can't believe you admit that the other people are doing progress. And now I'm like, I don't know. Nothing shocks me now. But yeah, that was, that was just like my little shell being cracked open at the time.
00:07:10
Speaker
Well, like the start of the end of like um the Tories of old was really when, um what's his face, Stockwell Day showed up on a skidoo on Lake Okanagan on his first day as leader of the of the Canadian Alliance.
00:07:27
Speaker
I remember that day and it pains me. Completely insane how close we had to having our head of government be fucking named Stockwell Day. Just the most embarrassingly, like I couldn't understand what that even was as a kid, but I'm like, that is the most like Tory ass name ever. Like you would expect this guy to be speaking in like the Queen's English like, oh yeah, I'm Stockwell Day and I'm going to balance the budget. Like,
00:07:55
Speaker
What a fucked
Impact of Unusual Politician Names
00:07:56
Speaker
name like sorry, I don't care like you could be the most ah Just amazing like you could literally be the reincarnation of Tommy Douglas if your name is Stockwell day I cannot vote for you fuck off like No, who was the MP? There was a there was another MP. He was from the Fraser Valley who had a really strange name Hyper Christian sort of type from Abbotsford and what did he have?
00:08:20
Speaker
Because him and his dad both were members of parliament for the ah for the conservatives and also the Canadian alliance. What the hell was their name? Couldn't tell you. ah i i'm going to forget You know what's going to happen is it's going to haunt me later, and then I'm going to realize that the name is not all that interesting to begin with. But you're right, Stockwell Day is an insane name in a lot of ways. You can't be named that. Again, if you're British, maybe. like You can be in the House of Lords. Maybe you can be an MP, but you you can't be a Canadian named Stockwell Day. and like Christ.
00:08:54
Speaker
Anyway, crisis averted, we never elected anyone bad. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they didn't all consolidate together, bend the knee, and then we got Stephen Harper. Yeah, well, we could talk about Stephen Harper's successor, Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau vs. Obama: A Comparative Analysis
00:09:08
Speaker
Anyone heard of the last name Trudeau before? My familiarity with before Justin Trudeau was the Trudeau housewares that you used to be able to buy. Yeah, the salt shakers. Yeah, salt shakers. I do not think I'm familiar with this.
00:09:23
Speaker
It's like a middle tier housewares brand. Usually it's it's they're a restaurant supply company and they also make consumer grade or like a consumer grade housewares. I mean, for all I know, they just don't sell it in Alberta because the branding is so toxic, but.
00:09:39
Speaker
That that was actually the thing I was gonna say is like I wonder how many conservative households like tossed out their Trudeau salt salt shakers and gravy boats because of the name Nothing from Laura Canada at my house. Thank you very much Justin Trudeau he was elected in what late 2015 and ah He was elected basically as our answer to Obama, that's the best way I can describe him as. like a lot of ah A lot of centrist types really liked him. I remember Simon Whistler, he's a YouTuber that often went on about all sorts of stupid things, but had like an entire fluff video just about Justin Trudeau and like how Canada's Prime Minister is beloved worldwide. The only reason why he's a little dude is like next door is Trump. You okay, Kelly? yeah Wait, does something bad happen?
00:10:30
Speaker
No, no, I thought you said something and or you're looking at your mic there. Oh, I said Woke Bay Trudeau. That was all I said. Yeah. Yeah, there it was all like current year argument, like because it's 2014. Yeah. there was no it And it's 2050. I remember I can still see that fucking like gif in my head. Oh, I have the clip. I have the clip.
00:10:59
Speaker
important to you? Because it's 2015.
00:11:06
Speaker
are Canadians elected extraordinary members of parliament from across the country. And I am glad to have been able to highlight a few of them in this cabinet here with me today. And you know what? I'm going to hand it to him. ah He did manage to have perfect gender parity with Deputy Prime Minister slash finance ministers ah falling out with them. Because everybody seems to have forgotten Bill Morneau exists.
00:11:38
Speaker
How about Jody Wilson Yeah, Jody Wilson-Raybould is the obvious one, but i i've I've been sitting on, like, this, like, weird memory hole of Bill Morneau where he appears to have, like, disappeared. Like, literally, I'm concerned for him. Has anybody seen him recently? Is he the next leader?
00:11:56
Speaker
uh no he's i i think his career his career after his time as finance minister and deputy pm basically got completely destroyed because that was at the like they had a falling out at the peak of justin's power yeah he he ditched it before he ditched after the before the 2021 election. yeah but like yeah But that was the thing. like When he came into power, it was just after what nine years and 200 some odd days of Stephen Harper, you know, Tristan was like looking to make positive impacts on Canada. He was going to do electoral war reform. and We'll talk about that a little bit later. He was going to legalize weed, which he did. He was going to he was going to do all sorts of things. Those are the two things I can easily remember as his campaign promises that either he did do or he attempted to do. And like the only thing that he impacted me on my life out of everything he ever did is that he made September 30th a holiday and then immediately fucked it up.
Trudeau's Campaign Promises: Successes and Failures
00:12:59
Speaker
by going on vacation in Tofino. Yes. But he didn't do as bad as theoretically some conservatives would have done. Therefore. Oh no. we must he was He was the first time I think like this was sort of an era of like promise kept tracking sort of like the open like the web had gotten like accessible enough.
00:13:22
Speaker
I remember there was an earlier version of the thing that I just dropped in the chat, which is called the Trudeau meter, where they were tracking how well he was going on fulfilling his promises and apparently kept 43% of them, which is not bad. Hmm. And was electoral form one of them or?
00:13:39
Speaker
ah electoral horror reform was not one of them. ah Like there's there's a bunch of other things he did like I will say given credit for um the passing of trans rights of course we'll see if that gets repealed ah in the future. There was also some attempts to ah acknowledge and they talked about the the day off but the truth and right the recommendations of the truth and reconciliation commission There's a lot to talk about it. Actual concrete implementation, however, they have been fighting any sort of enumeration in court this entire time. absolutely. You know, working backward from here, like just kind of projecting current-day discourse backward, it genuinely kind of shocked me once in a while when like you see you know that document, and it like it has Stephen Harper's signature on it.
00:14:32
Speaker
where you're like, i just I cannot imagine any kind of, not to at all give Stephen Harper like credit as a human being, but just that like anybody currently in the running to be a mainstream conservative politician now, like I'm trying to imagine them being convinced to like sign off on that at all, and they'd be like, ah, no, actually, the residential like schools were good. like I don't fucking know. It's just- I mean, that that is the the discourse from the conservatives ever since the the ah the ah ground penetrating radar ah was done in that count in that um that residential school in Kamloops. The prevailing narrative has been residential school denialism on the right, and it's entered very much into the mainstream there.
00:15:16
Speaker
One of the things from Harper's era that I o think this is very topical for today is when Harper was about to make his apology for, um you know, the residential schools. This was in 2009, just I think a week prior to the apology being given in Parliament.
00:15:37
Speaker
our dear millhouse, our dear Pierre Poliev, decided to pine outside of the usual channels that Harper had a lot of control over, made a remark about how it was completely unnecessary, only to have Harper then, you know, give him a dressing down. And like, this was not not unusual for Pierre Poliev back then.
00:15:59
Speaker
You know, he he has no decorum now, but he especially didn't have decorum then. And, you know, that whole apology, in my opinion, is what started Polyev down the ah road of, well, to where he is today. Our very own fascist millhouse.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah. So is there going to be a new version of this this polymeter that they have for Trudeau? Is it going to be the Pierre Polymeter? That's depressing. That that is depressing. And i ah I mean, I'm sure he will keep his promises because he's promising fucking garbage. So.
00:16:35
Speaker
That's true. That's true. He's going to end wokeness, which I mean, I guess that means fucking with trans rights and this shit like that. But I wonder if they're going to do it if the if the red and green of Captain Broken get inverted.
00:16:54
Speaker
Wait, what does that mean? Oh, kept it broken. Okay. If I said captain broken, I'm like, who is captain broken? What are you talking
Trudeau and Poliev's Political Paths
00:17:00
Speaker
about? Captain broken is me a 10 years of covering Polly. Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
Just it it's pronouns at that point completely burned out. Yeah, don't worry. Polly will make it immediately. Polly will make it illegal to use pronouns in the military. So, you know, he's got us covered there.
00:17:19
Speaker
the The thing that's really funny about Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poliev is like, if you look at the way they grew up, they are very different animals. um Like, you know, Justin Trudeau, um you know, he was a class clown, very good at makeup and, um you know, fan of bo polish yeah he was very, he was very crafty of boot polish. And, you know, he's very good at tripping down and falling down the stairs, but somehow never getting injured in the process. ah But he has actually had a day job.
00:17:48
Speaker
Whereas with Pierre Poliev, he got injured playing wrestling, um you know, in high school and then found that because he couldn't use his arm anymore, then he may as well go and join the local Tories, the the local progressive conservatives. And he went campaigning for Jason Kenny, who, you know, back in the 1990s was very fucking proud of him denying, you know, same sex couples, you know, certain rights and privileges when he was working out of San Francisco, you know, like,
00:18:16
Speaker
I don't know what why Pierre Poliev is a really fucked up animal, but you know, Pierre and Justin, they're fucked up in their own interesting ways, aren't they? was Because you've been reading the the Rick Mercer book recently, right?
00:18:30
Speaker
i yeah I've read it ages ago, but I've read bits and pieces of it. Does Paulie F. come up in that? Yes. Okay, because I remember Jason Kenney did, and i was i we may have talked about this already, but like there's that story about how Jason Kenney's ripping on somebody in Parliament for not ah like having his own domain name registered, and then Rick Mercer went and registered ah Jason Kenney's domain name and like still has it.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, right now I think it goes to, like, some other, like, some water, like, what do these go to? It's jasonkenny.org, yeah. Yeah. I think there might have been a few, a few mentions of Kenny, like, in that book, or at least, like, even because I watched Rick Mercer on TV and all that. Oh, it goes to the Coast Protectors. So I remember, like, I knew who Jason Kenny was before most people did. Like, he kind of just burst really into the Alberta scene, because he was fucking airlifted, or what's the word, parachuted into Alberta politically. yeah He's not from around here. He's from Ontario. He's from Ontario, right?
00:19:30
Speaker
Um, I actually don't know where Jason Kenney was born. Exactly. I always thought that he was from Alberta. I believe he's not, but I have to, you could should double check. I think, you know, he's from Oakville. No way. Yeah. I think, well, I think he got parachuted in Alberta early because he was, I think given the seat in Calgary to be a, ah like, and that's how he became an MP like during the Harper era. And then he kind of fucked around in. It was also from the Toronto area.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Harper was also a fake Albertan. Yeah, why can't we elect a real Calgarian like Ted Cruz? Yeah, exactly.
00:20:11
Speaker
ah crazy I mean, and yeah, wait, so this is this Harper was a fake Calgarian. He's from Toronto. Oh, no, Poliev's not a, well, Poliev was not born in Calgary, but he was raised there. He is from Calgary originally.
00:20:24
Speaker
But we got to do something about Calgary, man. So Polyev was born in Calgary, um but he was adopted by a Francophonie couple who lived in Calgary at the time, and he still did. And that's why he's a fluent French speaker, because um his parents grew up in a Francophonie community in Saskatchewan.
00:20:50
Speaker
I mean, and in fairness to Calgary, this is a fun piece of trivia that blew my mind and I uncovered it when I was doing research on one episode or another, which is that the CCF, like the predecessor to the NDP, which was like, I think even more like outwardly socialist, was founded in Calgary. Yeah. Prairie socialist. Remember those? the the prairies The prairies are basically the like where Canadian leftism as a like major current comes from.
Shifts in Canadian Political Ideology
00:21:17
Speaker
Like our sock dams are from Saskatchewan, like genuine, modified leftists came out of southern Alberta. Yeah, I think, I honestly think kind of bringing it back to the, I guess, now impending premise or the now impending promise of an election doesn't word I'm looking for. Yeah. But the the now impending threat of an election is like, I think we as I don't know, people who are not howling fascists need to kind of like learn from these shifts of, you know, how did we get from
00:21:55
Speaker
like genuine i got yeah socialist, for lack of a like ah a more varied term, ah coming out of the prairies to just being like the place of exit and just real, real regressive beliefs. and like you know it It goes to show that like places aren't static. There are these big waves and movements that change people's ideas. And like how do you learn from that to try to instill change to get people moving in ah in a better direction? Because the the direction a lot of places are going right now is not good. It goes further than this. But when Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program, and this is also at Forum Petro Canada and all that sort of thing.
00:22:37
Speaker
ah That kind of accelerated the hard shift towards right-wing politics that Alberta ended up experiencing. This is kind of like what led to ah basically the Liberals being more or less shut out from ah from Alberta for the past 40-some-odd years.
00:22:57
Speaker
and you know like occasionally you would see so the odd liberal pop up and but more often than not you'd only see and NDP vote ah um MPs getting elected which is why like after the 2006 election I want to say that was like when Edmonton was the only spot in the entire province that wasn't colored um blue and it was actually orange instead so It's either that or the 2009 election. I can't remember which one it was, but yeah, it's or 2008. It was 2008. Sorry. I think I mentioned South Kona was the only federal NDP writing in Alberta, like federally um for like several elections in a row because it was always um
NDP's Ideological Transition
00:23:42
Speaker
sorry. It's currently Heather McPherson. How I can't remember who it was before, but who is her name? She was cool. Then she retired.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, I lived in Edmonton Strathcona during that time. I believe there's two now. I believe that didn't. Oh, what's his name? I should know his name. um But he won that like Edmonton, one of the northern writings, I think in the last election. Oh, it was Linda Duncan. Linda Duncan. Yeah, right I forgot about her. Yeah. And then i'm not from Alberta and I know she ruled. Yeah. I mean Heather McPherson seems cool too, but Yeah, and unfortunately, individually decent MPs don't make for a nationally robust party, so.
00:24:24
Speaker
Well, there's the odd gem that happens, but you are correct. Like I was actually, um, talking to someone about the and NDP a couple of weeks ago, prior to all of this happening. And I said that the last time that the NDP was a true leftist party is when Alexa McDonough was still actually running the show. And then, you know, she retired, um, and then had Jack Layton come in and Jack Layton, you know, i I can say a lot of nice things about him, but I can also say a lot of negative things about him. And he did shift the party more rightward.
00:24:53
Speaker
And then, of course, he ended with Tom O'Care, who just kind of did nothing. And then Jagmeet Singh, who has just continued to do nothing. It's a very interesting situation at the NDP, something that we could easily kind of talk about for hours on end.
Liberal Party's Historical Resilience
00:25:08
Speaker
I think a history of the NDP episode should happen at some point because I think it's worth an entire discussion. but It's the liberals are the only when you kind of think about like the liberals are the only party that have survived since Confederation. Hmm. And they love to remind people about it.
00:25:28
Speaker
they're not the party of confederation though that's the thing they they they that was uh that that was the torries the torries were the party first party of the foreign power after confederation they weren't formally called the torries were like they were still formally called like the conserve like conservative party or something like that or am i right they adopted the named um torries like they took on the name initially so they traditionally have had that name And so, you know, it's the party, the conservative party in its current form, like or or the current form, like cease, like the original conservative party ceased to exist sometime around World War Two.
00:26:05
Speaker
and But like the Liberal Party is the only one that's ever survived since then. But when they became the Progressive Conservatives, they kept the name Tory as their nickname. And then when the Canadian Alliance, formerly the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservatives merged, that's what formed the Conservatives. And they still, again, got to keep the Tory name because pre-Confederation, they were called the Liberal Conservative Party.
00:26:28
Speaker
It's just like the BC liberals are basically the same sort of creatures ah Yeah, I remember we had so in my elementary school We had in the ah principal's office where I spent a an appreciable amount of time there was like the rows of all the prime ministers on there and like as a You know undiagnosed child who was really interested in numbers and like arrangements and patterns and stuff I was always like staring at these names and the like dates and wondering about them and like why was this person like Hey, we had a female prime minister. Why was she only there for one year? Like, but like not having any of the grasp of it. But I remember like that there were, um, it would list like their, I don't know if it was a party or just like a description of their beliefs, but I, I guess it was a party because there's a bunch of liberal, a bunch of conservative, and there were a bunch that were like hyphenated liberal conservative. And I remember being confused by that as a kid. I was like, what does that mean? Like, I think I'd assumed it was a coalition or something. I don't know. I mean, you're talking in elementary school me. So you're just like,
00:27:28
Speaker
really really vaguely understanding any of it. That is actually one of of our future episodes is why the hell is Canada the way the way it is and it's talking about the establishment of responsible government through the province of Canada and you know discussing all of that from the ah rebellions of the 1830s. It's a whole topic for why Canada was built the way it is. It sort of explains a few things today in some ways, but you know yeah but yeah going back to Justin, because he is the man making the news today. Right. at that right I keep forgetting. We're not here talking about an election. We're talking just about the resignation. It's hard to not talk about the election immediately because we've been saying for a while that, you know you know, everybody is saying like, Justin will not win the next
Is Trudeau's Resignation a Liberal Party Crisis?
00:28:18
Speaker
election. And as time has gone on, it's become more and more clear that the federal liberals will not survive an election. And I'm just wondering if if this just completely destroys the party or if there's just enough apparatus remaining that they're going to weather this one.
00:28:34
Speaker
I will say in Justin Trudeau's defense that unlike, say, Jean Chrétien, who had his rival Paul Martin for a very long time, that Justin Trudeau, unlike Stephen Harper, was preparing for an eventual exit. yeah Now, it was not going to be Christian Freeland.
00:28:57
Speaker
No, but the thing is, everyone he seemed to be grooming as a replacement. I hate that word being used. I know why you're saying it, but oh my god. Politicians that are groomers just like, it's pretty fucking odd. Like it's not even a debate, whatever definition of the word you want to use. um And let's list all the politicians we think are groomers.
00:29:21
Speaker
I mean, Matt Gaetz, like literally. Oh, we can't we we can't get into listing Americans, but yeah. OK, anyway, hey Andrew is unrelated. note Andrew Tate says he wants to be British prime minister. But anyway, you should stop trying to fake an American accent, but.
00:29:37
Speaker
But like Krista Freeland, like you know she has has had aspirations to be prime minister. This has been quite clear for a very long time. She's always been sort of a thorn in Justin's side. um you know she ah but it' And she's also been kind of embarrassing in some ways around the world stage, but you know don't let that get past her.
00:29:59
Speaker
i really know I really hope that this maneuver tanks her career in particular just because I could not stand the possibility of a woman who speaks glowingly of her Nazi grandpa becoming Prime Minister of Canada. like Every Remembrance Day, when she has some dumbass comment about how proud she is of the service of her family in the SS, ah it just fucks me up every year.
Chrystia Freeland's Controversial Family History
00:30:27
Speaker
This one is new to me, I was not familiar with this. Oh yeah, her her a lot of those like monuments to the victims of communism and like monuments celebrating. Oh like yeah, I know like that there's the one SS memorial in Edmonton that sucks. Yeah, Freelance family has been behind a lot, has been like supportive and and involved in in a lot of those.
00:30:49
Speaker
The story with with her grandfather is um her this is her maternal grandfather. So as Michael Chomak, I'm probably saying it wrong. It's sorry. I'm just pulling it as Wikipedia because I actually have all of this saved because I knew this would come up. Michaela Chomak. I'm sorry if you speak Ukrainian. ah He his involvement was that he was writing for a Ukrainian newspaper called Krakivizi Visti. Oh my god, I'm so sorry to anyone who speaks Ukrainian. You could get me to pronounce it. but Okay, fine. Then you say it this way. No, it's funny. No, this is fun. over Go for it. Fine. So anyway, he was he was consider he was able to become like the editor in chief of this paper. It was ah very German, like very pro German during World War Two.
00:31:43
Speaker
And he also took an apartment seized by seized by the Nazis who were previously occupied by Jewish persons. So like there's a lot of sketchy things that ah Michael had done. you know I personally ah don't care to read too much into it, but I also at the same time raise an eyebrow at it because it's it's hard to tell when you're dealing with a bunch of people who are in occupied lands.
00:32:13
Speaker
But it that doesn't make me feel all the warm and fuzzies about his grandfather, too. so Yeah, like i mean i'm I'm very much a person who understands like the long, long-running desire for Ukrainian independence that predates the existence of Nazis. It was a very awkward place to be in. like your urin a Especially if you're in that strip all through like Eastern Europe, Poland, Lithuania, all these places that like Understandably want to self-determination and you're constantly just sandwiched between empires um And so like what would I have done as like a sincere? Ukrainian nationalist who is like seeing that my empire is being invaded by these other people like I couldn't tell you what I would do But with that being said you just can't have a monument to a division of the SS and like oh if you're yeah like and
00:33:03
Speaker
You also shouldn't invite a former member of the SS to parliament. Oh, that was hisor so dumb. that's I mean, that was just pure like, you did not vet this at all. But like, yeah, I don't know. There's, there's also, um, what, when it comes to like your grandpa, it's like, I don't know. I just.
00:33:22
Speaker
I don't, this is just why we can't just be like, it just ties into the the worst problem of veteran worship where it's like a lot of soldiers do complicated say things. So let's not like be proud of someone else's military service. It's just not like a good, this is not good PR. This is not a good look. And like you, you, you could maybe even make the argument that like, no, my grandpa specifically, like he didn't do anything bad. He was just trying to do this. And it's like, all right, but I mean the optics just let's not do this one in the public speech.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, fair. So if it's not going to be Chris to Freeland, then the actual bet that I've been telling people is it's probably going to be Mark Carney, who's going to be the front runner.
Mark Carney's Leadership Potential
00:34:02
Speaker
Now, I have a couple of things to say about him. um Like Mark Carney, he'll fit right in with those clowns in parliament. yeah So yes.
00:34:13
Speaker
Nope. Nope. So so have it out after Paul, after Paul Martin resigned, uh, we ended up with Stephane Dion, who, um, was called a traitor because he alongside gills, uh, gills the set and, um, uh, Jack Layton tried to form a coalition government when Stephen Harper had his minority parliament. Uh, that obviously did not succeed because like Trudeau Harper went and prorogued parliament to buy himself some time. And so.
00:34:40
Speaker
Stefan Dion eventually did face an election, he lost, and then we ended up with Michael Ignatieff. And that's the reason why I wanted to bring him up, because I personally feel that with Mark Carney and Michael Ignatieff, they're kind of similar in the sense that they're ah both technocrats, ah very much like ah by the book. like And don't get me wrong, I actually do happen to like some of Michael Ignatieff's writings, like Blood and Belonging, it happens to be a book that I like to reference on a couple of occasions.
00:35:09
Speaker
I don't say it's Bible or anything, but it does kind of paint some kind of context around certain conflicts, right? I mean, he seems like a guy who, from my limited knowledge, like exists in the realm of sanity. He's not like he he's not like the anarchist or whatever I would like him to be, but he's like... is it is a and I think I heard him on like a podcast recently, and I don't know, he's not like... I don't have a specific reason to really dislike him like I do like with Jess and Trudeau. He's a university instructor, which does not work well in politics.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, see my dad had, and like for clarity, my dad is like, I don't know, kind of a weird libertarian type. And I remember him bitching about Ignatieff, I think before he even got the leadership, or maybe he was running against Dionne originally. I remember him is like, he was a guy that we were considering as the next liberal leader. And my dad was like, oh, that guy's just spent too long in the US. s Like he's kind of like that kind of Canadians, like you can't have these I definitely remember that kind of sentiment. I remember that yeah so much. Which is funny because, like A, dad, you're never going to vote for the Liberal Party no matter what. And B, um like i fair I'm not 100% sure, but i'm like I feel like it's just possible that my dad never voted for ah Jason Kenney because I think he actually voted for
00:36:29
Speaker
Was that Ed Stelmach in the... Oh, that's the name I was thinking of. No, no, no, no. I'm getting this backwards. That's the former premier of Alberta, right? The premier who... ah No, no, no, but Stephen Mandel. Stephen Mandel was the mayor who headed the Alberta party. I think my dad voted for the Alberta party, but I don't know. We don't talk about it a lot, but I also think my parents voted for... um No, because the Alberta party didn't run, I believe, in the last provincial election. And even though they're like, Oh, we don't like candy. We didn't lie. We don't like a fucking what's her face. I don't know. I don't bother. Remember her name, Daniel Smith. Like Marlena Smith. Actually, we don't have permission from her parents to use her preferred name. Oh Jesus. right I'm sorry.
00:37:10
Speaker
Well, I lived in Edmonton during the time of Mandel, so. Yeah. But I think there may have been some unfortunate voting for Smith. And a great parallel to, you know, you just mentioned the you know the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives that gave us Harper, the Alliance guy,
00:37:30
Speaker
as the um like you're coming from the further right party there's a merger and you become the head of the merge party and that's what happened with Kenny as well and somehow we managed to like double up on that by getting Dan Marlena Smith the of the like absolute like moon people insane party the wild rose party yeah And it's just it's interesting how that pattern will repeat where it's like when...
Conservative Party Mergers and Power Dynamics
00:38:02
Speaker
i There's probably some international comparisons you can make as well of this merger comes up and the more the more moderate people are just getting like blasted out and then it ends up just shifting the party towards the what was the right wing of it anyway.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah, you sort of saw this with the American Republicans leading up to the 2016 election, where basically the Tea Party movement became fully folded into the Republican mainstream. And then that led us to where we are today, where like parties completely batshit insane, and that's the norm.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, it reminds me of a joke in, I don't know if anyone remembers this, but at one point the ah the Daily Show put out like America the Book. Do you remember that? I have that book. Yeah, which at the time, like I don't know, that was ah part of the shaping of my like political understanding of the United States.
00:39:00
Speaker
And there's a joke in there about like these, like explaining what gerrymandering is and explaining what like pork barreling is. And then it was like, you know, just so you know, Republicans are superior to Democrats and these political techniques. like In fact, Republicans are political maneuvers. And in fact, Republicans are superior to Democrats and all political maneuvers. And I think there's like an element of truth to like,
00:39:25
Speaker
in In electoral politics, it feels like conservatives are more willing to just like play dirty like and to and just to use to be very cunning and strategic in how they shape narratives, how they take over parties. like And yeah, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that, but i i just that feeling comes up for me a lot where it's like they keep pulling it off.
00:39:52
Speaker
There's an era of like playing the power game for power's sake because like they're able to so they're able to seed a lot both to themselves, to their base, and to their to their opponents to gain power because they don't really have a platform apart from vibes.
00:40:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Well, in the 2019 Alberta election, because this was, you know, the scariest thing imaginable that happened, which is that the NDP briefly got into power.
Consolidation of Power in Alberta Politics
00:40:22
Speaker
And the merger of the... So it was the merger of the wild rose and the... Then there was still the progressive conservatives in Alberta till then had formed the United Conservatives, but then they re-splintered with that Derek Fielderbrandt party.
00:40:39
Speaker
And which I believe was separate. Those are the Freedom Conservatives, a fucking embarrassing name. And it was like Harper who like made a statement on like, you need to vote for the UCP and not the Freedom Conservatives because he said, I remember his words, were conservatives win when we are united?
00:40:57
Speaker
And I think that is so true because like I think that's what you were getting at is they are a lot of people of that political flavor are very willing to like cast off whatever actual beliefs they may have and just like circle the wagons and shore up their defenses and win. And then they can infight over like how insane you should be.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah, we're seeing that play on the United States, especially with um all of the, um like we saw with Laura Loomer going out and saying ah stuff about how all billionaires are controlling everything. We're seeing that now and it's going to play out in all sorts of ways across all these parties. Whereas like, and and this is a criticism I make of our side of the fence all the time, is that we play this purity game amongst ourselves and then we think that it's ah it's fine to go and squabble all the time, but then yet we're never able to collectivize anything together and actually get anything fucking done because we're so more interested in making certain that the people we allies sell ally ourselves with is, you know, um white as white can be, you know, like, and actually, you know, in some ways that also tends to be the way that they want it to. So that's another way to talk and look at it.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, there's a certain unity in action that I find is missing on the left. like We have like we where I am in Vancouver. There's tons of little lefty projects kicking around the city, um but there haven't really been any successful movements to collect them um and like start to organize our effort more broadly across these orgs.
00:42:34
Speaker
And I think messaging is a big part of it too, because like, I mean, I am no stranger to this, but like dividing yourself from other, like, I don't know, I hesitate to call myself a leftist, i but but I don't know, i hate I hate labels and ideologies a lot, but I mean, that's where you would map
Challenges in Progressive Messaging
00:42:49
Speaker
me. But like what, like, I think where like progressive movements are often falling short is in like the messaging and the effectiveness of the messaging.
00:42:58
Speaker
because like this was, I had a like a guy I knew who was a very, very like outspoken communist, like very and in a ways that I thought were very bad, like in a very sort of violent authoritarian communism that I don't fuck with. and you know I remember I'll compress what this like argument was about, but I was like, the way you're explaining things is not like persuasive. Like even if you're right, you're not being persuasive. Like you just, you kind of have this like meme ideology. It's like, I don't give a fuck about being persuasive. And I think that is what is often missing on the progressive side of things is people are very fixated on being right and not on being persuasive.
00:43:43
Speaker
That kind of leads into something with Justin Trudeau's government big time. But like in particular, like this came up, um as much as I hate to say this, the Freedom Convoy really pointed out a huge problem, not just with with Trudeau, but with lots of messaging that comes from progressives in general.
00:44:01
Speaker
And like we saw this over COVID-19, whereas like you know inconsistencies about masking, inconsistencies about making vaccines available, the inconsistencies about how restrictions would work and so on and so forth. And we played this game for you know about a year and a half, 18 months. And where did it get us? Well, it ended up having a bunch of psychopaths who um you know don't believe the government more because they think the vaccines are ineffective.
00:44:29
Speaker
Uh, because the communication about how the vaccines work was completely, you know, ah poor. And this isn't just a Canadian problem. This is a problem in general. Yes. i angry i go and and that And then you also have the problem of, you know, like.
00:44:44
Speaker
of like having like all these restrictions in place, but then not really making them clear in the first place or being rather stupid about like closing up playgrounds, closing off access to parks and all that sort of thing.
Critique of Trudeau's Communication Failures
00:44:57
Speaker
And like, at the end of the day, you know, you end up with all these people who, for better or for worse, and you know, I'm not going to go and I'm not going to go and fault them or tell them, you know, they're right either.
00:45:09
Speaker
But you made a whole bunch of people who were on the fringes rather upset. And then we led to, you know, having Ottawa occupied for weeks on end, having Justin Trudeau go and invoke the Emergency Act. ah Us Canadians getting introduced to the concept of Ram Ranch.
00:45:25
Speaker
And then also having a this Filipino woman take over a compound in Saskatchewan. So like this is sort of like the the what's happened here is that Justin Trudeau, his poor messaging on not just COVID, but like how to how what's going on with food prices and what how to deal with housing and all this stuff.
Targeting Economic Inequality
00:45:46
Speaker
like yeah he hasn't been able to communicate anything about like what his government has actually fucking done which in all honesty I go to the grocery store and pick up a few things a couple about two years ago I would have paid half as much for this shit that I just bought no explanation is ever given but you know meanwhile you know Jimmy Pattison and ah Galen Weston are you know just having you know the time of their lives you know Yeah, I genuinely have had this thought a lot recently and as you, I don't remember if you mentioned this before or after we started recording but like the desire to leave the continent and i I have a lot of reasons I want to be traveling right now as I am but if I was like from today suddenly realized okay there's a place in Canada I want to settle like
00:46:31
Speaker
I would be starting a party called like the fuck landlords and billionaires party because like I'm not saying I'm going to win an election but like we need to get this language into the debates like they it's it's amazing how I Like, I don't know, my belief systems have, you know, they're they're kind of always evolving, but like, to me it's just never felt more clear that it's like, this is who's fucking you over as landlords and billionaires. And obviously, huge overlap there. But, you know, like, it's it's so much, um to me, a way bigger part of the pie of what's going on than any other political debate right now. Like,
00:47:14
Speaker
you are getting paid, you get you're getting your rent is getting raised arbitrarily. like It's such an arbitrary thing. You're you're paying like the maximum a person can extract out of you at the grocery store and to your landlord. And like you know it's just not out there in the discourse for my liking that I'm like, i just I would love to just start a fringe party, a different kind of fringe party that is just like saying, you need to remember who the real enemies are.
00:47:45
Speaker
I got a clip to play in this to kind of intercede this because I feel like it might actually kind of paint a picture of what kind of is going on here. Our objective is very clear that the GST... Here's a voice you haven't heard in a while. ...by a system which generates equivalent revenues. There's no misinterpretation. For two months, starting December 14th,
00:48:14
Speaker
we're going to remove the gs t hs t from groceries ah hundred percent of groceries al gri We're going to remove the GST, restaurant meals, takeouts, fast food. Removing the GST from beer and wine. Removing the GST for essentials like kids' clothing, footwear, diapers, and toys.
00:48:44
Speaker
all tax-free. The thing that fucks me up about Jagmeet Singh's, particularly his reaction, speech statement, whatever to ah to Trudeau's resignation, is he does touch on these things. But then like what we actually get out of them in parliament ah is kind of just scraps.
00:49:10
Speaker
And yeah like, he just, I don't know if he just doesn't have the chops to like really push these ideas. I suspect he doesn't, but like. He's a landlord. Yeah. It comes up here and there, but no, I'm, I'm a hundred percent with you. Like, like I'm, I'm on team. Fuck the, fuck the billionaires and landlords. Like appropriate their assets. Don't compensate them. Make being a landlord illegal. Seize their property. Do what Japan did post-World War II. Except more. Yes. I already know what China did post-World War II.
00:49:49
Speaker
I think what gets a lot of people like... I mean, yeah, I'll try to i try to keep it to Trudeau a bit because we do want to have a focus today. And I think that like when I listen to that, it's interesting how I was having this thought earlier.
Trudeau's Charisma: Asset or Liability?
00:50:03
Speaker
It's like, yeah, Trudeau got elected on like a certain amount of charisma.
00:50:06
Speaker
And I was listening to that, I'm like, that's not very charismatic. And I think 2015 charisma is a little different from 2024, 2025 charisma. Like, at the time, what, you know, I think Canadians kind of swooned for was just like, somebody that didn't carry any the baggage of Harper, and just kind of felt like outwardly respectable. And we just kind of liked this guy who like,
00:50:31
Speaker
Smiled warmly and just like didn't challenge us too much and you know, he could be a little sort of clowns and we got to have a little bit of a Kennedy, you know, like um yeah i like and I Think that's actually a little bit of hard We very much we very much got a your your impression at the beginning was actually very very very prescient because we very much got the Kennedys we have at home and I was making this comment on Blue Sky um over the weekend and I said that like the hardest fight that Justin Trudeau has had before Pierre Poliev was actually with Patrick Brazot. For the context here is back in 2012, Patrick Brazot and Justin Trudeau actually had a boxing match that was like aired on Sun News Network. For any of you who remember Sun News Network, boy oh boy.
00:51:21
Speaker
And it's like since then, like he fought Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper was out of gas at this point. He wasn't capable of actually doing anything. Stephen Harper in 2015 was just a Trudeau in 2025. That's a good example. His heart was just not in it.
00:51:38
Speaker
Like, and then he only had to face off against Erin O'Toole in 2021. And then, ah sorry, excuse me, 2019, he faced off against Andrew Scheer, who reeked of Harper, but he ended up getting a minority parliament. 2021, he only ended up winning against O'Toole, who pretty much campaigned similarly to that of Justin Trudeau. He tried to put up.
00:52:01
Speaker
be a progressive conservative as well with a little bit of blood and soil in the in the it's kind of strange but like the only reason why he uh Justin Trudeau prevailed is because we were still in the midst of Covid and people wanted stability well now that we're quote and quote post Covid never mind the fact that it's still raging through the population he's facing up against a guy who has been wanting to be prime minister since he wrote um a and an essay when he was 16 years old like that's the That's how Pierre Poliev got his started in politics. is He wrote a letter to Magna International who gave him like ah some sort of bursary to let him go to the University of Calgary, I think it is. And you know like that's ah that and now he's actually
00:52:46
Speaker
This yeah he's he's never worked a real job. It's a little dated to call him ah like like candidate like fucking fascist Millhouse Realistically what he is is he's fascist Pete Buttigieg Like guy who just wanted to be the prime minister from from day one wrote about it worked towards it his entire life and I can't remember where this came up. It might have been might have been one of the podcasts I listened to, but somebody was talking about their experience in student politics and having someone say, okay, look around at everyone like around you in student politics here. These are going to be the worst people in politics in 10 years. yeah like you You can't trust student politicians. No way. No, no you can't. like i've i I remember going to a certain university
00:53:34
Speaker
and finding and then having to hear constant arguments about them with the Canadian ah Federation of Students and how all that stuff was poorly managed. If any of you are familiar with the CFS, I'm sorry. So I'm hearing we need term limits, but it actually applies to all levels of government. So like you you'll you get eight years, but if you do four of it in student politics, that's four of them. Well, that's how you don't get a William Lyon Mackenzie King.
00:54:02
Speaker
That's true. Exactly. That's good. and That's good. But mean given our modern realities, yeah, let's let's institute that going forward and see how it goes. So like, as I said, like his hardest political fight up until now was Patrick Brazo. He didn't have like he obviously had to deal with all sorts of things, but like he managed to dodge um the SNC Lavalin affair, which is what almost killed him in the first place. He managed to dodge the Wii charity scandal, which was a year later.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah, somehow. Well, the funny thing is I have a connection to we charity. and It's kind of funny. He only managed to ride this long because, well, Covid happened like Covid was the saving grace for the liberals. Like if if Covid didn't happen, he would have lost his minority government long before we were at today. Like he has been well past his expiration date. And what has it led to? you Well, let's let's let's go back to three weeks ago here. No, we can't feel the right to continue. Watch out for the right to stay in office. You failed Canada. You've ruined our country. You're done. Walk away. You don't have an ounce of your father's integrity. At least he walked in the snow. You've ruined this country. Everyone around you is running from you. They're abandoning you. Chris is real. And Sean Fraser, they've all left you. It's time for you to go. It's time for Canada to have an election. r k You are a public servant and you have failed.
00:55:30
Speaker
like like every other thing that guy said is actually entirely true and I agree with but every other other thing he says it's like what the fuck is wrong with you sorry this is just some guy or this yeah he was just like this was um somewhere in Ottawa he was walking to his car and or rather he was being escorted to his car and And this guy just started yelling at him, which I agreed with the spirit of the message. I don't know what this guy's political leanings were, but like he does embody the problem of Justin Trudeau quite well.
00:56:05
Speaker
in like what Canadians were thinking of him. Yeah like the vibes I got off of like uh like SNC Lavalin like Wilson Raybould's resignation and all the like weird petty bullshit around that uh like Bill Morneau the COVID election all those sorts of things it's like he seemed to just be clinging to power at that point like not long into his tenure as prime minister.
00:56:29
Speaker
particularly the very transparent angling to get a majority that just ended up in a status quo parliament. Yeah, like as much as this is a term that I think is probably thrown around by the the wrong people for the wrong reasons. But I really have kind of always seen Trudeau since he got elected as basically just up he is a politics as usual guy.
00:56:53
Speaker
And I mean that in the sense of he's like he embodies this sort of like there is this surface layer and the interior and the surface layer was I mean I'm always gonna come back to the promising electoral reform like that was that was my immediate like well fuck this guy he's full of shit they promised something they got elected they drop it.
Regret Over Electoral Reform
00:57:14
Speaker
Let's let's talk about that cuz guess what he said today if I have one regret Particularly as we approach this election. Well, there are probably many regrets that I will think fuck this guy fuck you hard fuck you I do wish that we've been able to change the Way we elect our governments in this country so that people Fuck you so choice or a third choice on the same ballot so the parties would spend more time trying to be people second or third choices and people I'm mad that I didn't do electoral reform instead of trying to polarize and divide Canadians against each other. I think in this time, figuring out how to pull together and find common ground remains something that is really important for democracy. holy by their head
00:58:02
Speaker
I could not change unilaterally without support of other parties our electoral system that wouldn't have been responsible. Dungeon. Dungeon for you. The the NDP would have gone with him. He could have had it. He could have had it. He could have had it today.
00:58:17
Speaker
Also, i the reason that, like, in a vacuum, I can get behind this idea of, like, I don't believe in doing things unilaterally. I believe in doing things by consensus and all this and all that. Okay, how about all the shit you did to the unilaterally? Right, but I think that there is, like, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I feel like this this liberal party is very much like a centrist party at best.
00:58:39
Speaker
But that is what I mean when I'm talking about like the right is so much more effective at organizing and consolidating and getting their shit done. It's like they're not going to extend that courtesy back to you of not doing things unilaterally. They love to do things unilaterally. It's their favorite.
00:58:58
Speaker
There's a part of me that's like, yeah, you have to like take the higher road than your enemy sometimes, but also like you have to play by the rules that your enemies are setting out. If you constantly like seed ground on like just hand wringing and like, nu let's not rock the boat and all this, and then especially the current flavor of conservatism that is coming out now, it's like,
00:59:19
Speaker
They are just going to get out there and roll you. They are going to implement whatever the fuck they want. If they get a majority, they will just be shoveling things through. So like why why? Why give them anything? like And if you're if you're going to go out and you're a person who's as legacy-conscious as Trudeau is, like call Parliament back, past like table nothing but electoral reform, get the NDP to help you shove it through, and then provoke Parliament, do your election, and then leave Not a hero, but like less of a piece of shit than you are today
00:59:53
Speaker
but Look at the fucking Harper government. like When they went in, they said they would get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. What did they do? They fucking did it. Did the fart did farmers like it? No. Right. Well, the example that just you brought up earlier of you know these other parties were ready to form a coalition, which is exactly what ah Trudeau is describing there, of not doing things unilaterally, you're doing things like trilaterally, and then you have the Conservatives going, well, I'm going to unilaterally promote Parliament, so fuck you.
01:00:21
Speaker
so like you gotta start yeah i don't know i i've become increasingly especially the last few years just much more what whatever pill this is to be like have to stop fucking around you have to do a bit of like i guess i guess maybe this is left populism but like I've really just been into this so much lately is like learning about you know Tommy Douglas and the early NDP and the old CCF and how they operated and like you know you just you watch that guy and he's like the government is going to do this like you just you you got to promise something and like do something and
01:00:58
Speaker
Well, you bring up Tommy Douglas, and this is a perfect example, because we talked about this back in um our November episode when we talked about um the TransCanada Microwave Network. And one of the things that Tommy Douglas did in Saskatchewan when he was ah premier is he formed SaskTel and then who instituted one of the largest microwave relays before any other province did. And the thing is about time, he almost said Michael Douglas, Tommy Douglas, is that he did not give any fucks. He just went, no, we're fucking doing this. we're going And he would be the one to type the ripoff band-aids.
01:01:36
Speaker
If the left needs to look to an example for like good leadership, there's not anyone today that I would go in sight. But Tommy Douglas, absolutely, fucking lu I would say, yes, that is the sort of person you should model yourself after. Right. Yeah, just don't don't do the eugenic stuff or anything else. but I was about to say that. But you know, it's like, again, for some of his time, it's like, yeah, you know, he gets pretty high
Effectiveness of Government Programs
01:01:58
Speaker
marks. And, you know, like those all those examples of what Douglas did as premier of Saskatchewan, like going and getting, ah you know, these these government directed health care apparatuses going, getting like electrical services to rural areas. This is all the government doing stuff. And it helps people. And yeah, and exactly like what I think that the
01:02:22
Speaker
Which is the opposite of what fucking embodies Pierre Poliev, because he has said straight up, you should not be doing things for other people. he is he he's I would say he's a crypto-voluntarianism, a voluntarianist. If anybody's familiar with this, he doesn't believe the government should do anything for you. I think it's since the like you can kind of track this this happened in a lot of places obviously right at the same time as you had or a lot of same time as you had Mulroney or Mulroney whatever and you had Reagan and you had Thatcher like pick your poison this this all this like deregulation and you know the the Reaganomics and all this bullshit yeah the where problem is like the government isn't the solution the government is the problem yeah yeah like I don't know if Mulroney had a quote like this but with Reagan you had the like the scariest words are from the government I'm here to help
01:03:11
Speaker
And then the one from Thatcher is the like the the problem with socialism as you run out of other people's money or whatever. um And like what what i like the ground that has been seeded, I think, across the political spectrum is the idea that, like well, yeah, the government governments aren't effective.
01:03:29
Speaker
Like a government is just like it's bad word like a government program is going to be bad. And that's not what that's not what Tommy Douglas was saying. He's like, no, we the government is going to give you a service and you're going to love it. It's going to be a great service that we're going to build together. And I think you have to find a way to like claw back that ground of like anything a government does is bad.
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's like perplexing to see like very successful programs like $10 a day daycare and like the things that have been have had a positive material impact on people's lives and you just don't get you don't like you you shouldn't shut up about it. That should just be all you talk about every day day in day out for the end of time.
01:04:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm the problem is is like especially with the messaging like if you look to the United States There's some good examples of this um I've seen come up in various anecdotes, but I imagine this is true When was it was the American Affordable Health Care Act, whatever the hell you call it I was brought in, you know, like it was half baked But you know, it was far better than well, I don't know getting something for United Health Care, I guess. Yeah, it was really terrified but you know, like but the Republicans like, ah you know bounced on pounced on it and they call it Obamacare and derided it and calling it Obamacare. When realistically, yeah, Obama should have been like, yeah, it's called Obamacare. I'm giving health care to ah to a whole bunch of Americans who otherwise wouldn't have health care. And then all these people who didn't understand what Obamacare is, but we're signing up for that particular health care plan. And they were very upset. And guess what's happened?
01:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, and they were very upset when they were finding the ACA was going away. They were like, I wanted Obamacare to go away, not the ACA. like I remember those those voters at that time. And you know like I think that's a perfect example of it's it's all about messaging. And one of the reasons i like one of the many reasons I always shy away from labels and like getting too much of a, like this is my camp mentality around politics, is that like peoples like the very fact that swing voters exist,
01:05:33
Speaker
And the fact that there are these big pods of people that pop off of one political movement and glom onto another like shows that like people are very like mobile and you can grab a hold of them. And it's it comes down to messaging. like Another example I've seen that like Unfortunately, it speaks to the ignorance a lot of people, but they're like, I've been doing way better at convincing people that public transit is good when I call it like traditional transit. like yeah they' were like Yeah. Margaret Thatcher said that being on a bus or a train at the age of 30 was a sign of like yeah not being successful, right? Well, and I used to be, again, like i've I've grown a lot and shifted a lot, but there was a period of my time, like a lot of people, I think, in my kind of wheelhouse who
01:06:16
Speaker
listened to Joe Rogan because it was like, it seemed like he was a bit all over the map. And I think he was genuinely a lot more open and a lot. like i Like, I think COVID really melted his brain. um But like, i I would notice this as I was listening to it. I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna like take what he says seriously, but I'm gonna look for when he has these kind of more progressive guests. But there were all these times where he would go on, you know, whatever his bullshit was. And I'm like, what he is describing is socialism.
01:06:45
Speaker
like he's saying like yeah like me if the only there was like a government kind of like standard that like set a minimum for like how much you make or i can't remember any of the examples but it would come up like every other episode he would basically be describing a socialist policy that he thought like from first principles yes exactly without without putting such a label on it and i'm like you know if somebody if the right people could have gotten to someone like that You know, you could do amazing things, I think. It just comes down to, like, you need a charismatic leader who is not who's not unwilling to say it with their full chest. And, like, people just sit and figure out what is the messaging that's going to work.
01:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, like ah a bit of a pet project of mine is in like convincing people ah this is true because I find like most people genuinely are very highly favorable of socialist policies.
Public Perception and Trudeau's Challenges
01:07:38
Speaker
But I have a cousin who lives in a rural part of northern Alberta. ah They have a little hobby farm. They interact with their neighbors amicably for the most part.
01:07:49
Speaker
and like they're they're the they're the fuck Trudeau like i Casual homophobic or went out for all the vinyl companies that are not making any more money now Yeah, the the final the final truck wrap industry has been destroyed ah But like the thing is but honestly Trudeau is gonna become their Hillary Clinton where it's like hey, they already lost the election What are you still mad about? but it's like there was a lot of that in the US of just like I Yeah, there's there's a lot of mad to go around. It's not going to disappear in a day. But I think like Trudeau will literally be like remain a boogeyman to perpetuate the that subculture of it, like to justify all the signs and shit. like
01:08:30
Speaker
I agree. and Yeah, I agree. If he does what I think he's going to do, which is hang around in the periphery of liberal politics like the Obamas have and in with the Democrats in the United States, that he's just boy. He's just he's he's not just going to go like a start a podcast or join some other podcast. We have openings, Justin. ah Yeah, he can come on my podcast long enough to kind of like grow the audience and then he's gone.
01:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think he's just gonna like he's not just gonna like Ted Cruz sign up up start up a podcast and disappear into oblivion I don't think that's gonna happen. I think he's gonna remain in as a figure but the so Go ahead. Go ahead. I was gonna say so normally I just realized since we're kind of bucking up against time here because we tried and keep these mainline episodes to one hour mainline yeah i'm so sorry listeners this is This is our emergency episode. like This is why we decided to do it. like i didn't have any We didn't have any plans to do any recordings until Sunday. and um well Justin Trudeau's little decision kind of pulled ah Tam and I out of our extended Christmas vacation. so Yeah, maybe we should talk about that slightly before we wrap up because I don't think we will solve electoral power politics today. but
01:09:50
Speaker
were Were you both surprised by him resigning? Like, I wasn't even shocked. yeah and Anybody who, I will take my lumps on this, anyone who was following the Schwinnegan Moments a Blue Sky account, who saw me losing my mind the day that Christian Freeland ah like resigned from from her post. ah i thought he was I thought if he survived that day, he was going to cling on to power and basically just saunter through this like it was another Bill Morneau.
01:10:23
Speaker
There was a 30 percent chance inside of my gut that said that he, instead of resigning, would call in an election. But 70 percent of me this morning when the news for actually last night, rather, 70 percent of my body, my gut was saying, probably is going to resign. That's that's kind of my feeling. How about you, Kelly? um I would say so. I will admit um that I have not been a great follower of like federal electoral politics.
01:10:52
Speaker
um in That's why you still have joy and whimsy in your life. I guess so. like it's i don't know it's very It's very impenetrable, and it's ah know there's there's so many things to be mad about. um but like so yeah i also like i like i had a sense of like i could tell I felt like I could tell the way the wind was blowing against Trudeau, like not just in that he had these like very shaky minorities and that he had um you know like these these cabinet shake-ups that had just happened and all this, but like also from being in Alberta, like it really just pollutes your idea of what the general perception is. Because like people were people hated him from the moment his name was Trudeau and he got elected. like I know that you have these people who are doing the, like you don't have the integrity of their father, and like the one that we covered, you know Rex Murphy, having the flip of like being Pierre Trudeau's advocate for greatest Canadian and talking about how
01:11:49
Speaker
Jess and Trudeau was like a Chinese communist who's going to turn us into communist Cuba or whatever. Yeah. Like Pierre Trudeau is quite hated in Alberta. And I was like, I don't I think this is always no matter what Jess and Trudeau did, how people were going to turn on him like that, that vinyl sticker or industry was going to take off. Like people had their old but fuck Trudeau vinyl stickers from the 70s, I'm sure. So um so it it is hard to have your finger on the pulse when you're like just surrounded by, you know, Albertans and, you know,
01:12:17
Speaker
in In some cases like when I was working in you know the trades in Alberta like just just fucking Don't even bother um But yeah, there was just enough things that even reached into my bubble where I'm like It really feels like the wheels are falling off this and it didn't shock me that he retired because as we've covered like this has happened before it's not a shocking or rare thing for a sitting prime minister to resign in Canada in part because of Just the way it works
Surviving Political Scandals and Resignation Decision
01:12:45
Speaker
I mean in any parliamentary system really right like it's much more shocking for a US president to retire because of the way that they're elected
01:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, my thought my thought was just that the first like emergency cabinet session that he had, like the fact that he managed to survive that, I was kind of thinking, maybe things cool down over the holidays. And he actually like manages to buy in enough, like cash in enough political chips that he keeps going. like i i like I didn't want him to continue hanging on by no means. Trudeau fucking sucks.
01:13:19
Speaker
but The, the way that he just was posting through it, I thought he was just going to continue. He's just going to continue to cling to power. Cause like, yeah I think what we have now with the liberals is they're left with the question of what now they don't really, they don't have a superstar. They don't have anyone who can really carry them through an election. So they like the NDP ah hopefully will be are in a rebuilding year right before an election.
01:13:50
Speaker
Yeah and I mean I definitely don't have a take on like where I can see the liberal party going because I think in our three-party system you know with the acknowledgement that this is still very reductive of like we have a right-wing party and we have a party that should be left-wing and like that kind of just leaves the liberals to take up a lot of the political center and I'm like what what is a centrist superstar like what is what what are the what is any liberal politician going to promise like What are you going to offer, especially in an era as we've discussed, where you need to be promising shit because that is what the right wing is doing? and I think it's an amazing opportunity for a party like the NDP to remember that they used to have the word socialist on their website.
01:14:33
Speaker
like Do you know do something but I'm like, I don't know like I don't know if you've seen that tweet I think it's like an internet hippo tweet of like I just got back from the centrist rally and everyone was holding hands singing Channing better things aren't possible and I'm like, yeah I don't know like that to me is what that political center is. So like what are you going to do? In today's day and age because being a being a radical centrist We saw how that worked out for like the US Democrats. It doesn't I Yeah, it's it's the only thing that they have to offer is electability. And when you just basically dislodged a wildly reviled prime minister, you don't have that anymore. Yeah. Well, all I can say is maybe it's time for Ben Mulroney to step up.
01:15:18
Speaker
Yes. Yes. On that note, since we are definitely over time, Kelly, I want to say thank you for joining us on a very last minute episode while you're four hours ahead of us. Yes, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm in time zones Americans can't even dream of, but Also, like, you started recording at 7 p.m., and we started recording at midnight for me, and, like, I just think that is, you know, the people go to bed at 10 p.m., that's how they feel at 7 p.m., where they're like, oh, yeah, I gotta be in bed three hours, but whatever. That's what 11 p.m. is for me. That goes to bed at 10. Yeah.
01:15:53
Speaker
Exactly. So the time zones, in our cases at least, our two cases are aligned perfectly with the sleep schedules. But um yeah, this was fun. I didn't expect to have this much to say because I was like, I have not been following the electoral stuff. I don't i don't know anything. And and then I'm suddenly like remembering all this weird bullshit. As someone who watches Question Period regularly, honestly, you haven't missed much if you're familiar with the conservative slogans.
01:16:20
Speaker
yeah Just a lot of heartache and frustration and thrown remotes. I know. I'm very tired, but unfortunately, as I've said, what we actually need right now is not to be tired and to fucking wake the fuck up, but yeah that's a different conversation for a different day.
01:16:36
Speaker
Kelly, do you have anything to plug? Yeah, I am plugging my podcast, which is now, uh, coherently branded. It is called Kanaka's a slur. It is a podcast about what I'm calling highly specific aspects of Canadian culture and history. So we're digging into like the weird little stories that are kind of out there, but are often forgotten. We did a whole thing on Tim Horton and everything around him. Kind of funny how that came out the same time as our episode. That was quite funny, yeah. I think there was another one where you were doing the exact same thing as me again. But yeah, ah this week we'll be putting out some stuff on the history and culture of Canadian strip clubs, and then we will have... Well, that's why you're asking me about a certain venue in Vancouver. Yes, that was. I couldn't remember how obviously I've been in talking about it. I tend to post about the things in our Discord that are like about to be in the next few episodes. So also join our Discord, join our Patreon. um I did quit my job so I could hopefully do this as a job. So if people want to hop on our Patreon. There's a really good episode on Fred Penner that just came out last week. Yeah. And it unearthed a lot of buried memories, to say the most least. Oh, well, you just wait till we have Fred Penner. That'll be the day.
01:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, thanks for having yeah come on. um And for those of you who are listening and are wondering what what the heck us when again moments is, we kind of spoke about him ever so briefly earlier in this episode. One day we will discuss the name behind when again moments. For us, say please subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot.com slash when again moments. We will be recording another Proper watching another bonus episode on a very interesting TV show this coming weekend and It's gonna be wild times to say the least ah Tam the only thing we you want to say before we sign off No, just the next episode is part two. Finally of the confederation and the Great Law piece
01:18:37
Speaker
Canada Post Strike that would deprived me of a book I need for it, but it is over now and I have the book. And I'm going to will this into existence by telling the people to look there. All those Patreons and links we mentioned are all in the description of this episode below. Yes, they are.
01:18:52
Speaker
can i Can I leave us on a very upsetting piece of trivia? Sure. Sure. So because you mentioned the We charry we Charity thing, which is definitely a thing that is going to have to get talked about more someday. So in our show, one of the motifs is the 2004 CBC contest, The Greatest Canadian, where Canadians voted for Tommy Douglas correctly as the greatest Canadian. Yes, the only choice. Yeah. Have either of you looked at this list recently? The 100 winners of The Greatest Canadian?
01:19:19
Speaker
No, oh um I'll tell I'll read number 52 to you. It's Craig Kielberger fuck off. Yeah All right, well goodbye everybody goodbye everyone
01:19:45
Speaker
Schewinnegan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, Stolo, and Tsawatuth First Nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.