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PODCAST

Full Comment

Full Comment is Canada’s podcast for compelling interviews, controversial opinions and fascinating discussions. Hosted by Brian Lilley. Published by Postmedia, new episodes are released each Monday.

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All Episodes

44:30

Trudeau isn’t being taken seriously about India

Full Comment ·

2023/09/25

After the prime minister dropped his bombshell assassination accusation against India, the world has waited for him to back it up. But Ujjal Dosanjh says that when it comes to credibility on this file, Justin Trudeau — and Canada — don’t have much. And the unserious way Trudeau has handled allegations around the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar hasn’t helped. Dosanjh, a former Liberal cabinet minister and B.C. NDP premier, joins Brian this week to explain what’s really going on with the allegations,

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49:47

Welcome to the tolerance witch trials

Full Comment ·

2023/09/18

Don’t call it cancel culture: that masks the grimness of the authoritarian era we’re living in, says author Brendan O’Neill. It’s an anti-enlightenment, he says, that is rapidly and fervently obliterating centuries of western civilizational progress. O’Neill, author of the new book A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable, joins Brian this week to expose the shibboleths we’re all being forced to accept, even though we know they’re not true. And he shows how those of us living in once-liberal

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42:50

The working class inevitably becomes conservative

Full Comment ·

2023/09/11

It’s not just that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are leading in national polls: it’s that the party is bringing in new groups, including “the people who get stuff done,” as guest Lord Daniel Hannan calls the working class. The prominent British journalist and Tory politician joins Brian from the Conservative policy convention in Quebec City, where he delivered the keynote address, coming from the U.K. where Conservatives have held government more than 13 years. Hannan discusses why the right is

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50:04

Pierre Poilievre is picking the right fights

Full Comment ·

2023/09/04

As federal Conservative party members prepare to gather for their policy convention in Quebec City, they’ll be pushing for a platform that takes on the culture wars, head on. Meanwhile, polls currently show party leader Pierre Poilievre on his way to a majority government as voters rally to his message about the rising costs of housing and living. Long-time Conservative power player Kory Teneycke, manager of Doug Ford’s landslide-winning 2022 Ontario campaign, joins Brian this week to discuss how

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50:44

The amazing story of Terry Fox you haven’t heard

Full Comment ·

2023/08/28

Bill Vigars was starting a new gig at the Canadian Cancer Society when he flew to the East Coast to check out an unknown kid with one leg planning to run a personal marathon a day across Canada for cancer research. Before he knew it, Vigars was helping Terry Fox make the Marathon of Hope a national phenomenon that’s kept Terry’s legacy alive for decades, with nearly a billion dollars since raised in his name. Vigars joins host Brian Lilley this week to talk about his new book, Terry and Me, and to

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45:51

How COVID’s ‘pandexicon’ changed the way we speak—and...

Full Comment ·

2023/08/21

Things were different in the “before times.” Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we weren’t all experts in viral variants or polymerase chain reaction tests. We’d never heard of “vaccine apartheid” or “social distancing.” No one drank “quarantinis” after enduring a “covidivorce.” And “self-isolating” and “lockdowns” were things to be avoided. In his new book Pandexicon, author Wayne Grady has chronicled the words that emerged from the COVID-19 catastrophe to decode the message and meaning behind them

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46:48

Inside Canadian school boards, ‘if you...

Full Comment ·

2023/08/14

Mike Ramsay was friends with former Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto, whose suicide after allegedly enduring false bigotry accusations in an anti-racism session has shocked Canadians. And Ramsay says he’s experienced similar vilification. He’s been called a “white supremacist.” He’s been suspended as a school trustee in Waterloo, Ont. He says it’s because he fights to keep schools focused on learning and achievement, not identity politics and radical race theory. He also happens to be Black

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49:53

Crime reporting today is making things worse

Full Comment ·

2023/08/07

Formerly one of Canada’s top crime reporters, Tamara Cherry witnessed gruesome violence and terrible trauma. What she says she didn’t realize was how the way she and others covered the crime beat was worsening pain for survivors, responders and reporters themselves. Cherry, author of the new book The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News, joins host Brian Lilley, himself no stranger to crime reporting. Cherry explains how she came to discover the damaging psychological toll

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48:39

The real reasons Taylor Swift isn't coming to Canada...

Full Comment ·

2023/07/31

The economics of the music business have been turned upside down in recent years. For artists and fans alike, concerts now are king. Legendary publicist, writer and music maven Eric Alper joins Brian this week to discuss why this summer’s concert season in particular is making history, why some concert tickets now cost more than plane tickets, and the most obvious reasons why Taylor Swift left Canada off of her latest tour. (And when she’s likely to finally come.) (Recorded July 19, 2023) Learn more

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38:53

Canada could be an Arctic superpower, but Ottawa...

Full Comment ·

2023/07/24

It’s where we should be building up capabilities against Russia’s hypersonic missiles and Chinese spy aircraft coming over the North Pole. But news the Liberal government is closing the Canadian International Arctic Centre is the latest indication Ottawa doesn’t get the importance of the North. After the Harper government made the Arctic a bigger priority, the last eight years have revealed Ottawa’s lack of ambition and enthusiasm for the region, says Heather Exner-Pirot, one of Canada’s most

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38:40

Price-fixing at Canada’s grocery stores is bigger...

Full Comment ·

2023/07/17

Food inflation is showing no signs of letting up soon, as guest Sylvain Charlebois tells Brian Lilley this week. But grandstanding politicians yelling about “greedflation” by allegedly avaricious grocers are looking in the wrong place, says Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. The recent guilty plea by Canada Bread, admitting to years of bakery price-fixing; allegations that Maple Leaf Foods may have done the same with meat; and revelations of “blackout”

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35:11

Everyone’s wrong about what’s behind the forest fires

Full Comment ·

2023/07/10

Climate crusaders are convinced this year’s fire season is global warming. Conspiracy theorists think it’s eco-terrorism from arsonists to scare us about climate change. The reality, as Kenneth Green tells Brian this week, is much more complicated, with everything from poor forest management practices, natural burn cycles, and yes, also some climate and some human causes, playing roles — in addition to countless other factors (including psychological ones). In fact, as Green, an environmental

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45:53

Spies, sabotage, secret police and the time the Irish...

Full Comment ·

2023/07/03

It’s one of the most dramatic episodes in Canada’s early years, although it’s often neglected by our history lessons: Irish republicans attacked Canada from the south as part of a wild plan to win independence for Ireland. As we celebrate the Canada Day weekend, host Brian Lilley is joined by David Wilson, author of Canadian Spy Story: Irish Revolutionaries and the Secret Police. They discuss the stranger-than-fiction chapter in our history, which saw Canadian troops killed battling invading

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43:00

Blaine Higgs on why he won’t relent on New...

Full Comment ·

2023/06/26

Cabinet ministers have quit. Some party leaders are calling for him to resign. But New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs tells Brian Lilley he’ll stake his political career to take a stand for parents in his province to be involved when their kids ask at school to be identified by a different gender or name. Higgs discusses what he thinks of attempts by Justin Trudeau, activists, and progressive media to portray him as “far right,” and why he’s confident the public is on his side. The premier also

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37:03

Identity politics puts its progressive spin on...

Full Comment ·

2023/06/19

Hatred toward Jews is the oldest and most pernicious form of prejudice. Although anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and the persecution of Jews have always been around, the rise of social media, populism and identity politics have made it seem increasingly pervasive. Author Philip Slayton joins Brian Lilley to discuss his new book, Antisemitism: An Ancient Hatred in the Age of Identity Politics, and why he believes the fight against anti-Semitism needs to adapt to its modern expressions. Inevitably,

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49:38

Canada’s great addictive hard-drug giveaway...

Full Comment ·

2023/06/12

Dr. Sharon Koivu says it’s like the reverse of the ethical “trolley problem”: in the effort to help an opioid user, Canada’s “safe supply” drug policy puts many more people in danger. A long-time proponent of harm reduction, Koivu, an urban doctor in London, Ont., tells host Brian Lilley how she has watched with alarm as policy has shifted from safe, supervised consumption, to pumping quantities of extremely addictive opioids onto the streets, where they’re often sold cheaply for cash, or harder

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40:44

Danielle Smith could govern Alberta for a ‘very, very...

Full Comment ·

2023/06/05

It was late in the game, and the United Conservative Party was set to lose the Alberta election, when it finally discovered a way to win over voters and eke out a victory. The secret? Being just moderate enough to comfort city people and just conservative enough for everyone else, as former federal Conservative MP and Alberta public affairs consultant Monte Solberg tells Brian Lilley this week. If Danielle Smith can manage to keep that up, Solberg explains, the NDP might never have as good a chance

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43:13

Cracking the $20-million Pearson Airport gold heist

Full Comment ·

2023/05/29

A cargo container filled with millions in gold and valuables landed at Toronto’s international airport one day this past April. Then it vanished. Weeks later, police haven’t found it. Scott Andrew Selby, co-author of Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, has studied sophisticated high-stakes robberies. He joins Brian Lilley this week to discuss what we know about how the recent Pearson heist went down, what the thieves might be doing to stay one step ahead of the cops — and other

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42:07

Canadians don’t deserve a passport of shame

Full Comment ·

2023/05/22

How did we end up with a new passport design that replaces stirring images of Canadian identity — Nellie McClung, Terry Fox, the Mounties, and Vimy — with vapid graphics of squirrels, autumn leaves and snowmen? The problem lies in our classrooms, prominent Canadian historian David Bercuson tells Brian Lilley this week. Canada has a great deal to be proud of in our history, says Bercuson, but generations of students are being taught instead to focus on a few stains. Fortunately, we have the power to

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44:09

When the baby boomers die, where will we put all the...

Full Comment ·

2023/05/15

The traditional ways of dealing with our dead are running into problems. Cities are running out of space for cemeteries. Cremation and burial are being shunned for their environmental damage. And there’s a huge wave of boomers running out of time. Ian Sutton, author of The Big Exit, joins host Brian Lilley to discuss the trouble of dealing with so many humans dying off, and the creative alternatives being explored — including feeding us to mushrooms, blowing us into space, crushing us up, and

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