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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 American Fenian armies and John A. Macdonald deploying secret police to infiltrate a fifth column that had surreptitiously operated at some of Canada’s highest levels. (Recorded June 22, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 shares his own thoughts about the prime minister and federal policies he believes are hurting New Brunswick — and the country. (Recorded June 22, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, he says, that means not expending energy on crackpots and trolls, but focusing resources on real and present dangers of harm directed toward the Jewish people. (Recorded June 1, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 drugs. She discusses how she’s seen first-hand how the diversion of inexpensive “safe supply” opioids is creating new addicts, and overdoses — including, horrifyingly, among schoolkids. (Recorded May 23, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 to govern again. (Recorded June 1, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 criminals after their loot — and what their odds are of getting away with the haul. (Recorded May 18, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 change that — if we choose to. (Recorded May 18, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 putting us to sleep with the fishes. (Recorded April 20, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Natalie MacLean broke out of the Ottawa tech scene to become a globally celebrated wine writer, travelling the world, paid to drink, she thought she had everything she could want. Then, like a glass toppling off a table, her life was shattered: her marriage collapsed, she was pilloried in an journalistic ethics scandal, and she realized wine had gone from career to crutch. MacLean, bestselling author of the new book Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Depression, and Drinking Too Much, joins Brian Lilley to discuss the perils of the wine world for women and why she’s speaking out against the dangers of today’s “wine mommy” mania. (Recorded April 26, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada isn’t the only place where left-wing activists are blackening the names of colonial-era figures like John A. Macdonald and Henry Dundas for not living up to modern, ultra-progressive ideals. When British ethicist Nigel Biggar found himself defending 19th-century mining magnate Cecil Rhodes against exaggerated claims of racism from Oxford University students, he recognized the need to bring more balance — and historical literacy — to arguments over British colonialism. Biggar joins host Brian Lilley to discuss his new bestselling book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, and why, despite its many flaws, British imperialism is getting an unfair rap (Recorded April 25, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For 1,019 days Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were China’s hostages, cruelly imprisoned by the communist regime as leverage for the release of Meng Wanzhou, held under house arrest in Canada on a U.S. warrant. Then, suddenly, one day, they were free, thanks to a White House-brokered deal. Mike Blanchfield and Fen Osler Hampson, authors of the new book The Two Michaels, join host Brian Lilley to discuss what went on behind the headlines. They explain why Beijing targeted the Canadians, why the ordeal dragged on as long as it did, and what led to the bargain that finally broke the nearly three-year impasse. (Recorded April 20, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billy Gorta saw the rise of violent attacks in New York City back in the ’70s and ’80s, when politicians took a soft-on-crime approach. If that sounds familiar, that may be because Canadians are facing a shocking crime wave — and many point the finger at looser bail and police-defunding policies. As an NYPD captain, Gorta was in the room when leaders finally got serious about cracking down on crime. Gorta, who went on to become a journalist, joins host Brian Lilley this week to talk about what we can learn from New York’s experience, and what it will take to get serious about making Canada’s streets safer again. (Recorded April 12, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new buzzword among urban planners is the “15-minute city,” but it’s the same old idea they’ve been pushing for decades — their dream of getting us all living in small, densified urban condos, and out of our cars. Urban Policy Analyst Wendell Cox joins host Brian Lilley to explain what the “15-minute city” really is and why it’s doomed. He discusses how planners ignore how we really want to live, how cars and suburbs improve our lives, and how the ways the pandemic changed our work and our world should rightly put an end to these schemes once and for all. (Recorded March 29, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wars, terrorism, boycotts, a nuclear Iran: Since the 1948 founding of the modern State of Israel, the Jewish state has faced seemingly endless threats to its security — and, at times, its very existence. As it approaches its 75th birthday, the biggest threat comes from within, says Vivian Bercovici. Canada’s former ambassador to Israel joins host Brian Lilley from Tel Aviv to explain what’s really behind the massive, unprecedent protests against the government’s so-called judicial reforms. And why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t back down — threatening what Bercovici believes could be a 75th birthday that is more civil war than celebration. (Recorded March 29, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Chanel Pfahl started teaching at an Ontario public school she didn’t expect the curriculum to include lessons about how everything is racist, including math. When she told her Facebook followers about her disagreement with what she considered the indoctrination of students into critical race theory, she found herself under investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers. Pfahl joins Full Comment host Brian Lilley to discuss why she’s worried about what she sees being taught to Canadian kids, the refusal to allow parents and teachers to question it, and how she’s working to change it. (Recorded March 21, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadian lawyer Dan Bilak didn’t expect his legal career to end up with him training to fight Russian soldiers invading Ukraine, but here he is. Bilak joins host Brian Lilley this week to explain the unlikely story of how he went from practising corporate law to practising clearing booby-trapped houses. And he discusses why he thinks the stakes of this war are so high for the western world, why he believes so strongly in the cause, and why he believes his fellow Canadians should, too. (Recorded March 10, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Project Sidewinder, a joint CSIS and RCMP report, found evidence of Canadian politicians under Chinese influence, Beijing’s agents funnelling money to Canadian political parties, and communist spies infiltrating Canadian assets and institutions. That was back in 1997. With fresh allegations of China’s electoral interference in Canada, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former CSIS intelligence officer behind Project Sidewinder, joins host Brian Lilley to discuss how China has managed to penetrate Canadian politics at every level — and in every party. Juneau-Katsuya also explains why the Sidewinder allegations were ignored, and how Canada can finally get serious about China’s interference. (Recorded March 10, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is a big believer in Confederation, he tells host Brian Lilley . But he thinks it only works when the provinces are strong and Ottawa respects the rules of the game — something he says the Trudeau government isn’t doing. Moe joins Brian to discuss how his province’s Saskatchewan First Act can prevent Trudeau from using environmental excuses to stomp all over Saskatchewan’s constitutional rights to develop its resources. And why he’s determined to frustrate Ottawa’s plans to pit province against province, and make Canada a place where we celebrate our successes from east to west. (Recorded February 23, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trudeau government convinced inquiry commissioner Paul Rouleau that it was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act during the Freedom Convoy. But vindicating the Liberals’ claims the act can be used to limit damage to the economy sets a worrisome precedent for a tool with such sweeping powers to suspend people’s rights, as Cara Zwibel from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association discusses with host Brian Lilley. And Rouleau’s suggestion that the definition of “emergency” should be redefined could just make it easier for Ottawa to do again. (Recorded February 23, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A mysterious syndicate of private soldiers, many brutal Russian convicts, is doing the dirtiest work for Putin in Ukraine, Syria and Africa. Yevgeny Prigozhin, an enigmatic ex-con who built a business empire from a hot dog stand, rents his Wagner Group mercenary army to Putin in exchange for lucrative mining and oil assets. Prigozhin has a history of hiring U.S. and U.K. lawyers to legally demolish journalists who get too close to his business. Some journalists have ended up dead. That hasn’t stopped investigative reporter Miles Johnson from digging into Prigozhin’s convoluted operation. Johnson joins host Brian Lilley to explain what the Wagner Group is all about, and the truth about Prigozhin that is now finally being exposed. (Recorded February 10, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The shocking revelation that China has been sailing spy balloons over North America, and who knows where else, has abruptly created a massive foreign policy crisis for the U.S., Canada… and China. The discovery has popped the communist regime’s polite pretenses, says Bill Bishop, China analyst and author of the influential Sinocism newsletter. Bishop joins Full Comment host Brian Lilley this week to discuss how the exposure of an apparently vast global surveillance operation by the People’s Liberation Army has torpedoed Beijing’s hopes of finding better footing with the Biden administration, and how relations between the two powerhouse nations now face the dangerous potential of “free fall.” (Recorded February 10, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadians are the only people in the developed world forced to wait for government to provide them necessary medical care — except the wait lists are long, their chances of dying are higher, and the quality of care rates poorly by international standards. Dr. Brian Day has been on a decades-long crusade to free patients from the life-threatening medicare monopoly. He discusses with guest host Brian Lilley how Canadian medicare went so wrong. And he explains why he’s fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to free Canadians from broken government health-care promises, and for the right to choose allowed by every other universal health-care system on earth. (Recorded January 27, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In October 2020, three prominent medical professors from Stanford, Harvard and Oxford universities, issued an open letter warning the world that COVID lockdowns caused more harm than good and should stop. They were dismissed, attacked and vilified, despite thousands more scientists signing onto their Great Barrington Declaration. Now, three years after the pandemic began, the human wreckage caused by unnecessary lockdowns is undeniable, vindicating the declaration. But, as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of its main authors, tells guest host Brian Lilley, authorities refuse to admit their mistakes. Bhattacharya explains why he fears the rise of authoritarian public health means lockdowns, and the “noble lies” used to manipulate us during the pandemic, will be deployed too easily again. (Recorded January 27, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The shadow of the iron curtain looms over Eastern Europe again. Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is the latest move to put back together the Russian empire lost at the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. Canadian journalist Paule Robitaille lived in the former Soviet Union and witnessed its collapse; recently, she returned to Ukraine, Latvia and Georgia to talk to soldiers, leaders and everyday citizens fighting to stop Moscow’s iron fist from snatching up their countries once again. Robitaille joins guest host Brian Lilley to discuss what she found. You can read more of her reporting in the National Post series Back to the U.S.S.R. (Recorded January 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hatchet job Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been doing on the Royal family never seems to end. The exiled Royal couple have been dishing out interviews, documentaries, and now Harry’s “tell-all” book, all banging on about how badly they think they were treated. Even Americans, with their soft spot for celebrity victimhood, are tiring of the shtick, says Kinsey Schofield, long-time Royal watcher and creator and host of the royal-news website ToDiForDaily.com. She joins this week with guest host Brian Lilley to discuss what the self-exiled couple’s end game is. As Schofield explains, the all-American “trash for cash” reality-TV lifestyle may be the best option they have. (Recorded January 12, 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Lantsman doesn’t fit the Conservative stereotype, which may be why the Liberals seem to fear her relentless question period attacks. The daughter of Jewish immigrants and a proud lesbian in an urban Toronto riding, Lantsman has been a rising star in Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party. Lantsman talks with guest host Brian Lilley about how she came to be Conservative. And why she thinks the Trudeau Liberals have emboldened intolerance, and made living in Canada more difficult and less appealing — not just for immigrants like her parents, but for large numbers of Canadians, and young people in particular. (Recorded December 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2022. With disturbing recent developments in the federal Liberals’ medical assistance in dying (MAID) regime, including government workers pushing it on injured veterans, and doctors pondering euthanizing babies, we’re revisiting our interview with Dr. Sonu Gaind. He’s supporter of MAID for those suffering terminal illnesses. He’s even the physician chair of the MAID team at Toronto’s Humber River Hospital, where he’s chief of psychiatry. But he’s grown alarmed since Canada stopped requiring a reasonably foreseeable death for euthanasia, as he tells host Anthony Furey. People who are poor, lonely or battling mental illnesses, whose lives might get better with help, are being offered a lethal injection instead. And children could be next. (Recorded May 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2022 and this was one of our biggest hits. After a stellar, decades-long career at Canada’s public broadcaster, Wendy Mesley made a big mistake: she used the “N-word” with colleagues, off the air, while talking about covering the racism issue. She paid dearly for it: her reputation was ruined, she was portrayed as a bigot and her nearly 40-year CBC career was flushed away. Mesley, now free to speak her mind as co-host of “The Women of Ill Repute” podcast, joins host Anthony Furey to talk about what happened, how she thinks the CBC, grappling with its own institutional racism charges, exploited her mistake, and about the bleak world that unforgiving Twitter-driven pile-ons are creating. (Recorded July 7, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An extended video version of this interview will be available starting Tuesday, December 20, 2022 online at National Post (nationalpost.com). Special guest host Rex Murphy sits down with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to discuss her recent elevation to the premier’s office, why she’s determined to stand up to those, from environmental groups to the federal government, that she believes have been unfairly targeting Alberta — and how she's already begun to fight back. (Recorded December 17, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Multiple veterans looking for help say they were instead offered medical aid in dying by Veterans Affairs Canada. It’s clear that it’s not just one rogue agent — it’s department policy, as Mark Meincke discusses this week with guest host Brian Lilley. Meincke, himself a veteran recovering from PTSD, is host of Operation Tango Romeo, a trauma recovery podcast for veterans and first responders, where he’s spoken to several vets who were offered death by their own government. Meincke explains the scandalous obstacles that veterans face in getting basic supports for treatable injuries and what needs to be done to fix a system that would rather terminate wounded soldiers than help them. (Recorded December 8, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lt. Gen. (ret) Michel Maisonneuve is heavily decorated, after serving 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. Then he gave a speech, while accepting the Vimy Award for his “outstanding contribution” to defending Canada and democratic values, where he criticized cancel culture, statue topplers, our weakened military, and damaging climate policies, while saluting personal responsibility and urging Canada to become a serious country again. Since then, he has been attacked and forced to resign from various groups. Maisonneuve joins guest host Brian Lilley to discuss his speech, the fallout, why he believes Canada is no longer meeting its potential, and how we can achieve greatness again. (Recorded November 30, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agents of Beijing are reportedly meddling in our elections. Chinese spies have been caught infiltrating our institutions. China runs police stations on Canadian soil. When Chinese President Xi Jinping insulted Canada's prime minister recently, calling Justin Trudeau "very naive," he wasn't kidding, as Charles Burton, a long-time China scholar who served at Canada's embassy in Beijing, discusses with guest host Jackson Doughart. Xi will keep exhibiting his dominance over a Canadian government that has allowed itself to get played again and again by Beijing, explains Burton. But the Liberals might finally be ready to abandon their credulous China policy, if only because they have no choice. (Recorded November 24, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kanye West’s bigoted comments about Jews cost him his branding deal with Adidas. Kyrie Irving was suspended from the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets for promoting antisemitic conspiracies. No one should be surprised that Black celebrities are susceptible to spouting stupid, racist stuff, says Wilfred Reilly, author of the race-myth-busting book Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About. Reilly, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, joins guest host Jamil Jivani this week to discuss the bigotry that still thrives in parts of the Black community, why we avoid talking about it, and the effort to cover it up with inane claims that Black people can’t be racist. (Recorded November 9, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. midterm elections didn’t deliver Republicans the “red wave” they expected. As easy as it is to blame Donald Trump, the reality of today’s American politics is more complicated, as Jai Chabria, a senior adviser to the successful Trump-backed Ohio Senate campaign of J. D. Vance, discusses with guest host Jamil Jivani this week. Although he’s not a Trump supporter himself, Chabria explains what he thinks some Republicans misunderstand about American voters, why Trump’s brand of politics can still win, and why he thinks Trump remains the prohibitive favourite for becoming the GOP’s presidential nominee for 2024. (Recorded November 9, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. midterm elections on November 8 have consequences for Canadians. An end to Democratic control of Congress could push President Joe Biden toward more Canada-friendly policies on oil and alliances, as Christopher Sands discusses with guest host Adrienne Batra. Sands, the director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute in Washington, D.C., explains how recent American ambivalence to energy security and asserting western power has impacted Canada’s foreign policy. And why younger U.S. voters, who now outnumber baby boomers, are starting to demand more realism from Washington. (Recorded October 26, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Evidence at the inquiry into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act against this year’s Freedom Convoy in Ottawa has revealed that police and officials were unprepared and adrift. Politicians had left police ‘holding the bag,’ without resources and tools needed to deal with the protest, as Christian Leuprecht discusses in this week’s episode with guest host Adrienne Batra. Leuprecht, professor and author of Public Security in Federal Polities, explains why Canada’s policing system is poorly suited for a new era of mass public protest, and why Canadians will need real leadership to fix it. (Recorded October 26, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make no mistake: out-of-control inflation in the U.S. and Canada is the consequence of a radical experiment by the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve. The unfairness it has created for younger generations and the middle class has been devastating. Meanwhile, the wealthy have thrived, as guest host Sabrina Maddeaux discusses with Christopher Leonard, author of the recent bestseller The Lords of Easy Money. The economic and political consequences are roiling North America even as central bankers refuse to take responsibility. As Leonard explains, undoing the immense damage will be difficult and terribly painful. (Recorded October 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the stuff of nightmares, but for Colin Dowler it was terrifyingly real. Riding his bike alone on an isolated B.C. logging road, he ran smack into a nine-foot-long male grizzly bear that brutally mauled and tried to consume him. With the predatory attack this month of a black bear that tried to eat two women in B.C., Dowler tells guest host Sabrina Maddeaux about his own harrowing tale of becoming bear prey. He describes how he fought back to narrowly escape with his life, and explains why, despite the horrific wounds he suffered, he keeps finding himself back in bear country. (Recorded October 14, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critical race theory and radical gender ideology are turning schools from educational institutions into indoctrination centres. Asra Nomani has helped lead the battle of U.S. parents who are winning back control of schools from woke administrators and trustees. With new fronts in the school culture wars opening up in Canada, Nomani joins Anthony this week with advice for parents about how to be ‘unapologetic’ in standing up for their honour and values. And how they can get their local school to stop obsessing about sexuality, gender and race, and back to respecting achievement and merit. (Recorded September 29, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Protests continue to rage across Iran, weeks after erupting in response to the police killing of a young woman arrested her for not wearing her hijab. But this unleashed fury of the Iranian people has been building up for many years, as Alireza Jafarzadeh, a prominent regime critic and deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, discusses with host Anthony Furey. The growing number of regime scandals and atrocities, he says, is catching up with Iran’s hardline theocratic rulers, and their end, after more than 40 years in power, may finally be near. (Recorded September 29, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Myles Sanderson was in breach of parole, after 59 convictions, when he butchered 10 innocent people in Saskatchewan. A police officer and a Toronto man were murdered by a former gang member with an “extensive” record, flagged as high risk to reoffend. Dangerous people walking the streets is not an “aberration,” defence lawyer Ari Goldkind tells Anthony this week. Activism about systemic racism and anti-policing permeate Canada’s justice system, so high-risk convicts get too many breaks. But, Goldkind says, because they’re released into communities they came from — not where the activists and legislators live — people in power don’t seem to care. (Recorded September 16, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The remarkable thing about Pierre Poilievre’s victory in the Conservative leadership race isn’t just how overwhelmingly he won, but that he signed up legions of new members, many of them young people, from all regions in the country. They were attracted to exactly what Poilievre’s opponents and mainstream pundits don ‘t like about him: that he’s a Conservative unafraid to stand somewhere more interesting than the middle ground, as veteran Tory strategist Michael Diamond discusses with Anthony this week. While previous leaders watered down policies during elections, Diamond explains why Poilievre will be different, and why sticking to his principles will be his winning formula again. (Recorded September 15, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After more than two years of pandemic, life has returned to normal for most of us, despite panic fanatics who want us living in fear forever. But while COVID can still be dangerous, the situation is nothing like 2020 or 2021, as infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch explains in this week’s episode. And whatever this new stage is — pandemic or endemic — the important thing now, he says, is for officials to be far more honest and transparent with the public about not just the risks and realities of COVID and vaccines, but about a health-care system still terribly unprepared for future viral waves. (Recorded September 1, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The federal Liberals handed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Laith Marouf, an “anti-racism” coach, who publicly called Jews “human feces” deserving a “bullet to the head, while also insulting Blacks, Indigenous people and others. As embarrassed officials scramble an “extensive review” into government anti-racism funding, Jonathan Kay, the Quilette editor who helped bring Marouf’s hateful behaviour to light, joins Anthony this week to discuss how the Liberals, desperate to be woke, seemingly fell in with Marouf. And how “anti-racism” training and bigotry sometimes overlap in ways that can make haters feel at home. (Recorded September 1, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The James Webb Space Telescope is unlike anything that’s gone before it – in terms of size, power and what scientists hope it will help them understand. Greatly exceeding the capabilities of its predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, some of the Webb’s first findings have only recently been made public. Professor Adam Muzzin, an astronomer at York University, breaks down the wonders of the universe the telescope will have the power to probe – such as the formation of galaxies and planets and the very origins of life in the universe. Muzzin also discusses the plans for future space exploration and the pros and cons of a new space race led by billionaires. (Recorded August 11, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The threats made by the Chinese government in response to Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan underscores how increasingly overbearing China’s authoritarian government in Beijing has become. Everyone is asking what will happen next and how the West will respond. While concerns about China dropped out of the headlines in Canada following the return of the two Michaels, the long-term issues continue to fester and worsen, says lawyer and author Gordon G. Chang. We need to get serious, argues Chang, when it comes to decoupling from the Communist country with a notoriously poor human rights record. (Recorded August 11, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While the Trudeau government says new plans to reduce emissions from agricultural fertilizer usage are a harmless way to combat climate change, many farmers across the country say otherwise. It could in fact mean a reduction in food production, the closure of farms and more increases in food prices. Gerry Ritz was Canada’s agriculture minister during the Stephen Harper Conservative government and before that was a farmer in Saskatchewan for 20 years. Ritz breaks down the role fertilizers actually play in farming and why farmers are so opposed to seeing any government-imposed reductions. (Recorded August 11, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lamenting the loss of a Canada that was once more serious, more liberal and less obsessed with guilt and identity politics isn’t just for cranky old men anymore. Lydia Perovic came here in the ’90s, from a home riven by ethnic strife, enamoured with this country’s shared ideals and its agnosticism toward blood and race. But progressive media and culture mavens are dismantling so much of what attracted her, as Perovic tells Anthony in this week’s episode. The author of the new book Lost in Canada: An Immigrant’s Second Thoughts, Perovic has a warning for all Canadians, new and old. (Recorded June 9, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The golf world is at war, the instigators are a brutal, despotic regime, and it needs to be stopped, says acclaimed sports journalist Rick Reilly. The Saudi-backed LIV pro tour has golfers squaring off over the PGA versus the allure of vast sums of easy, dirty money, all while fans get the shaft. No one needed this mess, says Reilly, the bestselling author of the new book So Help Me Golf: Why We Love the Game. He joins Anthony this week to talk about how LIV’s damage can still be contained before it’s too late, and why the sooner the Saudi regime loses interest and drops its gimmicky intrusion, the better it will be for everyone. (Recorded July 7, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a stellar, decades-long career at Canada’s public broadcaster, Wendy Mesley made a big mistake: she used the “n-word” with colleagues, off the air, while talking about covering the racism issue. She paid dearly for it: her reputation was ruined, she was portrayed as a bigot, and her nearly 40-year CBC career was flushed away. Mesley, now free to speak her mind as co-host of The Women of Ill Repute podcast, joins Anthony to talk about what happened, how she thinks the CBC, grappling with its own institutional racism charges, exploited her mistake, and about the bleak world that unforgiving Twitter-driven pile-ons are creating. (Recorded July 7, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices