Full Comment

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

There’s plenty of awful things to say about Canada’s abusive residential school system. But last summer, the nation was gripped by reports that “mass graves” of children were discovered at some school sites. What you can’t say, apparently, is that those reports were mistaken and that nothing new was really discovered last year, as veteran journalist and author Terry Glavin established with his meticulously reported recent National Post feature reviewing what actually happened. Glavin joins Anthony to talk about the attacks he’s faced for reporting truths people didn’t want to hear. And about how journalistic negligence, political opportunism and white guilt-tripping hijacked what First Nations have really been saying. (Recorded June 23, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada recently ranked in the world for air travel delays. Flights are being cancelled by the thousands, flyers face hours-long lineups and planes sit stranded on the tarmac. Duncan Dee, former chief operating officer of Air Canada, saw this disaster coming months ago and sounded the alarm to anyone who would listen. But, as he tells Anthony in this week’s episode, federal politicians and bureaucrats ignored obvious warning signs pointing to a summer of misery, chaos and billions of dollars in tourist losses. Now, even with airports in full meltdown mode, Dee sees Ottawa refusing to take critical steps to start fixing it. (Recorded July 7, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People are angry. Justin Trudeau has betrayed the middle class in particular, and made us all poorer for it. How Conservatives respond to this populist moment can elevate them to Canada’s party of choice or it could kill them, says Tasha Kheiriddin, author of the new book The Right Path: How Conservatives can unite, inspire and take Canada forward. The good news? Tories don’t need to become Liberal-lite to win over young, urban or immigrant groups looking for an alternative to the Liberal-NDP duo, says Kheiriddin. In fact, after the damage of the last six years, she says, the country has never needed genuine conservatives more. (Recorded June 23, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When infections inevitably start rising soon, expect pressure on provinces to start locking down again. But Danielle Smith tells Anthony there will be no such thing ever again in Alberta if she’s in charge. Smith, the former Wildrose party leader now running for leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party and premier, explains why her first order of business will be breaking the province’s toxic relationship with Ottawa. And why that means no longer following national directions on pandemic policy while outright rejecting federal laws that hurt Alberta’s people and industry — even at the risk of a constitutional crisis. (Recorded June 23, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the many bewildering things about the recent Freedom Convoy is how little agreement exists about the basic facts of what actually happened. Andrew Lawton was embedded inside the convoy and spent many hours interviewing its organizers. He joins Anthony to talk about his new book, The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks That Shook the World (Sutherland House press, available everywhere June 24). He discusses how it all really started, the tensions among convoy organizers, and battles against misinformation from politicians and media that all led up to the prime minister invoking the historic Emergencies Act. (Recorded June 9, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a ‘cynical trick’ being played with gun politics in Canada, says Gary Mauser, one of Canada’s foremost authorities on gun control. By exploiting American shootings to layer on yet more regulations for Canadian hunters, farmers and sport shooters, the prime minister is taking advantage of the ignorance of his supporters, Mauser tells Anthony in this week’s episode. And while more Canadians are clueing in to the reality that Ottawa’s latest gun-control proposals aim at the wrong target, they’d be surprised to learn how little the government is doing to address the real problem of firearms smuggled in illegally from the U.S. (Recorded June 9 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For someone who’s spent his career in politics, Conservative MP and leadership candidate Scott Aitchison doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about politicians. He thinks elected leaders today are all about stoking division to bump their popularity with their base, as he tells Anthony in this latest instalment of Full Comment’s discussions with federal Conservative leadership candidates. The result, Aitchison says, is that real people and concerns are being ignored in favour of cheap political wins, making us all a lot angrier. And, as he explains, he’s running for party leader because he’s determined to fix it. (Recorded May 26, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ontario endured strict and lengthy pandemic lockdowns, especially compared to Alberta’s much lighter touch. But conservative voters seem ready to reward Doug Ford’s Ontario PCs with re-election while, out west, angry conservatives in Alberta have driven their premier from office. Hamish Marshall, a former national Conservative campaign manager, joins Anthony this week to discuss how Ontario’s political culture has shifted since COVID and how Ford — unlike Kenney — has captured the conservative mood in his province, all while stealing traditional supporters of the Liberals and NDP. (Recorded May 26, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Sonu Gaind is a supporter of “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) for those suffering profoundly with 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 Anthony in this week’s episode. People who are poor, lonely or battling mental illnesses, who’s lives might get better with help, are being offered a lethal injection instead. And children could be next. What once threatened to be euthanasia’s slippery slope, says Gaind, has turned out to be a cliff. (Recorded May 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one wants to take the blame for Canada's soaring inflation rate. Not the Bank of Canada. And not the government. But the problem was clearly exacerbated by policy-makers in Ottawa who kept pumping gargantuan inflationary stimulus into the economy well after the pandemic recovery had begun, as Ian Lee discusses with Anthony on this week's episode. Canadians will pay a steep price in unintended consequences, says Lee, associate professor at Carleton's Sprott School of Business. Young people especially will have more reasons to feel shafted, he says. And it's all very likely to get worse before it gets better. (Recorded May 12, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Voters around the world are saying they’re angry. They’re unhappy that the promise of upward mobility is over and they’re frustrated that government policies animated by elitist values keep making life harder for the middle and working classes, as Joel Kotkin tells Anthony this week. Younger voters around the world are already flocking to more extremist solutions after feeling abandoned by the establishment, explains Kotkin, a noted authority on global, economic, political and social trends, from California’s Chapman University. It’s all creating a powerful political volcano, he says, and the explosion won’t be pleasant. (Recorded April 28, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The federal Liberals probably never predicted that their efforts at internet regulation would see Silicon Valley comparing them to regimes in Iran, China and North Korea, but here we are. Website blocking, government-ordered takedowns and regulating YouTubers are just some of the alarming ideas coming out of Ottawa recently. Michael Geist, professor of internet law at the University of Ottawa, joins Anthony this week to talk about the dangers these approaches pose to speech rights and other Canadian freedoms, and why the Liberals seem so intent on putting government controls on the online world. (Recorded April 28, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After fleeing the Soviet Union and building a life in Canada, Roman Baber believes deeply in upholding democracy and freedom, as he tells Anthony in this latest instalment of Full Comment’s discussions with federal Conservative leadership candidates. In fact, Baber’s opposition to Ontario’s drastic government lockdown restrictions got him kicked out of Doug Ford’s PC caucus. Baber explains why he believes Canadians’ rights and liberal institutions are steadily being undermined by government control, anti-freedom ideology and censorship. And why he believes he can unite the federal Conservative party to lead the fight for rights — and win. (Recorded April 14, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Votes are now being cast to decide the fate of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. A rebellion largely over COVID policies has triggered a review of his leadership and his rivals are openly gunning for him. It’s a reckoning that other provinces aren’t having — but maybe they should. Alberta political strategist Evan Menzies joins Anthony to break down all the drama. Menzies, who has worked with both Kenney’s United Conservative Party and Alberta’s Wildrose Party, also gets into the forces at play that could deliver a democratic eye-opener to Kenney’s adversaries. (Recorded April 14, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Movie stars used to seem so cool. But when Will Smith hit Chris Rock at the Academy Awards over a joke, and then later got a standing ovation for his Oscar win, people in the real world were appalled. Somehow today’s cossetted movie millionaires seem much more cringe than classy, as celebrity watcher, talk-show host and media personality Shaun Proulx discusses with Anthony in this week’s episode. Proulx explains how thin-skinned celebrities and Hollywood cancel culture are losing in a competition against a new breed of stars who are being born every day on TikTok and YouTube. (Recorded March 31, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Things in Russia have usually gone Vladimir Putin’s way. He has consolidated power, eliminated rivals, stamped out independent media and remains popular despite immense corruption and an economy in shambles. Marcus Kolga — who was recently ordered banned from Russia over his connections to Putin’s democratic opponents — joins Anthony this week to explain how things have suddenly gone seriously awry for the Russian president with his ill-conceived attack on Ukraine. As the war drags on, even Russians themselves could be losing faith in their supposedly great leader, says Kolga, a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute. And Putin’s iron grip on power may already be slipping (Recorded March 31, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Liberal-NDP "supply and confidence" agreement will have longstanding ramifications for Canada beyond just the policies these two parties plan to enact. Yes, we may get free dental care -- but it could also come with the effective end of what's known as responsible government, as Howard Anglin explains to the Anthony Furey in this week's episode. Anglin, a lawyer who worked in the offices of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, breaks down how Canadians may no longer get the effective scrutiny and opposition that is supposed to be a hallmark of our system of governance. It could also mean the normalization of coalition governments in the years forward. (Recorded March 24, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few things have changed since Leslyn Lewis ran for federal Conservative leader in 2020 with an unexpectedly strong campaign. While government spending, debt and hostility to the West and Canada’s resources have only gotten worse she says, the Liberal government’s questionable use of the Emergencies Act, the undermining of democratic institutions, and the threat to freedoms have since become key issues for her. Lewis joins Anthony this week to explain why she thinks her socially conservative positions will appeal to a broader base of Canadians than many people expect and why she believes she stands an even better chance at winning the leadership this time around. (Recorded March 17, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After 20 years of housing bubble-blowing, the thought of ever owning a home now seems virtually impossible for legions of younger Canadians. But there are reasons to take heart, as Garry Marr tells Anthony in this week’s episode. Marr, a journalist who has covered Canadian real estate for decades, details how government policies have continued to inflate housing prices in Canada’s biggest cities, frustrating the ownership dreams of younger generations while older generations gut their retirement savings to help out their kids. It can’t go on like this. Marr explains how markets and mentalities are finally starting to shift in ways that could make home ownership for young families realistic again. (Recorded March 4, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadian journalist Neil Hauer is on the ground in Ukraine living through a Russian invasion. He was in Kyiv as cruise missiles rained down and heard the gunfire as special forces advanced on the city. He joins Anthony from Lviv, Ukraine to describe what it’s really like on the ground in a country in the midst of an invasion, how Ukrainians have been trying to fight back, and some of the unexpected problems that have hampered Moscow’s plans so far. Hauer, who specializes in reporting on Eastern Europe, also discusses the harrowing nuclear threat and the dangerous possibilities of what could happen if Vladimir Putin starts to feel cornered. (Recorded March 3, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada’s former chief of the defence staff Tom Lawson joins Anthony this week to discuss why NATO countries are watching Russia’s ruthless invasion of Ukraine with caution, and why a confrontation between western troops and Russian forces is a serious escalation that neither side should want. Lawson, who was also formerly deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command, also talks about why this is an important moment for Canada to take stock of its own military capabilities as we contemplate what could be “the end of a remarkable period of peace.” (Recorded February 24, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Emergencies Act invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has never been used before — and for good reason. The law that replaced the War Measures Act is so powerful, it was essentially designed to be unusable, as constitutional lawyer Ryan Alford discusses with Anthony in this week’s episode. Alford, author of the book Permanent State of Emergency, details the alarming breadth of the act’s powers, its incompatibility with the constitution, its use to target certain political viewpoints, and why its use could foreshadow an even graver expansion of state authority. (Recorded February 17, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As other federal Conservatives distance themselves from the Freedom Convoy they once backed, Pierre Poilievre joins Anthony to declare his continued support for the movement. The first declared candidate for the federal Conservative leadership race explains why he thinks government overreach during the pandemic, and too much government meddling everywhere else, has made life harder, less affordable and less promising for Canadians. And he discusses how, if he becomes prime minister, he intends to fix it with more freedom. (Recorded February 10, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First they were portrayed as a small, ignorable fringe. Then they were portrayed as dangerous hooligans with “unacceptable” views. But once the trucker convoy rolled into Ottawa it defied expectations about the size and scope of Canadians fed up with government pandemic overreach. Rupa Subramanya, a columnist for the National Post, lives in downtown Ottawa and has been walking the city’s streets and talking with protestors. She joins Anthony this week to discuss what’s really happening on the ground in the nation’s capital, why it doesn’t fit the predictable narratives, and why so many Canadians see in the protests a version of their own ordinary frustrations. (Recorded February 3, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olympic medallist and world champion figure skater Elvis Stojko joins Anthony this week to talk about what the last two years have been like for elite athletes as they’ve been restricted from their normal training routines, missed out on competitions, and had to struggle with the possible impacts on their performance from either getting COVID or getting vaccinated. All of this has happened, meanwhile, on top of the problems and uncertainty surrounding the 2022 Games in Beijing and calls for boycotts over China’s crimes against humanity. Stojko discusses the serious toll it’s all taking on athletes, how he tries to help them through it, and why it won’t be an easy recovery. (Recorded January 20, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The COVID-19 crisis has presented a minefield of bioethical questions, which Canadian policy-makers have largely stomped all over. It’s not just the damage of lockdowns, the treatment of children, demonizing the unvaxxed, and the privacy invasions. It’s also the callous disregard for anything happening beyond Canada’s borders. Bioethicist Dr. Kerry Bowman joins Anthony this week to discuss the problems created by neglecting bioethical considerations during the pandemic. And why he’s worried that doing so may have changed the very fabric of Canadian society for the worse. (Recorded January 20, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He served jail time in Mississippi for defying racial segregation laws. He was there at the founding the NDP. And he once believed that private property was a crime. But Michael Audain has come a long way since then, becoming one of the most successful players in B.C.’s torrid housing sector. And he’s made a massive fortune — his foundation recently gave $100 million to the Vancouver Art Gallery — from a market he used to denounce. The founder of Polygon Homes joins Anthony to discuss his eventful life, his (mostly) changed beliefs, and his new memoir One Man In His Time. (Recorded January 6, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re the safest we’ve ever been from COVID: The vast majority of us are vaccinated and the highest-risk people have boosters. The virus has mutated into its mildest version ever. Yet, in Canada, governments are once again closing schools, locking down businesses and deploying the same fearful, knee-jerk responses they’ve always used. Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, a frontline infectious diseases specialist at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ont., joins Anthony this week to explain why it’s time to declare an end to these needless lockdowns — and to start moving towards a post-pandemic mindset, where COVID stops being the primary focus of everything we do. (Recorded January 6, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

McGill University scientist Patanjali Kambhampati is on the cutting edge of laser research, but government funders refuse to support him — simply because he doesn’t believe in “diversity, equity and inclusion.” As a minority who has experienced racism himself, Kambhampati joins Anthony to discuss why he believes science is a true meritocracy, and why critical scientific advancements rely on people demonstrating their abilities, not their race, religion or gender identity. Kambhampati also explains why so many scientists who agree with him are afraid to speak out — and what’s at stake if science doesn’t take a stand against social-justice engineering. (Recorded December 9, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada’s reaction to the new COVID-19 variant suggests we haven’t yet learned from our past mistakes, Dr. Neil Rau tells Anthony in this episode of Full Comment. The flight bans to stop Omicron will prove pointless, explains Rau, an infectious-diseases expert and medical microbiologist in Toronto. Meanwhile, officials’ outdated attitudes about case counts, PCR tests, vaccinations and restrictions threaten a “tsunami of quarantine.” Eventually, Canadians will have to get a more realistic perspective on a virus that will simply keep mutating, Rau says — and it’ll be better for us all if we get there sooner, rather than later. (Recorded December 9, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Desperate to get out of the pandemic, Canadians have rushed to give up their privacy. We offer our sensitive digital health information to go out in public. Contact tracing, COVID-19 apps and QR codes trace our movements. Meanwhile, we’re building an information network that can give governments vast surveillance powers that remain long after the pandemic, says privacy expert Ann Cavoukian. The former Ontario privacy commissioner, and author of Privacy by Design, joins Anthony this week to explain why she’s alarmed by this zero-sum arrangement that trades privacy for health security. And she explains how we can keep public health without creating a permanent digital surveillance state — but only if we demand it. (Recorded November 25, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s something funny about the attempts by woke warriors to cancel “problematic” comedians like Louis C.K. and Dave Chapelle — because it never works. Legendary comedy-club impresario Mark Breslin joins Anthony this week to tell stories about the comic wars he’s been through since he opened his first Yuk Yuk’s in 1976. And he explains why the scolds who try to take the laughs out stand-up shows always end up bombing, and why today’s woke, wet blankets are just as likely to end up laughed off the stage. (Recorded November 25, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

North American elites wish we were all a bit more European. From work-life balance to climate progressivism, Europeans seem to embody the paragon of sophistication that liberals dream of. In real life, however, Europe is a mess. Outside its fashionable capitals lie sprawling impoverished suburbs. Unemployment haunts millions of unassimilated immigrants. Europe’s business innovation is lagging, its workers are less productive, and its energy costs are punitive. David Harsanyi, author of a new book, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent, joins Anthony to explain why we should stop trying to emulate Europe, and instead celebrate the freedom, work ethic and assimilationist ideas that have worked so well on this side of the Atlantic. (Recorded November 10, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post in 1972. Since then, Woodward has written books about presidents Nixon, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and both president Bushes. His latest book, Peril, is about the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, and the tumultuous transition from Trump to President Joe Biden. Woodward is the speaker this year at the Audi Innovation Series in Canada (that talk will be released Nov. 17 by Audi via Twitter and Facebook). But first, Woodward sat down with Anthony to discuss the serious troubles facing the Biden presidency, Trump’s plans to run again in 2024, the Steele Dossier fiasco, and what it means for the state of American journalism today. (Recorded Nov. 10, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada might never fully solve the pandemic problem until we understand why some people are so resistant to getting the vaccine. That means actually sitting down and talking to people who aren’t typical anti-vaxxers but are suddenly opting to lose their jobs rather than roll up their sleeves for a COVID shot. Anita Davis is one of those people. After 30 years as a nurse, she was just terminated from a health-care system already starved for staff because she isn’t comfortable getting the COVID vaccines right now. She joins Anthony to explain why she felt so strongly about her decision and what we can learn from someone who would sacrifice a decades-long career over vaccine choice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices