Full Comment - Now the world thinks Canadian social policies are the ‘edge of crazy’

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00:00:49.780 When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners,

00:00:53.640 I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

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00:01:20.060 Is Canada a cautionary tale?

00:01:27.760 Now, is it a country that other countries now look to and say,

00:01:31.080 Ooh, yeah.

00:01:32.320 Can I need to do that?

00:01:33.680 Maybe.

00:01:34.500 Maybe that is the direction that we're heading in.

00:01:36.660 It was just a little while ago at the NATO summit that we had allies questioning our

00:01:41.040 very involvement in the G7 because we would not support and fulfill our NATO commitments.

00:01:46.340 We've had people questioning our immigration policy, something that used to be looked up to,

00:01:51.380 something that would be copied elsewhere in the world, now being viewed as an utter mistake.

00:01:56.700 Hello.

00:01:56.920 Welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:01:58.420 I'm Brian Lilly.

00:01:59.100 Your host.

00:01:59.660 Joining me today is someone who's been thinking a lot about this.

00:02:02.580 And if you follow him on X, well, you've seen this.

00:02:05.880 And if you don't follow him on X, you should be.

00:02:07.940 Tristan Hopper, columnist with the National Post.

00:02:10.260 Tristan, Canada, cautionary tale?

00:02:12.600 Yay or nay?

00:02:14.380 On certain things, yes.

00:02:15.640 And it's been interesting because as you mentioned, Canada, I'd say, you know, traditionally

00:02:22.060 over the past 30, 40 years, either nobody noticed, you know, nobody had any idea of sort

00:02:26.120 of domestic Canadian policies or on some things like immigration, we had, you know, a superior

00:02:33.960 system.

00:02:34.440 This was something that if you wanted to design a high immigration system with good, you

00:02:40.980 know, good integration, you would see what the Canadians had done.

00:02:43.480 If you wanted to pull oil out of sand, you would do what the Canadians would have done. 1.00

00:02:47.460 So there was a few niche things that we were good at and people would pay attention to.

00:02:50.320 What's happened in the last five, 10 years, and, you know, I'm not going to say this is

00:02:56.180 exclusively due to the federal government.

00:02:58.880 It's happened in a whole bunch of other areas.

00:03:00.740 Is that there's a whole bunch of social issues in which we have sort of gone more radical than

00:03:06.780 anybody else, which is rare.

00:03:08.800 I mean, there's there are some issues in which we were sort of early adopters or there was

00:03:14.180 European countries that had sort of comparable systems.

00:03:16.480 But there's been about four or five issues in which we took up the mantle of it, went farther

00:03:22.140 than anybody else.

00:03:23.240 And it's going very badly for us.

00:03:25.800 So what you're starting to see, if you just like me, if you just have a, you know, a Google

00:03:30.960 alert for any time a foreign country mentions Canada, we used to never be mentioned.

00:03:36.840 And now there's there's international summits.

00:03:39.780 There's, you know, parliamentary hearings in the UK, anywhere where people are saying,

00:03:45.580 OK, if we're going to design this assisted suicide system, let's not do what Canada did. 0.61

00:03:51.240 And and, you know, we'll do a different version of that.

00:03:53.460 So, I mean, the most obvious ones would be drugs, harm reduction, drug decriminalization

00:04:01.920 made.

00:04:03.740 And then there's sort of a few others in which you can sort of look at how we compare to

00:04:11.260 the rest of the world.

00:04:12.080 So unmade, I think a very good case could be made that we're the most liberalized assisted

00:04:16.160 suicide system in the entire world.

00:04:18.400 I would think so.

00:04:19.380 So, you know, there's something that you mentioned off the top before we wouldn't be

00:04:23.100 noticed.

00:04:24.200 And I always like to point out to people that if you're sitting in a room in a house and

00:04:30.140 you don't notice the job that the guy doing the drywall did, that's because he did a good

00:04:36.720 job.

00:04:38.080 You're not supposed to notice.

00:04:39.820 Right.

00:04:40.000 It's interesting you bring up drywallers.

00:04:41.660 If you notice the drywall work, the drywaller did a bad job.

00:04:45.980 Now, we used to just work as a country.

00:04:49.880 We function fairly well and we could agree or disagree on politics or direction or what

00:04:55.900 have you.

00:04:56.380 But generally, systems tended to work.

00:04:59.520 And so we wouldn't notice them.

00:05:01.620 Other people wouldn't notice them.

00:05:03.460 And then you say about five, ten years ago is when you figure things really started to

00:05:08.920 change.

00:05:10.000 Yeah.

00:05:10.600 Yeah.

00:05:10.780 Kind of ramped up definitely in the last five years.

00:05:12.620 And that's that's an interesting argument you make because I'll sort of bring this up

00:05:16.360 on social media or in person and you'll get, you know, that reactionary text.

00:05:20.100 Oh, you know, government's always it's wasting things and they're inefficient.

00:05:23.540 What do you expect from government?

00:05:24.460 And I'll say, well, OK, well, we did actually not too long ago in this country had a generally

00:05:30.700 efficient government that did work.

00:05:34.220 And, you know, you could argue there was actually a few areas in which the core competencies

00:05:39.100 of the government, they did it better than anyone else.

00:05:42.980 We used to get our passports in five days.

00:05:45.960 Yeah.

00:05:46.340 Yeah.

00:05:46.600 There's still there's like three areas in which that's still true.

00:05:49.680 Every every morning in the shower, I think what part of the government isn't just a disaster

00:05:54.080 these days?

00:05:54.540 And I've narrowed it down to our stamps.

00:05:57.100 Fantastic stamps.

00:05:58.500 Good heraldry.

00:05:59.740 We're still doing very good heraldry.

00:06:01.680 The cartography is fantastic.

00:06:03.140 OK, maybe there's three or four.

00:06:04.740 And we're very we still have a great mint.

00:06:07.600 But most of the world, when they need like, you know, a really cool coin with paint on

00:06:12.620 it, they call us.

00:06:14.060 So we print we make that we mint the coins for large swaths of the earth.

00:06:19.000 So anyway, everything used to be like competencies, though.

00:06:22.460 No, these are not the things that affect our day to day lives.

00:06:26.040 I used to be like immigration and finance.

00:06:28.760 And now it's just the mint.

00:06:30.780 Kudos to the mint.

00:06:31.540 We I mentioned passports.

00:06:33.860 It's not as bad as it was a couple of years ago.

00:06:36.360 But remember, there were people paying others to stand in line at the passport office to

00:06:42.720 keep their spot to go in and get your passport because you couldn't get it without showing

00:06:47.420 up in person and harraining someone.

00:06:49.420 That's improved.

00:06:50.220 But it went from an efficient system where you got it, you know, five days after you

00:06:54.340 submitted.

00:06:54.980 I just got my passport.

00:06:55.920 So I'm very familiar with this.

00:06:57.520 How long did it take?

00:06:58.700 Because I dealt with people during that crisis that were waiting eight, nine, 10 months.

00:07:04.440 Mine was, yeah, I had to go to.

00:07:07.640 So, you know, it wasn't a nightmare, but I got it exactly 10 years ago because it was a

00:07:11.780 10 year passport.

00:07:12.620 So 10 years ago, I went to a passport office at the close of day.

00:07:16.360 Stampity stamp stamp.

00:07:17.660 Pick it up next week.

00:07:19.360 So this is sort of a great, you know, it's a perfect 10 year.

00:07:22.180 And then I come back this week.

00:07:23.260 I show up at the passport office and they say, oh, there's no way we're bringing you

00:07:26.320 in today.

00:07:27.080 Here's a slip.

00:07:27.800 You can come in in three days and then come in in three days.

00:07:31.000 I waited for about two, three hours to get it done.

00:07:33.760 So not a nightmare.

00:07:34.860 I mean, I didn't have to abandon my family and quit my job and waited in line for three

00:07:39.320 days, three or four days.

00:07:41.540 But yeah, sharp contrast from where it was.

00:07:45.460 We can't see you today.

00:07:46.900 Here's a slip.

00:07:47.600 Come back in three.

00:07:48.980 That is a marked decline in service.

00:07:51.960 Yeah, there was definitely a decline in service versus I just show up and I was actually in

00:07:57.880 the Sinclair.

00:07:58.500 I did it at the Sinclair Center in Vancouver 10 years ago.

00:08:01.920 Fun fact, named after Margaret Trudeau's father.

00:08:05.340 People forget that Justin Trudeau also has politicians on the mother's side.

00:08:08.820 James Sinclair, liberal MP.

00:08:10.920 That's right.

00:08:12.600 So let's look at a bigger issue than the passports.

00:08:16.320 That's an annoyance for the most part.

00:08:20.080 And it's a decline in service.

00:08:21.720 But our drug decriminalization.

00:08:25.320 So this is if you look at sort of drug policies.

00:08:28.780 And again, it's very Canadian to sort of be, you know, social issues.

00:08:34.140 We're going to have a more liberal version than the United States, for instance.

00:08:37.660 But drug policy is sort of that perfect example of we saw harm reduction was sort of being

00:08:45.020 embraced.

00:08:47.080 There's obviously the Portugal model.

00:08:48.640 And I can get into why we did not embrace the Portugal model.

00:08:52.100 We did half or a quarter of the Portugal model.

00:08:54.860 Yeah, we embraced a very warped version of the Portugal model. 1.00

00:08:57.560 Actually, if you brought, if I pitched the Portugal model at, say, I'm in Victoria right 1.00

00:09:01.720 now, at like Victoria City Council, I would seem like some right wing fascist.

00:09:05.420 Because Portugal, I don't know if, you know, if you've treaded over this, I don't want to 1.00

00:09:09.100 retread over it.

00:09:09.700 But Portugal, the sort of classic decriminalization model, as they said, okay, we'll decriminalize.

00:09:14.600 First of all, different contexts.

00:09:16.140 They were coming out of literal fascism, Portugal, not too long.

00:09:19.460 So they actually did have a much more acute problem with people refusing to admit they

00:09:24.440 had a problem and dying.

00:09:25.880 I mean, I would argue the stigma was much lower in Canada.

00:09:28.820 But they decriminalized with, we're going to crack down on drug dealers real hard.

00:09:35.100 And if you're caught smoking in a playground, smoking crack in a playground, we're not going

00:09:40.560 to say, oh, okay, could you please move it over there?

00:09:42.340 Or if you don't want to, that's fine.

00:09:44.800 You know, we are going to put you in a drug court, and then you have to go into treatment,

00:09:48.800 or there will be a fine or something.

00:09:50.480 So yeah, that's a lot different than everyone does drugs everywhere all the time, and there

00:09:55.660 are no consequences.

00:09:56.180 We just said, let's make it readily available.

00:09:59.460 Treatment?

00:10:00.060 Fine?

00:10:00.580 No, no, no.

00:10:01.220 We don't need that.

00:10:01.980 Just drugs everywhere all day long.

00:10:05.420 So yeah, this is something where if you're sort of looking for comfort in the rest of

00:10:12.140 the world, say like, okay, our drug problem is bad, but at least it's as bad here.

00:10:17.400 I mean, I've looked at maybe I can pull up some of the stats, but this is one of the areas

00:10:21.380 in which we are rapidly becoming the worst on earth.

00:10:23.700 So when you look at overdose deaths, I think it's like we're in the top three.

00:10:29.340 It's the United States, Scotland, which isn't quite a country, but it's part of the UK.

00:10:34.540 So the UK is doing much better than us.

00:10:36.780 But if you just counted Scotland, Scotland's got up there with us.

00:10:39.220 They're still in the train spot.

00:10:40.240 So Canada, the US and Scotland and no one else is even close.

00:10:43.780 So like, oh yeah, we have an overdose problem in say, you know, Italy.

00:10:47.180 But when you look at Canada, it's well beyond anything else.

00:10:50.940 And of course, it's gotten worse.

00:10:52.720 So I always make the comparison of when harm reduction started.

00:10:56.300 And this is just 10 years ago.

00:10:58.180 I have a six year old daughter.

00:10:59.160 I always tell her, 2017 is a whole different world when you were born.

00:11:02.440 Everything's changed.

00:11:03.940 But speaking in BC, 10 years ago, you had like one safe consumption site.

00:11:11.300 You had a few needle exchanges and that's basically it.

00:11:14.960 And now, you know, safe consumption sites in every major town, you know, you've got safer

00:11:22.020 supply systems all over the place.

00:11:24.160 So we've leaned into harm reduction harder than almost anyone else.

00:11:27.520 Um, so I think as a Canadian, you would assume, oh, okay, you have safe consumption sites in

00:11:33.680 every community in Norway.

00:11:35.800 Um, you guys are super liberal and they'll say, no, no, no, we've, we just kind of started

00:11:40.440 and we're, we're taking baby steps.

00:11:42.420 Uh, we didn't just open insights and then they put out a bunch of studies and then everyone

00:11:47.180 opened one all at once.

00:11:48.680 And now it's sort of a universal experience.

00:11:51.100 You mentioned that Scotland is, uh, quite bad.

00:11:54.760 I was just there for about 10 days.

00:11:56.720 I was in Glasgow, the much more gritty industrial city.

00:12:00.400 And I was in Edinburgh and I wasn't just staying in the downtown cores.

00:12:05.420 Um, I was all over the both major cities, downtown cores, but elsewhere.

00:12:11.160 And I did not see things as bad as I see here in every city that I traveled to.

00:12:18.460 There weren't the encampments on the scale that we have.

00:12:22.000 There was not the filth and the, you know, I haven't been to Vancouver in a little while,

00:12:28.720 but I, I understand, uh, it's not as pretty as it used to be in parts of the downtown.

00:12:34.620 Uh, oh yeah.

00:12:35.240 I mean, Victoria has always been, I don't want to say, um, I'm a child of the city.

00:12:40.600 Um, and I don't want to say it's always been, I mean, I, when I was, uh, I worked in the

00:12:44.920 tourist sector, uh, 2004, 2005.

00:12:48.280 So, you know, there was a visible homeless problem.

00:12:50.620 Um, but, um, you didn't have whole sections of the city.

00:12:54.680 Like you'll walk two, three blocks and it's contained.

00:12:58.360 You can, you can avoid it.

00:12:59.720 If you're a cruise ship passenger, you cannot see it.

00:13:02.260 Um, but two, three blocks in which the majority, the plurality, if not the majority of people

00:13:06.780 on the street are twisted on drugs, um, you know, bent over.

00:13:10.320 Uh, and one thing I've noticed, uh, in recent months, and I think I'm, I'm seeing data to

00:13:15.080 back this up.

00:13:15.740 I have not gone downtown without seeing at least one or two ambulances, full sirens running.

00:13:23.020 And those are almost all overdoses.

00:13:25.960 Unreal.

00:13:27.220 So this is one example that you're saying we are now a cautionary tale.

00:13:33.620 So are, are other countries looking at us and saying, don't go that path or tread carefully?

00:13:40.500 This definitely has come up in terms of, uh, assisted suicide.

00:13:43.840 Uh, so the UK, I think there's, there's a lot of countries in the, uh, in, in Europe who

00:13:48.760 are looking at, uh, similar to where we were about 10 years ago, uh, in which, you know,

00:13:53.580 we have a large number of old people at the last later stages of dementia or Alzheimer's.

00:13:58.240 Uh, we don't want them on breathing machines, scared, not knowing where they are.

00:14:01.900 We want to, you know, the death with dignity argument from 10 years ago, which by stats

00:14:08.040 is still wildly popular in Canada.

00:14:10.100 You know, 80% plus, uh, want a system in which we can sort of euthanize people with terminal

00:14:15.820 illnesses before it gets into its latter stages.

00:14:18.600 Um, so yeah, there's definitely, there was the research going on in the UK and they did

00:14:24.720 have experts to come in and say, okay, well, um, if you don't have safeguards in place,

00:14:29.480 you will very quickly have what Canada had, um, in which, um, we were, I think eighth, seventh

00:14:37.800 or eighth in the world to bring in, uh, assisted suicide and then, uh, or made.

00:14:43.220 And then almost immediately, um, you have instances in which, you know, there's someone

00:14:47.800 at Veterans Canada counseling people to undergo MAID.

00:14:50.760 Um, there's people, you know, getting MAID just because of, uh, underlying poverty issues.

00:14:55.300 I interviewed, um, the guy that blew the whistle on that for a previous episode of Full Comment,

00:14:59.720 um, could not believe that that was what was happening time and again, not, not just one person.

00:15:05.500 And those are not happening in the United States.

00:15:07.740 So they, um, even, you know, name me your most hippie state, you know, Colorado, uh, Oregon.

00:15:13.760 And they, they brought on, uh, assisted suicide euthanasia earlier than we did, um, California,

00:15:20.460 uh, as well.

00:15:21.360 But what they did is the checks were much harder.

00:15:24.920 Uh, they kept it to terminal illness.

00:15:27.360 Um, there's just, it wasn't nearly as liberalized as Canada.

00:15:30.720 So, I mean, they've certainly had headline worthy, um, controversies connected to the

00:15:36.820 system, but they didn't have broad-based massive abuses almost everywhere, uh, connected to

00:15:43.220 the system.

00:15:43.800 So yeah, if you are designing a, a, an assisted suicide system, which I think a lot of countries

00:15:49.560 are, you would look to Canada as a cautionary tale.

00:15:53.240 I mean, one of the things just in raw data, um, our rate is going way faster than almost

00:15:59.120 anyone else.

00:16:00.140 So California, it sort of, you know, goes up for a little bit and it sort of plateaus,

00:16:03.660 um, which you would argue would just reflect the number of people who would have gotten,

00:16:08.200 uh, made, uh, if it had been, or euthanasia, whatever they call it under a prior system.

00:16:13.920 But, uh, Canada, ever since we introduced it, it's gone up 30% per year, every year.

00:16:18.860 And we don't know when it's going to plateau, you know, it's, we're about, I mean, I'm Vancouver

00:16:24.080 Island.

00:16:24.860 I've seen estimates that, uh, made represents 10% of all deaths on Vancouver, which is the

00:16:30.580 highest in the world, you know, bar none.

00:16:33.060 Canada wide, it's about three, 4%.

00:16:34.480 So, I mean, does that keep going until you sort of plateau at 10% and within that 10%?

00:16:40.300 I remember writing a while ago that it has surpassed things like influenza and pneumonia,

00:16:43.900 uh, chronic liver disease, uh, that we were having more people killed by MAID, it, it has

00:16:51.200 become a leading cause of death.

00:16:54.500 So, I mean, you could argue, I mean, the sort of pro-MAID argument is, well, those would have

00:16:59.120 been cancer deaths five years ago.

00:17:01.060 So this is just, you know, we're, we're giving someone an option to, you know, bow out, you

00:17:05.960 know, two weeks before cancer would have taken them anyway.

00:17:08.400 But, uh, Sharon Kerkey writing for the National Post has sort of pointed out the numbers are

00:17:13.180 rising so fast.

00:17:14.580 How many cases among them are the sort of edge cases, the anecdotes that we've reported

00:17:19.920 on in which someone has a history of suicide attempts, goes to a hospital, someone approves

00:17:25.420 them, the family tries to stop it, it's too late.

00:17:27.620 And, you know, they're otherwise healthy and they were approved for MAID.

00:17:30.540 Oh, the woman applying because she said, I can't afford an apartment. 1.00

00:17:34.640 But that's right, which is everyone now, we're all, but, uh, in terms of, uh, yeah, just

00:17:42.340 if you're looking at the raw data, um, yeah, I'm, I'm pulling up second only to the U.S.

00:17:46.800 for drug deaths.

00:17:47.580 Uh, that's, that's a 2023 report from the Commonwealth Fund.

00:17:51.340 Um, so again, we're sort of tied with, uh, so when you look at like Australia or other countries

00:17:57.860 that you would assume just offhand, like, well, if it's bad here, obviously the rest of the

00:18:01.960 Anglosphere, they're going to have a problem with the drug overdoses.

00:18:05.540 And then, no, you look at the chart, it's, it's the United States, it's Canada, and then

00:18:09.020 everybody else is over here.

00:18:11.500 And that's something that's only happened.

00:18:13.180 Obviously housing affordability, worst in the world.

00:18:15.560 Um, I think actually port to bring up Portugal again, I try not to mention Portugal, but,

00:18:20.680 um, they, uh, they recently pulled ahead of us and start in terms of raw and affordability.

00:18:26.600 But what's interesting about Portugal is they're all, it's a housing bubble and they're already

00:18:31.300 sort of at the tail end of it, um, because they're a normal country.

00:18:34.340 Uh, they're like, oh, okay, we, we, you know, things got nuts.

00:18:37.720 It's going to burst.

00:18:38.540 A bunch of people are going to lose money and then it's going to be affordable again versus

00:18:41.320 Canada where we're at the top of the unaffordability.

00:18:44.040 All of the indicators show that it's going to be unaffordable forever.

00:18:47.160 Um, there's, there's nothing dialing us back from that.

00:18:49.260 So, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not telling anything that people didn't know anymore,

00:18:53.580 but yeah, we are the model of how to have a housing system get completely unaffordable

00:18:59.180 for everyone, um, everywhere.

00:19:01.220 Um, and that, that's backed up by the data.

00:19:03.220 We're now consistently in terms of raw unaffordability.

00:19:06.320 So income to, uh, to rents and to, to housing costs, we're at the top of the OECD and it's

00:19:11.600 often not even close.

00:19:12.800 Are you the person that convinced Pierre Paulyev that everything in Canada is broken?

00:19:16.740 Cause you're convincing me.

00:19:18.100 Uh, no one listens to my, my reporting.

00:19:23.060 So, uh, it's, I think the one time, the one time I think actually, uh, I, there was, uh,

00:19:30.600 Tim Horton spit out this donut without getting into the details of what the donut looked like.

00:19:34.980 It, it, it looked pornographic to me and I pointed this out and then the donut was cut

00:19:39.080 and never released again.

00:19:40.040 I think that's the only time someone actually listens.

00:19:42.000 You sell yourself short, Tristan.

00:19:43.560 I know the numbers you sell yourself short.

00:19:45.360 Um, but you know, Paulyev came out with this statement a while ago saying everything feels

00:19:50.860 broken.

00:19:51.260 He didn't say, uh, everything's broken.

00:19:53.440 He said, it feels that way.

00:19:55.320 That seems to be the sentiment of an awful lot of Canadians.

00:19:59.880 Uh, oh yeah.

00:20:00.680 Just speaking from, I mean, purely on the housing.

00:20:03.300 So, uh, I've made the argument, uh, that, uh, there's a number of things that you sound

00:20:09.380 crazy if you're sort of explaining it.

00:20:11.920 Like, no, no, I'm serious.

00:20:13.120 The Canadian armed forces put out a document that said, you know, racism is the system and,

00:20:19.220 you know, they're an inherently racist organization.

00:20:21.420 And as a result, they need to, you know, sort of categorize people by race.

00:20:25.960 And some people get better treatments and some people get worse treatment, you know, based

00:20:29.480 on these immutable characteristics.

00:20:30.660 And they'll say, that's crazy.

00:20:32.040 That there's no way that's, that's happening.

00:20:34.040 So I think there's a number of things in Canada, just from a policy angle that are really nuts

00:20:39.760 and you can't believe they're happening until they sort of hit you, you know, personally.

00:20:43.940 Um, and we've reported on any number of those, the national post, but yeah, just that sense

00:20:48.780 that nothing's working.

00:20:49.640 I think, um, I didn't realize until now how many times we had elections, uh, in Canada

00:20:55.800 in which you would sort of be voting on issues that didn't tremendously affect you personally.

00:21:01.020 So you, you'd sort of vote for a party and, um, you know, this, this is what I agree on,

00:21:05.480 but you could, after that election was over, you know, fast forward three, four years, it

00:21:10.580 wouldn't really be, you wouldn't really be able to tell who had won if you weren't politically

00:21:14.800 dialed in.

00:21:15.920 Um, but if we see a bunch of crazy political numbers happening, you know, demographics voting,

00:21:23.280 supporting the conservatives that have never done so and may never do so again.

00:21:26.720 Um, I, I think it's because, uh, there has just been a number of areas in which you can

00:21:33.000 just sort of walk around.

00:21:33.880 Oh, I can't afford a house.

00:21:35.100 Uh, this part of town didn't used to be intensity.

00:21:37.920 Um, you know, this playground didn't used to have needles over it.

00:21:41.260 Um, you know, I didn't used to have my car stolen every year.

00:21:44.720 Um, you know, it used to be two, every two, three years.

00:21:46.900 Or the justice minister.

00:21:47.900 And again, these are not, I mean, we have the stats to back this up. 0.96

00:21:50.620 This is not just me going off of some anecdotes from, you know, holy crap, conservatives,

00:21:54.560 Reddit forum or something.

00:21:55.460 Um, the, the, the, the federal justice minister has had his car stolen three times.

00:22:00.580 Oh yeah.

00:22:01.200 And then what was the, uh, what was the other one that was sort of perfectly summed up?

00:22:04.400 Like the textbook example.

00:22:06.200 I, oh, I guess that was the one where he had his official car stolen three times.

00:22:09.860 Yeah.

00:22:10.580 So, uh, you know, nobody's stolen my car.

00:22:13.400 I'm someone offended that nobody wants my Jetta.

00:22:15.760 Uh, nobody wants my Chevy Cruz.

00:22:18.080 Uh, we're going to take a quick break when we come back more on Canada being a cautionary tale

00:22:22.400 and, and how we ended up here with Tristan Hopper.

00:22:25.460 So how did we get to the point where everything's broken?

00:22:28.380 Is there a way out of it?

00:22:29.840 Uh, Tristan, one thing that I'd say to you is I think that most of us have just been going

00:22:38.020 about our daily lives.

00:22:39.260 Right.

00:22:39.740 And we haven't been paying attention to things.

00:22:43.220 And same time, you've had a bunch of activists say, you know what?

00:22:46.940 I can go into government.

00:22:48.060 I can go into academia.

00:22:50.200 I can make these big changes.

00:22:52.060 And we just say, oh, well, yeah, okay, that's fine.

00:22:53.840 You do that.

00:22:54.380 I'm working.

00:22:55.300 I'm raising a family.

00:22:57.280 And I think that's how we end up with what we now look at and say, how the hell did you

00:23:02.140 do this?

00:23:03.500 Yeah.

00:23:03.640 It's sort of a macro version of, uh, this happened a few times when I was coming, growing

00:23:08.220 up in the 1990s.

00:23:09.040 I remember there would be a few instances of which you just have a school board.

00:23:12.680 This used, used to seem to mostly happen in the United States.

00:23:15.620 You'd have a school board.

00:23:16.360 Nobody runs for the school board.

00:23:17.620 You know, some, some mom with a lot of time in her hands, she's going to run for the trustee. 1.00

00:23:21.240 And then a bunch of, you had a bunch of like religious conservatives figuring out, oh,

00:23:24.220 we'll just take over the school board. 0.91

00:23:25.300 And then boom, we're teaching creationism.

00:23:27.720 So this happened like, you know, a few times, uh, that was sort of the classic case of, you

00:23:32.360 know, you're not paying attention.

00:23:33.700 Government takes, gets taken over by activists.

00:23:35.820 And then you're like, why am I being taught that evolution is a sin?

00:23:39.380 And so I think a macro version of that has definitely happened, um, in Canada.

00:23:46.100 I mean, and in terms of just us not paying attention and Canada sort of being at the

00:23:51.060 extremes of this, uh, this is something I pointed out at the time.

00:23:53.580 It was a major scandal in, uh, the UK, Scotland specifically, and still kind of is, uh, this

00:24:00.040 was a factor in Nicola Sturgeon stepping down as first minister of Scotland, uh, that she

00:24:05.180 had approved, uh, sort of a gender bill that would allow, uh, male sex offenders, uh, to

00:24:12.200 move to, uh, women's prisons, um, you know, without any operations. 1.00

00:24:17.160 So you, you did have instances in which someone goes to jail as a male transitions and says,

00:24:22.400 I need to go to the women's prison. 1.00

00:24:23.640 And now, you know, you had women's groups saying, well, now there's a bunch of women, 1.00

00:24:26.600 um, you know, with a rapist in their midst, um, you know, uh, biologically intact.

00:24:32.180 That's, that's a real controversial issue.

00:24:34.060 This was a huge deal at the time when this was all playing out and, you know, leading

00:24:39.060 to the resignation of our first minister, I was saying, oh, this is, this is the policy

00:24:43.220 in Canada.

00:24:43.740 And it has been for quite some time.

00:24:45.560 Um, this was an ordering have legislation.

00:24:48.320 No, this was an ordering council.

00:24:49.860 Someone brought it up at a, uh, a press conference and said, Hey, uh, what's with your, uh, your

00:24:54.560 gen, you know, there's no self ID in prisons.

00:24:57.360 Uh, I thought you said you were, you were Mr. Inclusivity, uh, to Trudeau.

00:25:02.060 At a press conference.

00:25:02.980 And he said, oh yeah, I'll get rent on that ordering council.

00:25:05.260 And then boom, self ID in prisons.

00:25:07.300 Seriously.

00:25:07.660 It was done by an OIC.

00:25:09.740 Yeah.

00:25:10.400 And then you just have to, I mean, you can find the, uh, the terms you, you've got an

00:25:15.260 order within the correction system.

00:25:16.540 Okay.

00:25:16.780 If, if somebody says all you need is self ID and then they can be transferred to a

00:25:20.960 women's prison. 1.00

00:25:21.720 So there's any number of those in which, um, or again, to bring up the UK, the cast report

00:25:27.820 in which they're saying, oh, okay, this is, uh, you know, this has been a, a major scandal

00:25:32.380 in which we've had clinics too readily, um, sort of taking autistic, uh, youth and sort

00:25:39.200 of, you know, diagnosing them with gender dysphoria and getting them on possibly irreversible

00:25:43.000 drugs.

00:25:43.320 It's the exact same system in Canada, um, if not more aggressive than the UK and just

00:25:49.620 no controversy whatsoever.

00:25:50.940 So yeah, it is, it is, it's this weird, bizarre world where maybe we just assumed that, um,

00:25:57.420 our, our, our government wasn't, we could be because we had about a hundred years of Canada

00:26:02.080 not going to the extremes on anything.

00:26:04.500 We, it was, it was, it's very rational to assume that whatever the hell they were doing

00:26:08.240 in Europe or the United States, we would have a watered down safe version and we wouldn't

00:26:12.660 go too far.

00:26:13.620 I, this is the first time I can think aside from like social credit or eugenics in which 0.85

00:26:18.460 Canada is at the edge of being crazy.

00:26:21.180 When Elon Musk did his interview with, uh, Jordan Peterson recently, and he talked about

00:26:26.960 puberty blockers and such, I said, okay, well, now that this guy who everyone pays attention

00:26:32.240 to, whether they love him or hate him, sometimes they pay more attention because they hate him.

00:26:36.700 Maybe now we'll have that discussion on puberty blockers and a discussion of what was in

00:26:41.040 the cast report because that cast review happened.

00:26:44.420 It was major news in the UK.

00:26:47.480 It was major news to a degree in the States, kind of ignored here, written about by a couple

00:26:53.700 of people at the post, a couple of people at the sun.

00:26:55.920 That's about it.

00:26:56.780 And as you say, same policy is just, just keep on going by, let, let the activists run the

00:27:05.740 system.

00:27:06.120 Uh, and I, I looked up the Canadian association of pediatricians or whatever their society

00:27:11.880 is called.

00:27:12.300 They still have, uh, gender affirming care starting whatever age they feel like.

00:27:18.360 Whereas the, in the UK, their top court has just upheld, um, the, uh, the change that said

00:27:25.920 no to puberty blockers for minors, uh, a change by the way that was embraced, not just by the

00:27:30.960 conservatives who were in power when that review came back, but also the labor party said, yes,

00:27:35.720 we'll accept this.

00:27:37.760 Yes.

00:27:38.600 Yeah.

00:27:39.180 So, uh, that it is, it is strange, uh, to see on, on these particular issues to see, uh,

00:27:46.600 to see it sort of being approached from sort of a good faith argument.

00:27:50.180 But, and yeah, when you look at these statistics, when you look at the polls in Canada, um, these

00:27:54.920 are things that are happening, um, without the sort of approval of the electorate.

00:27:59.660 So if you ask people, um, Hey, what do you think about transgender people?

00:28:03.140 Should they have, should they be discriminated against if your kid came out as trans or, you

00:28:07.720 know, your neighbor's trans, is that going to be an issue for you?

00:28:10.200 And it's, you know, it's an 80, 20 issue, like 80%, um, 75, 80% saying, no, they shouldn't

00:28:15.960 be discriminated against, you know, full equality.

00:28:18.160 I have a trans neighbor.

00:28:18.960 I don't care.

00:28:19.580 None of my business.

00:28:20.380 And then you'll, you'll ask, well, what about in schools?

00:28:24.200 If a seven-year-old, um, says, oh, I like trucks.

00:28:28.180 Therefore I'm a little girl.

00:28:29.340 I'm a, I like trucks.

00:28:30.300 I'm a boy.

00:28:30.740 Um, should it be the policy of the school to immediately affirm that seven-year-olds,

00:28:35.860 you know, gender dysphoria without questioning and then potentially not even telling the

00:28:39.620 parents if on the request of the seven-year-old.

00:28:42.480 And again, that'll be the reverse 80, 20.

00:28:45.280 Uh, no, no, no, no.

00:28:46.640 Me liking, me being fine with my transgender neighbor is very different than, um, uh, a 1.00

00:28:53.020 gender ID policy in schools, uh, that sort of takes the word of seven-year-olds on their

00:28:57.720 gender identity.

00:28:58.320 That's, that's a whole different thing.

00:28:59.600 That's, now I'm on the other side of the equation.

00:29:02.380 Um, so yeah, we are at sort of this weird, in which I sound like a crazy person whenever

00:29:07.260 I'm at a dinner party, I'm trying to explain, no, this is the actual, it sounds like I'm

00:29:10.900 just making this up and this is some project 2025 thing I, I came up with, but you can look

00:29:16.160 and read the documents.

00:29:16.680 Project 2025 is going to bring back the Pizza Hut, uh, buffet.

00:29:19.760 So, uh, that's one of the online jokes about, uh, all the things that are in project 2025

00:29:26.040 that aren't, nobody knows what it is on, on, on the gender issue. 0.66

00:29:30.020 Blockbuster as well.

00:29:30.580 That would be nice.

00:29:31.160 I, uh, I remember it was prior to the, the start of the 2023, 2024 school year and I was

00:29:40.280 out at a news conference with, uh, Ontario's then education minister, Stephen Lecce and a,

00:29:48.380 an Angus Reid poll had just come out showing a well over 70% of Canadians said, oh no, you

00:29:55.160 should not be transitioning kids without telling their parents. 1.00

00:29:59.820 Uh, and I'm with a reporter from a major Canadian news outlet who says, oh, I've got to ask them

00:30:05.380 about this controversial policy.

00:30:06.920 And I said, what controversial policy?

00:30:08.840 They said, and I said, well, like you saw this poll that's, that's out, showed them the

00:30:14.660 poll.

00:30:15.400 I said, if you've got, I forget if it was 72 or 78% saying no, don't do that.

00:30:22.220 I said, then that's not the controversial position.

00:30:24.340 The 14% saying, yes, that's how it should be.

00:30:27.540 They're the ones holding the controversial point of view.

00:30:30.600 Explain this to the reporter was, we're, we're waiting for Lecce to come out, still got up

00:30:34.680 to the microphone.

00:30:35.400 So about your controversial policy that, uh, parents are against.

00:30:39.740 No, parents were supportive.

00:30:42.240 We have a disconnect with a lot of our media, a lot of our academia from where just normal

00:30:46.900 everyday people are normal everyday people uniting across partisan boundaries that don't

00:30:53.080 exist for most of us.

00:30:54.300 And then are, you know, it sounds crazy talking about the elites, but you've got a bunch of

00:31:00.480 people in the chattering classes that are not connected.

00:31:02.640 I can't diagnose where it comes from, but you know, I can, I can, I can provide any number

00:31:08.800 of, of, of data points to show that something has happened in Canada in the last five, 10 years

00:31:13.940 in which we have a number of policies in which there is no comparison anywhere else in the

00:31:17.920 world.

00:31:18.780 And generally, um, we don't like it.

00:31:21.100 And, uh, also generally, uh, they don't appear to be working.

00:31:25.300 Um, so, you know, on drugs on, uh, you know, assisted suicide.

00:31:29.480 But I think we've gone in on these policies in sharp contrast to a lot of our sort of

00:31:34.120 former policies in which we were early adopters.

00:31:36.700 I mean, it's only, it's not too long ago, 20 years ago, in which Canada was an early adopter

00:31:41.360 of gay marriage.

00:31:42.320 I think we were one of the first two in which it was sort of a done at the parliamentary

00:31:46.920 level rather than being a court decision.

00:31:49.620 And then that was, that was the opposite of what's going on now.

00:31:52.420 This was Canada.

00:31:53.700 Canada was being mentioned around the world as, okay, you bring in gay marriage and, you

00:31:58.460 know, it's just going to be a bunch of bearded guys, uh, you know, living, you know, in monogamous

00:32:03.680 relationships like us.

00:32:04.780 And it just kind of disappears as an issue.

00:32:06.600 It's, it's, you know, the counterpoint, the counterarguments aren't as dire as maybe

00:32:11.720 you're pointing out.

00:32:12.480 So, you know, flip to, uh, now Canada adopts a sort of social policy no one else has and 0.97

00:32:20.500 everything goes to crap very quickly.

00:32:21.960 Um, so, um, it's sort of the opposite of what we were used to doing, um, is if Canada 0.76

00:32:29.460 is doing something, it's, it's usually working well and should be a model to others.

00:32:33.560 Um, I know one of the, the other issues that we've, uh, uh, taken a lot of criticism for

00:32:40.440 of late, at least from countries that we would share a common history or political philosophy

00:32:47.280 with, uh, is bill C 63 online, that was one, yeah, this was, so this is a bill that on the

00:32:55.360 one hand is supposed to be about protecting children.

00:32:58.320 And then you read the other part of the bill and, and I can see the government setting themselves

00:33:02.800 up to say, you're either with us or with the child pornographers.

00:33:06.240 Um, so don't criticize this part of the bill where we will, you know, arrest you, uh, and

00:33:12.080 put you under house arrest, uh, because you might say something later.

00:33:16.360 Right.

00:33:17.140 So this, this was unique.

00:33:18.880 And again, I'm just going to, when I point out the rest of the world, yeah, I'm pointing

00:33:23.920 out Europe and the Anglosphere and I'm ignoring most of it.

00:33:26.960 Okay.

00:33:27.300 Sorry.

00:33:27.920 You know, it's, it's, it's us in our pure countries, all the sort of, you know, rich places

00:33:32.960 based on liberty.

00:33:34.840 Yeah.

00:33:35.280 Yeah.

00:33:35.400 Um, but, um, anyway, um, the C-63 was sort of an interesting example because this was,

00:33:41.860 uh, you had the Guardian and the Spectator and, um, in the UK, and again, the fact that

00:33:48.700 a piece of legislation, Canadian legislation is getting any interest.

00:33:52.820 I mean, they didn't even care about the British North America Act, which is a piece of UK

00:33:55.620 legislation, you know, related to us 150 years ago, but that you have a piece of Canadian

00:34:00.840 legislation making headlines across the UK and everybody has an opinion on it and left

00:34:06.260 right.

00:34:06.680 The opinion is what the hell's going on with Canada?

00:34:09.480 Um, because again, you have, uh, Europe does not have the absolutist approach to free speech

00:34:15.960 that the Americans do.

00:34:17.000 Uh, there should be limits on hate speech, et cetera.

00:34:19.440 It's more similar to ours.

00:34:20.700 And even then, uh, you have, you sort of had people taking notice all across Europe and

00:34:26.200 of course they've noticed in the United States saying, okay, there's a, there's a country

00:34:30.180 that shows up to all our summits and stuff, and they've completely lost their minds on

00:34:35.020 free speech.

00:34:35.560 They're talking about life sentences for, you know, uh, a form of speech.

00:34:41.820 So the life sentence in Bill 60, C 63 was you had to advocate for a genocide.

00:34:46.100 Um, I, I think that's, that was sort of the most extreme, but, um, which I'd be worried

00:34:51.340 about because the word genocide has certainly been thrown around in a lot of inappropriate

00:34:55.120 places lately.

00:34:55.880 So I don't think it should be encoded as something that's a life sentence.

00:35:00.180 It's all the time on the streets of Toronto these days, and it's everywhere on social

00:35:04.040 media.

00:35:05.140 Uh, yeah.

00:35:06.020 So, uh, that, that was sort of a classic example of, uh, yeah, Canada comes out with

00:35:13.120 something.

00:35:13.500 And I think, you know, normally if we were putting together something for internet speech

00:35:17.940 controls, you would expect the Canadian version of that to be, okay, it's, it's not

00:35:23.760 too serious.

00:35:24.300 It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, here's our version.

00:35:26.280 What's the old joke?

00:35:27.500 Um, most, uh, unimaginative headline worthwhile Canadian initiative.

00:35:31.120 Worthwhile Canadian initiative.

00:35:32.460 Yeah.

00:35:32.820 So that joke doesn't land with, you know, younger people.

00:35:36.320 It's like a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

00:35:38.400 So you're going to, you're going to give drugs to the wildlife, uh, or what's, what's

00:35:42.720 going on.

00:35:43.820 So do we, uh, have a way out other than just, uh, electing a radically different government

00:35:49.980 led by Pierre Polyev?

00:35:52.240 Uh, I don't know.

00:35:53.140 Can you even do that?

00:35:54.980 In terms of how to get out of it?

00:35:56.540 I mean, cause you do, we are in a situation in which, you know, the populists are still

00:36:00.880 Canadians.

00:36:01.640 Uh, so, I mean, the, the populists that is just, oh, we just kind of want a reasonable

00:36:06.040 version.

00:36:06.540 That's, that's tolerant without going too far.

00:36:09.260 All those people are still there.

00:36:10.640 That's still generally describes us as a country.

00:36:14.000 Um, I mean, you, you can say there is a lot of executive authority in the Canadian government,

00:36:18.620 um, as I'm sure comes up often in this podcast, uh, there is more executive authority in the

00:36:23.160 Canadian federal government than basically anywhere else in the democratic world.

00:36:26.860 Certainly you have more in Venezuela.

00:36:29.160 Uh, but, uh, you do have at the federal level, um, that could be one of the reasons in which

00:36:35.020 we've gone so extreme so quickly is, you know, with an order in council, you can completely

00:36:39.280 remake, you know, how gender in prisons works and nobody even knows, knows about it. 0.99

00:36:43.840 So you can also have a reverse order in council.

00:36:46.120 So yes, you could have a situation in which, um, a bunch of things that have gotten nuts

00:36:52.820 because of, you know, federal executive orders can be reversed with the federal executive

00:36:57.180 orders.

00:36:57.600 But I mean, this has, this has happened at, uh, you know, this has happened at the city

00:37:01.620 council level.

00:37:02.260 This has happened at corporate level.

00:37:03.540 So if I was to think of just an ideal in terms of how we get out of this, how we stop

00:37:09.860 having the most extreme version of, I mean, I mean, it's a mixture of sort of a change

00:37:14.320 in government.

00:37:15.320 I mean, the best case scenario is we, we have sort of a nationwide quiet revolution.

00:37:20.780 Um, you know, Quebec in the 1960s, everybody just kind of wakes up, says, I don't want to

00:37:24.600 do this anymore.

00:37:25.380 I'm not going to, you know, Quebec stopped going to church.

00:37:28.180 We're, we stopped going to woke church and you stop nodding along to policies that are 0.96

00:37:32.780 super dumb, you know, at your university, uh, you know, faculty meeting. 0.93

00:37:37.060 Um, or, uh, it, it gets kind of uglier and you have, um, I think probably, I mean, the 0.99

00:37:44.240 optimist in me says that's what's going to happen.

00:37:46.460 It's going to be sort of, we used to have eugenics on the books in this country and then 0.99

00:37:51.000 it wasn't, they were on the books for way longer than they should have been.

00:37:55.700 Um, but, uh, it wasn't controversial when we got rid of it.

00:37:59.140 There wasn't an entrenched pro eugenics.

00:38:01.300 It was, it was very easy to get rid of them.

00:38:02.460 But, but what I see happening here and, you know, you live in, in the heartland of

00:38:07.940 wacko drug policy, uh, British Columbia, uh, Pierre probably have gets in and says, all

00:38:14.480 right, that's a safe supplies done.

00:38:16.620 And federal funding is not going to injection sites anywhere.

00:38:20.020 We're not doing this.

00:38:21.820 What will happen will be a five to 10 year lawfare going through the courts to try and

00:38:29.020 force the federal government to hand out free oxy or free opioid pills?

00:38:33.760 Oh, there's any number of nightmare scenarios I can name.

00:38:36.640 Um, so if you, yeah, uh, the Senate, I mean, you have a Senate mostly appointed by Justin

00:38:43.040 Trudeau, independent senators who were not loyal to a party.

00:38:46.300 Um, they're loyal to Justin Trudeau.

00:38:48.000 You got your, you got your, you got your Senate nightmare scenario in which the Senate says,

00:38:52.240 oh, you know, Pierre probably ever is a fascist.

00:38:54.200 We got to maintain, you know, these are section seven rights.

00:38:57.160 Uh, and we're just going to vote down everything.

00:38:59.800 And then you've got a big fight with the, with the Senate.

00:39:02.180 You've got your Supreme court nightmare scenario in which, uh, they're going real hard on,

00:39:07.940 um, you know, because we've seen any number, we saw those court decisions at the BC level

00:39:13.720 in which doing drugs in a park is a section seven charter of rights and freedoms, security

00:39:20.380 of the rights and persons.

00:39:21.320 So you could have the Supreme court loses their mind and they say, no, no, no.

00:39:23.900 Smoking up in a playground is a section seven, right?

00:39:25.760 So for people that don't know when British Columbia was going through their decriminalization

00:39:30.340 phase, which they still are actually, um, and, and there were complaints about people

00:39:35.080 doing heroin and smoking crack in, in parks, NDP premier government, by the way, so this 0.87

00:39:40.500 is, this is David EB saying, this is ridiculous. 0.78

00:39:43.880 I should be able to go to a playground. 0.95

00:39:45.160 He, he, that sounds creepy.

00:39:47.480 Uh, he, uh, he, he, he tried to, to stop it.

00:39:50.700 And the court said, no, you can't tell someone not to do heroin in a children's playground.

00:39:57.060 Uh, yeah.

00:39:57.760 Which, uh, interestingly, uh, when, uh, the playground, I used to, when my grandma was 0.81

00:40:02.720 alive, um, the playground we went to was actually within sight of David EB's, what is now David

00:40:07.560 EB's office.

00:40:08.120 So this is sort of the, the playground.

00:40:10.520 We would have walked past his office to go to this playground.

00:40:12.520 And yeah, that's sort of your classic urban BC playground experience, uh, playground that

00:40:17.360 eventually we couldn't go there because we would show up and there'd be two people completely

00:40:22.560 twisted on drugs, screaming at each other.

00:40:24.340 And I'm like, maybe this isn't a great place to bring a centenarian and two young children.

00:40:29.000 Uh, she was pretty deaf and blind, so she had no idea what was going on.

00:40:32.220 Neither did the children, but I figured it was a safety issue.

00:40:35.580 All right.

00:40:36.220 Well, we'll, uh, we'll see if we can get out of this in the coming future, but I think it's

00:40:40.320 going to take a lot more, as you say, a lot more than just one election.

00:40:43.200 Yeah, but it could be, I mean, you could, I mean, yeah, if you have to cut me off because

00:40:46.360 you're running out of time, but BC, it's sort of a classic example, just at the political

00:40:50.240 level where you've seen massive, huge, overwhelming, nothing like this has ever happened, support

00:40:56.000 for the BC conservatives, an upstart.

00:40:58.180 And they were the PPC of BC just a few years ago.

00:41:01.520 They were the unelectable guys.

00:41:03.780 Yeah.

00:41:03.980 And now they're potential contenders.

00:41:05.280 That's not happening because of their tax policy or because, uh, this is happening because

00:41:10.860 a whole bunch of normal people, the people that we run into at, you know, barbecues who

00:41:15.780 aren't entirely sure who the president of the U S is.

00:41:19.020 Maybe I'm just describing my family, very politically out of it.

00:41:21.940 People, uh, a bunch of those people said, why are there, you know, why is this playgrounds,

00:41:27.360 you know, filled with drugs and human feces?

00:41:28.960 I don't remember that.

00:41:29.620 I'm going to vote for the opposite of that.

00:41:30.860 Um, so yeah, it's, it's what you mentioned.

00:41:34.200 It's a bunch of people seeing a political policy impact them personally in a way that

00:41:39.780 maybe they have never experienced before in their entire life.

00:41:42.220 This used to be, you know, a government, a bad government policy didn't used to affect

00:41:47.160 you outside of your tax return or, you know, maybe getting a passport.

00:41:50.960 And now people are seeing a noticeable difference between their lives now and the way it was within

00:41:56.480 living memory.

00:41:57.100 An absolute decline in, in, uh, in lifestyle.

00:42:02.060 And, and I don't mean that in, um, you know, uh, a fancy way.

00:42:05.560 It's just life isn't as good as it was.

00:42:09.480 Yes.

00:42:10.000 In, in, in the public sphere, my life is great.

00:42:12.800 As low as you don't leave home.

00:42:14.880 Yeah.

00:42:15.560 Follow him on social media, read him in the national post.

00:42:18.140 Tristan Hopper.

00:42:18.720 Thanks so much.

00:42:20.200 Goodbye.

00:42:20.720 Thank you.

00:42:21.460 Full comment is a post media podcast.

00:42:23.840 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:42:25.180 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:42:28.940 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:42:30.820 Remember, you can subscribe to full comment on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get

00:42:35.100 your podcasts, help us out by giving us a rating or leaving a review and tell your friends

00:42:39.820 about us.

00:42:40.280 Thanks for listening until next time.

00:42:41.680 I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - August 19, 2024

Now the world thinks Canadian social policies are the ‘edge of crazy’

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