Juno News - September 23, 2025
Carney: Fake Housing, Fake Trade, Fake Leadership
Episode Stats
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Summary
Greg Brady joins the show to talk about Canada s housing crisis, the building of a Potemkin Village-style fake village, and why the Super Bowl halftime show is the last time you'll see an electric guitar on stage.
Transcript
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Hi, Juno News. Alexander Brown back for another episode of Not Sorry. I'm the director of the
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National Citizens Coalition. I'm a host and an op-ed writer here. I'm a contributor to Project
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Ontario. I work in campaigns, communications, and we have a great chat today with Greg Brady.
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Greg is a longtime sports broadcaster, a news broadcaster. He's sort of a titan of drive time
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in Ontario. He is run federally as a conservative candidate in Ajax of late. He has a good head on
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his shoulders and a good heart and is a real advocate for open discourse, common sense.
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And I was very thankful to have a lengthy chat with him because there's a lot to talk about.
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We are seeing continued failures to launch and we want to be proven wrong. We want these next 10
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years to start differently than the last 10 years. But if you're following along with what the liberals
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are actually putting forth, we have a Build Canada Homes debacle where the government has
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concocted and was found to have concocted this Potemkin village housing stunt. A Potemkin village
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in politics and economics is a construction, literal or figurative, which is where the purpose
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is to provide an external facade to a situation, to make people believe that it is better than it
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actually is. This dates back to Gregory Potemkin, a field marshal and former lover of an empress who,
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to impress her while she was traveling the Crimea, would build these fake villages like upriver
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and then she'd pass and then they'd disassemble them and then they'd go build them further down
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all to show off. And so a wonderful romantic gesture. But when it comes to a historic and ongoing
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and generational housing crisis and an arguable Ponzi that has abandoned our working class and young
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Canadians, that is not acceptable to be staging these external facades, these fakes, these fugazis.
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Journalist Brian Pasifume of the Toronto Sun went to the site of this liberal housing announcement and
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it had been all torn down. They practically salted the earth. And expanding off that, Carney was just in
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Mexico. He they are touting that we have some major trade agreement with the Mexicans when we only both
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countries sort of account for two percent of each other's imports and exports. And they were using
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fake bags of wheat. We don't make these Canada bags of wheat that they presented. It's like these bags
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look like that money sign that that bank robbers would steal in old timey movies. And so, you know,
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when your housing plan looks like historic lies and your infrastructure projects are already in the
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works and they're taking credit for that and we're getting stunts on our trade relationships, there's
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there's there's reason to be deeply concerned here. And another reason to be deeply concerned,
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as we all know, on Sunday, it was Sunday news dumped that the Carney government on behalf of Canada,
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I don't remember voting for this. I'm not sure if you do as well. They are recognizing Palestine as a
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state and all but endorsing that sort of strange bedfellows bedfellows union between the Western
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far left and Middle Eastern hardliners. I think we can all be open it open and compassionate about the
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situation there. But but to recognize the Palestinian state and ask Carney what then he would believe the
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capital of the state to be and he would run in the other direction, risks further rewarding the
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worst of behaviors inside Canada, emboldening an authority in Palestine that hasn't held elections
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since 2008, as well as Hamas's brutal attacks and the continued holding of hostages. These are just a
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snippet of what Greg Brady and I get into. And I hope you join us for this chat. Joining us now is the
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renowned host of the top rated Toronto Today on AM 640, formerly of the Fan 590 and Detroit Morning Sports
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Radio. He's called Super Bowls. He's a fierce advocate for common sense and, and building a
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bridge through conversation. And he ran federally for the conservatives and Ajax in the past federal
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election. Greg Brady joins the show. Thanks for being here, Greg. If thank you for having me,
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first of all, and if we madlib some of that up, you could say I'm a fierce advocate for Super Bowl
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halftime shows. Bring rock and roll back. When's the last time you saw an electric guitar
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on stage at a Super Bowl? You just don't see it anymore. What happened?
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I guess Prince, that incredible in the rain performance in Miami or Bruce Springsteen
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sliding into camera. Now it's all just replacement level pop nonsense, right?
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It's, it's a lot of that. Um, and maybe just maybe I'm still anticipating it'll be Taylor Swift
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this year. That rumors kind of died down. They asked Roger Goodell that on the Today Show
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in early September. I still think she, I still think she's going to do it. Um, so maybe we're,
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uh, we'll go live. We'll go, we'll drop this, uh, chat before, you know, Goodell steals all of our,
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our attention and makes us care a lot less about politics by debating what five songs Taylor Swift
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will do and all the, and whether the chiefs will be there and all this, all the guests and everything.
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You can actually see in the polls in America, like they stopped caring about certain domestic
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issues. Once football season starts, the bread and circuses thing is real. So, uh, we could go
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on forever. We, I can see why you're so good at, at, you know, burning three hours in the morning
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on drive time, uh, three and a half, the other half hour. I'm very bad at burning. As many will
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tell you, you got to pick which half hour I suck at burning. Oh, I I've been on all three of those
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hours. And so I'm appreciative of it. And, and for folks who, who don't know, uh, I, in some ways
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got my start doing this and, and getting to, uh, get to know the Juno audience more of late
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because during COVID I would go on with Greg and he would let me kind of rant and rave
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and we'd unpack some of the, the worst of those years and, and big government overreach.
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And so it is cool for me to be on the other side of this now to, to have you on my show.
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Greg. Well, just on that front. Yeah. Probably around. I want to say one of the first times you
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came on was around, I wouldn't say it was a turn. Like I'm, uh, you know, by about late
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September, early October 21, when we've had vaccines accessible for several months.
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And we had that real lousy spring where we were the only jurisdiction with a golf course
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is closed by the premier and seniors that were told, Hey, go get two shots and you can
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hang out together again. And then month after month went by and they couldn't hang out together.
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Um, and funerals weren't normal and weddings were normal and all that stuff.
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So, so by the time I'm, I'm building up this, uh, irritation to go, what are some of the
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benchmarks statistically we need? What's the data we need to see? What are the off ramps
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since we're doing every single thing being asked to, to be honest, mostly by the provincial
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government. I know the convoy, the federal government, um, that was a big thing. Of course
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it was in February 22, but most of the mandates and requirements that affected our lives in Ontario
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were almost uniquely provincial. There was really nothing municipal. Um, sometimes we wanted the
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mayors to shout a little bit louder, but you were one of, you were a really strong voice in the fall
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when Omicron came along and people are realizing, ah, I don't like getting sick, but I also haven't
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gotten sick in 18 months. And now I've been hit by this new Omicron bug and I'm doing much better than
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someone 14 months ago who had Delta, who didn't have a vaccine or 18 months ago when the original
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strain was by. And there were really some, obviously some harrowing health stories. So, um, you and a
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few others, uh, started coming on. We stopped using a lot of guests that we were using going, go get
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that shot. It'll all work out. Cause then they would never explain to me like, yeah, you said we
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needed to do ABC and D. So why now do we need to do EFG and H? That was a, that was a big thing. So I made
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a turn and, and guests like you kind of, um, you know, I think in, uh, enhanced a lot of the better
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conversations we started having about, about balance and nuance and trade-offs and give and take.
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And that's so often lacking in the media sphere in this occasionally to me, this uncomfortable
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relationship between government and media where you see some official party line and some comms
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varnish. Like I'm a comms guy. I'm the director of the national citizens coalition. I write columns for
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the papers that have me publications like the hub. Uh, I get to talk to these great people at
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Juneau here now. And I noticed during COVID pretty early on, and it wasn't that I didn't want to,
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I didn't want everyone to get sick. I didn't want to kill grandma. I, I, I don't know why we punished
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the whole country for its failure to warehouse the elderly and why, you know, Quebec would put in a
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curfew because they had a terrible situation in long-term care. I don't see how those two things
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ever connected, but it was just, I noticed spin and I noticed political spin fairly early. And then
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I had a hard time forgetting that. And so, so much of what folks like me do now is when we notice the
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nonsense, we, we almost think of those COVID years. We go like, I know that you're, you're gaslighting
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us a little bit. And one thing that I can think of right now that connects to that is you just went
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into this on your show, the orchestrated Sunday news dump of Canada's acknowledgement of the state
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of Palestine and an authority that hasn't held a democratic election in almost 20 years.
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I have great sympathy for the humanitarian toll, but surely though, this is emboldening hostage takers,
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the weekly protests in our Canadian streets, the threats to our Jewish communities. Is it not?
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Yeah. Uh, I was dropped dead shocked by it. I think we all had anticipated a, uh, early week
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United Nations, uh, general assembly session where, where, uh, the prime minister, Mark Carney gets up
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and says, uh, as I announced in the summer with these conditions, with consultation with, uh, members
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of cabinet, foreign affairs minister, you name it. Uh, this is what we would declare. Were we to see
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again, back to conditions, ABC and D Hamas, Hamas must, must not be involved in any elections going
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forward. The Palestinian authority has to enact some kind of, uh, authority over Hamas. They've
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done anything, but for the longest time, then you get into a scenario where you say, not only should
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the hostages be returned. Um, there's a lot of other subtle things that we'd all like to see get
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worked out. But we're, when I hear people talk about Alex, a two state solution right now,
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I just don't think they've thought it through. And it's very clear to me. They've never, they've
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never taken a university course on this. They haven't read a lot of books. They haven't watched
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a lot of really nuanced documentaries and, and similar to what we were talking about, even with
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the pandemic, this is not a binary issue here. And it's maddening. It gets presented as that. Um,
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it's, it's sort of like when you're seven and you're like, um, you know, your, your favorite
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hockey player is this, and it just can't be anybody else. And you have to pick one of the
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two, either you like this player or hate that player like this band or hate that band.
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And there is simply no room in the vocabulary for, well, are you pro Palestinian or not?
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Are you pro Israel or are you not? Because there's so many layers to it. I've, I've spoken
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in the last 36 hours. I get why MPs right now don't want to go on the record from the liberal
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party. And I actually have empathy because I think two things, one, many of them were blindsided by
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Carney doing this over the weekend. And as I'm saying, I hereby declare, should say Canada declares
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the recognition of a state of Palestine. None of them had, uh, none of the ones I talked to anyway,
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of the three said, I had an inkling this might happen, or we kind of got warned. This might happen
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on the previous Friday and they would have. So there's the snap surprise. I'm doing this anyway.
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Regardless of the conditions being met here. But then there's also the second layer to this,
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which is there are people who are adamant that, um, that for a long time now, since the war began,
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um, Israel has been too aggressive. Israel hasn't been proportionate. Israel is clearly got voices in
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the cabinet with Benjamin Netanyahu, a problematic leader for sure among some. Um, and certainly so in
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the Jewish community, there are people that have told me, Greg, I would have absolutely, I'm, I'm
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advocating for, you know, us to have an arms embargo against Israel. I'm advocating for us to,
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to rent, to ratchet it up and put more pressure on Israel, but I would never vote to declare for a
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state of Palestine under these conditions. And, and when Hamas still has a presence there. Um, so it's,
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it's weird because again, we've got all these sort of all these binary choices and I'm hearing from
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people go who I think are almost too aggressive in the language about Israel. And, and, you know,
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there is room for fair criticism to talk about things that if there would be on all sides, um, there would
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be for when America goes into Afghanistan in 2001, certainly into Iraq in 2003. But what they don't have
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time for is, uh, a gesture that is, um, that they got, that they got kind of pulled on them in, in
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kind of a snap motion and that they absolutely didn't get to talk about as a cabinet, even Justin
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Trudeau, even Doug Ford, I promise you weigh in. They almost do it to a fault to how will this get
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perceived by the public? What will the cabinet think? What's kind of the reverb reaction? And I don't,
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Mark Carney is pretty new to politics, although not dealing with politicians.
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I can't believe some of the reaction I'm hearing going, um, this is still a party and we still have
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to have a little bit of a vibe that, that there's room for open discussion and debate about these
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issues and they're not seeing it. And I think that's really worrisome. Yeah, it's concerning
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because it speaks to, I think the, the shallowness of the understanding of the issues like we saw
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in years previous. And we were promised that we were going to be the adults now and above all this
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and, and all kinds of better through even making this Sunday news dumped statement,
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which to me in itself speaks to a kind of political cowardice, which we are, we are used
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to certainly, uh, as Ontarians and certainly coming out of the last few years is, is, is this
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what the questions that then stem from this, which is okay. So we're Canada. I, I don't recall
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approving this or this being a campaign issue, but Canada now, uh, you know, uh, has called for
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that, you know, that Palestine is, is a state has legitimized that what's the capital of Palestine.
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Like it's the, this can just go all the way down. And then like, so what are we expanding? Like a
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listed terrorist entities? Like, what do we start to leave on the table? And that this has been so
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haphazardly put together. I know that there are people inside of, of liberal caucus who are blindsided
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by this. I, I think of guys like Anthony house father who have so often had to sort of debase
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themselves. Uh, and it's not, I don't believe that to be their fault where they're trying to have this
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both ways and they're being pushed and pulled in other directions. But this to me points to,
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this looks a whole lot like the last 10 years where it's, it's, it's virtue signaling. It's,
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it's empty gestures. It is, it is, you know, true tweets that, that welcome the world and,
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and, and all these like haphazard thoughts on, on, uh, Melanie Jolie saying, you know,
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don't you understand the demographics in my writing? It's like, I thought we were supposed
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to be a little bit more measured here. Yeah. There's a lot, you got it. There's a lot of
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quiet part out loud. Um, I won't defend everything in Trudeau's first four and a half years, but I do
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think it's a tone of, uh, of, of after the 19 election and it was only a minority government.
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I think things, I think the sand started to shift a little bit and obviously Trudeau had to be more
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on his toes and he kind of in 15, I think, I really think he got in in 2015. And again,
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it's a zero sum game. So you have to give full credit to the liberals to recognizing the moment,
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recognizing this is the right guy, the right time, the right communication. He's interesting to people.
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Everybody knows who he is. It's name recognition. It's facial recognition. They didn't have that with
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Michael Knatchev. They sure didn't have it with Stefan Dion. So when he comes in with a, with a
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bunch of, it was kind of like, you know, the first day of school, like you're looking around at a new
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school, you're looking around at all the new kids and Trudeau's looking going, I'm going to need some
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help here because I think the, the people that know Justin Trudeau the best will tell you within
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the first 10 minutes of talking to you, um, he was early on able to recognize what he didn't know.
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He knew he was a little bit of a, um, it's not fair to say an intellectual lightweight,
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but certainly for geopolitics, that wasn't something that he had dove into as a kid,
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studied in university, really new. I mean, I'm sure there's some osmosis when your dad is prime
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minister, similar to my colleague, uh, Ben Mulroney with it with, you know, his late father,
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Brian, of course, that's going to seep into your system, but, but the muscle memory took a while to
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flex in. Then to your point by 19, we're looking at ostracizing key members of cabinet. Um, you know,
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again, the accusation from Jody Wilson Rabel, the former cabinet minister is he asked me to lie. I
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wasn't going to do that. He pushes Selena Cesar Chavan out, uh, who was his parliamentary assistant,
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Dr. Jane Philpott was a really smart person. Um, and I'll give the Ford government credit,
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pretty smart to hire her to try and help with the, uh, the house fire that healthcare is in Ontario,
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which I'm sure we can get to in a bit. So I, I look and I go, I think Trudeau was leaning on
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people in the first five or six years. There came a point, Alex, when I think he thought now I've got
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it and, and I don't need to, to keep the, uh, the circle as wide. Mark Carney's been prime minister
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elected anyway for four and a half months. If we don't count the lead up, uh, after winning the
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leadership and calling the snap election, that's really unusual ground after 18 weeks to, to,
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you know, uh, move on, on a thing like I'm going to declare Palestine a state myself.
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And you can always see, you can always tell also by the social media responses. Um, I mentioned this
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on the show and I mentioned this on the weekend when, when leaders aren't, aren't really reflected
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and someone, you know, kind of retweets above them and says, this is great. And here's why I think this
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is great for the people of my writing, or I support this. Sometimes it's a, it's just a simple retweet.
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Sometimes it's, it's writing a couple of sentences on top of it. There's a lot of people who have
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been harsh critics of Israel who just let this pass yesterday and didn't want to touch it and
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didn't want to be seen as, as endorsing it. You and I famously were both critical of Ontario
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liberal leader, Steven Del Duca, who's turned into a much better mayor and Vaughn than a probably
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you and I expected. And B maybe anybody could have anticipated for, for speaking out and being
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vocal on a lot of important issues. But when he tweeted, I'm going to make kindergarten vaccinations
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mandatory in the fall of 22, I will tell you there wasn't a single liberal candidate, including a
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couple of doctors and pediatricians that backed him on that publicly. And so I think it's telling
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that we're four and a half months into Kearney and not a lot of people were just whistling past the
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graveyard when he, when he made the statement on Sunday. It's true. And that Del Duca call is still
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absolutely mind blowing. Like the, for all the, the Ford criticism that they justifiably receive,
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you had a guy running on dangerous medical advice, like dangerous medical advice, like, like you can
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get forward on all kinds of things on being a weathervane on, on people pleasing on no harsh
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decisions until there's an overwhelming amount of polling support. That was, that was hard to wrap
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our heads around. And, and I was thankful for those conversations and hearing, hearing the way,
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you know, you're expanding on politics. Now it's, it's funny to me that I think of a piece that you
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wrote in the hub coming out of the election where you, you put in this piece in May, you only wanted
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to do three things in your adult life, be a sports broadcaster and talk show host, be a news broadcaster,
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talk show host, and be a politician. We can't have everything in life. Uh, with those first two goals
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already accomplished, you know, you attempted, you attempted that triple crown. And so why would you
00:20:13.220
want to do that to yourself? You know, add on, add on the, the, the, the, the political side and,
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and what did you learn while you were running for office? Well, I'll tell you, I loved every second
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of it. Um, I have no regrets about it. I love putting myself out there. You're already out in
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the public environment. And especially to your point, as we talk about the pandemic, uh, I get into
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news talk probably six months before the pandemic starts. Um, cruising along for a little while,
00:20:39.660
the full-time morning show comes on September of 21, still in the midst of COVID, you kind of
00:20:45.300
really move past COVID. And then a year later, uh, October 7th happens in 2023. So for a lot of
00:20:51.600
these years, you're talking about issues. Once you recognize that you won't make everybody happy,
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um, and, and that your skin is about as thick as it can get, it's a remarkable feeling and it's
00:21:03.160
remarkably freeing. Um, I like a lot of what the party system provides. And I think what I was looking
00:21:08.780
for is as opposed to, of course you work with a team in the morning to put the show together
00:21:12.900
on six 40 Toronto, but I love the idea of, of working with a team on policy. Um, and you can
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imagine when I first started pursuing this, there was, um, there were a couple different pursuits at,
00:21:26.700
at the, at the two different levels of government. Um, this is the one I settled on. Uh, and it's one
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of those things where I think people would recognize I'm not a life. I went to one of the
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meetings actually. And someone's like, are you a lifelong conservative? And I looked at the
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lovely older woman and I'm like, I'm not lifelong anything. I'm not even, I'm not even a, you know,
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a lifelong dad or husband, or like, I've just done nothing my whole life. That's been exactly the
00:21:53.080
same. So no, but I saw an opportunity with the leader in Pierre Polyef with some of the policies,
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I think we wanted to correct. And I saw a lot of moral clarity with the conservatives.
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And I also felt confident that if I disagreed with something that I'd be able to at least behind
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closed doors, which is what you should do to create a unified presence, speak your mind and go,
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maybe I'm misunderstanding this. Is it this? Or is it that I wouldn't, people said, well,
00:22:21.520
now you're a quote unquote conservative. I'm like, not so sure. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able
00:22:26.920
to run for Doug Ford, whether the Ford government would have me as a totally different
00:22:30.280
story. I've been very critical of them on the radio, but I would also make the point that I
00:22:34.540
really saw principles and I didn't see any red flags of, of, uh, dysfunction of lack of character,
00:22:43.760
of hearing something going, now you shouldn't talk that way about this group or speak this way about
00:22:48.620
that group or make that inference or that stereotype. I know it's, it's, you know, what's the conservative
00:22:54.560
cabinet about a hundred or, uh, about 140 members. The liberals are about 161. How would you ever get
00:23:00.780
140, 160 strong-willed people to all agree on all the same things all the time? You can't, and you
00:23:06.320
don't. But I thought that was going to be a good home for me. Um, and I really thought I had something
00:23:12.660
to contribute as well to, to, um, to Ajax where I live and go, well, they've had the same liberal MP
00:23:18.260
for a bunch of years. He's won six of the last seven elections. Maybe I'm the one that can track him
00:23:23.860
down and beat him. Now, as it turned out, Mark Holland didn't run and they parachuted Jennifer
00:23:29.760
McKelvey, who was a Toronto city councilor out here since 2018. Um, and that, that provided a
00:23:37.760
challenge because I'll tell you that Mark Carney was this unknown to Canada in a way with, with a,
00:23:43.940
with a stellar resume. You don't keep getting these opportunities without bringing something to the,
00:23:48.560
to the central bank table or the economic table. Of course not. But I also was running against a very
00:23:53.620
unknown candidate. And when you're a known candidate, there's pluses and minuses. Someone
00:23:58.960
could listen to my show and go, Oh, I like when he does this. Don't like when he does that. Like
00:24:02.880
this guest. Don't like that guest. McKelvey was like the, you know, uh, um, uh, just a giant
00:24:07.860
question mark over the face and people could, I guess, look at Toronto and I'd go, what do you think?
00:24:13.140
And I'd go, well, she voted with John Tory on everything. And then Olivia Chow got in and she voted
00:24:18.000
with Olivia Chow on everything. Like I saw get along, uh, get along, go along to get along person
00:24:23.300
and I thought I could win. So, um, I'm, I'm long, I'm short story longing this, but I thought I could
00:24:30.340
make the biggest difference to my community. Um, I felt strongly I could go back on radio and still
00:24:35.960
present myself with, with how I feel when I go to sleep at night, which is authentic and credible
00:24:40.780
and willing to be critical of all ideas and willing to praise all ideas. Um, when I see things I like.
00:24:46.860
Yeah. And I think you would have been successful in that. Uh, and Jennifer in some ways did,
00:24:53.480
you know, prove to be a challenge and, and, and Carney changed the equation, but
00:24:57.400
you were also like, we all know what happened with, with elbows up to some extent. We all see that,
00:25:03.520
that much of that rhetoric has proven to be temporary and hollow. What was it like being suddenly inside
00:25:09.760
and elbows up sort of campaign trail shift and suddenly having to deal with a kind of social
00:25:16.340
contagion and external forces when we should have been, let's say, keeping a better focus on the
00:25:21.240
domestic on both overthrowing the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah. I don't, I, I don't think
00:25:28.000
there's a liberal MP, uh, who will look you in the eye now and go, we are still in government because
00:25:34.820
not only did Donald Trump win the U S presidential election and, and win it solidly as well, but then he
00:25:41.040
turned his sites to Canada. And there was a lot of rhetorical, uh, a lot of rhetorical threats.
00:25:47.100
Um, a lot of the, the, you know, stuff I, I knew would never transpire. I mean, again, I,
00:25:53.000
I, you know, what do I know? I've only ever lived in, in two countries, Canada, the United States,
00:25:56.920
but has he, has he invaded Greenland yet? Is that a thing? Is that not really? Are we wait? It's been
00:26:01.600
seven months. I don't think they, is that war still happening? So the point being is I, I saw a lot,
00:26:06.940
you hear a lot of people say, watch what Trump does, forget what he says. And some of that ends
00:26:12.040
up being true, but it's remarkable. I, uh, look, I know there's criticism of the, uh, of the CPC
00:26:18.360
from, um, you know, you, you should, the reason I wanted to do this too. And the reason that I think
00:26:24.400
I've taken so much to wanting to, you know, admit when I don't get things right is from a sports
00:26:30.520
perspective. What I noticed in sports is you go, you have to go out there after a press conference when
00:26:35.660
your NFL team loses 42 to three, and you got to explain what happened and what went terribly
00:26:41.300
wrong. And you don't just get to come out after you win. And you don't get to tell people that I
00:26:46.220
know you think we lost 42 to three. It was actually 31, 28 and we won. And politicians love doing that.
00:26:52.720
That's there's not many ways to spin, uh, uh, you know, a, a terrible failure on, uh, on a football
00:26:59.000
field or on a hockey rink into something that, that is some kind of moral victory politics. It seems to
00:27:04.320
happen all the time. So I thought, well, that's easy for me to spot. I've enjoyed being able to
00:27:09.940
call that out on all sides of the political equation. And, and I know to avoid that. I know
00:27:15.840
how much that drives me crazy. And I see that as, uh, as unhelpful to the democratic process and
00:27:21.160
hypocritical. So when I'd be knocking on doors, I attempted to prevent, present as very authentic.
00:27:27.980
And I thought there was a real massive connection. I saw the generational divide.
00:27:32.080
You're talking to 18 to 34 year olds. People be like, let me just go get my daughter. She's
00:27:36.700
sleeping downstairs. Oh, is she visiting? No, she lives here. She's 31. Oh, here's my son. He's 28.
00:27:42.900
Here's my other son is 26. They'd want to say hi to you. He sent out 300 resumes.
00:27:48.300
Exactly. Yeah. That, and that was obviously before the, uh, the summer of almost no part-time work,
00:27:53.420
but you could kind of see the warning signs all, all there. So, um, but, but to your point on the
00:27:58.860
contagion front, you'd speak on the porch to what, what on paper are really smart people,
00:28:05.840
educated people with good jobs and in good neighborhoods. This is a wonderful place to
00:28:10.020
live in Ajax. It's got its warts, uh, but I don't want to live anywhere else. And to be honest,
00:28:14.360
I've told the party this, if they asked me to run anywhere else, I would have done it. I only wanted
00:28:18.700
to run where I live and where I've raised my kids and, and where I think I know the community
00:28:22.760
in the community kind of knows me. So, but you talk to these 64, 66 year old people on the doorstep
00:28:29.160
and they would stare at you and tell you that Donald Trump was planning to invade our country
00:28:35.120
like military militarily. They really believe that. And it doesn't help when a prime minister is,
00:28:41.260
is moving up the rhetoric and talking about wants our land. He wants our water. Our relationship as
00:28:46.380
we know it is now over and similar break us, break us. So he can own wants to break us. So he can own
00:28:51.720
us. Exactly. So, um, how, I don't know how you defend against that. If you, if someone's going,
00:28:58.580
well, I think aliens are going to, uh, come down someday from another planet and there'll be a zombie
00:29:03.200
apocalypse. That's a really hard thing to talk people out of if they really believe it. And it
00:29:08.360
was happening in real time politically. Yeah. That burden of proof is, is impossible to establish,
00:29:13.180
right? Like it's, yeah. So it's, uh, it's, I think there's, I don't know if you spot it. I, I sense a
00:29:19.760
little buyer's remorse. It hasn't been terribly long. Um, but I also think nobody runs the same
00:29:25.760
campaign twice with the same ideas and all the same personnel. So I don't think if the conservatives
00:29:30.660
change up this or change up that or shift a few candidates around or change some, some, uh, shadow
00:29:36.500
cabinet portfolios before the next election, that it's some admission of a giant failure. As I said,
00:29:41.860
if, if Trump doesn't win, the conservatives win, if Trump doesn't, a solid majority, if Trump doesn't
00:29:48.780
threaten Canada, it's at least a small majority, but there's no other mathematical equation that
00:29:54.460
anyone had on the books until Trump started doing this. And then if a percentage of people don't take
00:29:58.920
those threats so seriously, when it, it wasn't that it wasn't deeply obnoxious and inappropriate
00:30:05.520
during our election cycle, but have we not read his books? Have we not watched him on television
00:30:10.780
all these years? Like this is, this is a version of, you know, Darvo, which is this sort of rhetorical
00:30:17.420
way of, of winning an argument where you deny attack, reverse victimize other it's sometimes what
00:30:23.900
you get when you criticize the government. And so more on this carny start before I let you go,
00:30:29.100
I mean, and to put you on the spot a little bit, I, you're a concerned dad. We can, we can all see the,
00:30:33.740
the sort of these concerning and ongoing trends. I think of unemployment, whether it's cost of living,
00:30:38.900
housing. So that seems to go well for seemingly everyone, not at the tippy top or on the dole.
00:30:44.340
We've got Potemkin villages for housing announcement announcements, which, which Brian Pasifume
00:30:49.220
did some great reporting on. I think Ben Mulroney was, was on your show talking about this. We've got
00:30:54.900
fake bags of wheat being used in these Mexican pressers, pumping up our trade relationship with
00:31:00.440
a country as if it isn't just 2% of each other's imports and exports. So where else would you say the
00:31:06.040
federal government is lacking to start? And do you have any optimism that they're truly
00:31:10.760
meaning to correct for the last decade? Yeah, it's tricky because I know the instant
00:31:17.400
instinct is to treat this all like a sport. And we team, we cheer for a red team, a blue team,
00:31:22.820
a yellow team, a green team. Well, that's your background too. You're a great sport.
00:31:24.920
It is, but it's funny because a lot of people didn't like me on 590 because I'd be like,
00:31:31.020
Hey, do you think the Leafs are going to win the cup this year? And I'd go,
00:31:33.380
no, do you want the 11 reasons why? Um, and people that you, you don't want them to win.
00:31:38.040
And I'm like, no, you asked me if I think they're going to, and that's a different question.
00:31:42.320
So it's tricky because I, I want to have some optimism. I can find good and bad in every single
00:31:49.120
prime minister and every single us president and, and every single, you know, I could talk
00:31:53.420
to somebody for 20 minutes and I go, I really liked this characteristic about you. And if someone
00:31:57.300
said, no, but give me the real thing, what do I need to work on? I could probably find something,
00:32:00.660
but I look at, at Carney and I go, the concern I have is what we talked about at the beginning,
00:32:06.420
that he's not involving his cabinet and caucus. He's doing what he wants to do when he wants to
00:32:11.860
do it. And to your point, there's more a swell of professionalism about that, but then it becomes
00:32:16.900
more a private company with a CEO, or it becomes a hedge fund with a, uh, with a president. And that's
00:32:23.740
not what democracy is supposed to be. Democracy is supposed to be, I'm an MP. I know there's a bunch of us.
00:32:29.460
Give me 10 minutes at some time in the next couple of weeks. Let me tell you what my concern is with
00:32:33.900
one of our policies. And you tell me if I'm crazy or if we're on the right, uh, if we're on the right
00:32:38.460
or wrong page here, that's what I expect a relationship between a prime minister, uh, and
00:32:43.320
an MP, uh, to, to be, and it's so unique, right? It's not president and Senator or president and
00:32:48.620
Congresswoman because it's the, those, those departments are meant to be so separate. You're on the
00:32:53.460
team. He, he or she is your leader. What I'm spotting from the liberal government is this is
00:32:59.420
a lot of carny. This is a lot of carny following a lot of things that are happening in Europe
00:33:03.680
and not necessarily doing what's best for Canada. That said, um, you, you, you just can't,
00:33:11.260
you can't sleep at night. If you want it to be a miserable failure, I don't want a dollar to be
00:33:16.600
60 cents. I don't want her unemployment to be 12%. I worry about these things.
00:33:20.980
I'm a, I'm a fan of being proved wrong on this. Like I, I write about the start. I write about how
00:33:25.780
talk is cheap. You can point to the things they're not actually doing, but for goodness
00:33:29.960
sake, like I can't afford a home. You know, we've been saving up for years and years. Like
00:33:34.020
you've got, you've got young kids. Like it's, we, you go out and you actually talk to people
00:33:39.820
who, who, who don't think there's going to be an invasion when you're, when you're talking
00:33:43.220
to them on their doors and like, they are really hurting and, and they're, you know, not
00:33:48.380
doing a great job of dispelling concerns that they are running this maybe like a Brookfield.
00:33:52.340
Like there's a report today that they're circling Mark Wiseman of BlackRock, who's an advisor
00:33:58.200
for the century initiative, which many in this audience would know is, is kind of just part
00:34:02.480
of this disaster and this low wage sort of caste replacement system that's hurting unemployment
00:34:07.280
or, or I don't recall them campaigning on what they want to do to the notwithstanding
00:34:13.620
clause. You know, there, there's a potential identity crisis right there. And so, so prove
00:34:18.340
us wrong, please. Like, I, I very much hope to be, you know, I very much hope to be concerned
00:34:23.480
over, over nothing here. And, and I appreciate your insights and, and where can folks hear
00:34:29.080
more of you, read more from you during the week?
00:34:31.700
Yeah. Toronto today with Greg Brady is on six 40 Toronto, and you can get us on the
00:34:36.020
I heart, uh, I heart radio, Canada app. It's five 30 to 9.00 AM live and everything goes,
00:34:41.480
uh, on every single spot, uh, podcast platform, Spotify and, and Apple, uh, and Amazon and the
00:34:48.080
like. And, uh, you know, people ask me if, if I will run again, I mean, that's, that's
00:34:53.580
not necessarily in the cards. I sure wouldn't rule it out. I loved it so much. The, the big
00:34:58.460
thing, Alex, is I think we, we get caught in these bubbles too, where I would tell you
00:35:02.180
98.5% of the conversations I had at the door were amazing. They were, they were respectful.
00:35:09.540
They were like, I'm going this way because of this. I'm going that way because of that.
00:35:13.080
And I love that because they've at least, they might be lying to get you off the porch
00:35:17.260
so they can go finish dinner, but they are at least engaging with you. No doors slammed
00:35:22.320
very little, very little. You're this, you're that things that I felt like, no, that's not
00:35:27.140
a fair characterization of me, the party, anything else. So, um, I, I have hope that there are way
00:35:34.240
more people out there when you get, uh, get off social media and you get out into the
00:35:39.140
world that just want to live their lives. I saw that a lot with the, with the Gaza conflict.
00:35:43.620
I saw people who are Jewish people who are Muslim and the, and they're like, Oh, I think
00:35:47.660
this about this conflict, but what I see in downtown Toronto with what I see on the streets,
00:35:52.620
it's her, it's horrifying. So that I like that gave me such renewal of hope. Cause as you
00:35:57.380
know, uh, radio broadcasting, doing what you do, you, you kind of, you, the extremes make
00:36:03.020
a lot of noise and we can't help, but get swallowed up and pay attention to them sometimes.
00:36:06.700
So you have me on anytime. Uh, I'll have you back on, uh, on our show as well on the
00:36:11.820
air. And I really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah. Please return the favor. You're a champion
00:36:16.100
of discourse. Thank you for being a man in the arena and, and, and talking to people. Cause
00:36:20.060
we know the internet is not real life. And, and thankfully there are, there are men like
00:36:24.080
Greg Brady. Thanks for joining us. Anytime. Juno news. Did you like this chat? Take advantage
00:36:31.080
of my discount code. That's junonews.com slash not. Sorry for 20% off. And I'll see you next