00:11:29.700yeah that was i love the song by the way i don't know the song i don't know what the words are the
00:11:44.320words could be uh we're going to be a failure as a party and not do anything in punjabi but
00:11:48.860uh nevertheless he's dancing he's got good beats and good grooving and all of that i'm not arguing
00:11:53.380with the dance moves but this is a guy who won 24 seats going into the election he had 39 seats
00:12:04.180he comes out with a 15 seat loss gets 15.98 percent of the vote and he's dancing as though
00:12:13.620he won now this surely was a one-off right well let's go to the 2021 election in this election
00:12:19.940Jagmeet Singh had started with 24 he went up a little bit he went to 25 seats this election 17
00:12:27.060of the vote a slight improvement but do the dance moves fit the achievement let's take
00:12:41.460uh that was a bit more of an austere dance move i mean on that election he had actually gone up
00:12:45.700uh at least a seat so you think he'd be able to be a little bit more forceful but he'd used up
00:12:49.380up all the good moves in 2019. Jagmeet Singh, you could be the most powerful and influential player
00:12:56.400in Canadian politics. It pains me to say that and the fact that you don't realize it or don't use
00:13:01.880that power is why you are never going to be the Prime Minister. That's not an endorsement or an
00:13:07.280anti-endorsement. I'm simply stating an observational fact there. Moving on from this for just a few
00:13:14.040moments here, I wanted to talk about this somewhat breaking story that came out today where Canada
00:13:19.340has, alongside several other countries, effectively started calling for a ceasefire in Israel. This is
00:13:27.700a joint statement by the prime ministers of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. They say
00:13:33.020in this statement, I won't read the whole thing, that we want to see this pause resumed. They had
00:13:38.900Israel and Hamas, a humanitarian pause, and support urgent international efforts towards a sustainable
00:13:45.380ceasefire. This cannot be one-sided. Hamas must release all hostages, stop using Palestinian
00:13:52.280civilians as human shields, and lay down its arms. There is no role for Hamas in the future
00:13:57.780governance of Gaza. So there is still criticism and condemnation for Hamas, but effectively this
00:14:03.900is a statement that is endorsing the idea that it is incumbent on Israel to lay down its arms and
00:14:10.200stop fighting against the brutal terrorist group that killed more than 1400 israelis and has
00:14:17.140continued to wage war on israel and has called for the annihilation of israel and the jewish state
00:14:22.980israel is not supposed to fight back against those people now if you don't follow this issue or you
00:14:28.840don't follow geopolitics which i would forgive you for not doing you may not understand what's at
00:14:33.660stake here the word cease fire sounds nice who doesn't like cease fire it's the same as peace
00:14:38.760Peace is great. Everyone loves peace. Give peace a chance, right? But the problem with a ceasefire
00:14:43.440is that it's rooted in a fundamental idea that Israel does not have the right to defend itself.
00:14:49.200And I am fully sympathetic to the realist position here that Canada and the U.S. and the U.K. should
00:14:55.040not be involved in a foreign war. But supporting Israel is not about involving yourself in a war.
00:15:00.740It's about just looking at a situation and realizing what the right thing to do is. And
00:15:05.440This idea of whether supporting Israel is meddling or whether it is something that is in a country's national interest has become an interesting discussion.
00:15:13.980And it's one that I wanted to take up with Brian Lee Crowley, who is the managing director of the McDonnell-Laurier Institute.
00:15:20.320I ran into him when I was in Alberta a couple of weeks back filming some interviews with other folks.
00:15:25.020And I said, Brian, I got to get you on this.
00:15:26.900And it has made it well, it's really made itself out to be a timely and prescient interview.
00:16:01.520Well, look, foreign policy is often one of these issues that you get people in politics that occasionally like to geek out on and people, the conventional political wisdom dictates are not really motivated by it.
00:16:15.680But this has been a year in which I'd say it has been on the agenda, both with China notably and now really notably the Middle East and Israel.
00:16:24.920And let's just start there, because Stephen Harper, when he was in power, had a very markedly
00:17:01.080Where would you say, well, I don't think I'll be appointed ambassador anytime soon,
00:17:06.200but why does that relationship matter for Canada?
00:17:10.840Oh boy, that's such a great question, Andrew.
00:17:13.380I think because the Middle East is one of the most important
00:17:18.880and most volatile places in the world.
00:17:21.100And because Israel is an island of liberal democratic values in a sea of instability, autocratic regimes, dangerous behavior by Iran, Syria basically engaged in a killing spree of its own citizens.
00:17:42.820I mean, in every part of the Middle East, danger signals fly.
00:17:48.300And, you know, we as a liberal democratic world, not just Canada and the United States, but our NATO allies, all of whom rely, for example, on energy that comes from the Middle East.
00:18:00.640What happens in the Middle East matters enormously to us.
00:18:03.400And in a sense, I think Israel is the canary in the coal mine.
00:18:09.100As long as Israel survives and thrives in the Middle East,
00:18:15.280I believe that we in the liberal democratic world
00:18:18.120can continue to defend our interests in that region.
00:18:21.400And if ever Israel was to falter and fail,
00:18:24.320I think it would be disastrous for all of us.
00:18:26.340So it's not just that I think that this is important for Israel.
00:18:33.200What's going on is an existential threat to Israel.
00:18:36.520But it's also terribly important to us. We have huge interests at stake in the Middle East. And the only people who see the world in the way that we do, from a liberal democratic perspective, the only people are the Israelis.
00:18:52.500one of the challenges we've seen on the domestic front on this is that there's been a an increase
00:18:58.940in especially on the political right i'd say and in isolationism and i'm sympathetic to a lot of
00:19:04.900that i'm sympathetic to the idea that so we need to be more independent and protective of our
00:19:09.280sovereignty and i i'm very sympathetic to the argument that getting involved in conflicts that
00:19:14.640don't affect us is not advisable and that you can be trapped in foreign wars certainly in american
00:19:20.200context. But why is that? I mean, that attitude, I'd say, has reared its head in very ugly ways
00:19:27.280on Israel, when you get people that say, it's not our problem, I don't care. What's your thought
00:19:32.300on that? Because I know you've seen that similar to me, and certainly on Ukraine and Russia,
00:19:36.460we've seen that attitude. Yes, and you know, it's quite astonishing to me that people in Canada
00:19:42.860might not get the idea that as a medium power in the world,
00:20:40.460This idea of mutual defense and, you know, the idea that we can afford to be indifferent to the fate, especially of other countries, you know, that subscribe to liberal democratic values, that we could stand aside from those things.
00:21:01.840And, you know, as the old saying goes, you know, we keep feeding the tiger and the oath that he'll eat us last.
00:21:09.700You know, we're in Ukraine and we're supportive of Israel because the things that they represent, as far as I'm concerned, are things that Canada wants to defend in the world and we can't do it alone.
00:21:23.080and so we must be prepared to step up when those values are challenged anywhere in the world
00:21:29.560because you know if we don't the next place they'll be challenged is a lot closer to home
00:21:33.980well i think on israel we certainly see that i mean you talk about israel as being a canary in
00:21:39.260the coal mine and i think the anti-semitism that we've seen shockingly brazen displays of
00:21:45.600in the last two months in canada are a tremendous example of this and i think you could point to a
00:21:51.340number of factors here. I think you can point to immigration, you can point to education, you can
00:21:55.720point to, you know, perhaps some of the media playing a role in this and academia playing a
00:22:00.520role in this. But all of this is to say, if we allow those ideas to exist unchallenged and
00:22:07.300uncriticized, there is no Israel. And that's, I think, a tremendous, tremendous display. And I
00:22:13.980think that's where the story is very much a domestic one, as much as it is a global one.
00:22:19.300Yes, I have to say, Andrew, I've been deeply disturbed by what I've seen in Canada over the last couple of months.
00:22:27.080I have had Jewish friends come to me and say, you know, Brian, I never thought I'd say this, but if it comes to that, will you hide me?
00:22:40.240I never thought that I would see circumstances in Canada in which our Jewish citizens would be frightened that there was no longer a place for them and that they might actually physically be threatened.
00:22:53.240And now, of course, we see, you know, university professors arrested and charged with vandalism against a business in Toronto.
00:23:03.560What was the what was the reason for the vandalism?
00:23:05.500It was owned by a Jew, owned by a Jew.
00:23:29.420And, you know, I think that the idea that what's going on,
00:23:36.320for example, between Israel and Hamas is about foreign policy and not about the nature of Canada
00:23:45.460is completely wrong. I think what the conflict between Hamas and Israel is bringing to the
00:23:51.920surface conflicts that we didn't really think existed in Canada, we're discovering otherwise.
00:23:58.780Well, and that's, I think, one of the big challenges of multiculturalism. Now, let me say,
00:24:04.120I believe that I wouldn't go so far as to say the diversity is our strength in the Tridopia way.
00:24:08.580But I do think one of the things that makes Canada so unique is that it has this this cross section.
00:24:13.160But the challenge there is that we've seen an importation of conflict.
00:24:16.280Yeah. You know, Calistan is a notable example of this.
00:24:19.460And as we're seeing in the last couple of months, Israel.
00:24:22.060And can you put the genie back in the bottle on it?
00:24:25.980Well, you see, I think that one of the things that we don't really understand very well as Canadians about immigration is that people don't come here, by and large, to live as they lived in the country that they came from.
00:24:45.940It's expensive and disruptive to immigrate.
00:24:48.840You don't come so that you can do exactly the same thing here that you were doing back home.
00:24:52.760People don't come here to change Canada.
00:24:55.660People come here to be changed by Canada, to become Canadian.
00:24:59.320And I think it's terribly important that we understand as Canadians what it is that is great about Canada
00:25:08.020and that we are completely entitled to demand that newcomers to Canada respect and understand.
00:25:15.280And I think this idea that, well, you know, look, I'm the great-great-grandson of immigrants from Ireland, and you know that the Irish imported some conflicts between North and South, between Irish and English and all.
00:25:38.100Eventually, we were able to get rid of those, that transplanting of...
00:25:43.460I was going to say, they haven't necessarily there, but certainly here they have.