KINSELLACAST 361： Back from Israel - with Lilley, Kheiriddin, plus lotsa new music from Militarie Gun, Dazy, Camp Trash, Dowsing, Wife Patrol and more!
A shorter show this week, partly due to jet lag, partly because I was jetlagged, but mostly because I had a great chat with Brian Lilly, a fun chat with Tasha Carrad on CFRA, and new music, lots of new music.
00:03:30.000Closely resembling the central banker that he is, you know, a job which typically involves listening to idiot politicians saying idiotic things and keeping your cool.
00:04:04.000After blowing a 30-point lead, after losing an election that was in the bag, after getting the pink slip in the riding he'd held for two decades, Pierre Polyev is someone Mark Carney really, really, really wants to keep around.
00:04:18.000So when a reporter asked Carney about accommodating Polyev's desire to run in an Alberta seat, where a fence post painted blue could win in a landslide, Carney was all magnanimous and whatnot, and he'd do what he could to, you know, assist getting Polyev into the House of Commons, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:39.000I was impressed by Carney's acting skills on that occasion, because if there's anybody who really, really, really wants to keep Pierre Polyev around, it's Mark Carney.
00:04:51.000He was sort of low-key about it, and the commentariat predictably ran around saying how refreshingly prime ministerial he was and all that crap.
00:05:09.000Third reason why I think he's doing well is found in Alberta, where I was back this week.
00:05:15.000My home province is presently run by Danielle Smith, who I detest, and she is smack dab in the middle of a scandal that could claim lots of political careers, including hers.
00:05:25.000So she's engaged in a Trump-style distraction operation, trying to inflame everybody about Alberta separation and so on.
00:05:34.000And it's all bullshit, because Albertans, I can tell you, overwhelmingly love Canada, because the constitutional requirements for separation are basically impossible to achieve.
00:05:44.000And if anything's driving down the price per barrel, it's the rantings of the lunatic in the Oval Office.
00:05:51.000Making common cause with him is going to have an unhappy ending for Danielle Smith, guaranteed.
00:05:58.000But she keeps acting as the cheerleader for the forces of Alberta sovereignty, who, by the way, you could jam into the Calgary Flames dressing room, and you'd still have seats to spare.
00:06:09.000But she keeps trying to get Mark Carney, this evil central Canadian overlord, to react, but he hasn't. He won't.
00:06:16.000He's from Alberta, and he's seen this movie before, and he's not stupid. He knows what Smith is doing.
00:06:22.000So he just shrugs and says non-committal central banker kind of stuff, and it works.
00:06:31.000His party still shows an appalling indifference towards anti-Semitism, which is growing in this country, as Douglas Murray pointed out this week, at two appalling levels.
00:06:41.000His party is reflexively anti-resource in a country with a resource economy, and he still employs Melanesia Lee.
00:06:50.000These things, however, are all things he can fix, and I remain hopeful that he will.