KINSELLACAST 397: Belanger on Quebec! Sa'd in Israel! Lilley on Greenland! Plus Personal Trainer, Dune Rats and more!
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
127.02786
Summary
This week on The KinsellaCast, we have Brian Lilley, Karim Assad, and Carl Belanger on the show. We talk about the snowstorm in Toronto, and the potential for war with Greenland. We also have a new song from New Order.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
It's the KinsellaCast, starring Warren Kinsella.
00:00:15.280
Hey, it's Warren. Welcome to the KinsellaCast. It was a great week this week.
00:00:19.780
Not the being in Toronto part. I'm not as enthusiastic about that anymore.
00:00:25.200
And not the massive snowstorm part, because Olivia Chow and her regime believe in leaving the snow all over the place
00:00:33.500
so that senior citizens and everyone really can't get around. Not any of that.
00:00:38.420
No, this week, my daughter is back from Halifax, and so we're having a late holiday celebration.
00:00:46.180
And she and I went by Random House, and I got a copy of my new book.
00:00:54.620
Kind of an early copy. It's got a couple typos still in it, and it's not perfect,
00:01:01.140
but it's the one that gets sent out to reviewers and things like that.
00:01:04.820
So I'll be carrying around my dog-eared copy of that for the next while,
00:01:09.160
looking for things I missed, looking for things I need to update.
00:01:12.360
But the e-book is out in just a few days, next month, in February.
00:01:19.260
And then the hardcover version of The Hidden Hem will be out shortly after that.
00:01:25.880
And same with our documentary, the campaign that will be out in 2026, in the first part of 2026.
00:01:34.500
And we're just finalizing all that. So lots of exciting things going on.
00:01:37.940
Exciting show this week. I've got Brian Lilley, for sure.
00:01:43.940
And I've got Carl Belanger, our friend Carl Belanger from CFRA.
00:01:48.980
He's around. I really wanted to talk to him about Legault leaving and Quebec politics.
00:01:54.660
So I'm trying to track him down. So hopefully we'll have him on too.
00:01:58.140
And then we've got Personal Trainer, one of my favorite pop bands from the past couple years.
00:02:04.000
With their tune, Rugbuster. I've got Dune Rats from Down Under.
00:02:08.920
Their song, Sharks. They're one of those bands.
00:02:12.140
You know, you'll have a band called Satan's Killers.
00:02:17.500
And then they come out and they play acoustic ballads.
00:02:21.380
And this tune is a little bit like that, called Sharks.
00:02:23.640
And then Brian Lilley made reference to New Order in his talk.
00:02:41.100
The New World Order, as I do in my column in the paper this week.
00:02:44.380
And so I decided to play Ceremony, which is really the first single that New Order released.
00:02:53.840
You know, because the military don't start wars.
00:02:58.660
Old men with power start a war and then send young men with no power to fight it.
00:03:08.900
So Donald Trump, the oldest ever president of the United States.
00:03:18.020
Does he really plan to wage war on Greenland, an ally of America and Canada and the West?
00:03:29.380
We're going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.
00:03:34.700
But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way.
00:03:38.580
One way or another, we're going to have Greenland.
00:03:41.340
If we don't take over Russia or China, we'll take over Greenland.
00:03:47.100
And we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor, which is a first, given his romance with Vladimir Putin.
00:04:02.460
His Gollum national security advisor has said that they're discussing a range of options, including utilizing the U.S. military, quote unquote.
00:04:19.840
He said nobody's going to fight us over the future of Greenland.
00:04:25.120
A bunch of them issued a statement this week saying Greenland belongs to its people.
00:04:29.140
They've been hit with tariffs by Trump for doing so.
00:04:33.400
Denmark's Defense Committee said it means war and the Danes would fight back.
00:04:41.820
European leaders are openly talking about military confrontation, shutting down U.S. military bases, cutting up trade.
00:04:50.640
But more significantly, I think, is that Trump's manifest destiny madness is against the rules and against common sense.
00:05:05.920
But basically, it says the party's agreeance, Canada's one of them,
00:05:09.640
that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.
00:05:17.540
So meaning, as on September the 11th, 2001, when somebody is attacked,
00:05:23.700
all of the parties come together to take action forthwith, quote-unquote,
00:05:27.640
individually and in concert against the aggressor.
00:05:31.720
So armed force, it talks about Article 5, talks about armed force.
00:05:35.120
So there will be a conflict between NATO states, which obviously means the end of NATO.
00:05:39.640
And both are inevitable if Trump makes good on his threats and Miller makes good on their threats
00:05:48.440
And Denmark has been a more reliable U.S. ally than Canada.
00:05:53.680
Like, they sent troops to fight alongside America in every recent conflict, including in Iraq.
00:06:01.860
So the NATO Treaty creates the most successful military alliance in history.
00:06:06.140
And Trump using military force to seize Greenland would end NATO, and likely, I think, lead to World War.
00:06:18.700
You can be forgiven not knowing anything about this.
00:06:22.860
Under that agreement from 1951, the United States already possesses unprecedented military access to Greenland.
00:06:32.200
The agreement gives the U.S. power to construct, this is a quote,
00:06:35.520
construct, install, maintain, and operate military-based in Greenland to house personnel
00:06:39.740
and to, quote, control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements,
00:06:44.780
and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft, end quote.
00:06:51.800
Like, the Americans already have a military base in Greenland.
00:06:55.240
They've allowed it to degrade and deplete, but attracts missiles aimed at North America.
00:07:01.180
And the Americans don't have many troops there, maybe as many as 650.
00:07:06.720
But they have the power under that agreement to add many more.
00:07:10.180
So, bottom line, Trump's stated plan is completely unlawful and totally unnecessary.
00:07:16.200
It will lead to a war that is a war, freudging slip.
00:07:19.720
It will lead to a world that is unsafe and unstable.
00:07:40.180
If you're a serious dance instructor, if you've recently moved to Berlin,
00:07:56.940
if your book is called nicely and you're into Sun, oh,
00:08:01.120
if you're here with your dad, if you voted for the lesser of two evils,
00:08:06.060
if it's your birthday, if you feel comfortable with our t-shirt on,
00:08:15.260
but you look great in your bikinis, if you went for the bank,
00:08:20.540
so your sister said you shouldn't have, and now you're on an Oscar,
00:08:24.300
got promoted, and you're sleeping with her girlfriend.
00:08:54.080
Now the label will bless you with the credibility,
00:08:57.100
even now you can't afford to live in this part of town.
00:09:08.300
If you say you tried like you never died before,
00:09:11.980
you say you never want to die like you don't care anymore.
00:11:52.020
I'm going to see if I can get him on the podcast
00:12:27.120
With the announced departure of Premier Legault
00:26:03.580
And we're back, and we're back with our friend Kareem Asad.
00:26:19.680
Are you heading somewhere nice, somewhere warm?
00:26:36.060
So you're on a mission, or are you just there for a holiday,
00:26:43.380
Yeah, I am part of a media delegation with the Exigent Foundation.
00:26:49.320
So kind of checking out the sights and sounds of what there is to see.
00:26:57.840
I'm spending a couple of days in Tel Aviv, and then heading to Golan, and then Jerusalem.
00:27:04.280
And I am appreciating all of the new data points.
00:27:13.320
The kibbutzim, I mean, some of them have been repaired.
00:27:17.260
But some of the destruction and the terrible things is here has quite an impact emotionally, doesn't it?
00:27:26.780
And, you know, what struck me was our guide who described his life, you know, many years, many decades of war, real war.
00:27:39.100
And his experiences and kind of his takeaway was that it will not be peace for my kids or even my grandkids,
00:27:52.680
And, you know, the pragmatism with which he approached the entirety of the issue
00:28:00.500
and appreciating that, you know, they hate us for this, we hate them for that.
00:28:15.280
And it's useful for, I find, not just those of us who do journalism,
00:28:21.800
but also just human beings to see the circumstances of other human beings.
00:28:28.820
Um, so we're eager to hear more about your, you know, what you're seeing in Israel.
00:28:34.880
Obviously, you're going to be doing journalism on it and broadcasting and writing about it.
00:28:40.380
Just tell us one thing before we start talking about how fucked up the world is,
00:28:45.300
um, is what's one thing you've seen that surprised you?
00:28:49.080
One thing that you didn't necessarily know before?
00:28:55.640
Um, I guess, I don't know that this answers your question,
00:28:59.820
but something that was, uh, personally significant to me,
00:29:06.020
we wandered into Jaffa, which is where my father comes from.
00:29:13.160
Uh, and, you know, we passed what's now a five-star hotel,
00:29:19.100
Um, we saw in the, in the dark, um, so sea is maybe a little bit inaccurate,
00:29:33.940
you can be somewhere for the first time, uh, and it feels familiar.
00:29:39.000
Um, you know, uh, I'm not really a blood and soil type person,
00:29:42.780
but there is something to feeling at home somewhere for the first time.
00:29:51.640
I mean, the thing that, uh, I certainly talk about in my book,
00:29:55.620
I got the, um, first printing, uh, of it, uh, this week.
00:29:59.920
I swung by random house and they handed me that.
00:30:07.360
And, uh, one thing I talk about in the book is that, uh,
00:30:11.320
you're always scrupulously fair, but also a documentary filmmaker.
00:30:16.240
Cause I think you are, and somebody with Palestinian heritage.
00:30:19.300
So, um, we're most interested in hearing, you know, how this trip goes this week
00:30:30.700
So one thing you and I were talking about before, um, we started, uh,
00:30:34.480
pressing record is how messed up the world seems to be these days.
00:30:39.120
And one thing that you've documented in your filmmaking and your writing is how
00:30:45.580
ideologies and, and sides, you know, the tribes have been scrambled.
00:30:50.660
You've got all the people who were preoccupied or claimed to be preoccupied
00:30:54.560
about Gaza and, and understandably so in many ways.
00:30:58.120
Then switching their allegiances instantly, like within that, within minutes,
00:31:05.200
And it's, it's, you know, like the cliche, it's kind of hard to follow without a
00:31:11.360
And I was wondering if you've experienced the same thing.
00:31:13.300
Do you think that kind of ideologies and all that's breaking down and there's
00:31:18.420
So I think part of it is this tendency to take shortcuts and kind of, if this, then
00:31:30.320
that, even where that logic doesn't necessarily flow.
00:31:35.900
Uh, and from the perspective of people who express concern about both Gaza and Venezuela, from
00:31:44.160
their perspective, I don't think that it's necessarily incoherent.
00:31:48.600
Um, they would say, you know, the struggles are related.
00:31:51.280
This is all anti-imperial and, you know, to take it even a step further, they might then
00:32:01.920
And, you know, it, it, so it, it, it really, it, it, it, it's, it's almost trite at this
00:32:09.400
point to say we're, we're, we're living in a post-truth society.
00:32:12.940
Um, but the fact is that we're all operating from different sets of facts that are only, you
00:32:22.980
know, to varying degrees based in objective reality.
00:32:27.220
And, and, and so the outcome of that is things that do look inconsistent and totally incoherent
00:32:37.880
And, you know, it, again, from the perspective of those individuals, it makes sense.
00:32:43.140
Um, and in a way it also makes sense if you sort of take a few steps back and think about,
00:32:53.440
And, and, uh, you know, how, how does this line up?
00:32:57.940
And, and there are ways to make it make sense, um, but just not necessarily on its face.
00:33:04.340
And one of the things related to that, um, and it's surprising, it seems inconsistent, it's
00:33:09.980
incongruous that, um, you've got this mixed bag where allegiances are shifting around and
00:33:16.940
ideology is confused, but the intensity has grown where, you know, I was watching, you
00:33:23.420
can't, because you're busy where you are, but the, you know, the show, the pit, which
00:33:29.000
And at one point the main character is just talking about kind of what you and I are talking
00:33:34.660
And he just, he said, you know, people are just so angry.
00:33:38.600
There's so much angrier than they've ever been before on whatever issue.
00:33:43.460
And you've certainly seen that in the work that you do, haven't you?
00:33:47.120
Um, yeah, um, you know, there is a cathartic element to protest and I think that's what
00:33:55.520
draws people out a lot and that catharsis, you know, isn't, it's not necessarily purging
00:34:03.380
the feelings that are linked directly to whatever cause.
00:34:07.640
Um, it, it, you know, it, they're often in the individual lives of protesters are difficulties
00:34:24.840
Um, and you know, it doesn't have to be negative.
00:34:29.540
It just so happens that a lot of what I see is negative.
00:34:32.160
Um, and yeah, there's, there's things below the surface.
00:34:39.060
Um, and so then the actual chance or flags are, are secondary.
00:34:45.240
And that's not to say that everyone involved, um, you know, is, uh, say indifferent to human
00:34:57.940
And they just, um, anyway, uh, anger just seems to be the.
00:35:04.680
Anyway, I don't want to impose too much as you're on the bus with my friend, Larry.
00:35:12.460
Well, you can say hi to Jeff for me as well, but, uh, have a wonderful time.
00:35:16.720
I look forward to the journalism that you're going to do, uh, coming out of the time you
00:35:23.920
I guess you're on your way to dinner or you're just leaving dinner.
00:35:41.480
There's a few people you've blocked on the bus.
00:38:48.020
And everything looks like a landing strip these days
00:39:30.080
And I can't seem to throw myself but only for a minute
00:42:03.760
I just doubted that it was going to invade Greenland