It's a holy week in Canada, and there's a lot to talk about, including the election of a new Prime Minister, the ban on Jews attending mass in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the dumbest thing the Catholic Church has ever done.
00:02:37.300I was getting called all kinds of names that I was anti-Semitic, so I blocked them.
00:02:43.180it's because of what happened today in jerusalem at the church of the holy sepulcher it's a place
00:02:51.700where i've actually placed my parents ashes it is the holiest place in christianity
00:02:58.780really it's a little church nothing fancy at the center of jerusalem and
00:03:07.420And this morning, the Latin patriarch in Jerusalem, so the leader of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem, and one other guy were prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by Israeli police, apparently for their own safety.
00:03:29.160So goes the claim. This is the first time this has happened in centuries on a day that celebrates and remembers Christ's return to Jerusalem. So it's a rich irony there. There was just two of them. The Israelis have properly set a limit. Gatherings can't be more than 50 people. This was two.
00:03:53.540and like you know some of my jewish friends don't understand a day like today for catholics
00:04:00.440is not uh voluntary it's not like for the priest in particular it's mandatory
00:04:07.640that you have the mass and you know this you see this at wartime
00:04:13.660priests getting into trenches in vietnam or world war ii or you know bombs going off and
00:04:21.340stained glass shattering windows and the priest keeps going i remember that from when i was a kid
00:04:27.020in dallas and at church with my mom my brothers and a hurricane hit suddenly and these huge
00:04:35.320hailstones were smashing these beautiful stained glass windows and all the glass was falling down
00:04:41.940into the church and and of course my mom gathered us up to get us out of there but i'll never forget
00:04:48.120the priest standing there and continuing to do the sacraments so today is not optional
00:04:58.920today is mandatory those two priests had to be there for centuries they have gone to that place
00:05:05.720to perform mass on this day during wartime this is this is not new this has happened before
00:05:13.560and they were stopped and and when i was critical of this the stupidity of this
00:05:19.620i was attacked for being an anti-semite me that was that was something else and
00:05:27.740and of course all these idiots who called me that i encouraged them to check out what the
00:05:34.300government of israel is saying which is an apology saying it was wrong and it shouldn't happen so if
00:05:39.860you're defending what took place, I don't care if you're Jewish or not, you're an idiot. Because it
00:05:45.420was a big mistake. It was a grave error, as the Catholic Church has now said. Huckabee, the
00:05:52.160ambassador, the American ambassador to Israel, the biggest fan of Israel, I think there's ever been,
00:05:58.460called it a grave overreach. So if you're defending it, you're at a step with your government,
00:06:04.200You're at a step with common sense. Anyway, this week, there have been other religious-type victories, one I'm so happy about. I've been proud to be an advisor on government relations and public relations to the Jewish National Fund.
00:06:25.140um they've been around for more than a century they help people with health care they plant
00:06:31.680trees in Israel they build parks they're good people and a couple years ago CRA without notice
00:06:39.380revoked their charity status in the middle of court proceedings and then has refused to talk
00:06:45.760to their representatives since then and as we've discovered hidden crucial documents from the JNF
00:06:54.560Anyway, this week, the Federal Court of Appeal said, sorry, CRA, you're in trouble.
00:07:00.440They said to, and this is a surprise to me, to Minister Jean-Philippe Champagne, has not complied with earlier court orders.
00:07:09.340And Justice David Stratus said that Champagne and his officials needed to turn over these documents.
00:07:15.360And if they don't, quote, and are later found to have participated in a cover-up, life-changing consequences, civil and criminal will follow, end quote.
00:07:23.800that's strong language from a judge another victory again for the jewish community
00:07:31.060i was so happy to see in november 2025 toronto city hall raised the palestinian flag
00:07:39.920which was a problem for a lot of us because of course palestine is a territory governed by a
00:07:46.780designated terror group. And in May of 2024, the year before, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow
00:07:53.020refused to attend the raising of Israel's flag, calling it divisive. And taken together,
00:08:00.400those two events strongly suggested to Toronto's 200,000 Jews that they're not welcome in their
00:08:05.640own city. Anyway, this week, positive change. Majority of Toronto's city councillors voted
00:08:10.340to change their flag-raising policy. Now just the flags of Canada, Ontario, and Toronto will fly.
00:08:16.780at City Hall, along with a few that don't belong to countries. So no more Hamas-adjacent flag
00:08:24.420waving. The third and final thing that I thought was wonderful, McGill. My dad went to McGill. He
00:08:29.160was so proud of it. He taught there. My son, one of my sons, went to McGill and was proud to go
00:08:35.800there. They're considered, you know, Canada's oldest and most venerable university, but they've
00:08:42.700unfortunately been the epicenter of post-secondary Jew hatred for a few years now, probably more than
00:08:49.660any other university. And for months, McGill permitted an anti-Semitic encampment to grow on
00:08:56.580its property and seemed completely indifferent to the growth of anti-Semitism encampments.
00:09:02.380Anyway, this week there was some hope. The idiots in McGill's Law Student Association voted to
00:09:08.480boycott Israeli academics. Not arms, not arms sales, but human beings. So the university's
00:09:16.420president swiftly responded. President, deep signing, called the effects of the law students
00:09:21.540referendum discriminatory and, quote, anti-Semitic, end quote, and said that if the students didn't
00:09:27.900reverse course, McGill would sever all ties to the Law Students Association. It would stop them
00:09:35.040for distributing their literature on campus and it would kick them off campus so that's leadership
00:09:40.800anyway lots of religion this week to talk about some politics too but it is a holy time of year
00:09:49.760i hope it is a thoughtful and peaceful and rewarding time for all of you
00:09:54.320and your families and welcome to the kinsella cast
00:14:15.520So I saw what they said, and like you say,
00:14:21.960this is something that doesn't happen very often.
00:14:25.260What is it about Avi Lewis and his past that gives them pause?
00:14:30.460Well, the game is about oil and gas and natural resources.
00:14:37.940It is seen by Alberta New Democrats and by Saskatchewan New Democrats and others across the country as necessary to use, to exploit, to build the economy.
00:14:51.500And Avi Lewis has a very strong position against further exploitation and further development of that industry.
00:14:58.680So they're completely at odds over that.
00:15:02.280In fact, words like radical or extremist are being thrown around about Avi Lewis, and that's coming from inside the party.
00:15:12.080So you can just imagine how liberals and conservatives will start framing Avi Lewis as that, as radical, as extremist.
00:15:20.680Now, it doesn't mean that they're going to win that framing war, but certainly, you know, it's getting the help from some provincial leaders today.
00:15:30.120And there's a big difference between being radical and extremist
00:17:49.100But at the same time, by going hard left or being seen as going hard left, well, you are allowing the Liberals to perhaps keep some of that left flank intact and not exploit that because you're seen as too much on the margin.
00:18:05.260You have advised, as I said at the top, the most successful NDP leader in its history, and you're regarded as one of the smartest political strategists in the country.
00:18:18.780What, if I can put your feet to the fire, three things,
00:18:21.600what are three things that you would recommend that Avi Lewis
00:18:26.280and the team around him need to do in the next few weeks
00:18:31.060in order to be more successful and get the NDP back to party status
00:18:37.640in the House of Commons and to get Canadians on side?
00:24:15.980So just to quickly summarize, Alex Zoltan has been posting these clips from the convention, and one that is going viral is a brown she-they who has a point to make about Iran, and they deliver it very impassionately,
00:24:40.640But then inadvertently call the chair, Madam Chair, which was an act of misgendering. And so the response to sort of derailed everything that person was saying about Iran and just made it about their own identity.
00:25:00.440and you know real oppressed people real minorities do not have the luxury
00:25:07.760feeling offended at every slight and and this just to me it really illustrated the performative
00:25:15.020nature of victimhood and how that appears to be sort of what these individuals are congregating
00:25:23.340around and you can't function let alone govern uh if that is if you are that weak
00:25:30.940do you think then well let's segue then into the the broader implications of that you know they
00:25:37.820talk about forming government the ccf and then the ndp and the new democratic party as i like to joke
00:25:45.540is neither new nor democratic but um you know they they have not formed a government nationally
00:25:50.840they have provincially does not this point you're making about this uh victimhood this kind of uh
00:26:01.000fetishing fetishization of victimhood is that one of the things that prevents them from forming
00:26:06.920government well as much as they obviously have informed government um but they did hold the
00:26:14.040balance of power um right so you know it it's we can point and laugh um but actually i yes that's
00:26:24.440not the present case um but if they collapse and then you know we're really left with the two
00:26:32.080parties um which you know two parties um but yeah it it's almost become part of of like what i see
00:26:43.760Canadian culture, this victimhood sense, and, you know, it's not productive, it's not productive,
00:26:53.920and it's just a really embarrassing point.
00:26:57.320You are a person of colour, you're a person of colour, you belong to, or belong to, maybe
00:27:02.820it's not true anymore, a minority in the broader Canadian context.
00:27:07.080I pick a lot of these equity boxes right so I speak from that position in a personal sense
00:27:15.900but also just as someone observing you know what does it take to actually progress it's not to
00:27:22.920dwell and you know there seems to be a lot of dwelling and just irrelevant talk in a room of
00:27:33.460of people who purport to care about material issues and, you know, really concrete things.
00:27:41.560So I just, I, yes, have been watching this in astonishment, but it also, yeah, it reflects
00:27:48.980my understanding of how even people, some groups I engage with in the protest circuit,
00:30:51.040So it's sort of like an Arab nationalist phrase that the English version is Palestine will be free.
00:31:01.440Is it inclusive? Well, no, because it's a nationalist sort of chant.
00:31:06.380But there are protesters who have been, and who, if they are using that chant, they're likely saying it in Arabic, right? Well, they are saying it in Arabic. So they're aware of what they're saying. Does that include everyone else? No, by definition.
00:31:21.600I mean, the reason why I ask this is in my book, in which you are featured, and the documentary we've done in which you are featured, we talk about the Hamas Charter.
00:38:04.700Well, I was in Ottawa this morning when the news broke that Lewis had won.
00:38:09.260And I was looking over at Parliament Hill and I thought, well, he's never going to sit in the House of Commons.
00:38:14.660But now that I'm pondering on it, he could.
00:38:17.640And he could do well for the New Democrats.
00:38:19.420for the most part i've been saying and i've said to you several times you know audrey mclaughlin
00:38:25.100um type energy like the ndp won't go anywhere but now i'm thinking okay maybe listen to his speech
00:38:33.100a bit and he's very much a left-wing populist i know since the advent of trump a lot of people
00:38:39.900think populism is just trumpism or just on the right uh mark carney's using populism to
00:38:47.100keep his popularity up with the anti-americanism poking trump yeah he's going on a very populous
00:38:53.260bend there um lewis is doing that to a degree as well he he's going further on it but also his
00:39:01.100let's have a uh government-run uh cell phone company and a government-run internet company
00:39:07.340and a government-run grocery store and on and on like basically uh he hasn't quite said um
00:39:14.460um that they're going to take over the means of production but he's getting close well is that
00:39:20.520what people want though i mean the machinery of the machinery of capitalism is oiled with
00:39:24.840the blood of the workers i'm waiting for him to say something like that but those two things
00:39:29.560the anti-americanism and people being pissed off at the the three big cell companies and their
00:39:35.740internet bill that that could potentially work and the other thing i said to to carl because i
00:39:41.700i actually know avi lewis i used to be a regular on his cbc show of course he had a show on cbc
00:39:48.320and um he's a likable guy he was engaging he was smart he was funny self-deprecating i have not
00:39:57.280seen that guy during the leadership race um you know i've seen this kind of uh fidel castro wannabe
00:40:04.800like it just really surprised me do you think that it was you know remember the old nixon line
00:40:11.000you know to get the nomination you run as far as you can to the right and then once you get it you
00:40:15.340start running back to the center do you think that there was some of that going on with avi
00:40:19.340that he was just kind of making up you know no no it's for real no this is the guy that wrote
00:40:24.600the leap manifesto tell people about that it's a a document that tried to uh like the ndp is a
00:40:32.200socialist party it's right in the constitution that they are a socialist party of course but
00:40:36.760did there's varying degrees of that um and viewpoints of it and he really wanted to take
00:40:44.600the party to the far left he's been advocating for that for years there's a group within the
00:40:50.520ndb called the waffle and if you talk to carl about them you know they're a bit of a rump within
00:40:55.240the party well he's going to engage them and energize them and that's who he's talking to
00:41:00.120um so if the populism clicks it could work he doesn't speak french he's um run for office twice
00:41:11.720in the vancouver area and lost both times uh not even close i think he was third in both races
00:41:20.040uh just in third so he's got an uphill battle but if this the populism is the only part that
00:41:28.760that can click um you know his wife is also i think she co-authored the lead manifesto
00:41:36.760very much um on on the far left although recently being celebrated by democrats in the states
00:41:43.160who also want to embrace full socialism so it's he's we'll know in six months but right now we
00:41:52.660have three populist leaders um and mark carney isn't naturally a populist but he's playing to
00:41:58.840populist vibes to on the american stuff uh we have three populist leaders leaving the
00:42:05.660federal parties and i because i totally agree with you i think that um you know i saw what
00:42:12.320naheed nenshi said about uh the result and that was like stay away from me you know here's a barge
00:42:18.880poll just stay away from me mr lewis because lewis was attacking the alberta ndp during the
00:42:25.660leadership race but but you know um does not carney who you've made mention you know carney
00:42:35.120has moved the government of canada back to the center where it belongs where guys like me have
00:42:41.760always wanted the liberal party to be and that's made him very popular you know there's some polling
00:42:46.500now this week showing he's possibly the most popular prime minister in the history of polling
00:42:52.500so he's doing well but he's created a ton of space on the left hasn't he for a guy like lewis to take
00:42:58.660advantage of yeah i think it's more perception that he's in the center he's more centrist than
00:43:04.100trudeau but that's not hard he would trudeau was trying to do a a friendly takeover of the ndp
00:43:09.300um but carney's not as centrist as as he appears but there is that perception and so yeah there's
00:43:16.940there's room on the left if lewis can mine it but it's hard i mean look carney just stole
00:43:22.820laurie eidlow who embraced lewis days before she became a liberal mp yeah that was a big guy
00:43:28.300i was you know out with a bunch of politicos last night a bunch of them liberals and i was saying
00:43:34.480How big is the tent that you can have Michael Ma, you know, forget about the Chinese part and now questions about why he's pushing Beijing talking points, but big business, wealthy guy sitting in the caucus with, you know, actual centrist liberals, but left wing liberals and a new Democrat like Laurie Eidlard who said, yeah, David Lewis is the guy we need to be prime minister.
00:44:01.820how do they all sit together that's a you know a tent so big it has no walls
00:44:07.740the liberal party is is flexible in its principles but i mean how flexible like them
00:44:14.960hang on five minutes yeah they'll get some new ones but i mean is it not possible that
00:44:20.440lewis starts to navigate his party a little bit back to the center left and uh picks up some
00:44:27.340support that way i mean you look at bernie sanders in the united states the united states
00:44:31.120pretty conservative country and sanders has been a dominating political force for for years now
00:44:37.840aoc as well is is there a constituency for lewis's type of politics in canada too
00:44:44.960yeah there's a lot of people who don't know anything and think these are good ideas
00:44:49.360look there's a whole province that still has a government-run cell phone company
00:44:54.800uh and it's been run by alleged conservatives for since what 2007 uh saskatchewan has saskel
00:45:03.020and they're a major player will people say yeah this is a good idea let's go back to having crown
00:45:09.160corporations for everything um i you know sure i don't think you'll get up to 20 i don't think
00:45:16.740you'll pull a jack layton and that becomes a problem for the conservatives who have to figure
00:45:21.880out how they can win without a strong ndp well then that's the final question i wanted to ask
00:45:27.960you because this is the point you've made often why is it for those who don't get the math why
00:45:34.120is it that conservatives need the ndp to do better explain that to us uh splits the boat on the center
00:45:42.440and progressive side and allows the conservatives to win in seats that they would otherwise come in
00:45:48.200second now there are ways for them to win without a strong ndp but they'll have to change things uh
00:45:57.640the part of the demise of the ndp by the way in this last federal election was the conservatives
00:46:03.800uh under poly of stealing seats in timmons in hamilton in windsor he he copied doug ford you
00:46:12.920know as much as they've been feuding he obviously was looking over ford's shoulder and copying his
00:46:17.800homework because those are the types of areas that doug ford won with blue collar workers so
00:46:23.160pierre's got to expand on that or whoever the next leader is has to expand on that
00:46:27.160and uh find ways to if if the liberals are going to continue to be a tent so big without walls
00:46:34.840maybe they can poach some people from the center well interesting times ahead all three parties
00:46:42.440now have confirmed leaders that's a situation we haven't had in quite some time and so polyev has
00:46:50.160passed his leadership review with flying colors mark carney won an election and is on the cusp
00:46:57.000of a majority and now the ndp is overwhelmingly endorsed this former filmmaker avi lewis so i
00:47:04.120guess we'll see what happens my friend have a safe drive keep your hands on the wheel 10 o'clock
00:47:09.320and two o'clock position, and I'll see you tomorrow night. Sounds great. Talk later.
00:47:39.320Tray coming down the track and it almost gave me a heart attack.
00:47:44.360One and all the dress, a pair of bony legs.
00:47:47.540Is it real? Can it feel when you bash it dead?
00:47:50.500When someone talks a lot, inside the cannabis shop.
00:47:53.660Hey, give me all the money, baby, no one gets shot.
00:47:57.180Tray coming down the track and it almost gave me a heart attack.
00:48:03.080Tray, Tray coming down the track and it almost gave me a heart attack.