00:07:42.880So let's just rewind and step back for a second.
00:07:48.020The Iran war was a military success, and now the two sides are trying to negotiate some kind of a ceasefire, long-term peace agreement.
00:07:57.360This is proving difficult to do, and partly because the two sides haven't really arrived at a stalemate.
00:08:04.280Normally, when you have diplomatic talks to end a war, it's because both sides have become tired of fighting.
00:08:11.240And it's not clear that that's the case.
00:08:13.340The Iranian regime believes that it can still fight, that it can still attack shipping in the Persian Gulf, that it can still threaten Israel, it can threaten some of the Sunni Arab Gulf states.
00:08:24.920And certainly on the American side, there is an ability to fight, although there are mounting costs.
00:08:32.120And it is rumored that the United States is running out of missile interceptors, both for itself and to provide to Israel and other allies as Iranian missiles rain down.
00:08:41.720although the number of those missiles that would be incoming might be smaller or fewer.
00:08:47.180But the real problem is that both sides seem to be offering contradictory statements about what is actually being agreed to.
00:08:54.760For example, the United States says that Iran has agreed to allow international inspectors into nuclear sites.
00:08:59.820Iran says flatly that they have not done so.
00:09:02.720And the United States says that a ceasefire in Lebanon has been agreed that will allow the Hezbollah terror group to disappear.
00:09:11.220Iran says, no, Hezbollah is staying where it is. So there doesn't seem to be an agreement on the
00:09:15.620basic terms of what this deal is going to look like. But let me just say this. The primary issues
00:09:23.860driving American incentives right now don't even appear to be Iranian or foreign. The primary issue
00:09:29.940facing the United States is the upcoming midterm elections. And Iran can impose incredible hardship0.98
00:09:36.840on its own people because it is a dictatorship. This is long-term a disadvantage in a conflict
00:09:42.360because it means that your society isn't adaptable, can't grow economically as quickly.
00:09:47.020The Iranian oil economy was even on the verge of collapse, so Iran was not able to generate
00:09:51.280foreign currency. But in the short term, it's very useful because you can impose extreme hardships
00:09:55.680on your population as you fight a war. The United States is a democracy, and again, while that has
00:10:00.760some of the long-term advantages of economic growth and it allows an outlet for political
00:10:05.740dissent, even anti-war dissent, it's not really that helpful in the short term because there is
00:10:11.380a cantankerous minority that is opposed to going to war at all. And Trump faces midterm elections
00:10:18.140in November where he could lose control of one or perhaps even both houses of Congress. They could
00:10:23.500both be controlled by Democrats, which would be a disaster for his leadership on foreign policy.
00:10:29.100It would also be a disaster on domestic policy. He'd have to spend a lot of his time answering
00:10:33.400congressional investigations and fighting off impeachment rather than pursuing America's
00:10:38.520foreign policy interests. The other issue is the gas price. And the price of fuel in the United
00:10:43.420States went up significantly during the war. It has now come down since the president announced
00:10:48.480the talks. And he knows that his chances of staying in complete control of the government
00:10:53.680are much better if the gas price is lower, because that means inflation will be lower as well. People
00:10:58.460will have more positive things to say about the economy. And so he's trying to keep this under
00:11:03.380wraps, at least through the midterm elections, which leads some people to speculate that maybe
00:11:06.800this is just a temporary truce. Maybe he's just buying time to go back to war later. We don't
00:11:11.220know. But the president is facing these internal constraints. And the other constraint he's facing
00:11:17.320is that Americans are not particularly interested in casualties. And there would almost certainly0.99
00:11:23.380be casualties in any kind of ground operation, whether it was an invasion of Iran, which seems
00:11:27.520probably not to be necessary or more likely an invasion of some of the islands in the Persian
00:11:32.880Gulf, which might be necessary to secure control of the Strait of Hormuz and to stop Iranian attacks
00:11:38.440on shipping. So you have a situation where the public doesn't want any casualties, doesn't want
00:11:43.000to pay high gas prices and has a political alternative in case things go badly. And
00:11:46.660suddenly you have the makings of very strong incentives for the president to at least pause
00:11:51.480the conflict, which he has done. Doesn't preclude him from taking it up at a later stage. But the
00:11:55.720question is, in the interim, when Iran is allowed to make money by selling its oil and Iran is
00:12:00.780allowed to perhaps build up its forces again, does Iran become a formidable military challenge
00:12:06.740in the meantime? The Trump administration is gambling that it won't, that it has destroyed
00:12:11.800enough of the military infrastructure and the nuclear infrastructure so that Iran is set back
00:12:16.160by several years, maybe a decade or two, in terms of its ability to threaten the United States,0.84
00:12:21.140Israel the Arab states and the West but the Iranians seem to think that they have won or at
00:12:26.760least that's what they're saying and maybe if you're an American negotiator you don't mind if
00:12:30.180they declare victory on the other side as long as you actually have everything you want but it's not0.75
00:12:33.880clear we are getting what Trump went to war to obtain which is to stop any possibility that Iran
00:12:39.940would proliferate nuclear weapons and to prevent Iran from exporting terror from firing ballistic
00:12:44.720missiles and so forth it's not clear that any of that is actually coming out through the deal
00:12:47.660So we're still waiting to see what the final results are. But there's a lot of nervousness that this interim arrangement that Trump has seems to reach with the Iranians is much better for Iran than it is for the United States. And that's, again, because we face domestic constraints that Iran doesn't have.
00:13:01.700Yeah. I know you've got to go right away. Thank you for joining us. Let me throw one last question to you. I remember when the war started, Trump had a very clear list of goals. And one of them was for the Iranian people to rise up and take over the country.0.99
00:13:15.040He was hoping for that. It really seemed to me that he was hoping that from air, they could wreak so much havoc on Iran that from the ground, the Iranian people would step forward in some great almost revolution.1.00
00:13:30.840Well, I presume that's not happening. Where are the Iranian activists? Are they simply unarmed and thus too easily slaughtered by the Ayatollahs? Is there a lack of communication because of the down Internet?
00:13:44.140Like, whatever happened to the Iranian people, maybe even the Shah's supporters stepping forward?
00:13:54.700Well, remember that revolutions, as Alexis de Tocqueville said, happen in times of rising expectations.
00:14:00.420And it's very rare that you see a people rise up against their own leaders during a war.
00:14:05.400Not that it doesn't happen, but it is rare.
00:14:07.540And that's partly because wartime imposes various restrictions.
00:14:10.700You mentioned the Internet blackout that makes it harder to organize.
00:14:14.000Wartime also means that if you rise up against the government, you're branded a traitor and not necessarily a revolutionary fighting for freedom.
00:14:20.040So it's much more difficult to organize that kind of thing during a war.
00:14:23.460And George Orwell observed of dictators that it's much better if they're removed by their own people rather than by a foreign power.
00:14:29.600Now, if you can't remove them internally, OK, you deal with the foreign power.
00:14:32.620I mean, it took the allies to get rid of Hitler in Germany.1.00
00:14:35.520But the preferable outcome is for Iranians to do this on their own.1.00
00:14:40.520So I would say wait a while to see what happens in Iran. It could be that once the economy starts moving again in Iran and people still are stuck with this regime and it tries to divert precious foreign currency toward terrorism and war rather than rebuilding the country, that's when you could see more of a revolutionary fervor in the streets of Iran.0.92
00:15:00.660I think the regime is essentially done politically.
00:15:03.460They could repress all of their opponents.
00:15:05.300They could do what Cuba has done and basically hang on for decades.0.87
00:15:08.500But I think this time actually will be different.0.78
00:15:10.900So I think you have to wait and see.0.55
00:15:12.900I do think eventually the Iranian people will rise up.
00:15:16.100Joel Pollack, the boss of the editorial side of the California Post.
00:20:31.160I'm saying no bailouts. That's the objective. Ending too big to fail.
00:20:34.220No bailout for the little guys. Like this mom, who says her disabled son just got declined for
00:20:40.540community living housing due to budget cuts. Just a reward for the developers and investors
00:20:47.580for their failure instead. A government response BC conservative housing critic MLA Linda Heppner
00:20:54.980says does not make sense. But clearly they were constructed during a time of
00:21:01.240really high value in the marketplace. And the market has simply shifted. And they are not
00:21:10.800going to get the same amount of money as they would have several years ago with cost. But if
00:21:16.200you look at where we are right now, and the government saying that we're going to bail out
00:21:20.840the developers, why do they not simply help those that are looking to purchase and say,
00:21:28.880we will not charge GST on any home purchase. Now you're talking market stimulation as opposed to
00:21:38.000market stagnation, which is where we are right now. I think it's an interesting phrase,
00:21:43.460innovative funding. What on earth does that mean? I certainly do not know. I can tell you they have
00:21:50.760an innovative budget at $13.3 billion in the hole. So I'm not sure they are the best
00:21:58.600advocates or judges of innovation. But let me tell you this, if you're going to do something
00:22:06.220innovative, do something that actually helps everyday people in British Columbia get ahead.
00:22:13.840The policies and the red tape that has been put in place over the last decade has increased, and these are not my guesses, this is the industry saying, has increased the cost of a house by about 35 to 45 percent.
00:22:33.440Do something innovative there. Get rid of some of those policies. Make it easier for the ordinary British Columbian, who has not yet left, to get into the market.
00:22:46.320And need I remind you that this colossal letdown of an agreement that Carney and Eby have shaken hands on conveniently took place now when Parliament and the B.C. Legislature have recessed for the summer.
00:22:59.540Of course it did. These days, it seems like Mark Carney is racing to prove to the country that
00:23:05.260he's no friend to democracy. For example, when British Columbians were shocked to learn that
00:23:10.980their property rights may be at risk thanks to the landmark Cowichan vs. Canada decision that
00:23:16.520granted Aboriginal title on some private properties in Richmond, what did Mark Carney do?
00:23:22.920Forget the courts. Carney just agreed to grant Aboriginal title for Greater Vancouver to
00:23:28.040the Musqueam ban that only governs 1,500 people. And now we see he just rammed through a series
00:23:36.040of some of the most controversial bills the country has ever seen, just before summer,
00:23:42.220which limited debate, all with the help, of course, of the so-called conservative floor0.91
00:23:47.660crosser MPs who helped him steal his majority government. It's no wonder he was recently caught0.99
00:23:54.000admitting to Croatia's prime minister, that MPs are certainly useful for votes.
00:24:08.080But there's one MP who I think is worth way more than just votes to Mark Carney, and that's
00:24:14.240Liberal MP Gregor Robertson. You see, when Robertson was Vancouver's mayor, the housing
00:24:20.880crisis skyrocketed under his watch, making him quite possibly one of the worst contenders it
00:24:26.780would seem for Carney to have appointed as his housing minister. Unless you were considering
00:24:33.700potential donations. You see, Robertson appears to have friends in condo sky-high places,
00:24:39.920including Vancouver's very own condo king, Bob Rennie, who is considered the face of Vancouver's
00:24:45.220condo boom, and more recently, a pioneer of 15-minute cities. But what really stands out
00:24:52.700about this developer is his political pull. Here he is just last year claiming he's working with
00:24:59.000Mark Carney on a rental plan that will attract, you guessed it, more foreign buyers.
00:25:05.060But I'm working with Carney, surprise, and I'm trying to get a rental program in where people
00:25:14.760can buy, put it into a 25-year pool, get a preferred rate from CMHC, and let's allow foreign
00:25:22.080buyers to buy it. They have to rent it out for 25 years, and it'll show the world that we are open
00:25:29.160for business. But maybe $25,000 fundraising plates have really nothing to do with Carney
00:25:35.820and Robertson's commitment to bailing out these developers under the claim of making things more
00:25:41.720affordable. Maybe it really is just about being loyal and trying to help the everyday people.
00:25:50.060And if so, this is how Robertson says they'll do it. Well, let me start with the broader toolkit
00:25:56.020here because that's one tool that we can use to get more affordable housing available. But Build
00:26:01.940Canada Homes, as I mentioned, is our main approach with getting affordable housing built. We've got
00:26:06.780$13 billion invested there, including some in a rental protection fund that will be buying back
00:26:14.560apartments to protect that long-term affordable rental housing. We've also got the Build Community
00:26:20.820Strong Fund, which is investing in infrastructure to enable more housing and affordable housing to
00:26:26.140be built. Wait, did he just say invested? Let's play that back. $13 billion invested there,
00:26:34.580including some in a rental protection fund that will be buying back apartments to protect that
00:26:42.100long-term affordable rental housing. We've also got the Build Community Strong Fund,
00:26:46.880which is investing in infrastructure to enable more housing. He did, twice. That's the government
00:26:52.180admitting to using your tax dollars as an investment. For whom? But there is something
00:26:58.660I definitely do agree with with what Robertson said. In a time like this where we have record
00:27:05.400levels of homelessness, we have people that can't access affordable rental apartments,
00:27:10.700and we have empty homes in Vancouver, in Toronto, we need to take action on this and make the most
00:27:18.420responsible decisions with it. I agree. It is time to take action. It is time for this government to
00:27:25.520finally start making responsible decisions, which means it is time for you and I to tell them how to
00:27:33.060make that happen. So please go to StopTheCondoBailout.com and sign and share our petition.
00:27:42.880Prime Minister Mark Carney must think we are fools and we're not. We see exactly what's
00:27:48.820happening and this plan needs to end before it kicks off. Go to StopTheCondoBailout.com
00:27:56.440and sign and share our petition today.