True Patriot Love - Why Canada Feels Broken Now ft. Tristin Hopper

00:00:00.000 look at you sitting there potentially being canadian well don't don't be don't be canada

00:00:10.000 whatever you do uh joining me today the author of a book by that very name don't be canada

00:00:16.000 tristan hopper joins me thanks so much for being here tristan thanks for having me

00:00:21.280 now this is uh first of all i love your headphones they are circa 1976 i believe

00:00:27.840 uh i don't know the exact year but yeah 60s 70s these things last forever uh i mean if you buy

00:00:34.200 new headphones they're probably gonna they're they're gonna go about maybe a year until yeah

00:00:39.260 some of the soldering gives out but these things are uh bulletproof so i've had like i used to have

00:00:44.800 another set i used them forever they're getting smashed around and then you just replace them

00:00:48.420 go to one state so i highly recommend vintage headphones also made in canada we used to make

00:00:54.180 on electronics that's why i think they were in my grade school actually that's where i remember that

00:00:59.540 uh that style from uh listen i i think this is really a fun approach to sort of a serious uh

00:01:08.020 discussion really that canadians are having if they're not they they're probably about to embark

00:01:14.580 upon it over the next couple of years but it's uh it's a book that is i guess i i saw it as a parody

00:01:22.340 But really, as you and I kind of set this up before the interview, it now feels to me like it kind of ends up being a cautionary tale.

00:01:29.960 Tell us a little bit about the book.

00:01:31.940 The book is about it's so it's eight chapters in eight ways in which Canada is uniquely dysfunctional.

00:01:38.340 So my day job is I'm a reporter for The National Post and it was just sort of my realization.

00:01:44.400 I guess the spur for the book was when I'm at The National Post, I often review what the international press is saying about Canada.

00:01:51.020 And I've worked at the Post since 2011.

00:01:53.220 And so when I started, it would be all these kind of fun things, or it was usually, you

00:01:57.440 know, Canada was doing something right.

00:01:59.000 So, you know, let's do, everybody should do this thing that Canada does.

00:02:01.740 They have the world's richest middle class, and they have more social mobility than they

00:02:06.400 do in the United States or whatever.

00:02:08.000 And then there's a definite shift, particularly starting in 2020, where suddenly the international

00:02:13.020 press is saying, whatever you do on assisted suicide, avoid whatever Canada is doing.

00:02:18.300 uh you know there's this shop teacher with the humongous oversized mcgumbos uh that is showing

00:02:25.340 up and there's nothing in canadian law to stop it um so it that was the spur uh but it was it was me

00:02:32.360 sort of understanding uh that for most of my adult life if canada was doing something that seemed a

00:02:38.700 little iffy um there was usually some hippie corner of europe that had done first uh so you

00:02:44.580 we could say okay well we sound crazy this sounds crazy but you know the netherlands did any crazier

00:02:49.060 version yeah and it was me realizing that on a lot of these issues uh so you know be it assisted

00:02:55.620 suicide you know gender politics uh housing affordability uh we were rapidly becoming uh the

00:03:01.460 world's most dysfunctional and the world's worst doing things that no one else was doing i mean

00:03:07.540 one example being on drug policy so harm reduction is not our idea it comes from the uk but nobody

00:03:14.260 has gone as far on harm reduction as we have so just well i think every mid-level canadian city

00:03:19.780 has a safe injection site i mean that's unlike anywhere else in the world i think that's a really

00:03:25.860 good example and it actually came up in our house uh over the weekend uh as i had to explain to my

00:03:31.000 wife who is from uh mexico and did not see the progression of how we got here explaining to her

00:03:37.680 that yes there's a place where you can go and uh inject uh drugs and the drug dealers just down

00:03:44.140 the street and there's people there to help you she said it's just it's unfathomable that we would

00:03:50.460 have even gotten to that point meanwhile like you point out yeah maybe in some hippie corner of

00:03:56.080 europe they tried it what we don't find out is yeah they gave up on it six months in and they've

00:04:00.800 gone a different way we make the mistake and we stick it out yeah it's also it was able to get

00:04:07.960 entrenched uh more in canada um basically so my thesis i didn't have this thesis going into the

00:04:13.220 so i thought i'll just write these you know if it's uniquely bad in canada i'll write about it

00:04:17.700 so there's no chapter about like blowing up the debt because everybody's kind of doing that so

00:04:21.220 it only got a chapter if it's something in which canada is breaking the mold on how to do something

00:04:27.220 poorly and my thesis at the end of this and again i didn't have it going into it was uh canada was

00:04:33.460 just had no imagination for unintended consequences or things going wrong um so thus when you look at

00:04:40.580 these bad ideas be it you know very low barrier euthanasia etc and you look at when they were

00:04:46.260 implemented there's almost no skepticism at the time a lot of these issues were passed with

00:04:51.140 conservative and liberal support at the time you have almost no media coverage saying you know this

00:04:56.260 we should think about this and this could potentially go another way often less skepticism

00:05:01.700 than again you know the countries we usually compare ourselves to the nordic countries of the

00:05:06.500 the Netherlands, etc. So we brought in a lot of these ideas with no skepticism, no barriers,

00:05:14.680 often not even any press coverage. So there's bad ideas all over the place. I mean, every country,

00:05:22.520 every Western country has a version of these bad ideas. But in Canada, the door was wide open,

00:05:28.560 and we had zero defenses against them. So it's just, you know, it's like an infectious disease,

00:05:33.640 and you don't have any kind of vaccination and you're like oh right this way uh you know race

00:05:38.200 based uh criminal justice sentencing um you know set up here and you can run everything now

00:05:45.160 oh my god well it's a really that's an astute uh way to look at this a lot of what we do in

00:05:50.520 canada seems to be sugar-coated in empathy or uh a super civilized approach uh you know like you

00:05:58.280 say okay it was done in europe well they're there that's a very civilized approach they're doing

00:06:02.920 better things for society but we have to at least match or better that for some reason

00:06:08.680 canadians or our canadian uh the perception of people around the world is that canadians are

00:06:14.840 always super trying uh and we get viewed i think as socialist in this way because of that uh that

00:06:24.120 we have so much empathy in so many places that it's almost unmanageable uh yeah you know i mean

00:06:30.440 it's sort of weaponized niceness um i mean our niceness the the unwillingness to cause a fuss

00:06:38.520 or even suggest uh that something uh might be might be a bad idea so i mean you see it uh with

00:06:45.720 with uh like gender issues so you know the idea that which is now the norm across canada that

00:06:51.960 your gender is whatever you say it is at any particular time that was not the norm

00:06:56.040 uh in canada up until 10 years ago i mean we've had transgender laws on the books going all the

00:07:01.000 way back to the 1970s but it used to be there was a process and there was a waiting period and you

00:07:05.800 had to get a doctor's note and there had to be an actual transition process and once all that's done 0.99

00:07:09.640 then yes you can you can live as a member of the opposite sex and then the new regime we have now

00:07:15.240 is just everyone uh can can claim you know you show up and say i i feel like a woman now i've

00:07:21.640 i've changed i've still got a beard whatever i'm going to be a woman we're all sort of familiar

00:07:25.640 with that but when you look at as this was implemented at the local level at the federal

00:07:30.440 level you know a school board here a human rights uh commission there um basically no pushback

00:07:37.180 whatsoever i don't know if i'm answering your question here but um yeah no you're right it is

00:07:41.900 it is sort of consistent uh i mean i mean people are saying you know and i'm sure there was voices

00:07:48.020 at the time lawmakers saying i'm sorry what the legislation is you know anybody can just claim to

00:07:53.220 be a woman at any time and you know so they can go into a change room and they say they're a woman

00:07:59.900 even if it's just a guy in a bikini that sounds like it could be a problem but how dare you mr

00:08:06.520 hopper how dare you say that yeah and as i document in the book there was people you know who thought

00:08:11.980 uh this could be a problem but you know what i'm just gonna sit on my hands this is canada

00:08:18.500 maybe it won't actually work out you know you maybe that won't happen you know that that that

00:08:25.400 weird guy in you know with with the hairy chest in the uh you know the bikini loitering in the

00:08:30.560 women's change room maybe that person won't won't happen so you know we'll just pass this we won't

00:08:35.500 make a fuss and we'll just sort of move on with our lives so we did a whole bunch of those one

00:08:39.980 after the other and thank the rubber started hitting the road yes sorry man do you do you

00:08:46.000 think Canadians by and large buy into this I guess it's been described as wokeness that has put us

00:08:52.000 into so many of these positions and I mean I'm looking at your list the housing crisis health

00:08:55.980 care system harm reduction for sure criminal justice for sure identity politics absolutely

00:09:02.520 government regulation and censorship all of these really are based in what you're talking about and

00:09:09.840 what we're talking about which is okay well somebody decided to leave and go through but

00:09:15.160 do you think most canadians get behind this kind of thinking it's it's weird because uh i'll often

00:09:21.720 have very hopeless people get in touch with me and they'll say well you know you know have you

00:09:25.960 seen the latest poll it's like eleventy bajillion percent for the encumbered government that

00:09:30.280 implemented a lot of these policies and then yeah so it would seem to me that the the the populace

00:09:35.880 is fine and accepting of all these things and they just want to slit their wrists and get into a warm

00:09:40.120 bath and you know let the woke isn't you know take hold of them uh but i'll point out and on

00:09:46.240 these key issues and i live in victoria a particularly left-wing uh part of the country

00:09:52.640 um there's almost more pushback against some of these issues than you would find in a more

00:09:57.440 conservative area because they've gotten they're at the sharp end of the spear when it comes to

00:10:02.200 this so i mean i've had very lefty people approach me uh with who have very much hardened their

00:10:09.200 positions on issues such as drug addiction or criminal justice. So the idea, if you just take

00:10:15.680 a pretty basic question, are we punishing criminals appropriately? Are we taking dangerous people and

00:10:22.660 removing them from society before they find more victims? That's probably the single most popular

00:10:28.900 and unifying issue I can find, I can think of in Canada right now. I mean, you probably get 90%

00:10:34.940 in any poll say no we're not punishing them enough we need to take dangerous men and they

00:10:39.880 are mostly men and remove them from society uh you know permanently so something like a three

00:10:45.240 strikes law which sounds really radical and that was proposed by the conservatives in the last

00:10:49.560 federal election um i have heard um lifelong ndp voters you know raise that idea independently to

00:10:57.040 me because because they've been broken into too many times that it sort of changed their thinking

00:11:01.680 yeah so as soon as your community is infiltrated by any of this danger that really comes face to

00:11:06.200 face with your family yourself starts to change your opinion i think yeah so i'm giving talks

00:11:10.740 here in victoria and you look at the crowd and this is all uh you know old women in scarves

00:11:17.200 this is septum piercing some of them reek of weed so you think oh so i'll show up on the stage am i

00:11:23.440 just going to get ambushed is this some sort of you know antifa um you know honey trap for me and

00:11:28.740 And then I'll realize speaking to the people afterwards, they'll approach me and they'll say, hey, man, you know, I've been hard left my whole life.

00:11:37.260 I've been progressive my whole life. But something happened.

00:11:41.220 And I'll just hear this stream of just heartbreaking stories of someone, you know, close relative died because they couldn't have a treatable condition addressed in the health care system.

00:11:51.700 The waiting lists were too long. You know, loved one is a victim of criminal justice of a crime.

00:11:57.200 And then they saw the criminal justice system, you know, openly favor the offender over their friend. They've lost close loved ones to, you know, the trans cult, you know, a mentally ill loved one decides, well, I'm actually living this way. 0.66

00:12:12.520 And they say, well, you know, maybe there's some comorbidities here and you should consider that maybe, you know, the surgery isn't what you need. 0.99

00:12:18.940 There's something else. I have to cut you out now. I'm pursuing this new life.

00:12:22.480 So something has as as as bounced back on them in a particularly tragic way and caused them to face the reality of what Canada looks like.

00:12:32.900 And we've all sort of had a version of that in the last 10 years.

00:12:36.320 I think the sort of mainstream Canadian opinion in 2015, even if he didn't like Justin Trudeau, was, well, we still have our country.

00:12:44.740 You know, we aren't there's nothing we're doing unsustainably wrong.

00:12:48.380 We can tweak a few things here. And now I think there's a very heavy cohort of Canadians who are saying, oh, we are, you know, barreling off a cliff with some of these and some of these dramatic dramatic dramatic changes, changes the likes of which we have never considered before are needed.

00:13:06.320 It's so funny. You say Trudeau, and I take a look at the list of key areas that you cover, and they look like the menu at the Trudeau Spa. Do you think a lot of this was born during that era?

00:13:18.180 It was accelerated under Trudeau. So that was, I mean, again, when I'm presenting this book in a talk, someone will always raise their hand and say, I know what happened wrong to Canada. It was Justin Trudeau is what happened.

00:13:32.680 But surprising, all those eight chapters, none of these bad ideas were invented by Trudeau.

00:13:39.080 Every single one of them was already entrenched in some capacity in Canada before his election in 2015.

00:13:47.920 So it had been passed at a provincial level.

00:13:50.680 It had been passed in a Supreme Court decision that had already been brought in.

00:13:54.040 You know, sometimes it had been brought in with conservative support.

00:13:58.820 So a lot of these things were broken at the local level. 0.96

00:14:02.680 shit talk about guilty by association though because everybody i know would pin every one 0.84

00:14:09.140 of these on trudeau uh including myself so taking a well that's that's the thing that's why we're 0.99

00:14:14.420 seeing this uh you know you know this is why we're seeing this weird you know this this this strange

00:14:20.540 behavior in politics right now is everybody just decide well it's justin trudeau's fault so they're

00:14:25.120 they're seeing the 10 cities they're seeing the economic decline they're seeing all this stuff

00:14:28.760 I'm like, well, Trudeau's gone. It's fine now. And I, you know, I'm as an expert on what's wrong with Canada now. I'm saying, no, no, no, everything that broke, that's all there. Nothing has changed. You know, Justin Trudeau was not the woke puppet master. I mean, there's there's key areas in which he accelerated it. And if he wasn't there, they wouldn't be as bad as they are now.

00:14:50.560 But all of the damage he did, that's that's still in there.

00:14:54.120 And, you know, Carney has done some things, you know, potentially on the economy.

00:14:59.000 Certainly we're paying less money for for for gas, but he hasn't touched the woke stuff.

00:15:03.340 So all of the Trudeau woke stuff, that's all there and nothing.

00:15:07.560 It's not going anywhere.

00:15:08.960 It's so funny.

00:15:09.760 We were at the at the convention in Montreal over the weekend for the liberals to have a look at what is going on there and talk to some people and try and have an understanding.

00:15:19.840 what might have changed under Carney's watch.

00:15:23.520 And like you point out, many of the things haven't changed.

00:15:27.260 And yet there's a laundry list of things that liberal after liberal after liberal gave us.

00:15:33.000 When we asked him, what would you ask the prime minister?

00:15:35.420 There's a laundry list of things that he's already started to put to the side

00:15:39.820 that are grinding the gears of liberals.

00:15:43.580 So you think that under his watch, this list maybe is,

00:15:48.860 do you think that he'll take a closer walk to the center on some of these things or is

00:15:53.740 is he just going to continue to support these notions and some of these uh these things that

00:15:59.640 are destroying the country um yeah i don't think um i i often i i my my assessment of how carney

00:16:09.280 is doing is i say well there's some if you ask anybody in these issues you know who's familiar

00:16:14.140 with these issues okay we got a criminal justice problem okay we got a housing affordability

00:16:17.980 problem okay we you know we we can we can are we have economic decline we we have a productivity

00:16:24.540 issue so if you ask anybody who's an expert in these particular issues okay what's the easiest

00:16:28.540 thing we can do so you're prime minister what's your day one thing and then they all mention

00:16:33.660 something that carney is actively avoiding so the a great example being an oil and gas so you're

00:16:39.820 saying you'll ask someone an oil and gas okay if you really wanted to just bring in a whole bunch

00:16:44.540 of investment into oil and gas overnight and then suddenly you're boosting gdp by two three points

00:16:49.740 what would you do and they'd say oh you know the tanker ban uh you know like here's three pieces

00:16:53.900 of legislation you repeal those and uh boom you know here here comes the money it's not going to

00:16:59.340 solve everything but that's a really easy thing you can do and the carny government hasn't done

00:17:04.460 that instead they put in this you know elaborate thing where they can avoid the tanker ban as long

00:17:07.980 as it's a project that they like and they get to approve it through the uh so similar with housing

00:17:13.180 and similar with all of these sort of woke issues on criminal justice.

00:17:19.180 I mean, it's very simple.

00:17:20.540 You just take the provisions of C-75.

00:17:23.660 So the real spike we saw in just no one's getting everybody's getting bailed. 0.67

00:17:28.380 No one's being kept in prison, just recidivist defenders doing whatever they want. 0.70

00:17:32.700 I mean, that really there's there was a version of it in Canada going all the way back to the 70s.

00:17:37.420 But it really got dialed up by Bill C-75.

00:17:40.220 So all you have to do is repeal Bill C-75. 0.76

00:17:43.180 Um, and you have to stop appointing judges who are insane.

00:17:46.780 I mean, there's, there's just a lot of really radical activist judges, particularly in Trudeau's

00:17:52.040 last week.

00:17:52.580 So he gave a real F you just as he was leaving, just it's led to very, very leftist judges.

00:17:57.880 So it's led, it's led to judge shopping in Ontario.

00:18:01.260 That's for certain.

00:18:02.300 And, uh, and other provinces where, you know, you're looking for the right judge.

00:18:06.080 Now that's, that's a unique thing in Canada that's come on and just recently.

00:18:10.100 So in terms of Carney's performance, I mean, on these sort of fundamentally broken issues that I get into, if it's been a year and you're seeing him not even touching the really easy stuff that would make an immediate difference.

00:18:25.560 I mean, he's kind of done it on immigration. I mean, immigration, it's pretty hard not to make some impact on immigration because immigration was just at all time unscreened, you know, the most open borders in our entire history.

00:18:38.540 so they're still pretty open

00:18:40.720 but they're slightly less open than they were before

00:18:43.120 and we're seeing benefits from it already

00:18:44.860 so with the notable exception of

00:18:47.240 the immigration file was completely

00:18:49.260 on fire and exploding and radioactive

00:18:50.800 it's still on fire and exploding but it's not radioactive anymore

00:18:53.340 so there's that

00:18:55.060 but on a lot of these files

00:18:57.200 in which I think people

00:18:58.500 he gave a speech saying this was going to change

00:19:01.000 if you look at the levers

00:19:03.420 he could pull to make those changes

00:19:05.200 I'm just not seeing them

00:19:06.240 so far no

00:19:07.960 but there has been discussion of it which is interesting because for four years

00:19:12.260 it's been kind of it was hammered and hammered and hammered

00:19:16.440 in the house but kind of left alone you know it

00:19:19.980 leads me to kind of wonder as you went through the process

00:19:23.220 what did you find to be sort of the backbone

00:19:26.760 don't do this don't be Canada advice

00:19:30.340 oh I guess the easy one would be

00:19:33.720 you know, engage with reality. I think it's on all of these, it's just sort of, we became

00:19:39.860 enamored with a fantasy rather than reality. I mean, we've just become, and this is often

00:19:46.340 people's sort of epiphany when they realize just how much a kind lie has been entrenched within

00:19:53.980 the Canadian system. So, you know, often, you know, Canada's fine. And then you get a government

00:19:58.980 form that asks you the sex you were assigned at birth. And you're like, no, no, I wasn't assigned

00:20:02.820 sex at birth i just came out with a penis and it was a man uh yeah so it'll be something like that 0.99

00:20:08.340 although the rita i mean there's been some real wacky ones uh out of bc um put up by public health 0.99

00:20:14.900 agencies in which you're you're reading it a lay lay person can be reading this and it's just a

00:20:20.820 completely inaccurate depiction of how addiction works how how gender works uh how how race works

00:20:27.700 um so um it's just been an endless series you've probably seen that chart online and it's you know

00:20:34.500 it's like the x-axis i think is your society's yes and wherever and it's like you know kind

00:20:39.940 lie kind lie kind lie and then you know harsh truth harsh truth we've avoided any kinds of

00:20:45.540 harsh truths we've avoided any kinds of difficult decisions i mean this is how i always describe

00:20:51.300 how our housing became so unaffordable it's a whole bunch of decisions i mean that's that's

00:20:55.860 probably the trickiest issue and the hardest to solve that i that i mentioned in the book but

00:20:59.620 it's just been 20 plus years of every time government has a decision on this side you've

00:21:05.140 got some nice thing that you would like to do but but on this side if you do that thing it's going

00:21:09.700 to cause the houses to be less affordable but right you always take this decision because you're like

00:21:14.820 well screw the houses that you know we've got that's that's fine we can we can make houses just

00:21:19.380 a bit more less less affordable less affordable let's give them some you know some some new 0.96

00:21:23.620 environmental regulation let's do some new thing you know i want to juice up immigration in this

00:21:28.420 particular thing so we could we always compromised on everything from affordability to prosperity

00:21:35.460 these things that we had just accepted were going to be permanent parts of the canadian fabric so

00:21:39.780 we could just hammer on them and compromise on them more than any other country and just assume

00:21:45.460 they were our birth rights regardless of what we did to them and the chickens are coming home to

00:21:50.660 roost on a lot of those things a lot of things we thought never happened in canada are now

00:21:55.780 exclusively happening in canada um because that mindset reigned supreme for so long i don't want

00:22:02.420 to point fingers but i i was uh i could not stop laughing about the ndp gathering where uh you know

00:22:10.180 people were holding up cards that showed their relevance to speak and in what order and it just

00:22:17.540 It just became so evident how lost in the pool of snowflake Canada has become.

00:22:26.460 I mean, I would urge people to consider you you're able to look at it.

00:22:29.780 This is, you know, I'm sure a lot of people looked at it and it's the first time they're

00:22:32.880 encountering such a dysfunctional environment.

00:22:34.780 Just everybody's sort of arguing over the different, you know, equity groups.

00:22:37.960 It's just, you know, it's hell on earth.

00:22:39.660 And I would urge you, one of the weirdest things about Canada right now is that we have

00:22:45.020 very conservative young people.

00:22:46.900 So poll after poll showing that the strongest basis of support for the conservatives, and this has been true since they made poly up leader, is young people.

00:22:54.540 So the average 21-year-old Canadian more likely to vote conservative at a provincial and a federal level than the average 71-year-old.

00:23:02.180 So when your young people are more conservative than your old people, that's never happened before.

00:23:07.060 And it's happening in Canada.

00:23:08.340 And one of the reasons that's happening is that crazy environment you saw in NDP land, anybody who's been sort of within the school system who has been a child, that's been a lot of their life. 0.96

00:23:21.500 And kids aren't stupid. They realize how insane a lot of this stuff is and how contradictory it is.

00:23:26.200 I mean, because it's based on, you know, elaborate intersecting series of lies.

00:23:30.860 So a kid knows that sex isn't something that's assigned at birth.

00:23:35.020 um they can be told about equality and then you know they show up for a medical appointment and

00:23:39.980 then they're asked what race they are and why oh it's just because there's different care over here

00:23:44.200 um for for different races it's like well i was told to be equitable but you know you seem to be

00:23:49.020 screening things based on the color of my skin and this particular thing so there's been enough

00:23:53.340 of those or just the fact that if you know your standard public school you may have whatever most

00:23:59.120 of the calendar days are transgender day of visibility transgender days you know at whatever

00:24:05.600 30 gay days in the calendar um you may start to roll your eyes even for an impressionable young

00:24:11.520 young child so you know someone who was turning 18 this year was 11 at the beginning of covid 0.99

00:24:16.880 lockdowns so all of this government bs they have been getting it right to the face pure uncut

00:24:24.320 wokeism and kafka-esque government mandates um so wokeism to them is the man right of course it's

00:24:32.960 the man i totally feel that now uh when we were certainly at the conservative convention the young

00:24:38.800 people you saw uh you know not out in droves but the ones were there pretty average canadian

00:24:44.560 uh kids and they had a real understanding of what was going on in politics and how

00:24:49.600 weird things were getting and how their opportunities were vanishing before their eyes

00:24:55.040 yeah you see these uh these this social media trend where it's just like videos of of canada

00:25:01.740 from just you know pretty quotidian like someone walking through a mall or something uh or just you

00:25:06.660 know walking through a street and young people will see it and realize like where are the tent

00:25:10.880 cities where are the drugs where's where's all these things that i've been told are just a normal

00:25:15.740 part of the fabric and you know as a millennial I can remember those things so it's been radicalizing

00:25:20.760 for me because I'm here in Victoria I know the parks that didn't used to have densities I know

00:25:25.120 the windows that didn't used to have bars on them I knew the areas of town that you could safely

00:25:30.300 walk through at night that is no longer the case so it's even more radicalizing for someone who

00:25:35.120 doesn't even remember that and they're finding evidence of hey you know I found some anti-drug

00:25:40.280 literature from you know in the library from pre-2000s and it told tells you not to do the

00:25:45.860 drugs rather than just you know telling you how to sterilize your crack pipe and uh this is this

00:25:50.940 has brought me to new new realms of thinking well it's comforting to me to know that another

00:25:55.960 generation is finding these things discerning and and a little bit debasing like because i i'm like

00:26:01.240 you i i go to parks in my own neighborhood and i'm like this was one of the greatest places to hang

00:26:06.880 out now this yeah yeah so I mean my adult my first 10 years after graduating school was

00:26:14.560 every year the crime rate went rent down and you know a young adult now every year the crime rate

00:26:21.000 has been getting worse so if you're riding uh you're riding on public transit every year it's

00:26:26.280 just an increment your head is more on a swivel uh every year as there's you know more incidents

00:26:31.420 of violence you know you're inhaling more meth smoke uh on public transit so yeah for people at

00:26:37.420 the sharp end uh so young people and recent immigrants too uh have went i mean when i'm

00:26:44.380 touring this book around when you look at poll numbers uh people who have recently come to the

00:26:48.140 country and are really at the the front end of the disorder you know they're seeing the disorder

00:26:52.940 at the sharp end um yeah they're much more radicalized on these issues than what is now

00:26:59.260 the base of support for the liberals. People who already own their homes, don't have to ride public

00:27:04.000 transit, are generally insulated from a lot of the problems they voted for. How much of your book do

00:27:09.680 you think Polly has out there preaching? I don't know, but I will say I had this, I noticed this

00:27:16.480 the other day. The book came out about a year ago, and I highlight the eight issues that are uniquely

00:27:20.920 wrong with Canada. And then I was thinking about it, and I sort of wrote about that in the National

00:27:26.980 post today and I realized on all eight of these issues the government of Alberta has made some

00:27:33.380 sort of uh progress on all of these so you know gender issues made um just sort of if you if I'd

00:27:40.440 handed the book to Daniel Smith and I said you know you've got a year do something in all of

00:27:45.120 these chapters uh they've done something on it which so one thing I'd urge people to keep in

00:27:50.820 mind you can be demoralized it's what about what's happening at a federal level but I mean the moral

00:27:55.400 of the book is a lot of this dysfunction was implemented at a local level and thus it can be

00:28:01.640 and sometimes needs to be fixed at a local level so and that's that's where people actually have

00:28:07.180 some control they actually have the ability to yeah oftentimes uh i mean it's easy to say well

00:28:12.580 canadians are passive they've accepted that you're often describing yourself so when people complain

00:28:17.200 about that i say well when's the last time you directly actually tried to dial back some of the

00:28:22.140 wokeism that annoys you so you went to your local service club meeting and they opened it up with a

00:28:27.280 19 minute land acknowledgement did you ask them not to do that next time because I'm sure everybody

00:28:31.880 else in the crowd also hates it but you actually have to stand up and politely suggest you know

00:28:38.420 we not do this you went to your bank and it was just you know you had to fight your way past

00:28:43.160 progress pride flags to get to the teller's window did you ask them maybe to you know take

00:28:47.740 take the flags down um so i think a lot of people this is this is something i thought about with

00:28:53.420 tipping lately you know how everybody loves eight everybody hates tipping they think tipping's out

00:28:56.860 of control we keep seeing these polls saying 80 of canadians want to ban on tipping they want

00:29:01.740 tipping abolished um but there's a very easy fix to tipping uh just stop doing it and then you'll

00:29:07.700 see these same polls and they'll say well if i do that i'll feel awkward it's like well you have

00:29:11.400 there you're not doing anything wrong you're being asked for money that they don't deserve

00:29:15.900 it doesn't matter if you feel awkward just don't give them the money and and things will change at

00:29:21.200 the employment level the employer will be uh impressed upon to pay more to keep people in

00:29:25.580 that profession it'll actually that will actually change something i don't know yeah i say to be

00:29:30.760 honest with you tristan you have to be yeah you have to start living differently um you have to

00:29:36.780 be a person who can you know at least has the backbone to not pay an unwarranted tip and that 0.94

00:29:42.700 that'll it'll cause you to look at your society differently when you see just you know outrageous

00:29:47.680 examples of someone seizing power through emotional blackmail you have to become the

00:29:53.180 kind of person who can be prepared to make a bit of a fuss you can still be polite you can still

00:29:58.560 be patient but you shouldn't just passively accept a lot of these things happening so

00:30:03.020 I think there's a reason we became that way Canada was an extremely well-managed place

00:30:09.380 for decades and decades and decades,

00:30:11.920 way more than any other country on Earth.

00:30:14.240 And the end result of that is one of the most complacent,

00:30:18.820 out-of-touch people on Earth.

00:30:21.020 And wow, we are being exploited because of that right now.

00:30:24.540 I'm going to recommend the book, Don't Be Canada, Tristan Hopper.

00:30:28.440 If you wonder, you know, everybody's like,

00:30:29.700 oh, the traditional media, they're following a narrative.

00:30:32.340 Okay, you've met Tristan,

00:30:34.260 and now you can pick up the National Post and feel rest assured

00:30:36.760 he's not carrying a narrative.

00:30:39.240 He's just taking a look.

00:30:40.940 I appreciate this, Tristan.

00:30:42.480 Thank you.

00:30:43.020 Anytime.

True Patriot Love - April 18, 2026

Why Canada Feels Broken Now ft. Tristin Hopper

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