In this episode, Dr. Grant Havers, the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Trinity Western University, joins me to talk about conservatism in Canada, the upcoming federal election, and the future of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:03:05.680Be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on YouTube,
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00:03:17.860As I have stated many times since I began broadcasting for The Western Standard,
00:03:22.360There ought to be no divorce in understanding between you, yourselves, the viewers, and myself, the man on the TV.
00:03:30.120I am not worthy of your unconditional affection, and I must tell the truth as much as possible.
00:03:35.020When I get a piece of information, my job is to share it, not lord it over you, or use it to look important.
00:03:41.440I have been in media for a few years now.
00:03:44.060I've got some friends who work in politics, and they've worked there for about the same amount of time, if not longer.
00:03:49.660Occasionally they tell me things, and sometimes those things turn out to be accurate.
00:03:52.960As it stands, at least one trusted source has told me that he figures the Conservative Party might very well fall below 60 seats federally in the upcoming election, due to both vote splitting and people not voting.
00:04:05.620In the event of such a fall from grace, it will either spell doom for the Tory party with a rebirth of sectional regional parties, or a final revitalization of the party from within, complete renewal from the ground up.
00:04:16.940I'm hopeful of the latter, as I do believe in a single federal right-wing party, if only it would learn to stick to its principles, even in times of crisis.
00:04:25.620But there is another theory for what could happen to conserves in this country, and it is best represented by the sovereignty that we have within our midst here at The Standard and a few other places, namely that the time has come to elect sectional or regional parties to better represent our interests.
00:04:43.020This was a point raised by Stuart Parker last week, and I would like to dwell on it for a short while.
00:04:48.660As I've stated before, I am ambivalent about sovereignty.
00:04:54.080Essentially, I'm a Diefenbaker Federalist, waiting for the Pearson-Trudeau consensus that ruined this nation to come to an end.
00:05:01.240But there might be an alternative way forward beyond my own insane idea of using the Church's boundaries for new provincial lines,
00:05:08.480which would create more than 40 provinces with metropolitan areas entirely separate.
00:05:14.300As an aside, if you're looking for a kind of crazy map of Canada that Nathan could probably endorse,
00:05:22.300you would look at, just punch into Google, Catholic diocese map.
00:05:28.040Maybe the other diocese maps would work too.
00:05:30.560But the point is they cut up the provinces we already have.
00:05:33.120And some of the borders actually go across provinces.
00:05:35.220most pointedly, and in my opinion, most appropriately, Churchill-Hudson Bay, which includes
00:05:41.920all of Nunavut, and of course, Churchill-Manitoba, which identifies much more strongly with the
00:05:48.920rest of Northern Canada and not even with Thompson or the rest of Manitoba, even Northern
00:05:53.260Manitoba. It feels quite isolated. And I feel like that's the kind of thing we need. We need to have
00:05:58.180our provinces recut into sensible shapes and sizes and regions that actually represent the people
00:06:04.980that are in them. And then those could be their own little
00:06:06.980provincial governments. But that's a different
00:07:00.440and doesn't really care what you think of it.
00:07:04.240And our federal government doesn't represent us at a local level. It just has its agenda and it's interested in getting its way.
00:07:13.540What's going on with the upcoming federal election when it comes to the Tories is it's dangerous. It's very dangerous because we need a right wing party in this country.
00:07:22.520We need somebody to oppose that consensus of liberalism that's been ever growing and ever more manifested and ever stronger since since after Laurier and especially after after King, who kind of perfected the liberal dominance of this country and and since then has just never really waned.
00:07:45.460It's always waxed. Very briefly, they fell to third place against Stephen Harper's Conservatives.
00:07:51.080It looked like Canada might have a new way forward.
00:07:54.220You had the NDP. Tom Mulcair was a great opposition leader.
00:07:58.160I think he did a great job of articulating his positions against Stephen Harper.
00:08:02.620Certainly much better than the various leaders, interim leaders of the, well, the leaders they tried to put forward in the Liberal Party.
00:08:09.800probably the best leader they had for the interim
00:15:04.000I remember reading that blog some time ago.
00:15:06.820And, um, it was a blog about what was, what it was actually about the young Pope, but then it referenced back to Mad Men. And then it referenced back to kind of why, like why sometimes artists get it better than the people practicing the faith, how this stuff works. Like the business of the Catholic church is the business of Catholic church, you know, as Calvin Coolidge might've put it. And the same thing when it comes to the question of Mad Men and that era, it's like business was about business.
00:15:30.000it was not about team meetings and what's the next garbage cleanup thing we can do and look at
00:15:35.560this motivational poster on the wall and isn't it just so wonderful to have this office space where
00:15:39.880we're all coming together and doing these things and we're having solidarity together with these
00:15:43.720things no it wasn't about those things yeah it's about making money it was about making money and
00:15:48.800it's about doing business right that was what it was about and and it's actually been a bit of a
00:15:54.180mind-boggling thing as I bump into people who genuinely think that work is about having fun
00:15:58.560and I'm like I don't really know what you're talking about
00:16:00.520like work is for work that doesn't mean
00:16:02.440that you're not supposed to have a decent relationship with the people
00:16:04.500around your work that's not my argument whatsoever
00:16:06.340but it's just kind of mind boggling that
00:16:08.360anybody thinks that work is beyond that
00:21:06.540You can't have cheap money, creates booms and busts.
00:21:09.240You can't have people who can foreign speculate and come in and just buy up all the property that other people are entitled to because they were born here.
00:25:11.800bound together. The worker upon the land and
00:25:16.360his lord over him, they can't survive apart. That can't happen.
00:25:20.200But we've lost our ability in conservatism to articulate this
00:25:24.320question of the Commonwealth. And until we can, I don't think we're going to have a narrative
00:25:29.060that can properly counter those on the left. And I think this is exactly the problem with what's
00:25:34.400going on with Toryism generally. I think Stephen Harper had moments where he was able to kind of
00:25:39.500talk about, you know, strong, stable, conservative majority government, you know, for working class
00:25:43.520families, we're going to do, we're going to working families, we're going to make sure that
00:25:46.500taxpaying families are taken care of, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So he tried to, he kind of
00:25:50.060created a sort of semblance of of not an ethnicity but an identity that could identify with
00:25:56.040conservatism identity that people could identify with when it came to conservatism but i think i
00:26:01.240think this is exactly the problem there isn't there isn't an articulation on the right as to
00:26:07.840what is the commonwealth you know at least not in canada you know we don't have forgotten man
00:26:13.440speeches coming from the right that was trump in the united states in 2016 we don't have you know
00:26:19.000you know, empire of evil speeches in Canada. That was Reagan back in the 80s. So Canadian0.81
00:26:26.340conservative rhetoric needs to recapture, in my opinion, some some imaginative narrative that
00:26:33.040helps people understand that, hey, it's worth it's worth going on about. It's worth going forward.
00:26:39.540And this country is worth building. I think Diefenbaker was probably the last guy to really
00:26:43.380articulate that but we'll we'll look for more uh you know uh we'll look for more help with that
00:26:50.400uh in a few minutes here but we're going to go to our favorite philosophy professor
00:26:55.260dr grant havers who's going to help us understand a little bit more about the state of conservatism
00:27:00.160in canada today it's good to have you on dr havers good morning nathan good morning um i i maybe you
00:27:07.940can take off where i left off there of of again this this what is the toryism in canada it just
00:27:14.920it is different than american liberalism people don't seem to understand that they think like
00:27:18.700republicans and conservatives could be the same people but they're not and in canada it seems like
00:27:23.060we've lost track of of how to articulate a vision that is i don't know it's so it's softer than just
00:27:30.380brutal capitalism but it doesn't need to be the leftist kind of fallacies we see nowadays
00:27:36.020Yeah, I think there are some differences. Going back to the different origins of Canada and the United States, of course, as you know, the United States was based on a grand constitutional experiment that had never been undertaken in history.
00:27:56.920I think that was the last thing on the minds of the Fathers of the Confederation
00:28:01.160who simply wanted to unite a country without engaging in experiments whatsoever.
00:28:10.720In fact, MacDonald in many ways thought that the United States was a failed experiment due to the Civil War.
00:28:20.100But then the other big difference between Canada and, say, your typical nation state is that we've never had kind of a shared ethnic, linguistic or religious identity in contrast to, say, European nation states where there is that shared identity.
00:28:45.980There are shared narratives that are important to at least the majority of people within the nation.
00:28:54.720So it's very hard for a conservative movement in Canada to come up with a vision that would be national or to come up with a national narrative that would somehow unite the country.
00:29:11.000I mean, even the building of the railroad can't really count as a national narrative because Quebec was not invited to be part of that.
00:29:23.860And so as a result, even that narrative, which goes back quite a ways, could not be a unifying one.
00:29:35.020So I think that's a challenge that any conservative movement faces in Canada.
00:29:42.240One of the things, and maybe it's false remembrance for those of us who are Tories, we think back to, I mean, I wasn't even alive, but I mean, we think back to Diefenbaker's articulation of his Bill of Rights.
00:29:56.100We think back to even his national vision, his national strategy, seemed to try and pivot towards developing the North.
00:30:02.220that seemed to be extremely important to him.
00:30:04.660And it seems like all of that kind of got left behind
00:30:06.440the moment Pearson was installed by the Kennedys.
00:30:10.460How much of that is true and how much of that is myth-making?
00:30:32.220I think it's important to bear in mind, though, that Ethan Baker's administration, in a way, set the tone for later unfortunate patterns in Canadian politics.
00:30:46.960I mean, he was really the first prime minister to see the role of government as defining identity or defining Canadian values and to be the arbiter of public virtue and social justice.
00:31:02.500And I certainly don't want to place all the responsibility for our managerial state on Diefenbaker, but I think it did begin with Diefenbaker, namely this idea of the state having to tell Canadians who they are and what they represent.
00:31:23.180I mean, that went down like a lead balloon in Quebec at the time of Diefenbaker's reign.
00:31:29.500But then the Pearson and Trudeau liberals built on that, especially Pierre Trudeau,
00:31:36.300who even more ambitiously saw the state, or at least one purpose of the state, as the arbiter of identity.
00:31:46.100And I think Canadians often forget that other nation states don't operate this way.
00:31:51.460I mean, the French government doesn't tell the French citizenry what it means to be French.
00:31:59.660People in France already know what it means to be French or what it means to be a citizen of France.
00:32:06.460They don't need the state to tell them that.
00:32:08.280But the Canadian state is unique because it's invested in this purpose or role of telling people what it means to be Canadian.
00:32:21.160And what it means to be un-Canadian, which is, I think, a very chilling use of language.
00:32:27.520It almost sounds like a totalitarian regime.
00:32:30.200There are Canadians who represent Canadian values, and then there are un-Canadian values.
00:32:36.280And we have to watch out for those people.
00:32:38.820one of the things that's a big misunderstanding in canada as well and even among its own right
00:32:45.920wing in different places is is that canada while it while it was so large a country that the state
00:32:52.200just couldn't really enforce its will everywhere at once and that maybe some of its freedom was
00:32:57.680kind of latent from the just the sheer limitations of state power by geography it also was never a
00:33:04.480small state country certainly not in a sense of that that somehow limited government was its was
00:33:10.740its reason dietra uh it was it was always right from the beginning with with the building of the
00:33:16.460railway there's clearly a national strategy there's clearly a strong federal government
00:33:20.700it was never not that how how do modern conserves again with so much kind of american ideas about
00:33:26.880limited government or libertarianism how do they square that with the canadian experience
00:33:31.500yeah i mean certainly as you said from the beginning canadian tories have not been shy
00:33:38.560about using the state uh or or creating collaborations between the state and the
00:33:45.600private sector of course the rail national railroad is a good example of that uh but of
00:33:51.880course that was a temporary arrangement uh which clearly was discontinued with the completion
00:33:59.180of the railroad. But it is true. I mean, generally, Canadian Tories have shied away
00:34:07.280from ideological debates about what the state should and shouldn't do, without, of course,
00:34:15.580being indifferent to the undue expansion of the state as well. I mean, I think one advantage
00:34:24.680from Canadian history is that we've avoided those ideological debates that often make
00:34:30.520American politics so colorful. But of course, the disadvantage is that if we don't have those
00:34:37.740debates, as ideological as they are, then it's hard to answer the question, well, what do we
00:34:42.480stand for? What are our principles? What are our traditions that are worth preserving? So
00:34:50.120So, you know, it's important to avoid excessive ideological debates.
00:34:55.740But at some point, I think political parties, especially the Tories, have to engage in them.
00:35:03.460A party in search of an ideology or a thing to be is a criticism that's been leveled at the Tories probably since Diefenbaker and maybe even before him.
00:35:14.160But certainly, certainly they've been lost in the wilderness many times, particularly throughout the 20th century.
00:35:18.960And now it appears to be again in the 21st century. They will be lost for some time the upcoming federal election. What do Tories need to think about in that respect in order to try and articulate that? What would be a proper articulation of conservative values in Canada?
00:35:38.600Because we aren't Americans, but we're also not Britain anymore, and we aren't Australia, and we aren't New Zealand.
00:35:44.900We're part of the major English-speaking countries of the world, including a little bit the French-speaking countries of the world.
00:35:51.580But what do those values look like 150-something odd years into our nation-state status?
00:36:01.280Well, I think Canadian Tories need to emphasize freedom more or the idea of freedom, not just economic freedom, but freedom in a civil or intellectual sense or freedom of conscience.
00:36:22.540So what I mean by that is that the Tories, I think, currently have an opportunity to really put a dent into the liberals because the liberals are, I think, threatening freedom of speech in this country, not to put too fine a point on that.
00:36:42.100They are doubling down on censorship of the Internet, or certainly threatening censorship, and at the same time, they want to revamp anti-hate speech laws.
00:36:56.580So I would think that Tories, who in part come from a kind of classical liberal tradition, I say in part, should emphasize that they are the party of freedom.
00:37:08.480They should warn against these threatened incursions by the liberals into the private sphere of life that includes all the cherished freedoms that we have.
00:37:21.820And they've done some of that, but I think they need to really educate Canadians on how dangerous it is for the elected liberals to threaten freedom of speech.
00:37:37.520And, of course, that would be consistent with the best of conservative traditions in Canada, to have freedom of speech, to have a sense of ordered liberty, which certainly encourages or should encourage civil discussion, but at the same time keeps the private sphere of freedom off limits to that of the state.
00:38:03.920I think they really need to do more work on that front.
00:38:07.520it it's it's a brilliant reversal a complete inversion of his own father's words in a sense
00:38:14.900when it when you think of our current Trudeau Trudeau Jr. and Trudeau Sr. in comparison
00:38:20.780who you know famously Trudeau Sr. said right government has no business in the bedrooms of
00:38:25.960the nation Trudeau Jr. appears to think that they they don't just have business in your bedroom
00:38:31.100they have a business in your phone your your Facebook account where you go where you eat
00:38:36.500apparently whether or not you're going to you know take take a shot or not and wear a mask
00:38:40.900apparently the government has business literally everywhere on every square inch of your body uh
00:38:45.720not i guess just the soul that they don't believe in is the only thing they don't possess of yours
00:38:52.400how how did we get here uh in in modern canada i i if even trudeau senior who was no one's idea
00:39:00.300of a freedom lover from a right-wing perspective,
00:39:06.000if that is where we were in that generation
00:39:09.140and his own son is where we are today,
00:39:11.700how do we transform as a country to the point
00:39:18.080I think the Liberal Party is liberal in name only.
00:39:22.520One would have to look at the history of the term liberalism
00:39:27.020And then see how that word, liberal or liberalism, has been reinvented beyond recognition, because the earliest liberals, the classical liberals, were very concerned with imposing constraints on state power and in the process, defending the private sphere of life and including freedom of conscience, religious freedom, intellectual freedom.
00:39:57.020from the purview of the state. So in a nutshell, that's what liberal used to mean, at least in part.
00:40:05.080But since at least the 1970s and beyond that, liberal, quote unquote, now means clamping down
00:40:18.140on offensive or hateful speech, which sounds wonderful in principle, except that the state
00:40:25.760is given the authority to decide what hateful speech is, and therein lies the danger. So
00:40:32.500again, I think the Tories, I mean, they shouldn't engage in an academic exercise necessarily, but
00:40:39.200they should try to educate Canadians as to what liberal, small L liberal, used to mean,
00:40:47.600because the Liberal Party has totally reinvented and adulterated that term. Again,
00:40:55.160they're they're not liberals in any traditional sense indeed they aren't indeed they aren't and
00:41:03.540and one of those one of the funny things that happens though inside of canadian conservative
00:41:08.340uh tradition often is they often somehow some way they often just become liberal light with
00:41:17.200their policy when conservatives campaign as conservatives they seem to do well but when they
00:41:21.420campaign as Liberalite, then everybody's like, well, why wouldn't I just vote for the Liberal
00:41:25.100Party of Canada? If I can get light beer, I might as well get regular beer and just carry on.
00:41:33.060Right. Well, Louis Saint Laurent once said that the NDP or the CCF are just Liberals in a hurry.
00:41:42.460I think the Tories need to realize that they should not be Liberals in slow motion.
00:41:48.620in other words they should not be a pale or slower version of the liberals because we already have a
00:41:58.140liberal party in fact perhaps we have more than one liberal party i.e the NDP but we don't need
00:42:06.220another liberal party that is slightly to the right of Justin Trudeau we we need a party that
00:42:15.140obviously offers an alternate vision. And I don't know if it's too late for the Tories to
00:42:22.680reverse their electoral fortunes right now, but I would think one way is to try to educate Canadians
00:42:31.360as to the importance of freedom. And of course, that's an uphill battle, because people who live
00:42:38.320democracies are usually convinced that they're already free. I mean, don't we elect our
00:42:45.400government? Don't we have freedom of speech? And isn't it a good thing for the government
00:42:52.680to clamp down on hate speech anyway? I think most Canadians are very trusting of their
00:43:00.520government in a way that, of course, sharply contrasts with Americans who tend to be more
00:43:06.700distrustful but uh i would think that again the the tories have to explain what they mean by
00:43:15.140freedom and why freedom is actually a good thing that is part of the canadian experience and i
00:43:21.820i don't think they've done enough of that yet and imitating the liberals is just uh a ticket to
00:43:29.440electoral defeat it seems to me indeed it does seem like a ticket to electoral defeat as my
00:43:35.880My opening statement this morning, I made mention of a trusted source
00:43:40.200who I've been close to for many years, making the point that he has heard
00:43:44.320as low as 60 seats returning to the conserves after the current contest
00:43:54.180But even so, polling where they're at, it doesn't seem good
00:43:58.140for Aaron O'Toole and his gang of Tories.
00:44:02.220Yeah, I've even heard that O'Toole might lose his own seat if an election were called today.
00:44:10.620I mean, that's right. And I'm not suggesting that the Tories should articulate a grand vision of what they plan to do.
00:44:24.000We have to be careful with visions as they enter politics.
00:44:27.840Usually visions are imposed on people. They're not desired by people. And certainly Canada has had its experience with different visionary leaders.
00:44:39.840But at the same time, I would think that given the fact that many Canadians are exhausted with the lockdown, of course, we're just coming out of that, and many Canadians, I hope, are worried about the survival of freedom in this country, the Tories should take advantage of that and really distinguish themselves from all the other parties, not just the Liberals,
00:45:07.780who actually support a clampdown on free speech and on the exchange of ideas on the internet.
00:45:20.340I think those are themes that would resonate with many Canadians.
00:45:24.840I mean, there'll always be a high number of Canadians who do not care about their freedom.
00:45:32.200I know that sounds a little harsh, but there'll always be some Canadians who are more than satisfied with the way the government might restrict their speech because they don't believe that they're guilty of hate speech anyway.
00:45:47.820But I think there are others who are tired of this and are looking to the Tories for a better understanding of what freedom means and a party that stands up for freedom.
00:46:05.480Party that stands up for freedom. That'd be refreshing anywhere in the English speaking world, in the Western world generally. But I guess we can continue to hold out hope for it.
00:46:17.820Perhaps something we can kind of get into here a little bit then is what is likely to happen in this coming federal contest, not just maybe in its results, but where should the conversation have been, but where is it likely to go, and why is Justin Trudeau likely to triumph?
00:46:39.380Yeah, and I hope that's not the case, but it certainly looks that way.
00:46:44.000Well, I would think one other challenge that the Tories face is an old one, the divide between Central Canada and the West. And of course, O'Toole represents the 905 area code in Southern Ontario.
00:47:01.980And I would think that his understanding of conservatism, to say the least, is deeply informed by the interests of Southern Ontario.
00:47:14.160Of course, I would explain why he replaced he wants to replace one carbon tax with another carbon tax, which goes down like a lead balloon in Western Canada.
00:47:25.960I know that he has made some gestures towards reconciling the West with Central Canada, but I think he needs to develop themes that are radically different from that of the Liberal Party.
00:47:45.060Again, the emphasis on freedom is important. The emphasis on good economic management
00:47:54.000is important as well. I think the liberals are vulnerable on that front. But I don't know if
00:48:04.180there's enough time left in this pre-election cycle. I mean, the election hasn't been called
00:48:10.660yet, but everyone's feeling that we are in a pre-election cycle. I don't know if the Tories
00:48:17.120have time to turn things around. I have friends in Alberta who are right-leaning, who probably
00:48:26.500will sit out the next election. They will not vote for O'Toole. I mean, if O'Toole can't get
00:48:32.940votes in alberta of all places then it's not good no it's not good maybe something else that
00:48:41.900needs to kind of be touched on here is how how is the guy from papineau you know our current
00:48:48.200prime minister uh how is he doing doing better amongst you know all sorts of classes people
00:48:54.160including the working class uh while while the guy who represents durham which literally has
00:48:59.220the oshawa car factory in it can't seem to connect with the people next door what what's going on
00:49:04.700there i was hopeful that being being the representative for durham was going to be the key
00:49:08.980to i'm a part of the industrial heartland of canada i know what what the industrial class
00:49:13.820needs i'm going to reach out and make sure that that that everyone uh in in the well under class
00:49:19.720at some extent but certainly the working class in canada which has been marginalized for decades
00:49:23.440at this point uh how do how do we how do we bridge that gap why can't why can't mr durham see to do
00:49:29.620that yeah i i think uh i i mean i i can't speculate as to what goes on in in the mind of uh uh mr
00:49:41.480o'toole but i would think that many tories around him are probably afraid to play a populist card
00:49:49.200uh even if it is a justified populist uh card like economic populism because it may remind
00:49:57.480canadians too much too much of you know who uh donald trump who is still very much with us
00:50:03.480so i i think uh the the tories at least uh the ontario establishment tories are are reluctant
00:56:10.040And even if austerity conservatism has some economic justification at times, it's hardly a vote getter, because I think Canadians have just got used to a very interventionist state that, at least in principle, is supposed to promote the common good or the general welfare.
00:56:35.360i mean again these are terms that are that liberal party uh is quite uh comfortable with
00:56:42.240of course the sad fact is or the unfair fact is that uh liberals can uh impose austerity measures
00:56:51.760as well and sometimes that has cost them votes uh both the blood to the ndp uh as a result of that
00:57:00.560uh certainly the the fruto liberals have completely abandoned the the austerity
00:57:07.440liberalism of the past i'm thinking of the uh martin era of the 1990s and the early 2000s the
00:57:16.880last thing that the liberals are interested in is balancing a budget or reducing uh the uh the0.80
00:57:24.400deficit or the national debt so the liberals have certainly cornered the market on the anti-austerity
00:57:33.360uh kind of politics of our time which would explain in part why the ndp are not doing well
00:57:40.960uh either because the liberals have already um really scooped up that voting block that would be
00:57:49.440opposed to uh austerity so but yeah i i think you're right uh the the tories have to offer
00:57:57.280alternatives that do not remind people of the image of the tory as cruel and scrooge-like
00:58:05.760and uh indifferent to uh disadvantaged people but but at the same time i i think the tories
00:58:14.400need to position themselves better as uh more fiscally responsible i i think one can do that
00:58:23.540without necessarily threatening people with uh draconian austerity measures maybe we can do a
00:58:31.520little bit of a history lesson here uh dr havers there's a there's a quite a question that's grown
00:58:36.680in my mind is that a lot of a lot of conservatively minded people today or libertarian minded or even
00:58:43.140even some social conservatives every now and again uh they reference the 19th century as like that
00:58:48.580great age of classical liberalism and then of course the 20th century is seen as the growth
00:58:53.220of the state of course the totalitarianism that came with it and i guess my question is is there
00:58:58.300any reason as a conservative to hope that the mistakes of the 20th century are ever going to
00:59:03.440be corrected income tax was supposed to be temporary for canada um the expansion of the
00:59:09.220state in order to fight both the great wars uh has never left us and and indeed it is appears
00:59:16.460that again the minimum the minimalist or the kind of freedom again of the 19th century the burgeoning
00:59:21.220freedom jacksonian america uh the wild west um even even the beginnings of the railroad and
00:59:27.400everything else this this kind of nascent freedom that happened particularly in the new world but
00:59:32.140throughout the western world suddenly comes to an end with the great war is is made even worse in
00:59:37.020the interwar period, and then is kind of solidly statized, you know, and there's a status element
00:59:42.820forever, thanks to what happens in the Second World War. Is there any way out of that?0.78
00:59:50.140I'm inclined to say no. I mean, I don't think anybody wants to go back to the 19th century,
00:59:55.780except people who romanticize the 19th century, but that's not going to happen. We're not going
01:00:04.480to go back to a canada where the franchise uh was limited to a very small number of canadians
01:00:12.520mainly uh male voters uh that's not going to happen and and any politician who proposes that
01:00:19.320had better find a different job or career but i think the managerial state as i like to call it
01:00:26.860uh is here to stay uh by that i mean a state that has to intervene in the economy and in
01:00:36.700areas of social welfare uh to help people when they need help i i think that's going to stay
01:00:44.940and there can be some tinkering or reduction uh of that role uh regarding the managerial
01:00:52.860state but i i don't think we're going to be able to turn the clock back i think what should be
01:00:57.900reversed though is what i would call the therapeutic state uh the managerial state on the one hand
01:01:04.700which came out of the new deal era in the 1930s and of course its counterpart in canada
01:01:12.940very legitimately responded to challenges of economic stability unemployment etc
01:01:19.420But the therapeutic state is really a creation of the late 1960s, in which you have a state that's concerned with the consciousness of people.
01:01:30.320And it goes back to the era of Diefenbaker I referred to.
01:01:34.220The therapeutic state wants to practice therapy on the population by tracking prejudice, real or imagined, or by tracking attitudes that are un-Canadian.
01:01:46.480I think that state is far more dangerous and far more destructive and, I would hope, far more unpopular than the managerial state.
01:01:57.980And this is where I would go back to the focus on freedom.
01:02:02.860Tories really have to push back on this therapeutic state that sees the role of the state as the arbiter of consciousness and thought and values.
01:02:15.820uh none of which uh really resonates well with the canadian experience but the liberals are
01:02:24.060very comfortable with that that's why they're trying to revamp anti-hate speech laws
01:02:29.580uh that's why they often give the impression that right-leaning canadians are just the most
01:02:35.660dangerous people in the world of course they get a lot of their ideas from the democratic party
01:02:40.540uh which does the same thing south of the border so i think that state that state which uh is
01:02:48.700preoccupied with the consciousness of canadians needs to be uh pushed back otherwise we're we're
01:02:55.560going to lose our freedoms and uh they won't be recovered uh any as a result indeed indeed it
01:03:06.340And let's parse this a little bit more for the viewers and the listeners, just a little bit more, because even I sometimes think I miss, well, I use these words kind of interchangeably, but I know the managerial state versus the therapeutic state, when we think of the managerial state, what I really think of mostly actually is kind of like basically hospital administrators, really.
01:03:28.640I think of non-clinical staff pulling the levers of power inside of a hospital, which is kind of like, well, why is there a single non-clinical person here who isn't also a janitor?
01:03:39.780This is a hospital. It's a place of healing people and treating the sick.
01:03:44.100I understand somebody needs to count some beans somewhere to ensure that the lights stay on.
01:03:48.180But the idea that there would be anybody other than clinical staff in here makes no sense to me.
01:03:52.420And yet there's a whole host of managers doing the business of managing, which appears to be meetings, finger sandwiches, brainstorming, visions, values, posters on the wall through the comms team, which is another group of exempt staff, and a lot of busy work that really doesn't necessarily help anybody get well.
01:04:12.860but but they're they're clearly trying to i guess keep the rank and file in an orderly fashion and
01:04:17.960make sure there's somebody at a desk somewhere in order to receive you when you come in for triage
01:04:22.100when we talk about the therapeutic state it's something a little bit different uh and and
01:04:27.760the idea that people would would need the state to help them i don't know get over their anger
01:04:34.020get over their issues uh try to try and teach them how to be better people not just economically
01:04:41.220but psychologically i think i think that is a dangerous thing and maybe i don't know is it all
01:04:46.900just one flew over the cuckoo's nest or is there something a little bit more nuanced to that story
01:04:51.200yeah it's worth noting that we already have laws against speech that is threatening or slanderous
01:05:00.200or libelous uh so it does raise a question why are liberals uh trying to bring back section 13 or
01:05:08.520or the old law against hate speech that the Harper administration got rid of years ago.
01:05:17.400I think the official answer is that hate is growing, prejudice is growing.
01:05:36.000Do we want bureaucrats to do that?1.00
01:05:38.520You mentioned managers or administrators in a hospital who I think could be trusted in the role of making sure that a hospital doesn't go broke or managing it efficiently.
01:05:54.900I don't think Canadians have a problem with that.
01:05:57.120We do need efficient managers to be in charge of governments or corporations, depending on the responsibility that they have.
01:06:09.160But monitoring consciousness, monitoring speech, monitoring thoughts and opinions, I don't think anybody has the expertise to determine what exactly is offensive and what isn't.
01:06:26.420or at least they shouldn't be trusted with that kind of responsibility.
01:06:31.720And, of course, the very term therapeutic state implies
01:06:34.520that a large part of the population are neurotic or repressed.
01:06:42.880As you said, they don't know how to deal with their anger.
01:06:46.820But it's not the purpose of the state to be a therapist.
01:06:51.260That's something new, not just in the Canadian experience,
01:06:55.380But even in the United States, which has a very strong tradition of freedom of speech, and of course, different European countries have imposed anti-hate speech laws as well.
01:07:09.420Of course, usually hate speech is associated with the right.
01:07:13.380So it's already a political agenda on the part of the therapeutic state, which obviously raises questions about how objective or unbiased these bureaucrats are going to be.
01:07:25.560this arbitration of consciousness or this this design to form the consciousness of the people
01:07:32.680uh which which definitely definitely had a lot of a lot of play in the totalitarian regimes
01:07:38.480of the interwar period and of course later uh throughout the 20th century i mean it maybe this
01:07:45.100is a bit of a reach but didn't didn't we kind of invite this upon ourselves as as we in the west
01:07:51.100went went through modernity if we were going to abstract uh values from or or at least the
01:07:58.040value-making role of of the church or religion of of worship or whatever of of pastors and priests
01:08:06.660in in the populace if that role was going to be reduced and reduced and reduced uh as secularism
01:08:12.920did uh do that did did we not invite that somebody would step into that vacuum and is that is that
01:08:18.940not in a sense somewhat the socially conserved argument nowadays of like well the state the
01:08:23.280state has to retract in so many respects because it is forming the consciousness of people and
01:08:27.600until you get it to retract it will just be there and it'll fill that vacuum fill that gap
01:08:32.380that's right i mean i i i don't think uh the liberals will necessarily be stopped
01:08:41.760from uh bringing in uh stronger anti-hate speech laws i mean if they're re-elected god forbid
01:08:48.020But if they're reelected, I think they'll be fully committed to that type of agenda.
01:08:54.260And part of the problem, too, is that many voters, not just in Canada, but across the Western world, don't see a problem with governments clamping down on so-called hate speech.
01:09:08.260I mean, who could be against policies that restrict or eliminate hatred?
01:09:14.280But, of course, people have to think about what is meant by hatred or what is meant by offensive speech.
01:09:22.720I mean, if somebody is critical of the liberal government, is that offensive?
01:09:27.860Is that hateful or is that legitimate dissent?
01:09:31.980I would think maybe just the Augustinian inside of me, but I would think that all governments are sinful.
01:09:38.700I mean, now it's time for a little theology here.
01:09:41.880All governments are frail and sinful in the sense that no government really wants criticism.
01:09:51.780And usually we think of that attitude as linked to totalitarian governments.
01:09:57.460Of course, they won't tolerate criticism and they'll suppress it quite brutally.
01:10:02.360But unfortunately, it's true of democracies as well.
01:10:05.360I mean, despite the lip service given to freedom, I think most elected politicians, frankly, do not want to be criticized.
01:10:15.360And the fact that they can't control the flow of information and speech on social media, I think, bugs the heck out of them.
01:10:23.400And as a result, if they see an opportunity to restrict that speech or to restrict criticism, even legitimate criticism of government policies, they will take that stand and call it a clamp down on hate speech.
01:10:44.140Indeed, they will. There's no question. I mean, I mean, if you could if you could silence and silence and control your opposition with complete impunity, like who wouldn't?
01:12:45.840I mean, democracies don't have to be brutal.
01:12:47.920All they need to do is use propaganda in order to convince the people that this is for their own good.
01:12:56.480And unfortunately, many voters are quite happy to sacrifice their freedoms if that means fighting something called hatred without actually worrying about the ramifications of that.
01:13:11.360So that's what concerns me. I think there'll always be a high number of voters who don't really want their freedoms, unless it's a freedom to consume, like to buy stuff online or go to the shopping mall.
01:13:26.660That freedom is very important to voters, as long as they have their technical gadgets to distract them from politics.
01:13:39.220But as far as intellectual freedom or religious freedom or the freedom to disagree, I'm not sure that a majority of Canadians necessarily care about those freedoms.
01:13:54.840I hope we do. Otherwise, we're going to see a therapeutic state growing in leaps and bounds in the years to come.
01:14:07.360I must admit that I was consulting the other week on the show. I put it up on the screen there. It was the second coming by Yates. It did seem like the best lacked all conviction and the worst were full of fury.
01:14:24.840But it's it's if if we're going to try and map our way out of there and and and get out of I think there's another Canadian thinker, his name escapes me, but he talks about socialistic or tyrannical, socialistic, collectivistic, but libertinism.
01:14:42.700Right. So you can you can consume what you want. You can do whatever you want to do in your bodily autonomy when it comes to sex and and or your gluttony and whatever. But you but but of course, there's no freedom. You can't shop for your medicine. You can't shop for for your insurance. Right. At least in British Columbia, you can't shop for anything else.
01:15:00.860You have no choices around anything that kind of might have brick and mortar ramifications on your life or principles of freedom.
01:15:08.380But you can you can watch whatever you want on the Internet and you can you can copulate with whoever you want to and you can buy whatever you want on Amazon.
01:15:16.760Yeah, this is a new type of social contract, very different from the traditional liberal social contract, which emphasized the desirability of a limited state, a state that basically respects and preserves the private sphere of life.
01:15:39.040But if people simply equate the private sphere of life with consumption, as you suggested, why should they care about whether the government will restrict their right to disagree or their right to embrace ideas that may well be wrong, but that is an expression of their freedom to disagree.
01:16:05.060So I think it is a type of new social contract.
01:16:11.060I mean, let's take a controversial example.
01:16:13.880It's perfectly legal to change your gender now in Canada,0.99
01:16:18.360but it's not legal to criticize the politics of gender constructivism.
01:16:26.720So I think many Canadians would see the first freedom as important,
01:16:31.540but then would be critical of the freedom to disagree or to object to gender constructivism.
01:21:59.480I would have been astounded if somebody had told me that today the right would be the real movement concerned with social class or a class divide.
01:22:12.620I mean, there are still some hardcore Marxists who are focused on class, but the more powerful or more prevalent left doesn't want to deal with class.
01:22:24.140Of course, it wants to deal with race.0.69
01:22:25.840I mean, Robin DiAngelo, the author of White Fragility, has said this more than once, that the focus on race is far more important than a focus on class.
01:22:37.820So what everyone thinks about that, that's quite a shift in the history of the left.
01:22:42.820And related to that, who would have predicted that the left would cozy up to big business, especially big tech or other corporations that have embraced not just the rhetoric, but the policies of so-called progressivism today?
01:23:02.820I certainly would not have been able to anticipate that years ago.
01:23:07.240So the left is not really anti-capitalist anymore, despite some rhetorical excesses.
01:23:14.460They've made their peace with capitalism, or at least with certain sectors of capitalism.
01:23:20.860And their aim is not to heal or address the class divide, but rather to clamp down on anybody who dissents from what they call their anti-racist agenda.
01:23:36.820Although I think they themselves are engaging in racism on their own.
01:23:42.600So, yeah, the left has really changed.
01:23:45.240In a way, this creates an opportunity for the right, though.
01:24:26.940it's it's a great irony isn't it that uh i mean again when dr seuss was getting banned uh i my
01:24:35.360in a show that i used to do well it's on hiatus uh but when one of those contributors aaron ekman
01:24:40.680uh we were we were all co-hosting he we would we would sit there when we kind of go back and forth
01:24:44.860he'd be the left-wing guy i'd be the right-wing guy and one of the jokes that we made while we're
01:24:48.340both discussing this whole thing where they've just canceled dr seuss is that aaron looks at me
01:24:53.500He's like, you know, I don't really understand it because, you know, from my parents' perspective and from my perspective, because his parents were pretty left wing, too.
01:24:59.320It's like he was one of our guys. I'm like, yeah, from our perspective, he was one of your guys.
01:25:03.480And I don't know when we decided that Dr. Seuss was somehow, you know, a crazy right winger.
01:25:08.800But he that was just like we were both laughing.
01:25:11.920I was like, I don't know who's decided that, you know, Dr. Seuss is Goebbels.
01:25:16.180But I don't I don't agree with that assessment.
01:25:19.200And it's funny that you make this point about the class divide being ignored, because at some point, I'm sure that a left wing undergrad or graduate student, for that matter, is going to start writing a paper or thesis about how obviously, you know, Victor Hugo and and Charles Dickens need to be banned.
01:25:35.260Because because despite the fact that they tried to do so much for the underclass, they were obviously just people of privilege and they have no right to speak.0.96
01:25:43.400well that's right and just to connect this back to the the hate speech issue i i think people
01:25:50.160in the left who support anti-hate speech laws because they assume that these laws will go
01:25:56.300after those terrible right-wingers are being really naive uh because the left will cancel
01:26:03.700its own heroes or its own present-day celebrities and as you said that's just happening i was just
01:26:10.000reading this morning that a statue of emily murphy uh one of canada's most famous feminists
01:26:16.460part of the famous five uh i think her statue in edmonton uh was vandalized with red paint
01:26:23.200because uh she was a feminist who happened to have racist views who happened to endorse eugenics1.00
01:26:30.800and other nasty ideas that hopefully we have completely done away with.
01:26:37.840So I think eventually the left will devour itself.
01:26:45.780I mean, this is what happens with any revolution.
01:26:48.460The revolution will devour its own architects because nobody is morally pure at the end of the day.
01:26:56.740And as a result, I think this new left will end up alienating or splintering important parts of its own coalition, which I think is quite shaky.
01:27:14.040I mean, it's too bad that Donald Trump is no longer president from a leftist point of view, because I think hatred of Trump was probably the one thing that united all these different factions on the left.
01:27:26.900And now that he's gone, the big differences between these factions will become more obvious.
01:27:36.760And I think one faction will end up accusing the other of engaging in hate speech or celebrating the wrong heroes or not pulling down the right statues and so forth.
01:27:49.720it and i think that a lot of this is all connected back to again a sense of a sense of place or a
01:27:56.340lack thereof um and uh one of my one of my favorite quotes is always of course i will not raise my
01:28:02.100hand against virginia um whatever one might say of of the lost cause uh and and of the various
01:28:07.940individuals involved with it in the end also a sense of place and fundamental loyalty is an
01:28:13.300important one i think a strong value regardless of your of your left or right leanings the problem
01:28:18.560is though that that we live in a time where there is no sense of place people are cosmopolitan either
01:28:23.840by choice or by force they can't afford a home in their hometown they have to move somewhere else
01:28:28.480they can't can't get decent work in where they grew up they have to go somewhere else is that
01:28:34.100rootlessness also a part of the chaos we're sensing that that the people don't have a sense
01:28:39.780of place a sense of regardless of national identity they don't have a sense of local identity because
01:28:44.520they don't have a neighborhood. They don't have a home. Well, that's right. If people,
01:28:48.920especially young people, no longer feel that they have a vested interest in the system
01:28:53.400and, for example, cannot afford a home or will not have the money to raise children
01:29:01.620or to have a job that places them in the middle class, that's a very dangerous situation for any
01:29:09.660political party right or left as I think the the extinction or decline of the
01:29:19.740middle class is a dangerous threat that not only Canada faces but the Western1.00
01:29:29.580world as well because if we don't have a middle class we're not going to have a
01:29:34.540real democracy i think barrington moore famously said no bourgeois no democracy i mean we'll have
01:29:43.340a kind of democracy which is governed by shall we say the mob or whoever shows the loudest but
01:29:51.580we're not going to have a democracy that respects the rule of law or freedom of speech or other
01:29:59.420important restraints on public authority uh so no middle class no democracy i i think it's kind
01:30:07.840of funny i've had this discussion with some of my leftist friends as well there's i mean on a good
01:30:11.640day on a good day i sympathize with orwell and on a bad day i i have i i have less doubts about some
01:30:17.620of franco's uh designs and so it's this is the problem we we we and if you had told me that 10
01:30:24.580years ago too it's like well it's like you know you you would meet people who would kind of sit
01:30:29.000there and be like you know what i i don't know if if uh if if franco and the gang were wrong all the
01:30:34.740time in or the other way too it's like well you know i like i like uh what or what was trying to
01:30:40.220do but i i also disagree with maybe his methodology if you told me 10 years ago people are going to
01:30:44.600have discussions like that where they were where literally either the foundations of democracy
01:30:48.660were being shaken to the point that people were kind of trying to pick which kind of totalitarianism
01:31:21.120on the other side that society is clearly dividing because the system that we're in right now is not
01:31:26.140working for a lot of people well that's right and and the center uh will not hold or and uh
01:31:34.240it's legitimate to ask whether there is a center anymore i mean much of what uh president biden
01:31:40.820is doing in the united states is far to the left of of obama uh and even farther to the left of
01:31:48.960the Clinton administration of the 1990s. And yet, of course, it's all presented as mainstream and
01:31:56.440moderate and not radical at all. But meanwhile, yeah, I think you're right. Polarization will
01:32:05.440just continue. And we haven't quite seen that in an obvious sense in Canada, not yet. But of course,
01:32:13.620there are serious regional divides that are fueling polarization as well. So the idea that
01:32:21.620somehow our liberal democracies can depend on a consensus which encourages bipartisan
01:32:29.280collaboration is just becoming an illusion because so many people feel alienated from
01:32:37.880the political system again across the western world uh so i i think we're we're in for very
01:32:44.840interesting times uh interesting times are not necessarily good or stable times of course but
01:32:51.880uh and what's further depressing is that we don't seem to have a political leadership that really
01:32:57.240understands uh how dangerous uh these times are and how there really is no political center anymore
01:33:07.880no and and one of the one of the things that shows just how far gone we are again again you
01:33:17.760know you and i are sitting down 10 years ago somebody walks up to us and says oh yeah there's
01:33:21.720a whole bunch of churches burning we're both like well yeah i mean in the middle east obviously or
01:33:25.560sudan or or or in north africa with boca haram and it's like no no no no there's uh there's the
01:33:32.660problem is that we're we have we have churches burning in canada and uh and and we'd both look
01:33:39.420at each other again we'd be like that's not happening that that's nonsense that's something
01:33:42.480that happens over there not over here i i'd be interested to get your take on on what's happening
01:33:47.580right now with with the oh yeah uh not not only do we have churches burning but uh we also have uh
01:34:02.660uh powerful people in the media and in politics at least some powerful people who are either
01:34:11.260downplaying the seriousness of these church burnings or even celebrating these church
01:34:17.640burnings like uh that representative of the bc civil liberties association uh not too long ago
01:34:24.480So, again, I wouldn't have been able to anticipate any of this years ago.
01:34:31.780And, again, it raises questions about who exactly is our leadership class.
01:34:40.120I mean, are they comfortable with any traditions in the history of Canada?
01:34:44.900Or do they want to reinvent the entire country using not just propaganda, but also coercion?
01:34:55.880But again, the problem is that I think many Canadians probably don't have a problem with many of these attitudes.
01:35:06.440I think there probably are Canadians who think that the church burnings are understandable, as Gerald Butt put it.
01:35:13.320And as long as you have that attitude, not just among our ruling class, let's say, but also the governed, it's very hard to convince the people that the rule of law is a good thing, that freedom of disagreement is a good thing, that we shouldn't try to demonize our entire history.
01:35:38.940Again, I think that's what the right has to do
01:39:03.080We're here. We're here at the end of these things, and we wonder where it's headed to next.
01:39:09.260And indeed, I think it's that simple. And maybe maybe we do have to ask Orwell for for his intercession on that count.
01:39:16.380You know, I believe Samuel is is the donkey and in Animal Farm.
01:39:22.940And he reminds everybody that, you know, if you didn't like if you didn't like your old masters, just wait till you've got your new ones.
01:39:28.860This seems to be a perpetual amnesia when it comes to any revolution, right wing or left wing, any radical right or left, is that, you know, at some point the new oligarchs are going to show up and the new oligarchs might be far more cruel than the old oligarchs.
01:39:54.020I mean, philosophy is important, too, but even more important, dare I say, is a knowledge of history.
01:40:03.760And one of the most depressing lessons from history is that for most of human history, we did not have freedom.
01:40:13.500Most of human history is really the history of not just violence, but tyranny, or at least governments that suppressed freedom or saw freedom as an alien idea.
01:40:24.020the idea of freedom in the classical liberal sense is pretty new. It's a newcomer in the history of
01:40:31.420civilization, perhaps 250 or 300 years old, which is just a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately,
01:40:40.400human beings by nature do not desire freedom. Perhaps they desire freedom for themselves,
01:40:46.160but not for others but that's not really freedom then so it's depressing that uh we
01:40:54.640may be going back to a familiar pattern in history in which freedom just disappears
01:41:01.760and uh going back to uh attitudes that i i think unfortunately are more natural to human beings
01:41:09.840which is to be intolerant and disagreeable and willing to use coercion to get one's own way.
01:43:51.360And as a result, the alternative, which of course is dictatorship, becomes more palatable or at least is not seen as something inferior to democracy.
01:44:09.000Yeah, the lights are going out all over the West, if we want to appropriate that particular line.
01:44:15.380I do hope to see them lit again in our lifetime, but perhaps not.
01:44:18.960uh that was that was a little bit of a downer but that i mean reality sometimes is that way
01:44:25.840and that's why we console ourselves with philosophy uh and allow ourselves to have a
01:44:31.240bit of a philosophic view perhaps we can end on on that old line by benedict a contemporary of
01:44:36.880augustine at one point as augustine saw the world burn and was worried that it was all over i believe
01:44:42.340benedict said pruned it grows again so we can only make that our prayer yeah and the good news is uh
01:44:48.720with a nod to augustine is that none of this is inevitable i mean plato and to some extent
01:44:54.800aristotle thought that it was inevitable that tyranny would replace democracy because they were
01:45:00.960fatalists they were resigned to the cycles of fortune and misfortune but uh this is where i
01:45:06.160like augustine augustine uh who admired plato still thought that no this is a matter of will
01:45:12.880human beings, at least human beings who are open to the grace of God, are still responsible for
01:45:23.040their actions. There's nothing inevitable about decline and fall. That is a choice that people
01:45:30.720make. So like all choices, people need to think that through. Agreed. Agreed. Thank you so much
01:45:39.440for joining us today and we hope to see you again soon thank you nathan absolutely
01:45:44.820well we've come to the end of our time here today uh very thankful of course for dr haver's
01:45:53.160contribution and what we have discussed here we went all over the place but in good places
01:45:57.560uh fundamentally obviously uh the ethic of freedom needs to be reinvigorated throughout the west but
01:46:31.260one if they want but the point is that
01:46:33.260Stuart's not here, unfortunately, to teach us more about dependency theory and the issues thereof.
01:46:37.920So we're going to have to figure out whether we're going to have Aaron on for the whole time or we're going to do some comment stuff at the end of tomorrow's show.
01:46:44.720But in any case, what we're going to end on here now, of course, is the same thing we always end on, which is we're going to throw up the old email, remind people that if they would like to suggest guests and that sort of thing, bring it on.
01:46:56.040We're happy to take those suggestions.
01:46:57.480And the other thing we're going to bring up at the very end here is that I am getting married not so long from now.
01:47:06.760And the question of when that hiatus is going to begin is up in the air.
01:47:11.220I'm going to be discussing that with my overlords in Alberta, who are a little far away.
01:47:17.220I got to find a time to kind of chat with them and figure out when exactly this hiatus is going to begin.
01:47:22.600and you guys are gonna have I'm sure either something that replaces the show entirely as a
01:47:30.240as a stand-in or a stand-in host for a while I'm just going to make sure that I you know consult
01:47:36.060with both both both the people thereof and of course let all of you know our viewership and
01:47:41.780listeners who I appreciate very much that that that is going to be an ongoing discussion I'm
01:47:46.820not sure when exactly that hiatus is going to come to pass but it's important for you to be
01:47:50.800given that forewarning. So you're not, you know, tuning in on a Tuesday and suddenly I've
01:47:54.900disappeared. Uh, last points, uh, I guess would just be that again, uh, keep, you know, keep on
01:48:01.740the straight and narrow, pray, pray for what's left of this country. And I am hopeful as well
01:48:07.480that as we, uh, kind of journey forward, uh, we're able to kind of see what exactly, not just the
01:48:14.080question of sovereignty, but also the wider question of regionalism and identity, uh, for
01:48:18.840what it means to be, you know, at least a Western Canadian or someone who loves freedom,
01:48:23.420what that could mean. We look forward to the federal election with some anxiety. I'm not sure
01:48:29.640exactly how that's going to go. But hopefully, hopefully people make the right choices going on,
01:48:36.400going on. Well, we hope. A couple of good comments here. Sheldon doesn't want me to disappear. He
01:48:42.940still has to give me my rating on my hair uh and of course uh mr blair uh reminding me that
01:48:49.640it's good it's good to be getting married that's awesome so that's all for us today uh that was
01:48:55.760the last thing that's what escaped me two seconds ago when i looked like i was scrambling uh the
01:48:59.580pipeline is on in a few minutes uh which i believe occurs always at uh what am i thinking 12 p.m