00:01:30.000hello and good morning welcome to of course mountain standard time and i'm your host
00:01:46.240nathan gita today i'll be speaking with aaron ekman which is nothing new for most people who
00:01:51.120regularly view this show except for the part that the now cancelled former board chair of
00:01:55.680of UNBC's Board of Governors is going to be talking to us exactly about what it's like
00:01:59.640to be canceled in real time by your own side, nonetheless. Remember to like us on Facebook,
00:02:05.360follow us on YouTube and take out a subscription online at the Western Standard, especially if you
00:02:09.220wish to continue supporting the only free voice in the West. Today, like I said, we'll be talking
00:02:15.440to Aaron and he's our first canceled guest. We've had some other people who have had their brushes
00:02:19.620with the media and people who have kind of been ignored or fallen by the wayside, people who
00:02:24.260aren't the first people the media call anymore but this is our first a moment of having somebody on
00:02:30.700who right before our very eyes was canceled and i think that's really important uh this happened
00:02:36.500last friday may 28th when the minister of advanced education for british columbia informed him
00:02:41.700and the world via twitter that his presence as board chair at the university of northern british
00:02:45.640columbia was no longer necessary so he was clearly an intolerant racist we're going to let him
00:02:50.900explain that a little bit better but i think it's a noteworthy moment because first of all
00:02:55.940aaron's a close friend of mine and he's been on our show several times we all know but again
00:03:00.740there's the reality that cancel culture itself something that we talk about often it really
00:03:06.020happened it happened right here it happened right here in prince george maybe not the first place
00:03:10.420you'd think that cancel culture would happen but this this disease this virus that is cancel
00:03:14.620culture is spreading we live in such a disembodied world with a cacophony of stimuli all seeking our
00:03:20.660outrage that we often feel disoriented and overwhelmed i've suffered the effects of
00:03:25.000terrorists and market crashes and even viruses i mean i lived through 2001 i've lived through 2008
00:03:30.360now i've lived through 2020 but it's not like i ever met the virus or the terrorist or the bankers
00:03:34.860who were playing with our mortgages but uh the closest i think i ever got to that actually was
00:03:39.640i remember being there at the air canada discount airline like not i wasn't taking that airline that
00:03:45.360day but the air the next kiosk over was where the discount airline was and it folded that day i
00:03:50.940watched people pack the desks pack the kiosk pack away the computers people with uniforms on not
00:03:58.140just you know helpers and hands-on like no people who were from that airline who now no longer had
00:04:02.340a job who were having to pack up the stuff that used to be a part of that airline so that's kind
00:04:07.100of the only time i've ever seen it happen live today in real time uh you my dear audience and i
00:04:13.160We're going to speak with someone who was taken out for purely ideological and selfish reasons just moments ago, and that's historic. That's historic for the show. We're not necessarily breaking the story. Aaron did speak with some local guys here, but he's leaving the big guys away. He's letting us talk to him first. He's not talking to the big news guys first. He's talking to us first.
00:04:31.900Another point to bring up here is that clearly even northern BC is changing.
00:04:35.740Obviously, that was a voluntary position, and it was beholden to a woke left-wing government in Victoria.
00:04:40.760But without delving into that, we need to understand that the capital of Victoria would never have thought it could have told the northern capital, Prince George, what to do with its university board chair even 10 years ago.
00:04:52.520Nowadays, there's people up here who are even lauding this, thinking that somehow there really was a strike for being tolerant and diversity and all the rest of it.
00:05:01.500But the northern capital has demographics similar enough to Vancouver and Victoria, I suppose, that there really are some echelons that applauded this.
00:05:09.980And that's not good, because that lack of solidarity will ensure we're mistreated.
00:05:15.400If we don't stick together up here, we're not going to get Victoria to listen to us.
00:05:19.680We'll get Aaron on right away, but I'd like to point out once again that we are living in an empire of lies, which is what John Paul II used to call the Soviet Union.
00:05:26.660The government gained nothing by cancelling, my dear friend, save to prove for the nth time its supremacy and ability to redefine the very fabric of reality.0.77
00:05:36.580Orwell warned us about this, a political machine that sought total control.
00:05:40.500We've arrived at that point that he said the spirit of man was going to be stomped in the face by a jackboot by the state over and over again for eternity in the spirit of man.
00:05:52.540Hopefully, we're able to struggle back up on top to our feet before it's too late.
00:05:57.000We'll bring Aaron on right away and chat with you for a short while.
00:07:44.900So every time you get a changeover in government, you usually start to see a changeover in the university boards.
00:07:51.900And to be clear, in terms of public institutions across the province, there's over 300 different public boards and agencies that when a new government comes in,
00:07:59.240they start, you know, as the terms start to expire for each of those public officials, those appointees, they reappoint them.
00:08:05.320if you go way back to 2001 2002 when the bc liberals were first elected in bc
00:08:10.680they wiped out every appointed member on every board and college in the province all in one
00:08:15.920like everybody just got a pink slip and then just reappointed everybody uh and and so that was one
00:08:21.020one method they used the ndp used a different method they chose not to wipe everybody out
00:08:25.280in one day they just chose to wait until the terms expired and then they'd reappoint
00:08:28.540So I ended up being the first appointment at UMBC after the NDP government was elected in British Columbia.
00:08:38.940And so I was on the board for a couple of years as just a member of the board, they call a board of governor.
00:08:46.080And then the previous chair had, she resigned quite abruptly.
00:08:52.620I think, you know, there was some emergency in her family.
00:08:54.420and um and and the next day i ended up elected by the other board members as the chair that wasn't
00:09:01.320that long ago it was less than a year ago i think it was like july 2020 or something so that's
00:09:06.520basically how the the boards operate there's also some elected people on the boards there's two
00:09:10.720elected students one from the graduate student society and one from the undergraduate student
00:09:15.500society there's a couple of faculty reps that are they're they're elected from the faculty as well
00:12:00.280I'm very proud of the faculty and the senior executive.
00:12:02.780It's been a difficult time, no doubt about it.
00:12:05.340There's been two protracted labor disputes with the faculty since they formalized their status as a union a number of years ago.
00:12:12.820And so there's been a couple of strikes, actually.
00:12:14.860When I came in sort of in the middle of the labor dispute and we worked through COVID to very quietly try to bring the parties back to the table and negotiate a collective agreement.
00:12:27.500And while I was there, we were able to achieve the first negotiated collective agreement since the faculty had unionized.
00:12:34.320And in fact, the last two agreements have been imposed upon them by government.
00:12:45.080Like they, you know, I would, you know, this might be controversial as well.
00:12:49.160And I, you know, this is why it's difficult for me to understand this, you know, precisely
00:12:52.800what it is that I've said is I say so many controversial things in a day that I'm not
00:12:56.000sure which one they've sort of picked.
00:12:59.580But, you know, for people that are kind of concerned about what's happening at universities,
00:13:03.260I would argue that UMBC is one of the last sane universities in the country, and it's, you know, it's got a very immense commitment to providing, you know, producing research, especially scientific research, environmental research, research related to forestry, etc., that's vital for northern British Columbians in particular.
00:13:22.080And the students come from all over, but the university was created primarily from the sweat and labor of people here locally who demanded to have a university in the north that serviced northern folks.
00:13:35.040Because the problem families have had for so long is that if their children wanted a post-secondary education, especially if they wanted to pursue a post-grad degree, they'd have to go down to the lower mainland or leave the north.
00:13:48.380So UMBC, I've got nothing bad to say about UMBC.
00:13:51.140I'm immensely proud of that institution.
00:13:53.100There's people there, I'm sure, that are, you know, after this incident will be quite
00:13:56.680critical of me, but it doesn't change my opinion at all of that university.
00:13:59.800So, Mark, I'm sorry to hear that it's not going well for your brother-in-law.
00:14:04.500You know, we have been making efforts to try to make things better.
00:14:07.800And the board that remains there, they're good people.
00:14:10.820They're from the community, and they care about the university.
00:14:13.740So, yeah, because of all those factors, I had, as you referenced, announced my intention
00:17:49.920I've been a contract negotiator both in the private and public sector.
00:17:52.760I've negotiated against government on the union side.
00:17:56.120I've negotiated against private sector employers.
00:17:59.380I've also negotiated as an employer, opposite unions.
00:18:02.960And so, you know, I have a fair understanding of HR trends over the years,
00:18:08.060and in particular, HR style guides and what style guides are.
00:18:13.140And they're called different things depending on the organization,
00:18:15.120but essentially it's a book that lists out, you know,
00:18:19.940the kind of speech we're allowed to use in the workplace.
00:18:22.220and so increasingly public sector workers in particular but also in private sector
00:18:27.320corporations all sorts of places generally you know across what we I often refer to as
00:18:31.960professional managerial class there there are these style guides that are being imposed upon
00:18:37.380folks that that place you know some compression on what they're able to say and so there's another
00:18:43.140tweet that you know I followed up with that as well I think it's the next one that asks for
00:18:48.720somebody if they are willing to very quietly to send me a copy of the updated style guide which
00:18:53.860you know specifies that they're no longer allowed to say pregnant women anymore that we now have to
00:18:59.800refer to pregnant people and so that question sparked a bit of a twitter mob who was rather
00:19:06.780incensed because I think you know I'm pretty certain that what they were you know from the
00:19:11.160sort of the vitriol I was receiving what they're alleging that I'm trying to imply here is that
00:19:17.080it's not possible for someone who's not a woman to have a baby or to become pregnant and i i suspect
00:19:24.600you know you know knowing you and i have had a number of conversations and i know i know where
00:19:28.780you stand on these issues so you would probably agree with what i just said i don't actually agree
00:19:32.440with what i just said i i'm you know you know me i'm pretty pretty pretty liberal uh i actually
00:19:38.100recognize that someone who decides as an adult to transition from a from a woman to a man can do so
00:19:46.880I would still refer to them as a, you know, I have no problem referring to them as a man using, you know, male pronouns to describe them.
00:19:53.700And I also understand that those, that that particular person, you know, might not opt to get surgery that removes their uterus, for instance, and could still have a baby and become pregnant and have a child, and I would still refer to them as a man.
00:20:09.760So this is the person that they're referring to. And I guess by, you know, me questioning that, um, asking for the style guide, for instance, uh, the insinuation that was, uh, that people were saying that I was making was that, um, birth dads, I think, as they're referred to don't exist.
00:20:29.900uh and there's one more tweet on this one as well uh that i made because i i took it a step further
00:20:36.600and i said look i'm really interested in talking to someone like this i've never met the i've never
00:20:40.440met such a person before someone's actually someone who knows me uh who's married to uh
00:20:45.320a self-identified male who's had three children has actually did tell me afterwards that you
00:20:50.040erin you did actually meet my husband they said uh at a convention and you know i apologize for
00:20:55.780not remembering that person. It was, you know, our conventions at the BC Federation of Labour
00:20:59.860when I was there. There are 2,500 people, depending on whether there's an election going on. So it's
00:21:05.020difficult to remember someone. So, you know, I did say, look, I'd love to interview somebody like
00:21:09.960that. I was going to talk to you about bringing them on the show, but we also do another show
00:21:13.060that I would have loved to have had them on because I just think, you know, like I'd love
00:21:18.280to hear your perspective on a number of different issues. It's not somebody that I've spoke to
00:21:21.460before. But by posting this question, the implication was, you know, as perceived by the
00:21:27.020people who were rather angry about it, was that, again, I was trying to prove that such people
00:21:31.320don't exist. And then they took issue with me asking to question them, because I think they
00:21:35.720presumed, of course, that I wanted to, you know, challenge their existence and all these other
00:21:40.920things. Which, you know, I mean, like, I can understand, certainly, with the climate that a
00:21:46.460number of these folks have to face, that they would draw those conclusions. But, you know,
00:21:50.840so funny is that every single person that was sort of attacking me they all know me right they like
00:21:55.640they all know me quite well and they know they know for instance when i was at the bc federation
00:21:59.720of labor that i not only supported but pushed very hard to have the the gender designations taken
00:22:04.120off the bathrooms i know lots of your listeners are probably going oh god he's one of those people
00:22:07.560but you know like i that's where i am politically um so it was it was interesting to me uh to see
00:22:14.760the reaction to this uh and how quickly people will sort of take a question like that a desire
00:22:20.120to talk to somebody uh about these issues as an attack on them and absolutely at that point going
00:22:27.400back last month there were a number of calls uh you know there was no fewer than like four different
00:22:32.360lawyers uh from from the lower mainland who were actively sending copies of my tweets to different
00:22:39.080groups at the university and probably to the ministry as well trying to get me fired so i
00:22:43.400expected you know around that point that i'd probably you know get dismissed or something and
00:22:48.440and try to be labeled as a transphobe um but it didn't you know nothing happened so the months
00:22:53.540kind of carried on so then then the next week comes and i don't know if you if you had any
00:22:59.920comment on where we're at so far before i carry on but uh no i mean i mean this is this is of
00:23:05.480course what this forum is for for those of us who uh of course the albertan here and giving us uh
00:23:10.280his two thoughts he always he always gives us a couple of his sense the narrative must be swallowed
00:23:14.240whole without question i mean and this is just it uh they're not allowed to have any kind of
00:23:19.260nuanced opinion here i mean what you've expressed so far as much as people might only hear the
00:23:23.320you know taking the labels off the bathrooms thing kind of if this was fox that's where i
00:23:28.280would capitalize but the point is that that you know you're trying to have an actually nuanced
00:23:33.800opinion on this you're trying to speak to people who are from a different walk of life and and
00:23:38.480you're trying to you're trying to kind of understand those things i there's nothing wrong
00:23:42.180with that ultimately you know obviously we fall on different sides of this question a lot of
00:23:46.740accounts but this is what this forum is for is it's for people to get their opinions out there
00:23:51.140and talk and without without a filter that's why we're here and i that's that's all i've got to say
00:23:56.680about that i'm just happy to have you roll along here and tell us a bit more about how you ended
00:24:00.980up getting canceled from a volunteer position that's that's well this this is what's what's
00:24:06.620so ironic about this sort of the whole political climate right now is that you know the guy that
00:24:11.340supports transgender rights, the guy that, you know, thinks that we should take gender
00:24:15.920designations off of bathrooms, has a very difficult time getting any airtime on sort
00:24:21.220of left-wing publications. It's the right-wing conservative that has me on his show to talk
00:24:26.420about it, who actually disagrees with me on it. So, I mean, that's just very interesting
00:24:29.440to me, you know, and part of the reason why I like this show so much.
00:24:34.340Yeah, no, it's telling. I mean, it's actually quite fascinating. So anyway, let's jump
00:24:40.540forward to what happened on Friday, because despite all the efforts of, you know, what you
00:24:44.940might describe as left-wing trans activists trying to get me fired, it doesn't appear that they were
00:24:50.280successful. And so when we're talking about why I was cancelled, so to speak, and I want to be
00:24:57.560clear, you know, we talk a lot about cancel culture, etc. I don't, I'm not complaining about
00:25:01.920what's happened. I'm not, I don't see myself as having been victimized to the same extent, I think,
00:25:07.700as many people would i like i engage in controversial discussions all the time and like i said the one
00:25:14.280thing that surprised me the most was that you know they sort of fired me when they did why they did
00:25:19.360and as late in the game as they did um because you know you can't you're fired
00:25:25.000it's sort of well i think you know my i've been i've been appearing on this show um fairly
00:25:32.960frequently and it you know that probably didn't help very much but uh you know i have no regrets
00:25:37.400whatsoever. In any case, so let's go to Friday. So let's start with the link to the joint statement
00:25:43.380that was put out by the Finance Minister Selina Robinson and Rakhna Singh, who's the Parliamentary
00:25:50.780Secretary for Anti-Racism. This was a statement that was put out. It's a web link to mark
00:25:57.780Jewish Heritage Month. And just scroll down to the fifth paragraph and let's look at the
00:26:03.940first sentence there it is right there right at the bottom of the screen it says over the last
00:26:08.660few years there has been an increase in anti-semitism and bigotry in bc so that state
00:26:15.520like so i read these statements because well you know i have a hebrew name and even though i'm not
00:26:22.960jewish i can't necessarily trust some nazi roaming around with a club to be able to tell the
00:26:28.540difference. And so I actually, I keep track of the stats of anti-Asian, or sorry, anti-Jewish
00:26:35.400violence and discrimination and bigotry quite closely. I track this stuff every year. And
00:26:41.220these stats actually do exist. It's not like this has to be anecdotal information. And the reason
00:26:46.620that statement stuck out to me is because it's not in keeping with the data that I was familiar
00:26:53.400with. So there's a fairly well-known Jewish organization, B'nai B'rith, that produces an
00:26:59.740annual audit every year of the number of incidents of anti-Jewish violence, bigotry, hatred, etc.
00:27:07.160in a big report. And there's another, I think I actually included the B'nai B'rith link,
00:27:13.940we can probably post that website as well, just to show people, I mean, you can go look at this
00:27:17.100data. And they compile it, I mean, these are good reports, I recommend you read them, you can see
00:27:21.940you know there's the 2020 report the 2019 2018 2017 and they go through and there's photographs
00:27:27.340of all of the terrible things that uh get put up the graffiti the you know the swastikas that get
00:27:33.380posted incidents of violence that kind of stuff i recommend people read this because it will
00:27:38.560actually surprise you how much of this garbage takes place in canada and and it's absolutely
00:27:45.700true that the rate of increase of these incidents in some areas like ontario for instance
00:27:51.740is spiking at an alarming rate um like it's it's in the maritimes etc it's like it's not good right
00:27:58.940so i watch this stuff with great interest but if you put up the uh cropped image of western stats
00:28:06.560which i was familiar with because i you know like i said i've been tracking this stuff if you look
00:28:11.580there british columbia in particular but even more interestingly you know alberta in comparison to
00:28:16.300the other provinces is so low, and I'm not celebrating necessarily the low numbers here,
00:28:23.280I mean, one incident is terrible of this kind of stuff, I mean, there shouldn't be any incident
00:28:27.660of it, so I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to pat anybody on the back here.
00:28:32.560Mackenzie King's phrase the other way, none is too many, so obviously there should be no
00:28:39.100incidents of anti-Semitism or racial hatred of any kind. Against anyone, yeah, but especially
00:28:45.720right now I mean these are the kind of things we got to watch because things are so heightened over
00:28:49.860in Israel right now with you know if you turn on the news I mean it's just outrageous but Alberta
00:28:54.960in particular I mean the stats are are so comparatively low it looks like they've you know
00:28:58.700they've had to combine them with the northern territories in the northwest territories in the
00:29:03.240Yukon but in both Alberta and British Columbia there's been a marked decline since 2018 so 374
00:29:10.680in 2018 in british columbia which was a huge increase over 2017 by the way like it was a
00:29:15.660massive increase that was a scary year uh but 2019 it would drop down to 2012 2020 dropped down to
00:29:21.900194 and similar a similar trajectory with an even bigger decrease between this year you know 2020
00:29:27.400and 2019 uh in alberta of 27.5 percent decrease in 8.5 in british columbia so you know when i saw
00:29:35.740that statement um saying that it was on the increase over the last few years in bc it just
00:29:41.120didn't sit right so i don't i don't know if you if if our producer can uh show that tweet where i
00:29:47.380i basically clipped the statement from the uh from the jewish heritage month statement and
00:29:54.820asked the question to the ministers is this true do you have evidence for this um and uh we can
00:30:01.500probably show that tweet because this is the one that i think sparked all the ultimately sparked
00:30:05.920the dismissal there's been an increase in anti-semitism and bigotry in bc say two bc
00:30:15.700neap ministers has there does the government does the bc government have evidence of this honest
00:30:19.900question and then i quoted the uh the joint statement so if you go on twitter and you and
00:30:25.240you find this tweet you'll see that it it um it attracted a number of people who who called me an
00:30:34.680anti-semite for having asked this question and it's not like i don't understand why you know
00:30:39.720people would would draw that conclusion um i mean if you've been if you've been on twitter at all
00:30:44.020if you've been following the news over the last couple of weeks i mean it's a it's a war field
00:30:47.840right it's a battlefield right now between uh you know pro-israel advocates and pro-palestinian
00:30:54.140advocates and they're just going to bat with each other and there's it's it's like this heightened
00:30:58.040state of aggression right now and so all of those folks I think that were sort of battle-hardened
00:31:02.680over the last week in defending the actions of Israel uh in in terms of you know like bombing
00:31:09.360the AP offices and all the things that they're doing you know they're alleged to be doing to
00:31:13.500Palestinians etc they saw this as an attempt to downplay uh what they feel they're facing
00:31:19.640as discrimination, violent acts, bigotry, etc. in British Columbia.
00:31:23.700And of course, I mean, I have no interest in diminishing any of that stuff.
00:31:46.520And I'm not saying that we should be celebrating that decrease
00:31:49.500because again we can't diminish the the cases are still measured in the hundreds it's not like
00:31:53.900you know things are great but we still have to you know i think we need public leaders
00:31:58.080and politicians in particular who instead of making emotional arguments that they think will
00:32:03.320sort of rile up different groups of people uh they need to make data-based arguments uh that
00:32:09.560are based on fact and and i've always kind of i've always believed that and i think that's
00:32:13.100one of the the main reasons why we depend on universities so much is to help sort of compile
00:32:17.220these statistics. So, yeah, so that was, that's basically what happened. I went back and forth
00:32:23.560with folks, you know, for the better part of another couple hours, I think, who were accusing
00:32:27.220me of being an anti-Semite. Niko Slabinski, who actually, you know, like, nothing bad to say
00:32:34.080about Niko at all. I've met him a number of times. I've met with him in his offices.
00:32:40.460But, you know, he reiterates this claim as well, that there's a significant,
00:32:44.620there's significant evidence of the increase uh which based on the the data that i've just shown
00:32:50.600you is not true now i you know i want to i want to make a caveat here that you know in in nico's
00:32:55.660defense he may indeed have more recent data just for the for the first few months of 2021
00:33:01.760that i haven't seen and you know my question to the ministers was is there more data that
00:33:10.200you're basing this on but their statement of course was over the past few years so i'm willing
00:33:14.960to concede that you know when the 2021 data is produced that there will in fact be an increase
00:33:21.040i mean that's quite possible especially considering what's going on right now
00:33:23.980uh but nobody's produced this data yet and but there have been claims that you know the data
00:33:29.760does exist so anyway that's um that's sort of how that played out and then by 5 0 1 p.m
00:33:37.260uh the minister um uh released that tweet announcing my dismissal i don't know have
00:33:43.280we shown that one already yeah yeah the uh yeah right yeah so i mean it's you know it's i mean
00:33:51.480it's kind of an interesting case because i think most people that sort of hear it that are concerned
00:33:56.080about what's going on in universities they probably get you know they get angry at at the
00:34:00.620university etc and make make the case that you know universities are getting too canceling stuff
00:34:04.860But in this case, it wasn't the university that made the decision.
00:34:07.800There wasn't a huge outcry from, you know, student groups and faculty and the public to have me dismissed.
00:34:15.220It was, you know, and in fact, like these trans activists that I've been talking about, people that I know, I mean, people that I actually agree with on most questions.
00:34:25.240They've been trying for the better part of a month to get me turfed to no avail.
00:34:29.580uh but this you know what i was called an anti-semite on friday to be clear they tried
00:34:35.560to get you turf because you are a turf that's that's their point well the funny thing is i'm
00:34:40.480actually not a turf i uh i mean you know my positions changed a little bit i have some0.98
00:34:45.060sympathy for what are termed the trans exclusionary radical feminists within the the the feminist
00:34:51.480milieu but my you know i'm a marxist so my my sympathy for them i sort of see the the interplay
00:34:57.740between trans activists in in the feminist milieu and and so-called TERFs as the same effort within
00:35:04.760that grouping to try to expel the Marxists because the so-called TERFs are really the like the last
00:35:09.860Marxist left in in feminism very similar to what happened between social democrats and and communists
00:35:16.060in the labor movement back in the 50s when communists were all expelled from the labor
00:35:19.460movement so that's sort of that's sort of playing out but you know I find I think you would actually
00:35:24.540probably agree with uh trans like radical i prefer to call them radical feminists but i think you
00:35:29.660would agree with them on more points than i would uh especially on their like they have what i would0.99
00:35:33.740regard as a rather puritan position on pornography um and uh but they you know they and they would
00:35:40.260definitely yeah yeah i think you would like that and they definitely agree with you on you know the
00:35:44.860kind of things that you were talking to chris elston about yesterday and i'll and i'll admit
00:35:49.000i mean i i share concerns despite how supportive i am of if anybody's right to do whatever they
00:35:54.840want to their body once they're an adult and change their gender etc i do have serious and
00:35:58.840growing concerns about the kind of things that chris elson's talking about about puberty blockers
00:36:03.480and hormones being used on um and administered to children that are underage i just don't i don't
00:36:08.560think that's a good idea and i and i i don't have any specific data to reference on that's why i
00:36:12.540don't talk about it very much but i do see a growing number of people emerging who are you
00:36:18.380know basically de-transitioning as they get older and they're and they're starting to say things
00:36:22.840that are very critical of the doctors and the counselors that were around them when they were
00:36:26.360uh when they were transitioning as a as an underage uh person so i share those concerns as well but
00:36:32.340ultimately i um you know like if you decide tomorrow that you want to change your gender and
00:36:37.140you you know if you want to even pay for the surgery to to do it like i doesn't matter to me
00:36:41.800at all right i mean i i'll i'll refer to you however you like and um and that's always been
00:36:47.460position on it and I and that's kind of you know it's a bit of a libertarian approach to it I
00:36:51.060suppose which is interesting for for a socialist like me but it is interesting that you know like
00:36:56.500sort of the left folks that were the other thing that makes the case unique is that you know even
00:37:01.780though I was I was dismissed by an NDP minister I think that the I suspect that the the culminating
00:37:09.380incident was actually driven by more conservative right-wing forces but even that's not clear
00:37:15.780because there were progressive Jewish folks
00:37:17.840who were also sort of condemning the question
00:54:17.140You could, as the former board chair, if I had defamed a student, for instance, the student could probably do the same and name me in the suit, but public officials are generally bonded, right, which means if they step into some kind of a defamation situation and it's successful, there's basically an insurance plan that pays for it, but the premiums will go up and ultimately the taxpayer has to foot the bill for that stuff.
00:54:47.140So, you know, I'm not too keen to go down that road, even though there's probably, I mean, some people have said it's quite a strong case, actually. And the reason it's strong is because it was put in writing, right?
00:54:58.980but the other interesting question is and this is something I mean I'm like I don't really feel
00:55:08.260like my free speech has been limited necessarily because of who I am and the fact that like I'm
00:55:13.960not going to stop talking about the things I talk about just because the minister decided
00:55:18.100to pull me in the last five minutes of the game but the question has been raised that
00:55:25.200you know others in the same position might it might feel that there's a real chilling effect
00:55:31.340on their speech if they're removed from such positions because they've engaged in in that
00:55:36.680kind of speech and so that's a whole different beast that's uh i mean that's essentially a
00:55:42.360charter challenge uh and i'm and i'm a bit intrigued by that actually um not necessarily
00:55:47.940because i feel personally aggrieved but the broader question the fact pattern itself is an
00:55:53.100interesting one in whether uh what's happened to me for instance if it did happen to anybody else
00:55:58.640does it in fact in front like does it violate our charter rights to to free speech uh the action
00:56:04.980that's taken place so so that might be the like there's no big payday at the end of that um and
00:56:10.840and of course you know it could be quite expensive to go that route but uh that's the interesting
00:56:14.640question that's that's a fascinating one to me your uh your wonderful phone from another century
00:56:21.480is ringing i can hear it from here oh is that mine well eventually it'll it'll peter out it's
00:56:27.640in another room somewhere i apologize no it's not a problem at all uh it we have some legal advice
00:56:33.160from our resident town crier sheldon claire uh he he likes that profile picture we all like that
00:56:39.080profile picture but uh he's telling us a lawsuit is likely necessary yeah i mean what's this the
00:56:46.680The Albertan, the core tenet of conservative music.
00:56:48.860The Albertan is a call to not blindly accept assumptions and question government exercise of power.
00:56:53.540I've met a couple of non-conservatives who also hold those opinions.
00:56:57.780They're getting rarer and rarer, but they exist.
00:57:01.680Well, look, I mean, I think in this current context, the Albertan's right.
00:57:07.260It is the right that tends to be the defender of free speech right now.
01:11:31.720And if he carried, you know, 99.9% of men will not engage in that urge, but a predator might.
01:11:39.440And so, you know, I mean, her response to that would, it's not like you shouldn't go running, but you should also realize that you're walking into a dangerous environment.
01:11:47.560She'd probably say something to the effect of like, at least carry a gun, you know, to defend yourself.0.99
01:11:52.600But she doesn't deny that, like many feminists do, that like they don't sort of live in this world that they think should exist.0.99
01:11:59.900She lives in a world that does exist,1.00
01:12:01.320but at the same time, she demands the right for women1.00
01:12:04.720to be able to put themselves in danger.
01:12:06.860And as a transgender person, it's just interesting to see
01:12:09.280how critical she's been of where many trans activists have gone
01:12:13.660in terms of trying to compel people's speech
01:12:15.460and the danger that that, not just compel,
01:12:17.960but also restrict what they could say.
01:12:19.560It's this combination of restricting things you can say.
01:14:18.860But I identify as a man, and I don't want to lose that tradition, the labor movement,
01:14:25.280that fraternal relationship of referring to each other as siblings, as brother and sister.
01:14:30.060And there's no, like, it's, if you want to be more inclusive and more diverse, then you can add
01:14:35.220certain words. But when you start pulling out the words that I can use, and you start restricting
01:14:40.760the ways in which I can refer to myself, well, that's different. That's a whole different thing.
01:14:45.600And what blew me away is because there's so much fear amongst everybody right now that if they step into these kind of things that I tend to step into on a daily basis, that they're going to get fired or they're going to get canceled or something like that.
01:14:57.480And so when the motion went to remove all of those words from the minutes, I looked around the room and, you know, like there's old tradesmen, there's, you know, all these little guys, they all had their eyes in their lap and they all put their hand up to vote in favor of removing all gendered words.
01:15:12.480And I thought, I'm a cult, you know, like I that's when I kind of realized this is different.
01:15:19.340This is a this is a this is a new instance of identitarianism that is starting to take take over the left.
01:15:25.740And that was when I first started to think, well, you know, I got to start thinking of doing different things.
01:15:32.660It's it's a it's a dark time. It's a dark time on both sides.
01:15:35.840I mean, within the right, we're definitely having an experience of political correctness taking over, particularly when you think of how, well, essentially, we conservatives in Canada are stuck with a political class, a political leadership class that is constantly trying to find ways to appeal to, you know, the progressive side of Canada instead of to try and keep the base satisfied.
01:16:02.160And that doesn't mean that there's no place to try and grow the tent. It is important to make sure that people who lean right wing but are homosexuals, people who lean right wing but are from minorities, people who lean right wing and are not a part of the old stock or identify with kind of the way that Canada's history might have been, who might even use words like colonialism pejoratively, etc.
01:22:57.960of a real divisive fissure within the BC Liberal Party.
01:23:02.160And you can see that some of the leadership candidates
01:23:04.000sense that even kevin falcon i mean one of his big campaign planks as he announced his his desire to
01:23:09.980seek the leadership for a second time of the bc liberals is that he wants to entirely remake the
01:23:13.780party uh but he's also putting out a whole bunch of pro-diversity statements pro-diversity inclusion
01:23:19.140statements i think to try to placate the wing of the party the anti-thronus wing of the party for
01:23:23.060instance and he has to do that but basically what he's signaling is you know we have to actually
01:23:28.020restructure this party to deal with the with the fissure that has that has emerged um and and so
01:23:34.580it's i mean they're going to continue to have to deal with this and the left you don't hear the
01:23:40.120same kind of debate within the left i mean the reason i think why so many people on the left
01:23:44.240despise me right now is that there are so few people on the left who are saying we have a
01:23:50.600problem with identitarianism we have a problem with free speech on the left uh and it's it's
01:23:57.400going to cause us bigger problems down the road it's going to remove us further from the working
01:24:01.620class because we're not speaking their language anymore and and you know back to my situation
01:24:05.780at the university i mean the one criticism i think that's that's launched at me from people
01:24:10.200who agree that maybe i shouldn't have been dismissed maybe i'd haven't you know it might
01:24:13.980be true that you didn't say anything racist it might be true that you're not a transphobe
01:24:16.820but you know are you really conducting yourself in a way that exemplifies the professionalism
01:24:22.900that we'd expect from a public official that's that's the question I get my answer is I mean
01:24:27.780depending on what you how you define professionalism I think the answer is no but again I'm not a
01:24:32.520professional I'm not I'm not a nobody's ever accused me of exemplifying professionalism I'm
01:24:38.400a union organizer I've been fired from more jobs than I've even had because I've been fired from
01:24:42.560some jobs twice or three times and so I'm sort of on familiar ground here but do we like think
01:24:49.080about what you're asking for in terms of the governance of our universities do you want
01:24:52.660like what is a professional person to you is it somebody who's you know a senior executive in a
01:24:57.360big corporation who wants to you know further privatize universities raise tuition through the
01:25:02.120roof so that working class kids families from working class families don't have the same access0.89
01:25:06.560to university education those aren't the kind of people i want governing an institution and it also
01:25:11.980raises the question then if a government can just sort of toss these appointees out at whim
01:25:16.400But they can't do that to somebody like, you know, Barry Neufeld in the school board system because they're elected. It raises the question, well, is this a government appointed system for leadership boards at universities the right method? Should we be, should communities that the university serve be electing their board officials?
01:25:35.080I tend to I tend to skew towards that direction. I'd be interested. I'd actually be interested in hearing that thing debated out, you know, whether people think that government should be allowed to continue appointing directors to boards of universities or whether communities should be able to elect those people.
01:25:49.840i i mean i have a vote on that already and it no obviously it needs to be voted in by the
01:25:55.140community i mean it's the one of the biggest things that that went wrong with our public
01:26:01.160medical system for example is that we no longer have elected hospital boards because we have no
01:26:06.240elected hospital boards we now have and these are money positions if i recall correctly right
01:26:11.540northern northern yeah those ones are those ones are yeah they're sought after and of course that
01:26:16.520means that you will do anything for that patronage appointment which means you'll do anything the
01:26:20.600government tells you for that patronage appointment because they're well-moneyed the thing is that
01:26:25.660we we need to get back to some system of of electing officials into these capacities
01:26:32.760so that we can shape those institutions in a way that matters i i was a part of one of the last
01:26:38.340you know uh boards that that you know made a real impact it was walked back by the government at the
01:26:45.220time but i was on the college board when after uh the the the lack of the lack of consistency by
01:26:52.340said by said president uh we we voted as a board and it was a narrow vote but the board did vote
01:26:59.540to remove that president and uh what and that was and that session was was you know done done
01:27:07.140privately but but what happened was uh the the bc government the bc liberals at the time couldn't
01:27:13.940believe that a board had gone rogue and so all of a sudden the deputy minister was appointed to our
01:27:20.180board and was was flown into prince george before those meetings god knows how much that was going
01:27:26.420to cost and and she was she was great the deputy minister very competent woman very intelligent
01:27:31.060woman great great lady um but the point is that she was essentially sent in to be the school marm
01:27:36.420and to walk the board back from where it had been with with full justification of a dismissal0.98
01:27:43.940uh and walk it back and ensure that that didn't happen because they didn't want the egg on the
01:27:48.920government's face and on and on and on it went they didn't want to pay severance on and on it
01:27:53.480went and eventually the the decision was reversed but that was a coalition between faculty and
01:27:59.140student representation there was there was of course uh the the staff representation as well
01:28:05.060right not just faculty staff but the but non-faculty staff right like the representatives
01:28:09.900the various constituencies of the board in a traditional model not the real carver model which
01:28:14.920is really just what happens when neoliberalism takes over a university um but it but a traditional
01:28:21.320model of various constituencies collaborating together to make a decision on behalf of a
01:28:26.500post-secondary or any institution for that matter where there might have much conflict on the ground
01:28:31.500but ultimately they have to try and run this thing together they came together and they made a
01:28:35.620decision a narrow majority but they did make a decision and of course the government couldn't
01:28:39.320understand that and we need to understand that too from a wider perspective for me as as a
01:28:43.780conservative as someone right of center and as someone who you know on a bad day you know is
01:28:48.820it understands why the 20th century the way it went the way it did and on a good day wishes that
01:28:53.840you know maybe anarchy was catholic anarchy non-violent catholic anarchy was was kind of
01:28:59.560the way we went some kind of some kind of ultra montane reality for this guy anyways the point is
01:29:04.520that that when i when i look at that though like that walking back of that decision it's like just
01:29:10.100like the eu the eu always forced ireland to vote again and again again on joining right like
01:29:15.500it's always the empire must be built and that empire exists and it doesn't matter where it is
01:29:20.800it's somebody's little office that's their empire it's someone's province that's their empire
01:29:24.920and and the empire always builds on and on and on and so i mean you just you went against the empire
01:29:30.920right you you had your you had your say and and now the state came down upon you right and that's
01:29:37.500how it is and so i i don't know if a stateless society is necessarily that the perfect answer
01:29:42.700to that then but i do know that every time we have a organized society that's formalized it
01:29:48.160does result in usually more tyranny than less because they can organize themselves into greater
01:29:53.040greater uh apparatuses of of of tyranny but i guess i guess kind of bringing it all back around
01:29:59.000I think that we are in a dangerous time right now
01:30:02.440because people aren't allowed to speak their mind
01:30:04.680and because they're not allowed to speak their mind
01:30:07.580they are finding other ways to act out
01:30:11.440and the discourse is getting narrower and narrower
01:30:14.440which is making us stupider and stupider
01:30:16.920to the point where we can't have a real conversation
01:30:21.240about anything because whether it's residential schools
01:30:23.380or climate change or whether or not anti-Semitic violence
01:30:27.020is going up in this province which seems like a pretty cut and dry answer either it is or it isn't
01:30:31.900mere mere asking of the question and whom is asking it just because you have a hebrew name
01:30:36.860and even for that matter a last name that could easily be construed as jewish it doesn't matter
01:30:41.820it doesn't matter it's like you met you made the mistake of even thinking the question let alone
01:30:46.300voicing it out loud you are doomed and and that can't go on because that a society that runs
01:30:52.140that way will not survive well i agree with you and um i mean the society can survive but the
01:31:00.140the danger is is that it will morph into something terrifying and we've you know in instances where
01:31:05.960we've seen this kind of identitarianism uh emerge on the right i mean that's literally what nazi
01:31:12.740germany was it was a right identitarianism in its most terrifying form and we saw the same thing in
01:31:18.140China during the Cultural Revolution, where it was the identity that was, that was, became a0.85
01:31:25.220scapegoat was largely academics, and, and of course the, you know, the, it was a class, it was the,
01:31:30.800the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie, and so, and, you know, like there was public shaming
01:31:36.640rituals, or they were cutting off people's hair, there was executions, all sorts of things, so
01:31:40.900it definitely manifests on both the left and the right and i mean the people that have historians
01:31:48.120and psychologists who have studied this stuff in great detail the question they're always trying
01:31:52.740to get at is at what point does a society reach that threshold where it gets out of control
01:31:57.400well nobody can say because it never happens the same way twice it manifests in very new and
01:32:03.080different and increasingly sophisticated ways and i think this current manifestation on on
01:32:08.320or the left or the liberal left uh is the most uh sophisticated manifestation of it so far
01:32:14.760because it's literally coming in the in the form of anti-racism uh and and it's so so it's it's so
01:32:22.380aurelian because you know it's this ideology that we can all it doesn't matter what our color is
01:32:27.420the shade of our epidermis doesn't matter we can all be reduced to this base identity and that's
01:32:35.060once you know that identity you know the color of somebody's skin you know where they come from
01:32:38.900or their religion or their sexual orientation or their even their sexual expression their identity
01:32:44.660that's all you need to know about them that's all they are right and so and that's that's why
01:32:49.060i'm so interested in interviewing on on this show or our other show uh somebody who um uh is a
01:32:57.300not a woman but is either pregnant or has had some children is because from my perspective
01:33:02.180that's hardly all they are right and and it's just such a perfect experiment in how identitarians
01:33:09.940react to a question like that they assume because they actually reduce that person
01:33:16.180i'm not reducing that person to their identity but they assume that all i want to talk to that
01:33:20.580person about is their experience as a as a trans man who has had has had children i'm actually
01:33:28.020far more interested in knowing what their position is on bc independence vis-a-vis ottawa right
01:33:32.500because the point that i think has to be made strongly is that we can never reduce people
01:33:40.880to this base identity every single human is far more complex than that every single human being
01:33:46.320has political aspirations they've got uh they've got all sorts of there's all sorts of nuance to
01:33:51.940their positions and i've you know i had to learn this lesson the hard way years ago having
01:33:57.780conversations with um some of my gay friends and and gay people in my family realizing that like
01:34:04.300they were conservatives you know back in back 20 years ago and it just blew my mind because i was
01:34:10.300making the same identitarian mistake that just assuming that just because they were gay and that
01:34:14.840they you know had to flee a small town in the 70s because of of the violence that they were facing
01:34:20.880every day and go down to the west end in um vancouver and hang around davie street because
01:34:26.120that's where where a community was able to form to to try to pull together some monicum of safety
01:34:31.020for them in some community i just assumed well you know if you'd gone through that experience
01:34:35.040well you there's no way you could have any kind of racist views against anybody else or uh or be
01:34:40.480like there's no way that you you would be a fiscal conservative at the same time and i learned the
01:34:44.940hard way that a good portion of the gay community is actually quite quite conservative and a good
01:34:49.080portion of lesbians that i've met are quite conservative fiscally conservative etc so i had
01:34:53.340learn that lesson myself nobody else in the left seems to have really learned it which is quite
01:34:58.620surprising to me and you're right guaranteed demographics and i think that's what the trump
01:35:04.540uh second attempt showed when we saw the big swing in the black vote the working class vote
01:35:09.740continuing to carry with him and and for that matter florida being carried by him right like
01:35:15.180which which he wanted by a significant margin uh for the time a huge cuban american population in
01:35:22.460florida there clearly clearly there was a place to resonate between the right and right-wing ideas
01:35:30.460and right-wing populism and people who quote unquote shouldn't have been voting that way
01:35:35.580you know i think chelsea handler everybody's favorite prophetess from netflix uh said to her0.76
01:35:41.500ex-boyfriend uh who we all remember as 50 cent uh don't forget you're black that's why you can't0.68
01:35:47.180vote for trump right right yeah and and i mean and that's the reason why prior to 2016 people
01:35:54.800like me and probably people like you were saying not only is this guy going to take out hillary
01:35:58.720clinton like he's he's uh sorry not only is he going to defeat all of his challengers in the
01:36:04.580republican party but he's going to go on to win the election and it was absolutely clear that that
01:36:08.480was that was coming down the pipe except to anybody in the professional managerial class
01:36:13.040both on the left or the right because again the pmc you know transcends the political spectrum in
01:36:17.640that regard uh but they didn't none of them saw it coming because they they don't they're from
01:36:23.180my perspective they all have racist views which is and i it's probably more accurate to describe
01:36:28.240them as identitarian views because they they reduce every single person especially these
01:36:32.960these different designations of uh race etc that they they treat as like monolithic electorate so
01:36:39.280You hear the Democrats talking about the black vote, the Latino vote, the gay vote, and this kind of thing.
01:36:43.840And just the way they speak, it demonstrates without a doubt that they view these people as all the same because of the color of their skin or because of their religion.
01:36:54.040And it's the reason why they can't predict the nuance that ends up electing somebody like Donald Trump.
01:36:59.520But the rest of us can see it because we talk to people and we don't just sit in our office and issue decrees.
01:37:07.480we go to the grocery store and we talk to our neighbors and we talk to people we work with.
01:37:12.840And we know that the average lexicon employed by working people is not what you hear when you go
01:37:18.940to a union meeting. It's not what you hear when you go to an HR meeting. And it's not even
01:37:24.000necessarily what you hear when you're at work. And so that divide is absolutely growing. And
01:37:29.980the question about when does it sort of cross the threshold into authoritarianism? Well,
01:37:35.940you never know but what we do know is that when you get there it's too late it's absolutely too
01:37:42.220late and so that's why you have to you have to fight against it always even if even in its
01:37:47.160smallest iterations you have to you have to expose this stuff for what it is the malicious nature of
01:37:52.620it and that's why i actually don't have any reservations about using words like racist to
01:37:58.320describe identitarians because it is at its base level it's a racist discriminatory analysis and
01:38:05.200it reduces people to uh to to far less than they really are the sum of their parts which of course
01:38:12.460they are a greater greater than the sum of their parts uh as we kind of close up here aaron uh
01:38:18.400what uh well sorry i interrupted you there no no no go ahead go ahead i just i i guess kind of
01:38:24.640as we kind of dwell on this moment of of well we can call it cancellation we can call it not
01:38:28.920cancellation and kind of seeing it in real time uh what what do you think your next steps are
01:38:34.900here do you think that do you think that you're going to try and not even with regards to this
01:38:38.860like you'll take your advice from your lawyers and and and just you know decide on those things
01:38:42.920on your own but but but what are you what are you kind of thinking are the next ways you want
01:38:47.660to organize in your community and help your community and move forward with with the community
01:38:52.020well i i think um i'll probably continue doing some of the things that have landed me on on the
01:38:58.680outs with the ndp which is to try to continually raise issues like you're doing as well that are
01:39:03.600important to british colombians but more specifically important to northern and interior
01:39:09.900british colombians um and i mean the uncomfortable part i think for the for a government like the
01:39:16.460bcndp government is many of those issues represent tension between rural and urban ridings uh the
01:39:22.960biggest issue that's coming up that i think is absolutely vital which i i think is probably you
01:39:26.980know i've been very vocal on it and it's i think it's one where the bcndp is quite vulnerable
01:39:31.440actually because they've sort of orchestrated in such a way is the issue of the electoral
01:39:36.360boundaries commission undoubtedly releasing a recommendation to government when they do
01:39:41.000that allows government to reduce the number of interior especially northern seats in the
01:39:47.500legislature and increase the number of seats down in the lower mainland and i think again i think
01:39:52.860for northerners in british columbia who are concerned about how little representation we
01:39:57.440already have in the legislature uh doesn't matter what your political persuasion is we this is the
01:40:03.300kind of issue we got to band together on and and make sure victoria knows that reducing our
01:40:07.440representation in this government is is not on because you can't get to the point where you've
01:40:11.880reduced our our level of representation to the point where it doesn't make any sense for us to
01:40:15.980be here because there is that palpable desire to re-examine the the boundaries of the province
01:40:21.980um and you know if your goal is to try to keep things together and i respect people whose goal
01:40:28.180who have who have that goal despite my own proclivities uh reducing our representation is
01:40:33.640not not going to take you any further down that path uh so i think those are the things we got
01:40:38.520we have to continue to talk about i'm also very concerned about the um the frankly the finances
01:40:44.520of the province i don't place all the blame on the bcndp we've just come through uh we've just
01:40:50.180come through a difficult situation with COVID and everything that would make it almost impossible
01:40:54.940for any government to run a balanced budget. And the Moody's report just came down, which is,
01:41:00.620you know, flagging some concern over the finances of the province, but there's some hopeful
01:41:06.100points in there. It's not all doom and gloom yet, but it looks like we won't be able to balance a
01:41:09.960budget for the next seven to nine years, which is concerning, especially considering that so many
01:41:15.500of the communities up here in the north we need help uh all you have to do is drive drive around
01:41:21.260uh you know out west or out east and through the north to see if you have any understanding of what
01:41:26.420the communities used to be like in the 70s and 80s etc uh if you haven't been up there in a while
01:41:30.620it's it's a stark difference and the populations are down we've said this before so we have to keep
01:41:34.880highlighting these things and we have to keep i think what you're doing which is so great is
01:41:38.640providing a platform for northerners to be able to speak on these things that wouldn't otherwise
01:41:43.320be available to them and in sort of a long form context as well so you can you can not just sort
01:41:48.440of get a sound bite out but you can take these ideas and you can turn them over in your hand and
01:41:51.900you can debate them and and find out that you know despite our political differences as northerners
01:41:57.600we've got an enormous amount of commonality so that's what I'm excited to do and that's what I
01:42:02.200had intended to do anyway which is part of the reason why I'd announced my departure from the
01:42:05.360university because I don't want to take away through any controversy that I generate from
01:42:10.140the amazing things that the university uh produces on a daily basis and so my intention was to sort
01:42:15.840of you know back out quietly and and then continue to engage in the kind of discussions that that we
01:42:22.340are uh but but you know the bcndp decided to try to tag me as a racist on the on the way out the
01:42:27.980door so but again like i like i've said previously the people up here i've been up here for a while
01:42:32.140people know me and and they know it's bs and and the support that i've received has been uh i didn't
01:42:38.240predicted no it's amazing how people do show up uh and again that's something that is distinctive
01:42:44.480about us in in the north and beyond hope as it were uh when compared to vancouver which is south
01:42:50.300of hope i think that people don't understand that northern solidarity is a real thing uh and yes we
01:42:56.460have some elements of of kind of the professional managerial class like it is down south and
01:43:01.340they have some of the same sentiments but for the most part we're still lucky enough to have
01:48:28.400I appreciate your support through that time and staying with us on this show while we're in flux.
01:48:34.900And I think as a final point, I mean, my producer prefers to go unnamed, so we'll leave him so.
01:48:40.540I mean, if you trace through every episode, you'll find hints of it here, there, and everywhere.
01:48:43.860But the point is that my producer is my rock here.
01:48:50.060Without him, this show doesn't happen.
01:48:52.620So that was the other half of it, was making sure we'd be in a position where my producer would have a space to continue helping me produce this show.