Episodes

  • You won’t believe how badly your bank is fleecing you

    You won’t believe how badly your bank is fleecing you
    Dec 16 2024
    Canadians have been deceived into believing that having strong, stable banks means sacrificing competition, as Andrew Spence, author of Fleeced: Canadians Versus Their Banks, tells Brian. So, we have no real competition, which means we pay more — loads more — for ATMs, Interac, mortgages, NSF fees, exchange rates and more, than people do in comparable countries. No wonder Canadian banks are making out like bandits relative to their U.S. and U.K. peers. Yet, it doesn’t have to be this way, Spence explains. Especially as new, disruptive fintech firms are ready to offer us better, cheaper and more convenient banking services. But the Big Six are doing everything they can to stop that from happening. And they’re succeeding — with the government’s help. (Recorded November 29, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    40 mins
  • John A. helped Indigenous people, Riel didn’t, and other unpopular realities

    John A. helped Indigenous people, Riel didn’t, and other unpopular realities
    Dec 9 2024
    Imagine Indigenous people getting to vote for the first time — and voting for John A. Macdonald. Many did. And it was Canada’s first prime minister who gave them the vote. The Conservative leader also kept Aboriginal communities fed (against fierce Liberal opposition) when the buffalo disappeared and protected them from disease, as Patrice Dutil, author of the new book, Sir John A. Macdonald and The Apocalyptic Year 1885, tells Brian. And, yes, Macdonald also offered Indigenous children schooling: a well-intended initiative he’s now being vilified for. But Canada now unfortunately privileges ahistorical, ignorant, and often spiteful slanders against John A. while lionizing a murderous secessionist like Louis Riel. As Dutil explains, Macdonald was a fascinating, brilliant, and benevolent founding father. It’s time we remembered that again. (Recorded November 28, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • Trudeau did ‘almost everything wrong’ on immigration. It’s about to get worse

    Trudeau did ‘almost everything wrong’ on immigration. It’s about to get worse
    Dec 2 2024
    What was once the best immigration system in the world has been turned on its head, former immigration minister and premier Jason Kenney tells Brian this week — all because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has preferred pandering platitudes over practical policy. After eight years of mass migration, Canadians everywhere — including immigrants — are suffering with problems in housing, health care and employment. What’s more, all these millions of temporary residents and unverified asylum-claimants he let in know we lack the capacity to make them leave. Now, Kenney warns, with Trump about to start deportations, we could soon be flooded with hundreds of thousands — or even millions — more. (Recorded November 29, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    49 mins
  • They call us ‘settlers’ because they’re planning to kick us out

    They call us ‘settlers’ because they’re planning to kick us out
    Nov 25 2024
    You’re not welcome in “so-called Canada.” That’s what academics and activists call this country, which they declare “illegitimate.” And, as Adam Kirsch, author of the new book On Settler Colonialism tells Brian, these people aren’t using metaphors. They truly see anyone who isn’t Indigenous as an active colonizer and criminal who doesn’t belong. The idea is steadily gaining currency in our schools, society and government, and it’s brutally playing out against Israel, where Hamas supporters euphorically envision forcing out all Jews (despite the Jews’ own indigeneity). But don’t kid yourself, Kirsch warns: They’re working to dismantle other countries, too — especially this one. And with every land acknowledgment and libel against our nation’s history, we’re helping them do it. (Recorded November 15, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    41 mins
  • The Trump train is bearing down on Trudeau

    The Trump train is bearing down on Trudeau
    Nov 18 2024
    The federal Liberals are likely facing an even less friendly Donald Trump administration than last time. And they’re in an even weaker position than they were then, as Brian discusses this week with Postmedia columnist Chris Selley. Their minority government is teetering, mounting scandals are weighing them down, and their mass-immigration and anti-oil policies have hobbled our economy. Meanwhile, Republicans are steamed about our neglect of defence and security, and the president-elect will remember that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spent the last four years using “MAGA” as an insult. With Washington likely to become extremely pushy and protectionist, Ottawa could get crushed. (Recorded November 15, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    49 mins
  • Revenge of the normal people, from Trump to Canada

    Revenge of the normal people, from Trump to Canada
    Nov 11 2024
    The presidential election came down to the clevers versus the normals, guest John Robson tells Brian this week. Those succeeding in the establishment’s ever more complicated system of official and unofficial rules around work, business, education and identity politics went for Kamala Harris. Everyone else —feeling left behind, ignored and scorned — went for Donald Trump. Including many minorities. Robson, an American historian and National Post columnist, says Trump is clearly unfit for the White House, so it should petrify Democrats they’re seen as worse. But it shows that the anti-Western, woke-activist, mass-immigration, climate-obsessed political package repulses people everywhere. And, as the Trudeau Liberals are discovering, the common-people counter-revolt is building in Canada, too. (Recorded November 8, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • If Trump is a ‘garbage’ candidate, Harris is a ‘vacuous sociopath’

    If Trump is a ‘garbage’ candidate, Harris is a ‘vacuous sociopath’
    Nov 4 2024
    It’s the final hours of a “dumpster fire” of a presidential election, as guest and American political writer J.D. Tuccille calls it. And it’s hard to imagine a worse one. Democrats are back to comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, and Republicans say the Democrats are communists. The vice-presidential picks JD Vance and Tim Walz have had minimal impact while the U.S. media has again beclowned itself running interference for Kamala Harris. But, as Tuccille discusses with Brian, there are serious issues facing America, including uncontrolled immigration and runaway living costs, not to mention serious foreign crises. Voters are left to sort through Harris’s “word salads” and Trump’s bluster to decide which of the two is the least inadequate. (Recorded Oct. 31, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Trudeau survived. He’s still screwed.

    Trudeau survived. He’s still screwed.
    Oct 28 2024
    So, the rebels in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s caucus couldn’t convince him to quit. But they’re still fed up, and they still have forceful ways of showing it, as veteran Postmedia politics columnist John Ivison discusses with Brian this week. That may just include sabotaging a confidence vote that could bring down their own government. Now Trudeau is desperately trying anything to survive — including reversing key policies and playing politics over foreign interference. Backtracking on his beloved carbon tax may even be next. Meanwhile, the House is paralyzed in a procedural standoff and prorogation seems like the best option for Trudeau in what Ivison says seems like the “end of days” for this government. (Recorded October 25, 2024) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins