0:20

Hello and welcome to

0:22

another episode of Radio

0:24

Warner. The day today

0:26

is April 3rd 2025

0:28

and this is episode

0:30

513. I am the

0:32

co-host Mark Ames in

0:34

Western New York near

0:37

the Canadian border near

0:39

the shores of Lake Ontario.

0:41

I'm telling you it's

0:43

going to be renamed.

0:45

It's gonna happen, gonna

0:47

do it. And I'm

0:49

on the line with

0:52

the Warner, John Dolan,

0:54

A.K. Gary Bretcher in

0:56

transit on his way

0:58

to Mexico, but you're

1:00

still in Italy, right, John?

1:02

Yeah, I'm on the outskirts

1:05

of Rome. We had to book

1:07

a place after I

1:09

got injured. Nothing serious,

1:12

but I was laid up for

1:14

a while. The amazing

1:16

thing to me is how perfect

1:18

the Italian countryside looks.

1:21

It looks like it

1:23

still has a few

1:25

giant Latifundi worked by

1:27

slaves, except they don't

1:29

have slaves anymore. They

1:31

have like automatic mowers.

1:33

And we have with

1:35

us, let's get right to

1:38

our guest, we have with us

1:40

a longtime friend of the show.

1:42

Dan Beckner, Dan of the

1:45

great band Wolf Parade, and

1:47

also had a great podcast,

1:50

which I guess is in

1:52

temporary suspension. I'm

1:54

not sure, the bottleman. It's

1:57

in cold stasis right

1:59

now. Okay. political forces rearranged

2:01

themselves. Cryogenically frozen, like Disney's

2:04

brain, ahead or something? Like

2:06

Ripley at the end of

2:09

Alien will be extracted

2:11

in 54 years. Dan, first

2:13

of all, welcome to the

2:16

show, glad to have

2:18

you here. Glad to be here.

2:20

We're gonna be discussing Canada

2:23

today. We did an episode

2:25

on Greenland, which is. primary

2:27

target number one of the

2:30

Trump imperial presidency

2:32

and Canada appears to

2:34

be another potential target at

2:37

least the Canadians from what

2:39

I've heard from Canadians like

2:41

in big media outlets

2:43

and stuff like it like they're

2:46

they take it very seriously

2:48

there Trump's threats. I mean

2:50

I guess you have to

2:52

given America's size and craziness.

2:54

I think we'll figure out on this

2:56

show, like as we go through all

2:59

of this, I think we're going to

3:01

realize that Canada is both overly

3:03

terrified of the United States

3:05

and at the same time underestimates

3:07

how absolutely fucked our

3:10

country is because of

3:12

foreign policy decisions that

3:14

we've made over the last 25

3:16

to 30 years. So yeah, well that's

3:18

a great way to introduce it. But

3:20

first of all, as you may have

3:22

been able to hear... A little

3:24

bit of an oo there, but

3:27

Dan of course is Canadian.

3:29

Dan is from, you're

3:31

from British Columbia, right?

3:34

Yeah, I'm from Vancouver

3:36

Island, originally, where John

3:38

had a sort of

3:40

trinoble level exposure to

3:42

the dark side of

3:45

Canada. Happy memories how

3:47

they linger. Victoria, what

3:49

a nice place. You

3:51

know, Victoria and British

3:53

Columbia. There's a D.H.

3:56

Lawrence poem, something like,

3:58

The English are so nice. And

4:00

so nice about being

4:02

nice. If you're not

4:04

nice, they soon let

4:06

you feel it. That's

4:09

true. John, as Dan

4:11

brought up, John, you had

4:13

a place on a lake on

4:16

Victoria Island where you

4:18

wrote your great. Vancouver.

4:21

I'm sorry, Vancouver.

4:24

Oh. Am I mixing them up? Wait,

4:26

Victoria is on Vancouver Island. Victoria

4:28

is unfortunately on Vancouver Island. Victoria

4:30

is unfortunately on Vancouver is the

4:32

provincial capital and Vancouver is the

4:35

biggest city in British Columbia. That's

4:37

on the main lane. So yeah.

4:39

It's all going to be part

4:41

of the United States soon anyway.

4:43

Exactly. It's going to be Seattle

4:46

Islands. They'll be Washington, British

4:48

Columbia. Yeah. Everything will just

4:50

be McKinley. So yeah, John

4:53

wrote a great poetry book

4:55

there stuck up and and

4:57

then John went back

4:59

again many years later

5:02

Having had some good

5:04

memories there from his

5:06

earlier time and Well, the

5:08

sequel was John's go

5:11

home again proof number two

5:13

million 75 The mistake is

5:15

you tried to move to

5:18

the metropolitan, you know, on

5:20

Vancouver Island, which is, yeah,

5:22

the sort of dark center.

5:24

The second we landed there,

5:27

the university offered me a job,

5:29

and I thought that was too good

5:31

to refuse. That was a

5:33

mistake. That was a mistake.

5:35

Yeah, you can check in

5:38

any time you like. Yeah.

5:40

But you leave at the

5:42

end of the semester because

5:45

you forgot to file an

5:47

application which they didn't tell

5:49

you about. Yeah. You've always

5:52

been the tenured professor at

5:54

University of Interior job. Oh

5:56

dear. So, um, so Dan, I'm

5:58

not even sure where. exactly

6:00

to start here. I mean, first,

6:03

you just did, as you were

6:05

saying before the show, Walt Parade

6:07

just did a Canada-only tour. Was

6:09

this a farewell to the late state

6:11

of Canada? Or was it? I mean,

6:14

it wasn't meant as a farewell. It

6:16

was meant as a, you know, I'm

6:18

in a different position than a

6:20

lot of my colleagues and, you

6:22

know, bandmates, and that I live

6:24

and work in the United States.

6:26

I live in Ohio. I've been

6:29

here. for over a year, I live

6:31

in Columbus, I like living in

6:33

Columbus, like it's kind of like

6:35

nothing ever happens. Yeah, I know

6:38

that feeling. I moved from Montreal

6:40

to New Orleans, which is crazy

6:42

and, you know, experiencing, New Orleans

6:45

is kind of on the razor's

6:47

edge of everything else America is

6:49

about to experience, you know, wealth

6:52

inequality, climate precarity. And, and my

6:54

partner and I decided, you know,

6:56

let's... Let's decamp for the Great

6:59

Lakes. And we've been in Columbus

7:01

for about a year, so I'm,

7:03

you know, I'm aware of Canadian

7:06

news, but for all intents and

7:08

purposes, you know, I'm functioning

7:10

as an American. So to

7:12

go back to Canada and

7:14

do that tour was really

7:17

interesting because everyone I ran

7:19

into, you know, friends, family were

7:21

like, asking me, like, is it

7:23

Bedlam on the streets? what is

7:25

it like living in Trump's

7:28

America? And what I told

7:30

them was it's it first of

7:32

all depends on where you live

7:34

in this country and it also

7:37

is not all that much

7:39

different than Joe Biden's America.

7:41

It's like this it's like

7:43

every day is like Sunday here.

7:45

It just gets a little

7:47

bit worse all the time

7:50

just like it does in

7:52

Canada. Yeah, the Trump revolution

7:54

has mostly been secretive

7:57

about its allegiance.

7:59

Like, unless they gather

8:02

in very large numbers

8:04

in certain safe areas,

8:06

like in suburban California

8:08

where I'm from, they,

8:11

I'm sure most people,

8:13

most voters are pro-

8:16

trump, but I don't think

8:18

it's quite cool to say

8:20

that or to announce it

8:22

yet. Yeah. And with the,

8:25

with the incoming, you

8:27

know, economic pain. It's going

8:29

to become less and less cool

8:31

over time. Yeah. Yeah, I think

8:34

it's starting to go there now.

8:36

Because it's one of those things

8:38

where people didn't believe it. I

8:40

think what we're seeing and like

8:43

with the announcement of the tariffs

8:45

yesterday, which Germany's vice

8:47

chancellor said that this was

8:50

as big of a sort of turning

8:52

point moment for Germany as

8:54

the Ukraine war. Wow. Just

8:56

came out and said that today.

8:58

I guess he means by that

9:00

sort of the political shock,

9:03

but that's a really bad

9:05

analogy for Germany. I was

9:07

just like the Ukraine war,

9:10

which Germany should have done

9:12

a lot more to head off,

9:14

but the Ukraine war has resulted

9:17

in suicide for

9:19

Germany. Its economies

9:21

and shambles and

9:23

the political mainstream

9:25

is... in shambles and the AFD,

9:27

that post-Nazi party, I saw

9:29

the latest poll, they're tied

9:32

now for number one. They're

9:34

tied for number one in

9:36

the latest poll. People seem lately

9:38

to love to use Ukraine as

9:41

an analogy for something that they

9:43

are correct about, but not in

9:46

the way they intend. Yes, yes,

9:48

exactly. Yeah, we're talking here about

9:50

Jason Stanley. This might be

9:52

an interesting place to start.

9:55

I mean, what we want

9:57

to talk about today is

9:59

Canada. and how much Canada

10:01

is really like what would

10:03

a war with Canada really be

10:06

like who would side with the

10:08

US who would fight the US

10:10

what can Canada do what

10:12

would Canada do and yeah Dan

10:15

here just mentioned this

10:17

Vanity Fair article that

10:19

or interview with Jason Stanley

10:22

one of the two

10:24

Yale professors along with

10:26

Timothy Snyder, who's kind of

10:28

his mentor, I think, his

10:30

career mentor anyway. They

10:33

very publicly told everyone,

10:35

we've seen fascism before, you have

10:37

to stand up and fight it.

10:39

Now we're leaving, we're going to

10:42

Toronto, we got a good job

10:44

there, but you guys really need

10:46

to stand up or you're just

10:48

not worthy of your democracy. And

10:50

here's, and this photo of him.

10:53

Oh God. The vanity of this

10:55

guy. John, have you seen

10:57

this? Yeah, he's carefully stroking

10:59

his thoughtful chin and

11:01

standing up against a brick

11:03

wall, which would be an

11:06

idea. But yeah, he's very

11:08

thoughtful and he looks like

11:10

he's about to say, whatever

11:12

it is, he said at

11:14

the end of that article,

11:17

like, are you fucking kidding

11:19

man? Like, he's really streety

11:21

and real. I mean it's

11:23

beyond parody that like Stanley

11:26

and Snyder since Maidan I

11:28

guess and definitely since the

11:30

Russian invasion of Ukraine

11:33

have been you know

11:35

encouraging finger-wagging

11:37

at the Russian public to

11:40

rise up against Putin

11:42

and now they're just like

11:44

oh we're gonna go to we're

11:46

gonna go to Toronto where it's

11:49

safe. It's the slightest

11:51

width of fascism, you

11:53

know. And I guarantee

11:55

they negotiated the terms

11:58

too. Oh yeah. Got

12:00

to, okay, I've got a

12:02

parking spot and it's a

12:04

Tuesday, Thursday schedule. Yeah. And

12:07

I want a semester off

12:09

and you know, you're paying

12:11

me at. Tenured Proff 27

12:13

raid. Yeah, and they're like, well,

12:15

we're going to have to fire

12:18

a couple more adjuncts. Screw the,

12:20

screw the adjuncts. Fascism is on

12:22

the line, man. Yeah, yeah, it's

12:24

very important. I mean, we all

12:26

have to make sacrifices. This, I

12:28

mean, I've read this a couple

12:30

of times now and, you know,

12:33

I've also read, you know, Snyder,

12:35

just being a blow-hard about about,

12:37

about all this. And it really

12:39

made me think of, It made me

12:42

think that in my

12:44

experience musicians dealing with

12:46

fascism are often braver

12:48

than professors because... Oh yeah. I

12:50

have a group of friends who

12:52

are in a band in Myanmar

12:54

called Side Effect and they

12:56

eventually left but they lived

12:58

through the entire coup that happened,

13:01

you know, several years ago and

13:03

they were targeted, they were on

13:05

lists for being seditious and they

13:07

fought in the street in the street

13:10

and... You know, and then they left

13:12

when there were no other options available

13:14

to them or their families. You

13:16

know, that's that's a lot

13:18

different than Trump getting elected

13:21

and then and then just

13:23

decamping to Toronto. And the other

13:25

thing that made me think of was, uh,

13:27

well, I guess this is dispersed by

13:29

first point, but Amanda Palmer, who

13:31

was in a band called the

13:34

Dresden dolls, when Trump got elected

13:36

the first time. wrote an incredible

13:38

piece in The Guardian explaining

13:40

why she was leaving America

13:43

and why Trump getting elected would

13:45

be so good for the punk

13:47

rock community in this country.

13:49

That we were, that we,

13:51

quote, quote, quote, we were

13:53

going to create powerful music

13:56

that would create seismic shifts

13:58

in the political landscape. I

14:00

envy you guys having this

14:02

environment, but you know, it's

14:04

not for me. That's the

14:06

tone. It was just like,

14:08

I wish I could be

14:10

there and enjoy the, the,

14:12

the Weimar energy of. But

14:14

I'm with you there in

14:16

spirit, believe me. Yeah, yeah,

14:18

exactly. Yeah, so it's a

14:20

new band with Liza Minnelli

14:22

and I just did the

14:24

whole thing. Cabaret, too. Yeah.

14:26

So the subheader here says,

14:28

you know, Jason Stanley is

14:30

leaving the US for Canada,

14:33

quote, the Ukraine of North

14:35

America. And the, yeah, I

14:37

know, like, wow. So obviously

14:39

what he means is the

14:41

Ukraine, the fictitious mythical Ukraine

14:43

that I and Timothy Snyder

14:45

and others in the media

14:47

have created, nothing at all

14:49

like the real Ukraine where.

14:51

Males are literally hiding. I mean, there

14:53

are so many Anne Franks. And not

14:55

to belittle the Holocaust, but I

14:58

mean, in terms of hiding out, like

15:00

even mainstream media reports on this,

15:02

this isn't just how the Ukrainian

15:04

media reports on it. It is

15:06

a huge widespread problem. Males of

15:08

any conscription age will not go

15:10

out of the house. And when

15:12

they do, you see what happens.

15:14

And I've noticed a huge uptick

15:16

even in the last month or

15:19

two. of videos of, of, you

15:21

know, the territorial, the forced

15:23

mobilization crews. Doing all,

15:26

you know, they, they have, their new

15:28

thing is like if you see

15:30

somebody youngish or male

15:32

on a bicycle, you open your

15:34

van door on them and knock

15:36

them off it and all that

15:38

kind of shit. So yeah, the

15:41

Ukraine of North America,

15:43

damn, that's, that's sad for,

15:45

for Canada, is there any

15:47

truth to that? I mean,

15:49

yeah, exactly. Well, we're similar

15:51

to Ukraine in that we

15:54

will applaud like an excess,

15:56

an excess officer in Parliament.

15:58

We will get the most

16:00

standing ovation. But also, you

16:02

know, it's, and you know, maybe

16:04

some Canadians now would disagree

16:06

as we scramble to

16:09

find a national identity that

16:11

is separate from the United

16:13

States. But, yes, that's a

16:15

good point. But, you know,

16:17

you have a. small, not

16:19

geographically, but you have a

16:22

smaller country by population that

16:24

is rich in natural resources,

16:26

that is culturally indistinguishable from

16:28

its neighbor who is heavily

16:30

armed and militaristic. So yes.

16:32

Yeah, yeah, that's a good

16:35

point. Yeah, but it's as

16:37

they get threatened, I would imagine,

16:39

I mean, I'm seeing it,

16:41

I've never seen Canadian nationalism

16:44

before. Yeah, we covered it a

16:46

bit on bottleman. I mean, we

16:48

tried to cover it on bottleman

16:51

because I and we can get

16:53

in this deeper when we talk

16:55

about the Canadian nationalism that is

16:58

openly distinct from American. I guess

17:00

I think the Canadian elite

17:02

used to avoid nationalism, but

17:05

I think it was pretty

17:07

common. The lower you went down the

17:09

social scale. I mean, a lot of

17:11

people felt like when I was

17:13

living on the houseboat, a lot of

17:16

people felt either that the Albany Valley

17:18

was their country, and one of

17:20

them said that to me, or

17:22

that they were Canadian and we

17:25

definitely weren't American. Right. And that's,

17:27

I think the two strains of

17:30

Canadian nationalism right there is that

17:32

you have a sort of, I

17:34

wouldn't necessarily call it a more

17:36

liberal strain because growing up in

17:39

that exact same area, John, you're

17:41

familiar with the demographics of. you

17:44

know, you've got rednecks and hippies

17:46

and they kind of become indistinguishable

17:48

from each other. Absolutely. Like, so

17:51

I wouldn't say it's left or

17:53

liberal. That's a very left coast

17:56

thing, isn't it? Because it's the

17:58

same in Northern California. I mean,

18:00

north of San Francisco, the

18:02

crossover between hippie and redneck.

18:04

Well, you'll be talking to

18:06

somebody about, let's say, the

18:08

MK Ultra program, or how,

18:10

you know, the CIA's Adventures

18:13

post-Second World War, and you'll

18:15

be nodding along with them

18:17

as they're talking about Gladio

18:19

or whatever, and then they'll

18:21

mention something about, like, a

18:23

six million, I don't know. Yeah,

18:25

they'd be Trump voters for sure. Yeah,

18:27

yeah. Yeah, but I guess there's those

18:30

two strains. One strain is, one strain

18:32

is an older strain that continues,

18:34

which is a Canadian

18:37

nationalism is defined as an opposition

18:39

to the United States, kind of

18:41

like, at least we're not American.

18:43

So if they're talking to American,

18:45

they'll be like, well, at least

18:47

we don't do X, Y, and

18:49

Z. That was a big thing. in

18:51

the Cold War years, or at least the

18:53

latter part of the Cold War years. I

18:56

don't know about the post- Cold War

18:58

years, but I remember people would

19:00

want to travel younger people,

19:02

students, left-wingers, would, you know,

19:04

ideally would either be Canadian and

19:07

show off their Canadianness and

19:09

that they're not American, or

19:11

sometimes young American students would

19:13

say, I'm Canadian, not American, so

19:15

that in the idea that Canada

19:17

is nice, America is not. Yeah, which

19:19

is a big myth. Well, I mean,

19:22

I got dis- I believed that as,

19:24

you know, well, well, well into my

19:26

20s. And the first time I ever

19:29

played in Belgrade, in Serbia, like, which

19:31

is one of my favorite places to

19:33

play music and visit, I have a

19:35

lot of friends there. But the first

19:38

time I played there, after the

19:40

show, I was at a bar,

19:42

and some guy asked me where

19:44

I was from, and I proudly

19:47

said, I'm not American, I'm from

19:49

Canada. Yelling about the data about

19:51

the data bombings, right? Of which

19:54

Canada took part. We also took

19:56

part in operations in Bosnia, you

19:59

know? Right. So he just screamed

20:01

at me about NATO. And how

20:03

Canada was a bullshit country and

20:05

a puppet of the United States.

20:07

And I was just like, well,

20:09

I guess he's right. Yeah, no,

20:11

that's true. Is that something that

20:13

was more true in the post-Cold

20:15

War era than the Cold War,

20:17

let's say pre-Molroni era? Wasn't it

20:20

a bit different? At least, or

20:22

no? I think it was different.

20:24

I mean, we had a slightly

20:26

different foreign foreign policy. than America,

20:28

but I think after the Cold

20:30

War, we really got into lockstep

20:32

with the United States, with the

20:34

exception of, you know, Kretchen being

20:37

against Iraq War I. I think

20:39

we were really, we really got

20:41

into, yeah, we got into line with

20:43

American foreign policy, which is one

20:45

of the huge, which has created

20:47

this domino effect where basically

20:50

we don't have any fucking

20:52

friends outside of the US.

20:54

We have completely alienated ourselves

20:56

from any other geopolitical... friendship

20:59

option alliance and you know

21:01

so that's one strain of

21:03

nationalism the other strain is

21:06

incredibly pathetic and you know we

21:08

and and is now in crisis

21:10

but we we cover this a

21:12

lot on bottom which is that

21:15

sort of conservative movement

21:17

which which was which was

21:19

which is like I want

21:22

you guys to picture a

21:24

rebel flag where the stars

21:27

are replaced with maple. And

21:29

that is a thing that

21:32

actually exists. There's a whole

21:34

movement of mostly younger some

21:37

sort of baby boomer Canadians

21:39

that that emerged during

21:41

the pandemic really got

21:44

really got traction during

21:47

the pandemic. And it

21:49

is a it is taking

21:52

American for lack of a

21:54

better word. So like they're

21:56

transposing American sort of identity

21:58

politics from the right, all

22:00

the things that they're worried about,

22:03

they're transposing that onto Canadian culture

22:05

and their experience as Canadians. And

22:07

it gets a friend. And now

22:09

that's in crisis because the country

22:12

that they love and that they

22:14

want to ambulate is threatening to

22:16

invade. Well, can we talk briefly

22:18

about the poll from late last

22:21

year after when at least here

22:23

people still thought it was kind

22:25

of a joke? So this, it was sometime

22:27

late last year, the poll on. whether

22:30

Canadians would basically welcome a

22:32

takeover by the US. And

22:34

14% of Canadians said yes.

22:37

I just love that. That

22:39

just is so funny. And,

22:42

you know, we've mused here

22:44

at Radio Warner that

22:46

it's not as shocking when

22:48

you think about how

22:50

much ambient spite there is.

22:53

I mean, certainly in this

22:55

country. and how a lot of

22:58

people, let's say like when Biden

23:00

was in power, when Clinton was

23:02

in power, they wouldn't have

23:04

minded if, you know, somebody else

23:07

would come in and make their

23:09

neighbor's life hell. Well, yeah, I

23:11

mean, I think in, sorry, and

23:13

I don't mean to presume Dan

23:15

to tell you what's what, but

23:17

I just have this impression and

23:20

you tell me if I'm wrong,

23:22

that is particularly

23:24

intense in the, the triangle

23:26

of Ontario below the lakes

23:28

that yes that there is a

23:31

fact that a choice to

23:33

be made like you're either with

23:35

Margaret Atwood or you're with

23:37

the people who hate her beyond

23:40

all reason like the Ford

23:42

brothers correct that's why Ford is

23:44

so popular there is because

23:46

he's the closest he's the closest

23:48

thing that we can get

23:50

to a Trump type figure, you

23:53

know, without breaking sort of

23:55

these unspoken social norms in

23:57

Canada. So you had this. I

24:00

think it was on chapel, I

24:02

heard you talking, you had this

24:04

great analysis. I guess

24:06

this actually goes back to

24:08

the bottom then again, but

24:10

about oaths and oaths, seeers.

24:12

Could you describe how sort

24:15

of the political economy

24:17

of oathism works in

24:19

Canada? Well, yeah, absolutely. I

24:21

mean, The Ford brothers are

24:24

a great example of that

24:26

paradigm being smashed. That is

24:29

not something that is supposed

24:31

to happen. The oves, the

24:33

oves are not supposed to

24:36

be in charge. But oaths

24:38

and oath overseers, you've got,

24:40

you've got people like my

24:43

family who were like the

24:45

most annoying Lutherans in Germany.

24:47

Bavaria, to Prussia, to

24:49

eventually, the, you know, colony

24:51

of Utland, close to the

24:54

Danish border, and then eventually

24:56

we're just kicked out because

24:58

they're too fucking obnoxious. So

25:00

you have those people and

25:02

they're, I mean, my, my

25:04

ancestors are oaths. They, you

25:06

know, tilled the land basically.

25:08

And then you have the

25:10

old... That's a strange. The

25:12

Lutherans I knew in my suburb

25:14

were among Christians, the least...

25:16

I don't know the most

25:19

non-denominational or something like

25:21

the least annoying I guess

25:23

you'd say so but I

25:26

don't so that but there

25:28

were obviously Martin Luther was

25:31

Very annoying. Yeah. I mean,

25:33

being, being, being pacifists and,

25:35

you know, not enjoying any

25:38

kind of revelry whatsoever, almost

25:40

like a Lutheran Wahhabism. Like,

25:42

so you've got, so you've

25:45

got those people and you've

25:47

got various oaths from, you

25:49

know, Ireland, Scotland,

25:52

UK. But then you also

25:54

have the ice chewing. Protestant

25:56

oath overseers who are like the

25:59

Scots-Irish shoot. move over. And their

26:01

job is to, I mean, many of

26:03

our prime ministers have been

26:05

an oath overseers. Their job is

26:08

to wrangle the oves and get

26:10

the oves to work the

26:12

land. The oves job is to

26:15

remove the great bounty of

26:17

natural resources from the

26:19

new world and not. And maybe

26:21

they can get loaded occasionally if

26:23

they do it. You know, if

26:25

they didn't, you know, once every,

26:27

they could have a feast day.

26:29

If they get their quota, if

26:31

they get their quota, then they

26:33

could have a little feast. And

26:35

that's, that's how it's supposed to

26:37

work. It's not supposed to be

26:39

Rob Ford swallowing a bee on

26:41

camera, or, you know. Yeah, I

26:43

mean, the most amazing thing to

26:45

me when I, when I stayed

26:47

in Toronto for some time was

26:50

the number of orange lodges,

26:52

and I don't think anybody

26:54

else saw them. because it's

26:56

probably not openly a feature

26:58

of Canadian political culture

27:01

now. Not anymore. No,

27:03

but they were all over the place.

27:05

Yeah, yeah, I mean that is that

27:07

is kind of at least as far

27:09

as the big dense population

27:12

center around in Ontario, that

27:14

is supposed to be how

27:17

things work. And you know,

27:19

they even applied that to

27:21

Quebec with, you know, you've

27:23

got Catholic French-speaking oaths, and

27:25

that you've got the

27:28

Anglo-Ove overseers. So that is

27:30

basically, you know, my analysis

27:32

of the way Canadian politics

27:34

works. That makes a lot

27:36

of sense, but then there

27:38

must be subdivisions within

27:41

the oaths. I mean, I guess the

27:43

question is, who would be

27:45

the collaborators with the Americans? I

27:47

mean, off the top of my

27:49

head. I would say some

27:51

of the oaths because they

27:54

don't like overseers and the

27:56

overseers, from what I

27:58

can tell, if... Christian free land

28:01

and and you know her crew are any

28:03

indication I mean they're they're throwing

28:05

in with with Europe And and

28:07

in fact what you know I wanted to

28:09

say with the way you described Canadian

28:11

foreign policy as having basically

28:14

ditched its sovereign it's it is a

28:16

strange paradox. It's not just the

28:18

Canadians they did the same thing

28:20

the Europeans did and it's very

28:22

paradoxical because you would have

28:24

thought it would gone the other way But

28:26

the end of the Cold War,

28:29

they all completely ditched their

28:31

sovereignty and just lined up

28:33

with the US and kind of

28:35

outsourced the whole, you know, all

28:37

foreign policy and sovereignty to the

28:40

US as like this sort of

28:42

benign, you know, benign hand that

28:44

guides the market and guides

28:47

the world. And then they've

28:49

completely atrophied, even any

28:51

sense or any possibility

28:53

of sovereignty. Because it's

28:56

gone on for decades now.

28:58

Well, and it's created some

29:00

incredible contradictions and now some

29:02

huge problems with the US

29:04

being belligerent towards Canada, which

29:06

is our, you know, our

29:08

hope to sort of partner

29:10

with other powerful nations. China

29:12

is gone. And a lot

29:14

of that has been the work

29:16

of, you know, like quote unquote journalists

29:18

in Canada. There has been

29:21

a 15-year campaign to terrify.

29:23

mostly people in my dad's

29:25

generation, but you know, basically everybody

29:28

into thinking that China is in

29:30

our, you know, they're spying on

29:32

us, they're disrupting our democracy,

29:35

they're treating us very unfairly,

29:37

we need to go to

29:39

war with them, and that

29:42

is completely coming from the

29:44

United States to the point

29:46

where, you know, John Bolton

29:49

convinced the Canadian government to

29:51

detain a Huawei executive. That's

29:53

an interesting question in itself.

29:56

If we pursue this fantasy

29:58

scenario. Like, where would

30:01

the more recent immigrants,

30:03

especially the two

30:05

biggest Asian immigrant groups,

30:07

the Indian and the Chinese,

30:09

where would they lie on this

30:11

group? I suspect they

30:14

wouldn't be particularly

30:16

collaborationist or would just try

30:18

to hunker down and survive,

30:20

but I mean, I think

30:22

when I think back to Surrey

30:25

where we lived for a

30:27

while we lived for a

30:29

while we lived for a

30:31

Surrey and BC. The population

30:34

was basically one-third Indian, one-third

30:37

Chinese, and one-third,

30:39

basically Canadian white. And

30:41

I have to say

30:43

that Canadian whites were sort

30:46

of the ne'er-do-wells of the

30:48

population. I mean, they were

30:50

mostly riding around on bikes

30:53

because they'd lost their lives.

30:55

I'm very familiar with the

30:57

with Surrey and that is

31:00

an accurate description. Yeah. I

31:02

mean, I lived in Vancouver

31:04

for a long time and

31:06

and Surrey was a place

31:08

of, you know, it's kind

31:11

of like, kind of like

31:13

New Jersey to New York.

31:15

and non-complimentary. Yeah, that's funny.

31:17

So I guess getting back

31:20

to the question though,

31:22

who would collaborate, do you

31:24

think? I think, you know,

31:27

I think in the oath in

31:29

the oath class, I think that

31:31

actually This goes beyond, this is

31:33

maybe upwardly mobile oves, like people,

31:36

I'm thinking more of my home

31:38

province, like British Columbia. Some of

31:41

the oves have climbed the social

31:43

ladder, they're no longer, you know,

31:45

relegated to like chasing mules around

31:48

or whatever, and they own like

31:50

car dealerships or boat dealerships, or

31:52

they are mom and pop landlords.

31:55

And those people, if you look

31:57

at kind of any of the Canada

31:59

strong... Facebook pages or you

32:01

know any of the comments

32:04

on on some of

32:06

the more like American-style

32:08

right-wing Canadian Twitter those

32:10

guys would be first in

32:12

line to turn against their own

32:14

people absolutely there

32:17

yeah what's the big auto

32:19

shop that's popular in Canada

32:21

it's all over and they

32:23

they have their own bucks

32:25

they have their own currency.

32:27

Oh, you're talking about Canadian

32:30

tire. Yeah, Canadian tire. I

32:32

would focus on the Canadian

32:34

tire demographic. Yeah, exactly. You'd

32:36

have people setting up their

32:38

own fiefdoms trying to trade

32:40

Canadian tire bucks for US

32:42

greenbacks. And then on the

32:45

over-to-seater side, I think you, and

32:47

we've touched on this a little

32:49

bit, you can't trust the academic

32:51

class or, you know, establishment journalists.

32:53

I think there are at

32:55

least a handful of people

32:57

I can think of off

32:59

the top of my head

33:01

who would just be like,

33:04

we welcome our new American

33:06

overlords. Absolutely. Yeah. Can

33:08

you name names? Yeah. I mean,

33:10

I think people like Terry

33:12

Glavin or Andrew Coyne or

33:14

some of the more ultra-right,

33:16

you know, people like Sam

33:18

Cooper, for instance, Cooper is

33:20

really interesting. He, he's... He

33:22

wrote a book about what

33:24

he alleges is Chinese government

33:26

influence in British Columbia's economy

33:28

and politics. He was writing

33:30

some articles for the Globe

33:33

and Mail and the National

33:35

Post for a while and

33:37

he was eventually let go,

33:39

but not before he managed

33:41

to not so credibly accuse a

33:44

couple liberal MPs of being

33:46

puppets for the Chinese Communist

33:48

Party. The newspaper let him go.

33:50

He has a sub stack now

33:53

and it's an interesting arc. He

33:55

used to be taken seriously

33:57

as a Canadian journalist by liberal.

34:00

And now he is like as of

34:02

two days ago appearing on

34:04

Laura Loomer's podcast talking about

34:06

how Canada is the CCP is

34:09

using Canada to import fentanyl

34:11

into the United States.

34:13

So he's essentially already

34:15

a turncoat. And like

34:17

and it's it's crazy

34:19

to me because like he tweeted

34:21

out I think just yesterday

34:24

he said you know i get

34:26

all of my information from high-level

34:28

sources in american finance and you

34:30

know like basically i have all

34:32

these american contacts that's right

34:35

he never accuses anybody and why

34:37

is any a billionaire if he

34:40

has these inside sources should be

34:42

rich as hell exactly but also

34:44

he's just basically saying i am

34:47

a u. u. u.s. foreign influenza

34:49

yeah right output is terrifying Canadians

34:52

about China, saying that China is

34:54

doing a foreign interest. Yeah, it's

34:56

truly bizarre that there's this

34:59

unquestioned double standard, like

35:01

every ounce of Chinese influence,

35:03

in spite of the fact

35:06

that they're a gigantic trading

35:08

partner directly across the ocean

35:10

from BC, is suspect, whereas...

35:13

American influence is taken

35:15

for granted and even seems

35:17

reassuring because they speak the

35:19

same language and they look

35:21

roughly the same. Yeah. Well, it

35:24

was the same during the

35:26

Trucker convoy protest. The original,

35:28

you know, the original finger,

35:30

the big finger was pointed

35:32

originally at Russia, because, you

35:34

know, the government was essentially

35:36

like, okay, these poor misguided

35:39

oves are... have been hoodwinked

35:41

by Russian disinformation campaign. Sorcery.

35:43

Yeah, yeah. You got hypnotized.

35:45

Internet sorcery. And then as

35:47

you kind of dig into

35:50

the funding of these various

35:52

organizations, it's all American

35:54

conservative dollars. But we don't

35:57

talk about that. We can't talk about

35:59

that. Right. Well, how did the,

36:01

when did the anti, like

36:03

the China paranoia start, I

36:05

mean, it sounds like it's

36:07

worse in Canada, considerably worse.

36:09

You've sent me stuff over

36:11

the years like these, you

36:14

know, China, like China smearing

36:16

campaigns that are a lot

36:18

like Russia Gates smearing campaigns

36:20

here that I'm going on

36:22

in politics and so on.

36:24

started in 2016 with the

36:26

election of the Liberal Party,

36:28

which is really funny. I

36:30

mean, it's really funny because

36:32

a lot of conservatives now

36:34

consider the Canadian Liberal Party

36:36

like Patsy's and basically a

36:38

sort of sleeper cell of

36:40

Chinese communists. Like they will

36:42

straight up call Justin Trudeau

36:45

a communist and, you know,

36:47

say he's in league with

36:49

the Chinese Communist Party. Trudeau

36:51

and the liberals ran on

36:53

smearing other people or ran

36:55

on whipping up China fear

36:57

in 2016? I think they

36:59

ran, they inherited an environment

37:01

of paranoia and fear about

37:03

China and China is a

37:05

perfect scapegoat for why things

37:07

don't feel good in Canada.

37:09

Why is the housing crisis?

37:11

you know, why do we

37:14

have a housing crisis in

37:16

Canada? It's foreign investment. It's

37:18

not these massive real estate

37:20

investment trusts. It's not these

37:22

American real estate investment trusts.

37:24

And it's not just unchecked,

37:26

unregulated greed. It's the nefarious

37:28

Chinese. I mean, I would

37:30

add a really interesting example

37:32

of this, which is, Kirsty

37:34

Nome governs one of the

37:36

Dakotas, I think South Dakota.

37:38

Yeah, and she was photographed

37:40

in the hangar of an

37:42

Air Force base in South

37:45

Dakota standing next to an

37:47

American fighter jet, I think

37:49

it was in F16, but

37:51

I'm not sure, and making

37:53

a speech introducing a bill

37:55

to forbid foreign ownership of

37:57

farmland in South Dakota, like

37:59

the Chinese are desperately trying.

38:01

to get some snowbound farmland

38:03

in South Dakota. And she,

38:05

I mean, there's only like

38:07

a third of a million

38:09

aged voters in South Dakota

38:11

anyway. And they're all apparently

38:14

up in arms now about

38:16

the Chinese buying all their

38:18

farmland as if. The government

38:20

of South Dakota couldn't easily

38:22

just say, no, you're at

38:24

war with us now, we're

38:26

taking our farmland back. They

38:28

have this idea that it'll

38:30

be insidiously bought, whereas, you

38:32

know, Bill Gates can buy,

38:34

God knows how many hundreds

38:36

of thousands of acres, and

38:38

that's okay. That's okay. That's

38:40

fine. Yeah. I mean, it's

38:42

manning to think about, because

38:45

I'm old enough to remember

38:47

when the conservatives were in

38:49

power, when Harper was in

38:51

power, there were a lot

38:53

of deals being made with

38:55

China around mineral exports and

38:57

oil exports. That was when

38:59

Fort McMurray was going strong,

39:01

the tar sands were going

39:03

strong, and this doesn't get

39:05

mentioned a lot, but Canada,

39:07

specifically Vancouver, is the only

39:09

North American belt and road

39:11

project point. Like there is

39:14

a small Belton Road initiative

39:16

project in the South Delta

39:18

that is a warehouse, you

39:20

know, that got set up,

39:22

I think, during Harper. But

39:24

it's a bizarre world. So

39:26

the conservatives are blaming the

39:28

liberal party for handing the

39:30

country over to the Chinese

39:32

when their, you know, fearless

39:34

leader, Harper was making deals

39:36

with the Chinese government during

39:38

his entire tenure. So, I

39:40

don't know. As with here

39:42

it. It's been a completely

39:45

bipartisan affair and it's been

39:47

because it helped the rich

39:49

get richer and was good

39:51

for business. But the anxiety

39:53

is obviously, the anxiety goes

39:55

to, in this country as

39:57

well, it goes to the

39:59

top of the ruling classes

40:01

that America is fading and

40:03

you know, and China is

40:05

rising and that so they

40:07

manifest it through this like.

40:09

cheap fake xenophobic populism. I

40:11

don't know to divert or

40:14

something. But I do think,

40:16

yeah, go ahead, John. No,

40:18

I was just wondering, when

40:20

I was growing up, mostly

40:22

because of demographic reasons, I

40:24

mean, the demographics of Quebec

40:26

were astonishing and they have

40:28

now completely reversed. It went

40:30

from like the highest birth

40:32

rate in the world to

40:34

one of the lowest ones

40:36

people got. free of, you

40:38

know, well, okay, I'll say

40:40

a church domination and, uh,

40:42

but, so, so they're not

40:45

as important demographically anymore, but

40:47

do they have any role

40:49

in this? What of the

40:51

Quebec War parties said about

40:53

this? I mean, my personal

40:55

opinion is if the United

40:57

States invades Canada, the Quebec

40:59

will become the Vietnam, like,

41:01

they will. I think. They're

41:03

all ready, they already feel,

41:05

I mean, I live in

41:07

Montreal for over 20 years,

41:09

they already feel im battled

41:11

culturally at the sort of

41:14

higher echelones of government, sometimes

41:16

to a degree where they're,

41:18

you know, sort of boomeranging

41:20

back into like borderline fascism

41:22

with like language police. language

41:24

police auditing slack channels of

41:26

small business to make sure

41:28

that the correct amount of

41:30

Quebec was being spoken like

41:32

that's the environment that is

41:34

the environment and I honestly

41:36

don't think the Quebec would

41:38

put up with it. for

41:40

one, I think they would

41:42

be the fucking vanguard flight.

41:45

Yeah, so that, I wrote

41:47

a short story when I

41:49

was like 10, a nerdy,

41:51

you know, war nerdy, a

41:53

short story about World War

41:55

III. And in it, of

41:57

course, we had to take

41:59

Canada, like all 10-year-old thing,

42:01

because it enlarges the map

42:03

and makes us closer to

42:05

even with the USSR. But

42:07

in my story, we let

42:09

Quebec go, for, you know,

42:11

kind of for that reason.

42:14

And so Quebec kind of,

42:16

it was not allowed to

42:18

align with the evil comedies,

42:20

but it was allowed to

42:22

be sovereign. I wonder if

42:24

what the nerdoids in Trump's

42:26

administration, if they're thinking along

42:28

those lines too. I mean,

42:30

that makes a lot of

42:32

sense, you know. I bet

42:34

they don't even think about

42:36

Quebec. I kind of feel

42:38

like they've forgotten about Quebec,

42:40

and it would be extra

42:42

surprising for them to see

42:45

a guy with a St.

42:47

Hubert bandana, you know, like,

42:49

and an explosive vest coming

42:51

towards their armored column. So

42:53

let's, let's pull the camera

42:55

back a little bit here.

42:57

I'm going to read you

42:59

something here. This is the

43:01

New York Times editorial. The

43:03

headline is, Allies start planning

43:05

a life without America. And

43:07

it says, many governments must

43:09

be thinking along the same

43:11

lines, but few have spelled

43:14

it out so clearly. There's

43:16

from Germany, the times in

43:18

which we could rely fully

43:20

on others. They are somewhat

43:22

over. Now Canada, a country

43:24

tightly bound to its neighbor

43:26

by history, alliance, and the

43:28

longest border in the world,

43:30

has declared the need to

43:32

recognize that the United States

43:34

is relinquishing its role as

43:36

the indispensable nation. And here's

43:38

what the Canada's foreign minister

43:40

says. The fact that our

43:42

friend and ally has come

43:45

to question the very worth

43:47

of its mantle of global

43:49

leadership puts into sharper focus

43:51

the need for the rest

43:53

of us to set our

43:55

own clear and sovereign course.

43:57

Maybe you guys have the

43:59

notes here. This is an

44:01

editorial, not from today, yesterday,

44:03

the day before. This is

44:05

from June 2017. So supposedly,

44:07

everything was going to change

44:09

then in 2017. And the

44:11

foreign minister, Christian Freeland, laid

44:14

out. in sharper detail, how

44:16

they were going to have

44:18

to be more sovereign, they

44:20

were going to increase their

44:22

defense budgets, the Europeans were

44:24

talking about, they were going

44:26

to have to learn to

44:28

live without the United States,

44:30

they were going to have

44:32

to increase their defense budgets.

44:34

And as far as I

44:36

know, in that period since

44:38

then, between 2017 and now,

44:40

Canada actually did increase its,

44:42

it's pretty small, actually surprisingly

44:45

small defense budget. But it

44:47

increased it from something like

44:49

1.1 something or 1.2% of

44:51

GDP to where it is

44:53

now 1.4% of GDP. Yeah,

44:55

and the idea is that

44:57

we're going to get to

44:59

2%. That's the both parties,

45:01

both the conservatives and liberals,

45:03

have promised that we will

45:05

increase defense funding to, or

45:07

spending to 2%. Right, but

45:09

that's been almost 10 years

45:11

since this giant shift supposedly

45:14

has happened. And so now

45:16

we get to, here's a

45:18

New York Times article from

45:20

just a few days ago,

45:22

how Trump supercharged distrust driving

45:24

U.S. allies away. And so

45:26

the article basically lays out

45:28

how Trump is causing permanent

45:30

distrust damage. between the US

45:32

and its allies. And one

45:34

of the first items it

45:36

points to is proof that

45:38

this is happening is that

45:40

the Canadian military has agreed

45:42

to purchase a $4.2 billion

45:45

radar system from Australia. So

45:47

with the implication being that

45:49

they would have bought it

45:51

from us, from the US,

45:53

but Trump has scared them

45:55

so much that now they're

45:57

buying it from Australia. But

45:59

then nine paragraphs down, we

46:01

learned that the radar is

46:03

actually to be deployed as

46:05

part of Norad, which is the

46:08

North American Defense Committee, basically,

46:10

the radar agreement that Canada and

46:12

the US have been running since

46:14

what, the 1950s, you know, to

46:16

defend the skies over the two

46:18

countries. And then another. a few

46:21

paragraphs down. It says the

46:23

decision to opt for Australia

46:25

as a provider for the

46:27

advanced radar technology was supported

46:30

by the U.S. military. So

46:32

there was actually nothing there.

46:34

And so then the question becomes,

46:36

then I think it talked about

46:38

the F-35s, right? So the Karni,

46:40

the new prime minister said he

46:43

was... At least it was reported

46:45

that he was going to cancel

46:47

this big purchase of the flightless

46:49

F-35s. And the reason that it

46:51

was going to be canceled, they

46:53

said, is that Trump said he

46:55

would not let, that he wouldn't

46:57

sell icebreakers to Canada unless

47:00

Canada became the 51 state. Then

47:02

we found out Trump never said

47:04

that he wouldn't sell them to

47:06

Canada. He just said. if they're

47:08

American icebreakers and Canada wants

47:10

to use them, they can't

47:13

have them unless they become, unless

47:15

they join America as a state,

47:17

which is, which, you know, which

47:19

is like annoying, but makes actually

47:21

a little bit more sense. Like, if

47:23

you said he wouldn't sell them an

47:26

ice breaker, that would be a lot

47:28

more hostile, I would think, than saying,

47:30

you know, you can't. So everything

47:32

kind of when you scratch the surface

47:34

doesn't quite pan out the same way.

47:36

And is the F35. Even canceled and

47:38

should anybody want it, but I

47:41

don't think I don't think it's

47:43

canceled I mean that's that is

47:45

for me personally like the crux

47:47

of like the hypocrisy of Sort

47:49

of the Canada strong movement is

47:51

like if we were actually serious

47:53

We would not be spending I mean

47:56

this is really depressing, but we're

47:58

spending between three and five million

48:00

dollars on Hymur's platform.

48:03

Billion. Billion, billion, billion,

48:05

billion dollars on Hymur's, which,

48:07

you know, Mark and I,

48:09

we talked about this, but, you know,

48:12

Hymur's are, unless I'm totally wrong,

48:14

like Hymur's have kind of

48:16

been defamed by their deployment

48:19

in Ukraine and the Russians

48:21

sort of analyzing how this weapons

48:23

platform works and how to

48:25

fucking knock it out. So.

48:27

you know if if high

48:29

Mars aren't good enough for

48:31

Ukraine and Canada is buying

48:33

billions and billions of them we're

48:36

not a sovereign nation well not

48:38

only that we know from all

48:40

the reporting that the high Mars

48:42

require American intelligence but

48:45

the whole apparatus of

48:47

intelligence satellites everything to

48:49

operate and software like

48:51

well yeah that's that's

48:53

the key thing like the

48:55

only reason I know this

48:58

is About 10 years ago,

49:00

I was in communication with

49:03

someone in the

49:05

US establishment that

49:07

we both know

49:09

Mark. And he

49:11

was recently back

49:13

from a triumphant

49:15

trip to a

49:17

state that borders

49:19

the Soviet Union.

49:22

And his triumph

49:24

was that. He and

49:26

an American team

49:28

had managed to

49:30

persuade the government

49:32

of that country

49:35

to specialize its

49:37

military, that is

49:39

to reconfigure its

49:42

military from

49:44

a sort of

49:46

all-purpose defense force

49:48

into a specifically,

49:51

I think it was mine

49:53

defusing force.

49:55

because that would

49:57

serve the interests

50:00

the greater alliance,

50:02

the NATO adjacent

50:04

alliance. The problem with

50:06

that is if the

50:08

heart of NATO, which

50:10

is basically the US

50:13

military, suddenly drops

50:15

out of NATO, you've

50:18

got this weird little

50:20

military force

50:22

that's entirely devoted

50:25

to mind diffusing.

50:27

and is incapable

50:29

of defending your country.

50:31

So that basically means

50:33

you don't have a military.

50:35

That's very interesting,

50:37

like in the context of

50:40

Canada, John, because like, you

50:42

know, okay, I was looking

50:44

at recent military purchases from

50:46

the United States by Canada,

50:49

and we've got High Mars.

50:51

We have billions of dollars

50:53

of... And you know, I'm not as

50:55

much of a war nerd as you

50:57

guys, but a wax, is that right?

51:00

Like, like radar, radar plans.

51:02

Yeah. This contentious

51:04

thing around ice breakers, a

51:07

huge procurement for drones,

51:09

American made drones, and

51:11

then the, and then

51:13

the weak, sort of

51:15

weak attempt. to pull ourselves

51:18

away from the American

51:21

orbit is entertaining a

51:23

South Korean offer for

51:25

submarines that the

51:27

Polish Navy rejected.

51:30

Wow. Yeah, it's a KSS3

51:32

submarine, which was proposed

51:34

to the Polish Navy

51:36

in 2023 and they rejected

51:39

it. So yeah, that's it.

51:41

And we're talking like... Six

51:43

submarines, 11 submarines. I mean,

51:46

come on. Yeah. Yeah, I

51:48

mean, presumably what the American

51:51

military would want. And whenever

51:53

there are these political dust-ups,

51:55

there's a lot of quiet

51:58

cooperation behind the scenes. between

52:00

the militaries, except in a

52:02

few cases when there's a

52:04

real break. But what they

52:07

would want above all is

52:09

surveillance of the far north

52:11

and northwest. And so everything

52:13

they've got is configured toward

52:15

that. And it's configured to

52:17

trigger a response by the

52:19

American military no matter what

52:21

the political noises no matter

52:23

what the political noises I

52:26

think actually I left who

52:28

would be a turncoat and

52:30

were a big one, which

52:32

is the Canadian military and

52:34

our intelligence services. That's right.

52:36

Yeah. Like they've been training

52:38

with the US military. Yeah,

52:40

they speak the same language.

52:42

Yeah. Yeah, and oftentimes, you

52:45

know, like, there was a,

52:47

there was a big scandal

52:49

in Eastern Canada, like back

52:51

right before COVID, where the

52:53

Canadian military was doing sciops

52:55

research by putting up, putting

52:57

up flyers saying that there

52:59

was a pack of wolves

53:01

running around. And they said,

53:04

a literal pack of wolves,

53:06

that they got busted doing

53:08

it and tried to blame.

53:10

the russians of course and

53:12

then oh my gosh and

53:14

then we're like the wolves

53:16

alone I know no and

53:18

they're they trying to gauge

53:20

like like how much we

53:23

can so panic and how

53:25

panic travels or like they

53:27

were they claim they were

53:29

trying to gauge Canadian oath

53:31

response to this information And

53:33

then of course you'd, you

53:35

know, oh, just blame it

53:37

on the Russians, because they're

53:39

their ones who do the

53:41

disinformation. Yeah, I think the

53:44

Canadian military ensees the intelligence

53:46

apparatus are, you know, basically

53:48

unchecked and like John said,

53:50

have been training with people

53:52

in the United States, training

53:54

with the U.S. military. I

53:56

don't feel like they're particularly

53:58

loyal to Canada. know ideologically

54:00

speaking which is troublesome you

54:03

know yeah I guess specially

54:05

yeah special forces type of

54:07

yeah yeah I'm not sure

54:09

the American military at some

54:11

levels is all that loyal

54:13

to the American idea as

54:15

as some would conceive it

54:17

I mean they're loyal to

54:19

a certain idea of America

54:22

but It's not the one

54:24

that the New York Times

54:26

exemplifies. Yeah. So maybe transnational

54:28

military coup, you know. Yeah.

54:30

I was just looking at

54:32

Canada in the second, you

54:34

know, Bush's invasion of Iraq

54:36

in 2003. And I mean,

54:38

I think you already mentioned

54:41

it, but, um, how do

54:43

you say his name? Chertian

54:45

or... the Prime Minister wouldn't.

54:47

He was, he so desperately,

54:49

it seems like, wanted to

54:51

have some minimal rationale to

54:53

be able to support the

54:55

US, but ultimately couldn't. So

54:57

he kind of took a

55:00

passive aggressive way out of

55:02

supporting the initial invasion and

55:04

then backed it up. But

55:06

the thing that kind of

55:08

blew me away is, Canada

55:10

returned Iraq war resistors. I

55:12

mean, there weren't many, there

55:14

were a few who fled.

55:16

who deserted basically, deserted the

55:19

military, the American military, so

55:21

as not to serve in

55:23

Iraq, went to Canada and

55:25

Canada eventually sent them back.

55:27

Yeah, yeah, I mean there

55:29

was, I don't think there's

55:31

been a war in Canada

55:33

since, I think the only

55:35

war in Canada that was

55:38

deeply unpopular in the press

55:40

besides Vietnam was Iraq War

55:42

One, but this is going

55:44

back to the boar war

55:46

war. You know, I remember

55:48

Riley and I with Bottelman,

55:50

we started going through Canadian

55:52

newspapers to train. part, Parsa,

55:54

which war Canada didn't support

55:56

because, you know, like we

55:59

said at the beginning of

56:01

the show, a lot of

56:03

Canadian nationalism sort of rests

56:05

on its opposition to being

56:07

American, you know, but there's

56:09

functionally no difference in at

56:11

least the media's support of

56:13

almost every single war. Oh,

56:15

wait, so there was a

56:18

lot of opposition to the

56:20

Boer War in Canada, was

56:22

there? No, no, zero opposition

56:24

in the press. That's what

56:26

I would thought, yeah, because

56:28

they were more... more imperial

56:30

than Britain as far as

56:32

I know. Yeah, and they

56:34

managed to recruit a lot

56:37

of Canadians through the Canadian

56:39

press, you know. It was

56:41

just like, do your diligence

56:43

for queen and country, you

56:45

know, go fight. Go fight

56:47

now. How do the Canadians

56:49

remember World War I? They

56:51

remember it as a glorious

56:53

victory. Like that is maybe

56:56

our grandest military memory. Vim

56:58

Vimy Ridge. Vimy. Yeah. Yeah.

57:00

So Remembrance Day is a

57:02

big thing in Canada and

57:04

every year, every November, there's

57:06

people voloviating about poppies. You

57:08

know, so and so isn't

57:10

wearing the poppy. They're not

57:12

a patriot. They don't remember

57:15

Vimy Ridge. So what's that

57:17

there's another remembrance day. I

57:19

remember. remembering something day. We

57:21

remember the victims of the

57:23

Holocaust and of Stalin's crimes.

57:25

And I remember this in

57:27

honor of my grandfather, the

57:29

great Michaela Jomiac. She actually

57:31

put her Nazi collaborator grandfather

57:34

in the tweet, which was

57:36

amazing. So that's that's actually

57:38

pretty interesting. So that is

57:40

a fake holiday, um, cooked

57:42

up, cooked up by an

57:44

Estonian guy named Marcus Hess,

57:46

who, uh, Hess. Yes. And

57:48

he, he basically helped shape

57:50

the double genocide theory. or

57:53

popularize it at least, the

57:55

double genocide theory being a

57:57

sort of Holocaust revisionist theory

57:59

set forth by Nazi collaborators

58:01

who had decamped to North

58:03

America and South America, which

58:05

said, okay, six million, yeah,

58:07

sure, but also. But also

58:09

the other guys were just

58:12

as bad if not worse.

58:14

If not worse, the implication

58:16

is always that they were

58:18

worse, but they were worse.

58:20

White crossed that line. And

58:22

then Black Ribbon Day was

58:24

set up by Hess and

58:26

a few people in something

58:28

called the Canadian Taxpayers Alliance,

58:30

which is exactly what you

58:33

think it is. It's a

58:35

libertarian, you know, right wing

58:37

think tank that was based

58:39

on, you know, like bringing

58:41

a libertarian candidate to the

58:43

four. So this, so this,

58:45

uh, has went on a

58:47

whirlwind tour of Europe to

58:49

promote, you know, this double

58:52

genocide theory and met with

58:54

Slavistsko who is, you know,

58:56

I'm sure radio word nerd

58:58

listeners will know who that

59:00

is. And, you're, right, you

59:02

know, Slavszko, right? Yeah, yeah,

59:04

his wife, and met at,

59:06

you know, the anti-Bolshevik League

59:08

of Nations Headquarters in Munich,

59:11

Let's go, by the way,

59:13

was appointed head of the,

59:15

briefly, the head of the

59:17

puppet, the Nazi puppet regime

59:19

in Ukraine, when they took

59:21

over LaVillev. Yeah. All you

59:23

need to know about Black

59:25

Room and Day is that

59:27

there is a wonderful photo

59:30

of the architect of it,

59:32

Marcus Hess, and Slavist Letz

59:34

go in front of a

59:36

statue of Roman Shukievich, the

59:38

leader of the nautical battalion

59:40

at the ABN headquarters in

59:42

Munich. as they discussed their

59:44

plans to create this fake-ass

59:46

holiday. So yeah, that's our

59:49

other remembrance day. So I

59:51

mean, that explains why Timothy

59:53

Snyder's finding such a warm

59:55

reception there because Snyder's book,

59:57

I mean, he's probably the

59:59

biggest... popularizer in

1:00:01

this country anyway of double

1:00:03

genocide theory I mean he

1:00:05

kind of he was it's

1:00:08

strange I mean he initially he

1:00:10

did not downplay one side

1:00:12

of the double genocide there

1:00:14

the the sort of Nazi

1:00:16

collaboration aside but eventually as

1:00:19

he as he as time

1:00:21

went on he went on

1:00:23

to massively emphasize you

1:00:25

know basically blame everything

1:00:27

on communism and the

1:00:29

Russians and everything that happened

1:00:31

was their fault and including

1:00:34

the Holocaust that it was

1:00:36

one of those things where you

1:00:38

know it's either Hitler got his

1:00:40

idea from a Palestinian Mufti or

1:00:42

he got it from Stalin or

1:00:44

you know he had no ideas

1:00:46

of his own it's whoever you

1:00:48

don't like. So Dan I have

1:00:50

to ask the the sort of

1:00:53

cheesy cinematic question here like if

1:00:55

if there was a breakdown

1:00:57

of Canada in the event

1:01:00

which I find highly unlikely

1:01:02

of an American invasion, an

1:01:04

actual American invasion. I mean,

1:01:07

we're kind of ham-fisted these

1:01:09

days, but I don't know

1:01:11

if our fists have turned

1:01:14

into literal ham quite

1:01:16

that much. But if there

1:01:18

was, what would you see as

1:01:20

the centers of collaborationists and

1:01:22

the centers of resistance? Okay.

1:01:25

This is great. I think

1:01:27

Quebec definitely the sort of

1:01:30

north would be the would

1:01:32

be the Hanoi of Canada.

1:01:34

I think Quebec City in

1:01:37

Montreal, definitely. I think south

1:01:39

of Toronto. The Sunni

1:01:41

triangle. The Sunni triangle. Yeah,

1:01:43

all the way to Tra

1:01:46

Riviere. And you know, the

1:01:48

north would be the training.

1:01:50

So like I'm thinking about

1:01:52

like Shikoutami, like Northern Quebec.

1:01:54

South of Toronto, I think

1:01:56

the greater Toronto area would

1:01:59

be able... work against, you

1:02:01

know, U.S. invasion, although there

1:02:03

probably be some interesting conflicts

1:02:05

there, but Southern Ontario would

1:02:07

be rife with collaborators, collaborationists,

1:02:09

people, people mining Lake Ontario,

1:02:12

you know, cutting fuel lines.

1:02:14

I think so yeah I

1:02:16

think that I think the

1:02:18

spite towards the liberal the

1:02:20

quote-unquote liberal elite in Toronto

1:02:22

that would make sense you

1:02:25

know like the the France

1:02:27

versus Paris yeah after the

1:02:29

Russians took over yeah I

1:02:31

think the rural urban divides

1:02:33

in the suburban urban divides

1:02:35

would become, I think the

1:02:38

biggest conflicts would be, internally

1:02:40

would be between the suburbs

1:02:42

and the and the metropolitan,

1:02:44

like the city. I think

1:02:46

another big area of collaborationists

1:02:48

are what we were talking

1:02:51

about earlier, which is sadly

1:02:53

British Columbia, the interior, you

1:02:55

know, I mean, we all

1:02:57

know Washington State, Oregon, and

1:02:59

California on the other side

1:03:01

of that mountain range. It's

1:03:04

all, I don't know if

1:03:06

you guys have seen the

1:03:08

movie Green Room, but it's

1:03:10

all Green Room. Yeah, well

1:03:12

yeah, the legislators describe it

1:03:14

as beyond hope, right? Because

1:03:16

hope is a city right

1:03:19

on the edge of coastal

1:03:21

British Columbia, but yeah, things

1:03:23

change after that. Yeah, I

1:03:25

wonder, I'm thinking about this

1:03:27

now a little more, and

1:03:29

I wonder, okay, you'd have

1:03:32

to, if you sent a

1:03:34

fighting force of young Americans

1:03:36

into Canada who were... ostensibly

1:03:38

probably gonna have to shoot

1:03:40

and kill Canadians you would

1:03:42

the American government would have

1:03:45

to find a way to

1:03:47

really dehumanize Canadians you know

1:03:49

yeah to other them and

1:03:51

I'm not I think there

1:03:53

would definitely be there would

1:03:55

definitely be armed resistance on

1:03:58

the American side of the

1:04:00

border oh definitely collaborating with

1:04:02

whatever arm resistance there was

1:04:04

in Canada? I mean, so

1:04:06

Canada, just so we know

1:04:08

what we're talking about here,

1:04:11

Canada has an act of

1:04:13

personnel 68,000, I mean, it's

1:04:15

pretty small, a budget, defense

1:04:17

budget of $27 billion. That

1:04:19

is after the huge, you

1:04:21

know, boost after Christian Freeland.

1:04:24

It's not very big. I

1:04:26

mean, I would, you'd have

1:04:28

to also, yeah, the American

1:04:30

military would have to be

1:04:32

told that there, this is

1:04:34

where like the whole liberal

1:04:36

stuff that Trump is dismantling

1:04:39

the liberal soft power stuff

1:04:41

comes in. comes in real

1:04:43

handy. Like, how do you,

1:04:45

you do have to convince

1:04:47

people to kill people like

1:04:49

you? Yeah. And it's not,

1:04:52

that's not an easy thing.

1:04:54

And usually what you have

1:04:56

to do is say you're

1:04:58

saving them. And even from

1:05:00

the many reports I've read

1:05:02

about Russia's, the full scale

1:05:05

invasion in February 2022, a

1:05:07

lot of the Russian military,

1:05:09

first of all, they weren't

1:05:11

even told, you know, and

1:05:13

then when they did go

1:05:15

in, they thought that they

1:05:18

were going into, you know,

1:05:20

a country of brothers. who

1:05:22

wanted to be freed from

1:05:24

Nazis. And it's liberation. Liberation,

1:05:26

which is standard, right? So

1:05:28

you did have to feed

1:05:31

them a story, and that

1:05:33

sounds like probably too much

1:05:35

work for Trump. Like why,

1:05:37

you know, we're strong. That's

1:05:39

why we're going in. Yeah,

1:05:41

you need to craft an

1:05:44

entire psychological campaign, you know,

1:05:46

on almost every level of

1:05:48

media that reached every class,

1:05:50

you know. reached across cultural

1:05:52

divides even. The quick cookery

1:05:54

method is you construct a

1:05:56

few atrocities or border incidents,

1:05:59

but I think America already

1:06:01

has. an image of Canada,

1:06:03

which is quite unfair, believe

1:06:05

me, as a country of

1:06:07

Ned Flanders. And the reason

1:06:09

I know that's unfair is

1:06:12

that one night when Catherine

1:06:14

and I were sleeping on

1:06:16

the boat, which we had

1:06:18

just moved around to another

1:06:20

inlet, And I didn't know

1:06:22

much about handling boats. Apparently

1:06:25

I had let the anchor

1:06:27

swing too wide and I

1:06:29

had annoyed this messed up

1:06:31

and steroided it up. Oil

1:06:33

rig worker giant fucker. bordered

1:06:35

our boat at about 2

1:06:38

a.m. I got up and

1:06:40

barely made it outside and

1:06:42

went, huh? And he was

1:06:44

like raging already. And he,

1:06:46

I mean, it was as

1:06:48

close as we've ever come

1:06:51

to being killed. And I

1:06:53

think it was only because

1:06:55

I was just so weak

1:06:57

and passive and harmless that

1:06:59

he didn't think we were

1:07:01

worth killing. But he raged

1:07:04

at us. for about 15

1:07:06

minutes and I said, I'm

1:07:08

sorry, a lot of times.

1:07:10

And eventually he's, well, fuck

1:07:12

this. And just got back

1:07:14

his boat. But you know,

1:07:16

that's when I realize there's,

1:07:19

it's not all Ned Flanders

1:07:21

in Canada. Yeah, well you

1:07:23

know how like all like

1:07:25

horrible sex dungeon basement crimes

1:07:27

are usually it's always like

1:07:29

the bannalux countries it's like

1:07:32

Belgium Austria you know I

1:07:34

think I think there is

1:07:36

like a deep repressed darkness

1:07:38

in the Canadian psyche that

1:07:40

can be pushed to the

1:07:42

brink and then we'll get

1:07:45

on your boat and and

1:07:47

try and strangle you at

1:07:49

2 a.m. Can we talk

1:07:51

about Colonel Russell Williams? Speaking

1:07:53

of that, that's one of

1:07:55

the craziest serial killer stories

1:07:58

I've ever heard. I only,

1:08:00

I came across it recently,

1:08:02

you know, looking at some true

1:08:04

crime thing. And was that a big

1:08:06

deal? And can I think maybe, do

1:08:08

you know that story right there? I

1:08:10

don't. I don't know Colonel Russell

1:08:12

Williams. Oh my God. I think

1:08:15

I remember it vaguely, right? He

1:08:17

was, he was killing women while

1:08:19

posing as a perfectly respectable army

1:08:21

officer. Yeah, he was, I want

1:08:23

to say, so he was a

1:08:26

colonel, he was very high up. I want

1:08:28

to say he like. escorted

1:08:30

the Queen when she visited.

1:08:32

And then when he

1:08:34

wasn't escorting the Queen, he

1:08:36

was sneaking into women's

1:08:38

homes, finding out who

1:08:41

lived alone, sneaking in their

1:08:43

homes, stealing their underwear so

1:08:45

he could wear it and

1:08:47

photograph himself and

1:08:50

murdering them. And yeah, you

1:08:52

can actually see his confession

1:08:55

on YouTube. It's a really

1:08:57

weird. Weird as hell very weird

1:08:59

story. I mean very much like what

1:09:01

you're talking about like he was he

1:09:03

was the perfect Canadian You know,

1:09:06

that's how they talked about him like

1:09:08

the perfect Canadian and You know

1:09:10

it turned out to be just a

1:09:12

serial rapist and serial murderer So

1:09:14

maybe you know, maybe that

1:09:17

trait maybe we go berserter

1:09:19

mode Maybe we, maybe everyone

1:09:21

relax their Turner Williams and

1:09:24

just, you know, the Americans

1:09:26

are like, okay, sorry, sorry

1:09:28

about that, everyone like. But

1:09:31

I mean, honestly, I think

1:09:33

a war, a war. Because

1:09:35

you guys could pass easily,

1:09:38

you know. I mean, the

1:09:40

best gorilla strategy might be

1:09:42

head south. I mean, I've been

1:09:45

thinking about this as we've been

1:09:47

talking, and my image, I have

1:09:49

just one image of a war

1:09:51

between America and Canada, and it

1:09:53

is the smoking rubble of downtown

1:09:55

Toronto. A guy named Gord Thompson

1:09:57

climbs the CNN tower with a

1:09:59

single... He has left, shoots

1:10:01

it in an armored column

1:10:03

of American invaders, and then

1:10:06

they just press a button

1:10:08

where it loony tune style

1:10:10

doubles back and vaporizes it.

1:10:12

Oh, that's beautiful because of

1:10:14

course, before they sold it

1:10:17

to the Canadians, they would

1:10:19

have re-engineered it. Yeah. Exactly.

1:10:21

I'm circling back a little

1:10:23

bit to what we talked

1:10:26

about in the beginning. Jason

1:10:28

Stanley and Timothy Snyder going

1:10:30

to Toronto. I just want to say

1:10:32

a couple things about this before we

1:10:35

end the show. First thing is, in

1:10:37

the interview, she asked, you know, she or

1:10:39

he, wherever the interview is, asks him,

1:10:41

what was the tipping point for you?

1:10:44

I just have to read this, this,

1:10:46

since we've mentioned it already,

1:10:48

he says... I don't know the general

1:10:50

answer to that question, but things

1:10:53

are very bad in this country.

1:10:55

It's an authoritarian regime.

1:10:57

People are not responding well.

1:10:59

It's moving faster than it moved

1:11:01

in Russia, and journalists are not

1:11:04

acting in a way that will

1:11:06

get them shot or thrown out

1:11:08

of windows, unfortunately. which is what

1:11:10

is supposed to happen to journalists

1:11:13

under ideal conditions. That's why you

1:11:15

go into journalism. And I go

1:11:17

into Ontario. Yes. Later he says

1:11:20

that was some of his dark

1:11:22

humor like when he uses the

1:11:24

word fuck or something. But you

1:11:26

know he actually means it. There's

1:11:29

so much there to unpack on

1:11:31

top of the fact that... Journalism

1:11:34

barely even exists in America, you

1:11:36

know, and he's like got this

1:11:38

tenure job in an industry where

1:11:40

there's no more tenure anymore and

1:11:43

he thinks it all works like that.

1:11:45

But the thing that really among other

1:11:47

things also that stood out to me

1:11:49

is it's moving faster than it

1:11:51

moved in Russia. Does he, like this

1:11:53

is a scholar from an Ivy League

1:11:56

saying this, does he have no fucking

1:11:58

idea how it moved in Russia? you

1:12:00

work like somebody as somebody

1:12:02

who was literally run out

1:12:04

of the country it's and

1:12:06

I stayed there and I

1:12:08

went back when I got

1:12:10

you know I was actually

1:12:12

charged with editorial crimes and

1:12:14

had and and this was

1:12:16

sent to our office and

1:12:18

I came back from America

1:12:20

I didn't and you know

1:12:23

I didn't want to get

1:12:25

locked up but I also

1:12:27

at least wanted to try

1:12:29

and fight it and you

1:12:31

know be there with my

1:12:33

Russian colleagues and so on

1:12:35

and you know I got

1:12:37

a lawyer and I sort

1:12:39

of felt like yeah it's

1:12:41

I mean actually because I

1:12:43

watch it and I know

1:12:45

how I have a I

1:12:47

don't know but you know

1:12:50

I have a general sense

1:12:52

of the pace of these

1:12:54

things that yeah going back

1:12:56

could have got me in

1:12:58

trouble going back and fighting

1:13:00

it publicly was definitely getting

1:13:02

me in trouble and then

1:13:04

I left when a guy

1:13:06

in said I should be

1:13:08

fucking arrested. So I got

1:13:10

the hell out at that

1:13:12

point. But my point is

1:13:14

like, we are nowhere near

1:13:17

that in this country. Oh,

1:13:19

you know, a white Jewish

1:13:21

Yale tenured American-born professor is,

1:13:23

it's, we're just nowhere near

1:13:25

that. And it was just

1:13:27

like a little whiff of

1:13:29

gunpowder and this fascism fighter

1:13:31

fled. But on top of

1:13:33

that. They fled to, so

1:13:35

now they're hired by something

1:13:37

called the Monk School of

1:13:39

Global Affairs and Public Policy.

1:13:41

The Monk School is named

1:13:44

after Peter Monk. Peter Monk

1:13:46

and his Barrett Gold are

1:13:48

likely responsible for, you know,

1:13:50

unbelievable amounts of ecological devastation

1:13:52

of political corruption of I

1:13:54

mean, I've just looked up

1:13:56

some articles of, you know,

1:13:58

its employees. I mean, what

1:14:00

do they do? They go

1:14:02

into weak states and corrupt

1:14:04

countries and extract gold by

1:14:06

poisoning the place. I have

1:14:08

a small anecdote that I,

1:14:11

you know, as a Canadian,

1:14:13

that I personally experience. I've

1:14:15

been touring in Romania, you

1:14:17

know, like playing in Bucharest

1:14:19

and Cebu and all these

1:14:21

places in Romania for the

1:14:23

last 15, 20 years. And

1:14:25

one of the last times

1:14:27

I went there. My friend

1:14:29

was like, hey, do you

1:14:31

want to go see a

1:14:33

Canadian mining town in the

1:14:35

middle of the Carpetians? I

1:14:38

was like, yes. So Barrett

1:14:40

Gold had partnered with a

1:14:42

company called Rochea, Montana, who

1:14:44

wanted to basically use cyanide

1:14:46

washing, like washing dirt and

1:14:48

gravel with cyanide to extract

1:14:50

gold, just like banned in

1:14:52

most countries. They wanted to

1:14:54

use that to restart this

1:14:56

gold mine in the Carpetians.

1:14:58

The Canadian government had put

1:15:00

pressure on Romania to relax

1:15:02

its environmental protection laws. There

1:15:05

was a big sort of

1:15:07

protest movement against it. We

1:15:09

went to this town, I

1:15:11

saw a small quote unquote

1:15:13

museum dedicated to the art

1:15:15

of gold mining, and then

1:15:17

when we returned to the

1:15:19

car, found it surrounded by

1:15:21

goons. Wow. Yes. So I

1:15:23

was there with two Romanian

1:15:25

friends, and the goons were

1:15:27

basically like, what the fuck

1:15:29

are you guys doing here,

1:15:32

get out. like we don't

1:15:34

belong here leave now so

1:15:36

eventually I have a sort

1:15:38

of less dramatic but telling

1:15:40

anecdote from when Catherine and

1:15:42

I were living in Saudi

1:15:44

Arabia and we had we

1:15:46

had hopes that our Canadian

1:15:48

residency wouldn't be revoked and

1:15:50

we tried to look up

1:15:52

the the code for Canadian

1:15:54

tax filing and we found

1:15:56

that there was this wonderfully

1:15:59

promising exemption that turned out

1:16:01

not to apply to us

1:16:03

it was that anyone who

1:16:05

is directly involved in resource

1:16:07

exploitation or oil pumping does

1:16:09

not have to pay income

1:16:11

taxes for income earned outside

1:16:13

Canada. Correct. It did not

1:16:15

apply to people who were

1:16:17

teaching English, damn it. You

1:16:19

should have started an oil

1:16:21

well, John. Look, look at

1:16:23

that hole in the backyard.

1:16:26

What do you think that

1:16:28

is? I mean, just, you

1:16:30

know, among barracks partners or,

1:16:32

you know, officers or executives

1:16:34

or whatever, shareholders, were Koshogi,

1:16:36

and on Koshogi, the Iran

1:16:38

contra arms dealer dealer. So

1:16:40

basically, you know, the CIA

1:16:42

guy and George Papi, George

1:16:44

Herbert Walker Bush was, yeah,

1:16:46

Papi, you know, the former

1:16:48

head of the CIA. I

1:16:50

mean, there are just so

1:16:52

many horror stories about Barrett

1:16:55

Gold, like in Tanzania, corpses,

1:16:57

environmentalists, showing up, you know,

1:16:59

turning up dead, Argentina, like

1:17:01

they go in, they bribe

1:17:03

officials. anybody who protests gets

1:17:05

disappeared or brutalized. They sue

1:17:07

critics in Britain. They used

1:17:09

to be able, they used

1:17:11

to do that sort of

1:17:13

where you shop for the

1:17:15

weakest libel laws. So like

1:17:17

Great Palace got his article

1:17:19

taken down because it was

1:17:22

in the observer. And basically

1:17:24

all you have to do

1:17:26

in Britain is have money

1:17:28

to successfully sue for libel.

1:17:30

But if they're making money,

1:17:32

can you really call that

1:17:34

tyranny mark? So here, that's

1:17:36

where Stanley is going to,

1:17:38

you know, basically he's being

1:17:40

paid blood money. There's no

1:17:42

other way to put it.

1:17:44

He's being paid blood money

1:17:46

to flee fascism and then

1:17:49

to pontificate about fascism. I

1:17:51

mean, you could, and Canada,

1:17:53

you know, and not just

1:17:55

shit on Canada, because America

1:17:57

is obviously guilty a thousand

1:17:59

times over, but I mean,

1:18:01

Canada, it's just that Canada

1:18:03

has this nicer reputation, but

1:18:05

its wealth is all built

1:18:07

on blood money, basically, and

1:18:09

extraction. Resource extraction. Not just

1:18:11

domestically, but globally, like we

1:18:13

are... Right, exactly. Number one

1:18:16

offender, globally, for money. So

1:18:18

the last thing I think

1:18:20

if you can if we

1:18:22

could talk about because Canada

1:18:24

now is heading towards elections

1:18:26

oh yeah which which will

1:18:28

you know I don't know

1:18:30

how this will impact the

1:18:32

coming US invasion but you

1:18:34

have you know a new

1:18:36

liberal party leader and prime

1:18:38

minister going up against the

1:18:40

the conservative. So can you

1:18:43

describe who they are a

1:18:45

little bit? Because the new,

1:18:47

Kearney, the new Liberal Prime

1:18:49

Minister, has been getting a

1:18:51

lot of rave reviews in

1:18:53

the kind of center center

1:18:55

left press here. I had

1:18:57

a friend describe Kearney perfectly

1:18:59

as a triscit in a

1:19:01

suit. And I actually photoshopped,

1:19:03

I was like, he does

1:19:05

kind of look like a

1:19:07

Trist hit, and I photoshopped

1:19:10

together like him as a

1:19:12

Tristket, and it was like

1:19:14

almost indistinguishable from his actual

1:19:16

photographs. But I don't know,

1:19:18

I'll start with Paulavir, because

1:19:20

he's the, and I refuse

1:19:22

to pronounce his name correctly,

1:19:24

because he's the conservative party

1:19:26

leader briefly before a Kearny

1:19:28

got elected as PM internally

1:19:30

in the liberal party. Polyver

1:19:32

was kind of, it seemed

1:19:34

like the conservatives might take

1:19:37

it and now they're trailing.

1:19:39

They're trailing in the polls.

1:19:41

I will start this by

1:19:43

saying, one of those reasons

1:19:45

is that their practical material

1:19:47

platforms are pretty much indistinguishable

1:19:49

from each other. But Polyver,

1:19:51

he's young, he won the

1:19:53

conservative. party leadership in 2022

1:19:55

and the thing you got

1:19:57

to know about him is

1:19:59

he is like a neutron

1:20:01

star of charisma like like

1:20:04

he is just an absolute

1:20:06

fucking vacuum of charisma there's

1:20:08

a there's a great video

1:20:10

of him trying to like

1:20:12

cut it up with a

1:20:14

common man. This is a

1:20:16

common conservative failure, right? Like

1:20:18

I'm gonna go to the

1:20:20

place of work and have

1:20:22

a beer with the fellas.

1:20:24

Right. So he's like fucking

1:20:26

trying to make a pizza

1:20:28

in Winnipeg and there's this

1:20:30

incredible scene of him just biffing

1:20:33

it and like the pizza is

1:20:35

sliding off the giant wooden paddle.

1:20:37

And he's just making these horrible

1:20:39

faces just being like, I mean,

1:20:42

I think on a practical level,

1:20:44

that's like all you need to

1:20:46

know. He's just like a vet

1:20:48

grown. So he started working

1:20:50

for the conservatives as a

1:20:52

teenager. He was involved with Stockwell

1:20:54

Day in the Alliance Party, which

1:20:57

was a right wing party in

1:20:59

the late 90s, early 2000s. He's

1:21:01

a Catholic and his biggest

1:21:03

political influence, according to him,

1:21:06

was reading Milton Freeman's freedom

1:21:08

and capital in high school.

1:21:10

It's so wild I have

1:21:12

to say like the enduring

1:21:15

influence of the neoliberal

1:21:17

and on the right especially

1:21:19

on the right actually the

1:21:21

people who constantly denounced

1:21:24

neoliberalism which they

1:21:26

just think means new liberals

1:21:29

or something like they don't

1:21:31

even know that and they'll say

1:21:33

you know I'm down screw the

1:21:35

neoliberal's I'm for Milton Friedman

1:21:37

like what the fuck is

1:21:39

wrong with you. His, so

1:21:41

his only job that wasn't

1:21:43

in the government was as a

1:21:46

collectionist agent for Tellis, which is

1:21:48

the big telecom monopoly. He's a

1:21:50

collection agent. He was a collection

1:21:53

agency for one of the two

1:21:55

big phone companies in Canada, one

1:21:58

of the two big telecom. monopolies.

1:22:00

So that involves actually

1:22:03

yelling at people who can't

1:22:05

pay their bills? Yes. Yeah.

1:22:07

Wow. That is kind of

1:22:09

the perfect job for a

1:22:11

conservative party leader though, isn't

1:22:13

it? Or Republican party leader.

1:22:15

Yeah, that's interesting. He's

1:22:17

a huge fan of

1:22:20

Bitcoin. He's anti-union, anti-raising

1:22:22

minimum wage. And like... His

1:22:24

strategies are basically this. So

1:22:26

his housing is a huge

1:22:28

issue in Canada right now.

1:22:30

We have a massive, massive

1:22:32

housing bubble that is partially,

1:22:35

if not entirely, the fault

1:22:37

of the other guy who's

1:22:39

running Mark Carney, who came

1:22:41

in and basically tried to

1:22:43

protect Canada from contamination

1:22:45

of the US crash

1:22:47

of 2007. So Pauliver's

1:22:49

strategy for housing is

1:22:51

too. build more houses.

1:22:53

How are we going to do that?

1:22:55

You know, get rid of red

1:22:57

tape. It's the abundance agenda. It

1:22:59

says recline. It is, which

1:23:01

is something that Kearney also

1:23:03

subscribes to. Kearney has been

1:23:06

talking about publicly about abundance

1:23:08

agendas. So they're both on

1:23:10

board with this. What about

1:23:12

financing? Do they talk about,

1:23:14

it's like, okay, nice, we'll

1:23:16

cut red tape, but somebody

1:23:18

still needs to put up

1:23:20

the money for it. Well, Kearney

1:23:22

has been vaguely threatening that

1:23:24

the government will get involved

1:23:26

with building houses, which he's

1:23:28

unclear what that means. He

1:23:31

likes to use the word

1:23:33

affordable a lot, which is

1:23:35

a great way of, you

1:23:37

know, dodging any government responsibility

1:23:39

to cap rent or real

1:23:41

estate prices. Right. But... It's

1:23:43

like the Democrats saying access

1:23:45

to health care. Yes. As

1:23:47

a way of avoiding saying,

1:23:49

yeah, universal health care. Yeah. But

1:23:52

yeah, so that's pretty much it

1:23:54

on Pauliver. His foreign policy is

1:23:56

he is anti-Russia, as his carnie,

1:23:59

he's anti-China. as is Kearney,

1:24:01

he blames Hamas for everything

1:24:03

that's happened in Israel and

1:24:05

Gaza. And the funniest thing

1:24:08

is he's deeply anti-Iran, except

1:24:10

he, like the Conservatives had

1:24:12

the Revolutionary Guard declared

1:24:14

a terrorist organization. Right,

1:24:17

Trump did that, yeah.

1:24:19

But their leader, their spiritual leader,

1:24:21

Stephen Harper, continues yearly to

1:24:23

meet with the MEK. Oh,

1:24:26

the MEK, amazing. Yeah, so

1:24:28

that's. That's gotten polar and

1:24:30

hot water with the Iranian

1:24:32

community voting-wise. And yeah, that's

1:24:34

about it. I mean, his

1:24:36

military policy is to reinvigorate

1:24:38

a Harper plan to build

1:24:40

a base in the Arctic,

1:24:42

which has been on the

1:24:44

books since 2008 and by

1:24:46

American aircraft. I remember that.

1:24:48

Yes. Ice Station Zebra, American

1:24:51

aircraft, American radar, American radar, and

1:24:53

somehow we're going to build, and

1:24:55

I want to ask you about

1:24:57

this, John. weaponized icebreakers.

1:25:00

So these are icebreakers that

1:25:02

have some kind of military

1:25:04

capacity like maybe they have

1:25:06

a cannon on them. Icebreakers

1:25:08

with freaking lasers! Yeah, I

1:25:10

imagine it would be about

1:25:12

like that. Yeah, you just

1:25:14

weld a few missile launchers

1:25:16

and a few deck guns

1:25:18

onto an icebreaker and you

1:25:20

got a militarized icebreaker. Yeah, this

1:25:22

is the most, we talked about this

1:25:24

day, this is the most war hammer

1:25:27

40K idea, I mean it does sound

1:25:29

cool. I've been on a Russian ice

1:25:31

breaker up in the Arctic Circle with

1:25:33

an actual, I got to actually see

1:25:35

the nuclear reactor in it.

1:25:37

You can hit

1:25:39

through this like

1:25:41

very thick glass,

1:25:43

see that I

1:25:46

was like, you

1:25:48

know, I was

1:25:50

like, don't! They're

1:25:52

huge. They're really

1:25:54

cool. They're very

1:25:56

cool. They're very,

1:25:58

I mean. If

1:26:00

it would flow, it would

1:26:02

be the war hammer 40k

1:26:04

ship of ships. I would

1:26:06

love that. Yeah. So that's

1:26:08

his plan. That's and that's

1:26:10

basically all over and you

1:26:12

know, he's got like a

1:26:14

mild version of like American

1:26:16

Republican identity politics, you know,

1:26:18

like, like, uh, DeI, anti

1:26:20

trans, anti LGBT, but softer,

1:26:22

you know, right. And then

1:26:24

on the other hand, we

1:26:27

have carny who is. I

1:26:29

would say the art typical

1:26:31

of overseer and you know

1:26:33

Mark you and I talked about

1:26:35

this, but here's here's his

1:26:37

resume. So he was a

1:26:40

former Goldman Sachs guy from

1:26:42

1995 to 2003 and he

1:26:44

worked on their response to

1:26:46

the Russian financial collapse of

1:26:49

1998. Yeah, that's bad news

1:26:51

because Matt Tabe wrote about

1:26:53

this for the Excel. Goldman

1:26:56

had some... I forget who gave us

1:26:58

the tip. It was somebody, somebody

1:27:00

who hated the Clinton's, who was in

1:27:02

DC, kind of gave us a tip

1:27:05

on this. It was good intelligence that

1:27:07

was passed on, and then Matt

1:27:09

sort of looked into it, reported

1:27:12

it. Yeah, Goldman basically was holding

1:27:14

on to a bunch of debt

1:27:16

that was gonna explode and

1:27:18

used its contacts with the

1:27:20

Clinton administration and jubies and

1:27:23

so on to dump it.

1:27:25

dump that bad debt that was

1:27:27

about to explode onto other investors

1:27:29

and got out, you know, with a

1:27:32

big profit rather than a

1:27:34

huge loss. So that was just

1:27:36

pure corruption and dirt. Like there

1:27:38

was nothing going on there

1:27:40

in Russia with Western investors

1:27:42

except trading on insider

1:27:45

information and debt and people's

1:27:47

misery. That's it. Nothing else. So

1:27:50

he was deeply involved with

1:27:52

that. He was deeply involved with

1:27:54

that. Deputy Governor of the

1:27:57

Bank of Canada, he worked

1:27:59

as Deputy Minister. finance, and

1:28:01

then became the governor of

1:28:03

the Bank of Canada during

1:28:05

the financial crash in

1:28:07

2007, and his fix

1:28:10

to insulate Canada against

1:28:12

contamination from the US market

1:28:15

was, if you could believe

1:28:17

this, ultra-low interest rates.

1:28:19

So there's a huge spike

1:28:21

in housing prices around 2010,

1:28:24

and in April 2012, Kearny

1:28:26

is on record saying that

1:28:28

there were quote, some issues

1:28:31

in the West dealt with

1:28:33

that was basically to massively

1:28:35

inflate. But he was, quote,

1:28:38

not too concerned about it.

1:28:40

You know what's so interesting

1:28:43

is that the way that

1:28:45

the US and Canada and

1:28:47

a lot of countries in

1:28:49

the West dealt with

1:28:51

that was basically to

1:28:54

massively inflate. assets to

1:28:56

make sure that the upper

1:28:58

20% and certainly the upper 1%

1:29:00

but you know even sort of

1:29:03

property holders of good

1:29:05

properties upper 20 25%

1:29:07

let's say were completely

1:29:09

insulated from this

1:29:12

collapse and and their their

1:29:14

assets were inflated as they

1:29:17

were about to go down that

1:29:19

is to say their their

1:29:21

property and you know in

1:29:23

stocks and so on. And it's

1:29:25

still in a hole from this,

1:29:27

but China is still dealing with

1:29:29

debt issues because its answer to

1:29:32

it was to massively build, over-built

1:29:34

real estate and apartments

1:29:36

and housing, so that now it has,

1:29:38

its problem is it has

1:29:40

too much housing for the people,

1:29:42

because they're worried, you know, the

1:29:45

Chinese leadership, and this is historical,

1:29:47

because of their historical experience,

1:29:49

is worried more than

1:29:51

anything about... instability

1:29:53

and people turning you know against

1:29:55

them in an anarchy whereas the

1:29:57

you know the the ruling class

1:30:00

classes in our countries and Kearney

1:30:02

is an agent of this are

1:30:04

really only worried about the

1:30:07

upper class and their retirement

1:30:09

accounts and their property values.

1:30:11

Yeah. And so that inflated the

1:30:14

value of housing so much

1:30:16

and it's still even getting worse

1:30:19

that that nobody can afford

1:30:21

it anymore basically is that

1:30:23

right? Yeah. Yeah I mean that's it.

1:30:26

I just as an example the

1:30:28

I'm sure John you're familiar with

1:30:30

the town of the Naimo

1:30:32

British Columbia. Oh yeah. The

1:30:34

armpit of Vancouver Island, the

1:30:36

hub city. Yeah, it goes

1:30:38

on forever and it never

1:30:40

gets any better. Yeah, yeah,

1:30:42

famously housed a huge House

1:30:44

Angels chapter that was importing

1:30:46

heroin like during the 90s,

1:30:49

but. So like the Naimo,

1:30:51

if you want to rent

1:30:53

a basement suite in Naimo,

1:30:55

British Columbia, where there are

1:30:57

no jobs, you can look

1:30:59

to pay between $1,800 and

1:31:02

$2,000 a month. Wow. So that's

1:31:04

the kind of housing crisis Canada

1:31:06

is dealing with right now.

1:31:08

Yeah, I hear Toronto

1:31:10

is insane. Right. he presides over

1:31:13

this and then in I didn't

1:31:15

know this until last week but

1:31:17

he went on to become governor

1:31:19

bank of England I know during

1:31:22

the time he oversaw the guy

1:31:24

the bank of England's response

1:31:26

to Brexit right so so

1:31:28

he is he is like the ultimate

1:31:30

he's like the wolf or something like

1:31:32

he comes in to clean up when

1:31:35

shit's hitting the fan he comes

1:31:37

in and takes care of the

1:31:39

right people make sure that the right

1:31:41

people are taking care of when there's

1:31:43

chaos that they can't completely

1:31:45

control. It's like, okay, a lot

1:31:47

of people are going to have to suffer,

1:31:50

but make sure that it's not our

1:31:52

people. Yeah. So Kearney now is, it looks

1:31:54

like he's probably going to win.

1:31:56

It may be, yeah, probably amazing,

1:31:58

because he's considered. that different

1:32:00

from Trudeau or because

1:32:02

the other guy just such a too much

1:32:05

of a knucklehead? I think

1:32:07

it's a combination of

1:32:09

both. I think it's, Polyvera

1:32:11

is such a charisma vacuum

1:32:13

that I think it's very

1:32:15

difficult for people to get

1:32:17

any momentum around him or

1:32:20

get excited about him. And

1:32:22

Carnegie, even if you look at

1:32:24

his record, which is not

1:32:26

great, you know, like, like his... his

1:32:28

record as a guy who fixes

1:32:31

things like Russia 1998 yes creating

1:32:33

a housing bubble and the response

1:32:35

to Brexit and and even recently

1:32:38