Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Debate the Blue

00:00:00.000 classes in session good morning and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session now today guys i

00:00:09.720 have to admit i'm a little nervous i don't get nervous around a lot of people but i'm a i'm a

00:00:14.280 i'm sweating a little bit this is the uh honorable tony clement um he was an mp an mpp in his cabinet

00:00:23.240 underneath mike harris and ernie eaves and then as an mp again in his cabinet underneath stephen

00:00:29.860 harper for how long what what's the span of your career there in politics uh if federally it was

00:00:35.760 about it was almost 10 years actually it was almost 14 years because i spent four years in

00:00:41.720 opposition yeah and then spent four years not right right right um and what i i'm a little

00:00:49.820 taken aback because this is a lot of time in politics a lot of experience and i'm incredibly

00:00:54.580 excited to have yeah it was a total of 25 years i should have mentioned that when you add the

00:00:59.000 provincial and the federal it was a total of 25. 25 years so what I really want to get at today

00:01:06.080 and we're going to talk about where Mr. Clement is now and what he's doing now that's pretty

00:01:10.340 exciting and then we're going to jump right in and my listeners know where I stand politically

00:01:15.600 and Mr. Clement and I might stand on some opposite sides of the boat in some capacity but I want to

00:01:21.360 be able to have a discussion about that I want to be able to talk about the political system as it

00:01:25.680 stands now both here and in the United States and get your perspective on that. First of all,

00:01:31.580 let's talk about where you are right now. So you stepped out of politics, you decided not to run

00:01:35.260 again and stepped out as of 2019. So what have you been up to now? Yeah, no, thanks for asking

00:01:41.540 that question, Joanna. I take a portfolio approach to my life. So I don't do just one thing. I try to

00:01:50.240 keep busy with a number of things. So my number one thing is I'm a startup entrepreneur. So I'm

00:01:56.200 involved in a half a dozen startups as an advisor and as a shareholder in the tech space and in the

00:02:04.400 healthcare space, including psilocybin, by the way, I've got a couple of companies I'm involved in

00:02:09.080 in the psilocybin space. And I also do a little bit of consulting, not too much, but a little bit.

00:02:15.820 And I also started with a liberal former cabinet minister, a friend of mine, Sandro Patello.

00:02:24.400 We started something called Reshoring Canada, which is about reassessing and changing our supply chains to ensure we have greater national security, greater health security, greater job security.

00:02:40.440 And then I've got my media stuff that I do.

00:02:43.480 So I've got a monthly radio show on a local radio station here in Muskoka, which is basically I'm a DJ.

00:02:51.880 And then I've got a podcast called And Another Thing podcast that I do with a friend of mine named Jody Jenkins.

00:02:58.740 So we do that once a week.

00:03:00.480 We've done 108 episodes of that.

00:03:02.800 and uh then uh i i have this uh television show on this um new news network television network

00:03:13.100 that's on bell rogers and tell us uh rogers 107 bell 506 and tell us 842 called the the the the

00:03:23.000 the network is called the news forum and i have a business and economics news and views show

00:03:30.380 so-called boom and bust that I've done almost 200 episodes for.

00:03:34.800 Yeah, it's very economically driven.

00:03:37.200 There's a couple where I'm like, okay, I'm going to take a minute.

00:03:39.200 I'm just going to step away.

00:03:40.080 I'm going to look up some terminology.

00:03:41.620 Then I'm going to come back to the episode and see if I can throw down in it.

00:03:47.400 Yeah, they wanted me to do a show when they were starting up this network.

00:03:50.620 And I said, look, I am not doing a political show.

00:03:53.920 I'm not doing what happened in question period this week.

00:03:57.900 I had no interest in that.

00:03:59.360 I wanted to sort of push my boundaries a little bit. So they allowed me to do a business and

00:04:04.320 economics show. So I've had politicians, I've had ex-politicians, I've had finance ministers,

00:04:10.360 but I've also had economists. I've had startup entrepreneurs, tech entrepreneurs,

00:04:15.720 Bitcoin entrepreneurs, you name it. So it really is a wide ranging show that way.

00:04:21.740 Absolutely. Absolutely. And it is incredibly diverse and actually quite entertaining. I'm

00:04:27.200 not going to lie. Economics isn't my forte. But outside of looking up some, I mean, I'm not going

00:04:34.740 to pretend to understand Bitcoin. I'm just going to put that aside and just move on with my life.

00:04:38.640 I think it's sometimes you got to take the wins and the losses where they are. And Bitcoin is a

00:04:43.920 loss. I'm now working on what the heck an NFT is. So I'll stay there for a while. But what I would

00:04:50.860 really like don't get me wrong I'm a little bit dying to go back to you know 1996 under Mike

00:04:57.280 Harris and say what was going on there or whatever but I don't think that's going to be as useful

00:05:03.460 today because I think we have a real problem in politics today that that we need to find a way

00:05:11.080 around so would you consider let's sort of decide where you stand would you still consider you're

00:05:17.820 member of the Progressive Conservative Party, do you consider yourself a conservative through

00:05:21.200 and through? And what does that mean to you? Yeah. And it's my tribe. So I'm kind of with

00:05:28.520 them through thick and thin. And usually there's more thin than thick when you're dealing with

00:05:33.380 conservatism in Canada. But no, I've been involved in the conservative movement since I was 15 years

00:05:43.680 old, you know, 1975, 1976. So it's a long time. And so that, you know, that's no, I shouldn't say

00:05:54.300 I'm a, I'm a, I'm a conservative because I'm a conservative. I should say, I mean, I am a

00:06:01.440 movement conservative by that. I mean, I do adhere to certain principles and concepts that I believe

00:06:06.900 are truly conservative, but it doesn't mean that I agree with, you know, modern conservatism 100%

00:06:15.700 of the time. But modern conservatism, the thing about conservatism is it's because it's based on

00:06:20.900 realism. It does change. Now, not everybody in conservative politics changes and they sometimes

00:06:28.780 are too rigid in their ideology. But I think if you look at, you know, conservatism over the last

00:06:35.840 300 years in British politics and US politics and Canadian politics. It does change. So how do I

00:06:45.400 define myself? Well, I define myself as a lover of freedom. I believe that people, when they have

00:06:54.100 their own choices in life, and they do have responsibilities to their fellow human beings,

00:07:01.600 Don't get me wrong. But generally, I want control over my life. And that's that I think is a very

00:07:08.060 conservative concept. Some would call it libertarian. Maybe that's a branch of conservatism

00:07:13.220 in certain instances. I don't go as far as libertarians, because I believe that we have

00:07:18.560 some collective responsibilities to our fellow human beings. But generally, I want not I want

00:07:24.020 to be left alone. I don't like government bossing me around too much. So that's part of it. I'm also

00:07:29.320 a market conservative. So I believe that millions upon millions of individuals making millions upon

00:07:36.040 millions of economic choices in the free market is the best way to construct an economy. So there is

00:07:44.920 necessarily state control over some things, and there are certain ways that the market

00:07:51.960 fails, creating monopolies and oligopolies as an example. So there is need for government

00:07:59.240 or state intervention. But generally, again, generally, I would consider myself a market

00:08:05.280 freedom lover. So those are the kind of the biggest sort of aspects of my conservatism.

00:08:13.700 And I came at it, you know, in my formative years when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister,

00:08:20.800 and I thought at the time, and many others thought at the time, he was running a very

00:08:24.480 socialistic economy as it turns out he was nothing compared to his son that way but

00:08:30.660 already all right yeah yeah yeah shots fired anyway but that's that's those were my formative

00:08:38.040 years and that's kind of the general principles that I like to adhere to in my political thoughts

00:08:48.460 Now, having said all that, you know, and I actually think this is true to it, but I have become unnerved by certain aspects of modern day capitalism, which I think have hurt people.

00:09:07.620 and maybe this is where surprisingly you and I are going to agree but I think the forces of

00:09:15.560 of globalization over the last 40 years let's say have left a number of people behind and these are

00:09:23.480 marginalized people they are working class people they they are people who have striven to be part

00:09:30.420 of the economy and can't. They maybe racialize people as well. And so they have been left behind.

00:09:39.420 And at the same time, because of the workings of the global economy, some people have gotten

00:09:45.040 very, very, very, very rich. And I think that overall, while I applaud people who create wealth

00:09:55.800 and who create new things that are valued by a market economy.

00:10:01.060 I think all of that is a good thing.

00:10:02.800 You don't want to have too much difference between people who have nothing

00:10:08.880 and people who have a lot of something.

00:10:11.000 Absolutely.

00:10:11.440 So that, I think, is a problem.

00:10:14.800 And I think that it has caused a dysfunctionality in our political system,

00:10:19.680 which has been used, perhaps, by some.

00:10:23.740 Some call it populism.

00:10:25.800 But populism doesn't, you know, conservative populism, there is progressive populism too, by the way, and they both sort of attack globalization, interestingly enough. So that's where the two ends of the spectrum meet.

00:10:39.580 But I do think that this has created, you know, people who are disaffected with the system. And so they they have nothing to lose because the system has given them nothing. And that has created dysfunctionality in our political system and our economic system. So maybe that's a place where you and I agree. I don't know.

00:11:02.060 A hundred percent. I'm going to go back just a little bit because I want to talk about the foundations of conservatism just a little bit more. So you spoke about freedom, personal freedom, and I think a lot of people would agree to that.

00:11:17.920 But when you really look up the tenets, let's say, of liberalism, it also talks about personal, it really does talk about personal freedom. At the root of a lot of conservative ideologies, too, there is a traditional religious underpinning.

00:11:33.920 I mean, for the most part, there is that underpinning. How do you fall in that capacity? Because I know that I want everybody to have all the freedoms in the world to practice what they want. I also know that me as a person, especially in this point, in this day and age, and I don't mean to sound facetious when I say this, I'm getting really tired of the God bless coming from my politics.

00:11:57.560 i don't want to hear i don't i really don't want to know what your faith is like that person's

00:12:02.920 faith i don't want it put upon us i joke all the time i'm like listen if everybody didn't get two

00:12:09.000 weeks off at christmas and we just like the break that's also sort of a an example of how there's

00:12:15.400 still this religious underpinning to our country how do you feel about that or do you feel that

00:12:20.040 that's still an underpinning of the conservative faith uh under ideology yeah so uh let me say a

00:12:25.400 a couple of things. First, on your first point, when you said that this sounds like classical

00:12:30.580 liberalism, the answer is it is classical liberalism. And I think things have changed

00:12:35.360 over time. The monikers or the terminology has changed, but it's basically classical liberalism.

00:12:42.000 Although there is a strain in the 19th century where conservatives did embrace some of those

00:12:48.840 things but at the same time they also believed uh in uh individual human beings being you know

00:12:56.920 being held responsible for helping their fellow man right so uh so that may not have been part

00:13:06.300 of classical liberalism and a part of classical conservatism and i do i do believe that we have

00:13:10.480 an obligation to help our fellow citizens um it doesn't have to be through the state it can be

00:13:17.080 through individual action, but it is part of my moral fiber that I believe that. Where does that

00:13:23.140 come from? I think it's inherent in every human being. It's part of our DNA that we really should

00:13:28.200 help one another. It's also part of my faith. I am a practicing Christian, and I believe that

00:13:36.760 that's a good thing, because when you have unfettered capitalism without something like

00:13:42.080 Christianity, things go wrong very quickly. So I have no intention or desire to foist my faith on

00:13:50.360 any other individual. My faith is something that is between my creator and myself, but it does

00:13:58.420 animate how I feel about things. And is it part of conservatism? It's part of some people's

00:14:02.800 conservatism. If you're a libertarian, it isn't part of your conservatism. The classical definition

00:14:09.480 of libertarianism involves atheism as well. So I just, you know, this is where you get into the

00:14:17.840 blending. Nothing's pure, particularly in Canada. There's no pure liberalism. There's no pure

00:14:23.920 progressivism. There's no pure conservatism. But yeah, it is part of my faith journey, and it is

00:14:31.300 part of a strain of conservatism. Here's where maybe I differ from what you would call social

00:14:39.140 conservatives let's say uh where i i do believe i you know i personally have an obligation to help

00:14:44.980 other people but i don't have an i it's certainly not part of my ideology to foist those kinds of

00:14:51.680 ideas on to people who don't agree with them so i wouldn't be changing laws to uh you know to

00:15:00.360 reflect that uh and in fact my my journey as a conservative as a conservative has moved

00:15:07.460 considerably on social issues so i'm you know very yeah absolutely pro lgbtq right now as of now

00:15:16.500 where i wasn't 20 years ago uh and um you know most people in the lgbt community would say

00:15:23.580 that's a good thing that your your your ideas have moved uh some condemn me for not having those

00:15:30.460 ideas in the first place well you know the times were different and uh i can't i can't rewrite

00:15:36.340 how I thought about something 25 years ago, but that isn't how I feel about these things now.

00:15:41.120 So I think there's been a movement with me, and I think there's also been a movement with

00:15:44.900 conservatism. And I think when you look at it, if I'm a freedom lover, then I have no right to make

00:15:55.320 any moral judgments on any other person on those kinds of things. So that's how I land on these

00:16:00.540 ones now. And on that point, I think it's super important to give people the room to grow. We

00:16:06.720 judge a lot of people about what they did 20, 25 years ago. Me, 25 years ago, hon, I would have

00:16:12.580 been against LGBT, which is hilarious. But when I was growing up in a suburb of Toronto, I'm 1.00

00:16:20.240 obviously white. I was upper class. I wasn't out. I was straight presenting. I thought I was straight.

00:16:26.680 And you know what? There was a lot of homophobia and it was common culture. It makes it horrible and disgusting then. But I think it's hysterical. Whereas we can judge like me sitting where I am right now, I can judge politicians about what they did 25 years ago, but still remember what my friends would say 25 years ago and the culture I lived in and the movies I watched and the words and the vernacular that was used.

00:16:54.660 Sure. I have to look to that as well. But I guess my issue or my thought is when we're talking about religion now, for example, let's just talk policy a little bit. And I know that we're not in charge of anything or what I'd like to be, but let's talk about defunding Catholic schools. Where do you stand on that?

00:17:16.720 Like in Ontario, we're one of two provinces that still publicly funds Catholic schools.

00:17:22.380 Where would you stand on that in today's day and age?

00:17:26.460 Yeah, I just don't think that's the biggest issue right now because, you know, the Catholic

00:17:31.180 schools that are funded have to adhere to a certain curriculum.

00:17:34.520 So I'm not, you know, it's not that's not as big a deal to me as how we deal with cultural

00:17:45.260 shifts in our education system. So this, this, this comes out with, you know, a critical race

00:17:53.140 theory, you know, cancel culture, you know, those kinds of things. And, and particularly on cancel

00:18:01.920 culture, I'm very concerned that we have gone from a place, you know, I grew up at a time

00:18:07.900 when liberal leftists were the biggest defenders of free speech, because if they weren't,

00:18:16.240 they would have been canceled in the 60s and 70s, right? So they were the biggest defenders

00:18:21.460 of freedom of speech. And now I fear, observationally, that a lot within the progressive

00:18:28.720 movement, in fact, do not defend free speech, are quite willing and do cancel people who

00:18:37.880 have positions that are different from their own, which I would argue, you know, in the

00:18:44.660 marketplace of ideas, we should have those debates rather than try to de-platform people

00:18:51.440 because they have a different point of view, which you find obnoxious, you know, and I'm

00:18:57.560 kind of very old school, 18th century old school on this, where Voltaire said famously,

00:19:03.900 i disagree with what you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it you know but

00:19:10.740 we're not in that we're not in that culture anymore if you disagree with what i say you're

00:19:15.440 going to try to cancel me and and i and i think that that's kind of imbued in the education system

00:19:21.140 a little bit too so that's that's my biggest fear um on these things rather than i i think there's

00:19:28.780 a false right now, Catholic school, public school funding, you know, whatever. But how are we

00:19:35.460 teaching our kids to be critical, to be to to take media critically and seriously? Don't believe

00:19:46.900 everything you hear or say even from your own teachers. That's the kind of critical minds that

00:19:52.780 I want in our society. Now, just as a point, do you think though, maybe, maybe that changing the

00:20:01.280 school system is a, even if you think that a Catholic school isn't preaching a very particular

00:20:08.580 lifestyle, which I still think I might disagree with you there. I've not too long ago, no people

00:20:13.380 that don't get hired at Catholic schools or have got fired in this district for being gay,

00:20:19.680 working at a Catholic school and, and those things still run. So do you think that maybe

00:20:24.500 symbolically at the very least, if we are going to profess that our government is not supporting 1.00

00:20:30.620 anyone religion, do you think at this point in our society, maybe that's a step in the right 0.98

00:20:35.700 direction? Maybe that's a show of good faith for using a poor choice of words there, a show of

00:20:42.440 to change this culture you're talking about yeah no and there uh obviously if you're in a catholic

00:20:49.940 school system there will be classes uh that will talk about your faith uh which will not be 0.99

00:20:55.900 appropriate for everybody in that system because you'll have non-catholics in the system muslims 0.93

00:21:01.560 for instance or hindus who just happen to have chosen a catholic school maybe their parents want 0.93

00:21:06.560 a bit more rigor in their kids education and they think they're going to get it at a catholic school 0.95

00:21:11.080 They're prettier. In Ontario, Catholic schools are very well funded. It seems as though their school, they're newer, they have more access to technology overall than the public schools in the vicinity, right?

00:21:26.700 Yeah, no, it could be, could be. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I guess I'm putting my politician's hat on and thinking, which hill do you want to fight on, right?

00:21:39.780 Absolutely. When you're when you're elected, you have a certain amount of rocket sauce that you were elected with. So how do I want to spend my rocket sauce to to make change in the most areas before they get tired of me and kick me out? That's what every politician is, is or should be thinking. So to me, I want to come back to that because I think that's important.

00:22:04.800 like yeah yeah but but to me so taking on that uh which might have there'll be court challenges

00:22:11.760 constitutional challenges yada yada i'd rather spend my rocket sauce on something else that

00:22:17.520 that's just me right but again like you know we're not in that i am talking more ideologically

00:22:24.880 theoretically in the sense that changing that maybe changes the discourse maybe changes that

00:22:31.360 critical thinking, because the critical thinking that goes on in schools or that we want to

00:22:37.380 encourage in schools has to go against those foundational areas of power in which, let's be

00:22:45.560 honest, the Catholic school system and religion in our country has had such a hold on it for so

00:22:51.080 long. And then, and in my opinion, it rolls into cancel culture. And I really want to talk about

00:22:55.240 that with you as well because this idea of cancel culture and what people are allowed or not allowed

00:23:02.060 to say and how it plays out I see it more as a reflection on capitalism than I really do in the

00:23:11.660 sense that the people have the people have power yeah because we have power but what we're going

00:23:15.660 to buy I'll give you an example Dr. Seuss did you hear about the whole thing with Dr. Seuss they took

00:23:19.740 off a couple of his books. It was like three books, two of them I've never heard of before

00:23:25.800 anyways, but they took two books off the shelf because they had very sort of racialized pictures

00:23:31.040 and things in them. And everybody lost their minds. This is cancel culture. Well, first of all,

00:23:37.300 Dr. Seuss did it. Nobody was even looking at those books. Dr. Seuss did it. We want to know

00:23:42.740 why Dr. Seuss wasn't going to cancel Cat in the Hat. They canceled three books that weren't making

00:23:48.200 them any money anymore. And in my opinion, it was a brilliant move to say, we're going to be

00:23:53.680 self-reflective on things that aren't okay anymore. We're going to take these off the market.

00:23:59.260 They're going to take three books off the market no one's bought in the last 20 years. And now we

00:24:04.580 have this vision, right? And I still think that's true of cancel culture. Like people have done

00:24:10.240 horrible, horrible things. They haven't got canceled. Why? Because they're still making

00:24:14.860 money for their, you know, whether they're a musician or an actor or an athlete, it doesn't

00:24:21.060 seem to matter as long as they're bringing in the money, they stop bringing in the money.

00:24:25.440 And then look, the cancel culture works really well for that particular institution.

00:24:31.400 Yeah, I mean, you have a point, it's market driven is what your point is. And that's a fair

00:24:37.020 point. I'll give you one other example I heard of the other day, which is that the Rolling Stones

00:24:42.180 uh do not have in their set list anymore brown sugar okay so which is about you know as a

00:24:50.580 a slaver a slave an enslaved person's daughter or granddaughter or something uh lots of imagery

00:24:58.900 of slavery and slave masters and and stuff like that so they just you know the the the person

00:25:06.480 that inspired the song the black woman who inspired the song is pissed off that it's no 0.99

00:25:11.700 longer part of their set list. So she wasn't offended that it was a song about her. But I can 0.78

00:25:18.980 see Mick Jagger's point of view, which is, I don't want to go through the bullshit. So his point of 0.98

00:25:27.000 view is, why go through all of this? We've got 930 other songs we can do. But of course, Brown Sugar

00:25:34.420 was a huge hit in 1971 or whatever it was so you know that's part of me mourns the fact that

00:25:42.600 that the Rolling Stones will no longer perform brown sugar but part of me also says that that's

00:25:49.560 a choice I mean you know I can listen to brown sugar anytime I want on Spotify or wherever

00:25:55.620 so you know is this really a big deal I think it I think what what is disconcerting to people of a

00:26:03.960 certain age and that includes me uh is that um how disposable how disposable you know older things

00:26:17.760 are to this new generation like there's uh to that to to people like me you've got to learn

00:26:25.460 from history you've got to understand history but you've also got to respect it was part of

00:26:30.920 history. And this goes to the statues and the other things. Yeah. You know, so, so I, you know,

00:26:39.480 that's the thing that is disconcerting that, you know, people, you know, 40 and under are just 0.99

00:26:45.540 lopping off vast segments of culture tradition. Now you could say it was racist or it was 0.97

00:26:53.660 colonialist but you know i wasn't born in this country uh you know i don't feel that i was part

00:27:01.400 of a colonial now you can say well you benefited from it well you know i had a tough life and a lot

00:27:06.700 of a lot of white men had a tough life so we're into that discussion now but but um so that i

00:27:14.580 think is what is driving the reaction to that is that the change is happening very quickly uh and

00:27:21.000 And it seems to be that the Dr. Seuss thing became news because of how nonsensical it

00:27:28.020 sounded before you delved into it the way that you just delved into it.

00:27:34.100 It's a couple of books.

00:27:34.960 Nobody really cares.

00:27:36.560 But the idea of taking books off the shelves, I find very disconcerting.

00:27:41.620 But they weren't even on the shelves.

00:27:43.620 You couldn't find them.

00:27:44.700 I know.

00:27:45.060 I swear to you.

00:27:45.560 I know.

00:27:46.040 They weren't on a shelf at Indigo.

00:27:48.360 That's how it evokes, right?

00:27:51.000 that's how it evokes that uh there's the problem and i think that's what it's like the mr mr

00:27:56.360 potato head controversy potato head controversy same thing i love it how dare you attack mr

00:28:01.600 potato head you know and this is the thing everything seems to be getting weaponized right

00:28:07.560 everything seems to be getting weaponized by the left and the right in different ways and we can't

00:28:13.500 have a rational discussion like i went and looked as soon as i heard about this dr seuss thing

00:28:17.660 I'm like crap I'm gonna go because I have them all from when I was a kid I'm gonna go look but

00:28:22.040 I don't have them all but ironically I had the worst I have no idea I had one of them if I ran

00:28:27.740 the zoo is the worst out of them all because the other ones were very more subtle anyway I looked

00:28:33.840 at if I ran the zoo and I went and then I took it into my school I have it I mean I'm I've been a

00:28:40.420 teacher 20 years I took it into my school and I talked about it in every single class and the kid

00:28:45.540 said, and this is a great conversation, the kid said, Joanna, why don't you throw out that book?

00:28:50.100 I said, oh, I'm not throwing out this book. Here's why I'm not throwing out the book. I'm not

00:28:54.440 throwing it out because the only way we can still identify and accept and embrace what we did,

00:29:03.240 what we allowed to happen when I was in high school, the words I was allowed to use is by

00:29:08.480 talking about it, but I'll be damned if you don't have to make money anymore. I wouldn't buy the

00:29:13.640 book. I don't think, and that's the difference. I often question tradition, and obviously I sit

00:29:21.440 where I sit, and I often question tradition, and I say, does it serve us now? Is it legitimate now?

00:29:31.040 And if it's legitimate now, then I respect it. If it doesn't serve us now, then tradition,

00:29:37.280 and I can use it even in really funny ways at Christmas time, then tradition shouldn't be

00:29:44.720 continuously practiced. We need to be critical, just as critical of that as we are of things

00:29:50.560 going on today. You know, you have a, everybody, you have a Christmas party you don't want to go

00:29:54.220 to, you hate it. You just hate it, but it's tradition. You know what? I think we need to

00:30:00.000 move past things that are problematic, that are divisive, that are, you know, all of those things,

00:30:08.320 and we really need to gauge them. We don't just get to keep them because they have the word

00:30:12.880 traditional in front of it. Yeah, no, and I guess I, and I don't mind individuals making that choice.

00:30:22.200 So, you know, if you have a problem with a tradition, that's fine. That's your choice.

00:30:27.620 You know, it's my choice. If I want to buy Mr. Potato Head, even though it is gender specific, I think I should have the right to buy Mr. Potato Head. And maybe I'll have a discussion with my grandkids about Mr. Potato Head doesn't mean that you're anti, you're misogynistic. So, you know, I know it's a ridiculous example, but that's, you know.

00:30:51.220 But it's still a good one because people got really upset.

00:30:53.260 yeah and so i and i look these debates cultural cultural debates are not new this is not

00:31:02.180 something unheard of before and i'll give you another example of this that i use quite a bit

00:31:09.200 uh which is uh this is the american context now where people say this is the most divided

00:31:17.080 time in american history yeah right that's bullshit yeah it's historically untrue they

00:31:24.420 had a civil war 750 000 americans died in the civil war surely that was the most divided time 0.97

00:31:33.480 in american history this the the vietnam war there were people being shot by national guardsmen

00:31:41.040 on campus there was uh they they lit up washington dc a mile from the capital washington dc was in

00:31:49.760 flames so don't tell me this is the most divided time in america it's just part of a cycle and

00:31:56.720 when you're old like me you see the cycles more than people who are right in it and oh my gosh 0.98

00:32:02.160 there are genuine generation zedders who are throwing molotov cocktails but what do you think 0.98

00:32:06.560 happened in the 60s man the same thing happened with the boomers uh you know so so uh you know 0.97

00:32:12.880 we go in cycles and uh there's a push me pull you part of cultural debate which i think is is valid

00:32:19.680 and necessary uh but uh you know there's i guess my point and i'm i'm bringing it to an extreme

00:32:26.800 right now my point is please for goodness sakes don't throw out every single tradition there's a

00:32:33.360 reason why tradition is important in society it helps people understand where they are and where

00:32:40.480 they came from how they progressed is you know part of the the the tradition in a democratic

00:32:46.560 society as well so don't don't throw it all out understand it better say you know we used to do

00:32:52.640 this but we don't do it anymore and here's why we don't do it anymore that's all valid that's

00:32:57.360 a hundred percent valid right yeah yeah we need to get it i still say we need to get at the roots

00:33:03.280 of that and we and by you talking about mr potato head and whether you have the right to choose

00:33:07.440 to buy it or not buy it look the mattel company i think it's mattel if i miss yeah um they're the

00:33:13.920 ones that decided that they decided that not to be woke culture and first of all i hate people

00:33:20.160 weaponizing that term they decided it because they want to make more money they want to make

00:33:24.880 themselves relevant again and this is the way that they're doing it they're not doing it because

00:33:29.840 people are protesting outside of toys or us that never happened um but they're doing it because

00:33:36.000 this is the shift that we're seeing right we are seeing this shift and it's incredibly speaking

00:33:42.720 about going against tradition the mr mr potato head is a great example i think of one of oops

00:33:48.480 one of the biggest traditions or one of the biggest sort of functional societal frameworks

00:33:55.300 we have, which is the distinction between men and women, masculine and feminine. This is at the root

00:34:01.200 of who we are in a lot of ways. And I think everybody deals with it on a different level.

00:34:09.120 The first thing you do when you see a baby, for the most part, oh my God, they're so beautiful.

00:34:12.980 is it a boy or a girl? First thing we ask, why? Because we have been so incredibly trained

00:34:19.320 to pick up that baby differently, to talk to that baby differently, to use different words to

00:34:25.060 describe that baby. And this is at the root. I still do it. Look at me. I'm obviously not

00:34:30.240 fitting in a mold over here. But that is still how we were trained. And I think to get around

00:34:36.640 that training it has to get bumpy and messy and and there has to be people yelling and talking

00:34:43.600 about mr potato head as a as this pinnacle of an example to really start to acknowledge or look at

00:34:53.680 that kind of societal construction right you know is the end of that construction we

00:34:59.760 de-gender size a hundred percent of society my my opinion i hate well and and let's just if

00:35:08.160 for for argument's sake let's just change the difference between sex and gender right so sex

00:35:12.800 is what you're born with gender you know the characteristics that you attribute i personally

00:35:19.760 believe i know it's very hindu that all gender is a delusion i personally believe that that

00:35:26.720 the roles i think you and i for example would both have both hold on to very some masculine

00:35:33.920 some feminine traits in different ways it's all part of uh yeah it's all part of uh uh a

00:35:40.720 spectrum there we go so if it's all part of a spectrum um we haven't been teaching that much

00:35:47.840 right because again babies who are born we're starting to see the change right babies who are

00:35:52.400 born you get certain kinds of names you get certain kinds of clothes you get certain kinds

00:35:56.000 of toys you get certain kinds of adjectives and socialization to bring you up and then what we

00:36:02.400 do is we say oh but look at how different boys and girls are how do you take the socialization

00:36:08.320 out of that i mean unless we're going to experiment with twins somewhere and keep them separate from

00:36:12.240 society how do you take socialization out of the clothes we wear out of the makeup there are

00:36:19.040 studies that they're they're there look i there are studies that show that men's brains and women's

00:36:25.040 brains are different uh generally uh you know 99 anyway uh and uh and so you know this is not all

00:36:34.160 nurture there is some nature here uh that we have to acknowledge uh you know we and you can't erase

00:36:40.640 nature in 20 years after uh homo sapiens have been around for 500 000 years so i guess i

00:36:48.080 that point, but, uh, yeah, I'm looking at the guitars on your back wall and I'm thinking to

00:36:56.280 myself, how many men are guitarists and how many women aren't look, there's nothing about our

00:37:02.400 physical, our, our, our mental makeup, our genes, our whatever. That means men are inherently better

00:37:10.180 at guitar than women. You know, that it just seems, you know, those are the outputs. If you're 1.00

00:37:16.280 talking about because the studies i've seen are that for example there's a lot of good women

00:37:20.840 guitarists my friend i'll just make that 100 but i'm just saying on the whole why aren't we seeing

00:37:26.560 that right it's not me but on the whole why aren't we seeing that whereas the studies i know that

00:37:32.720 have been done will talk about things like guys brains work a lot better in some ways of being

00:37:38.200 very narrowly focused and target driven whereas women's brains tend to be more wide-ranging and 0.75

00:37:44.760 and can multitask better right look if that's true and we're going to assume the science is true

00:37:51.720 then the jobs we're doing that men have taken over and women have been relegated make no sense

00:37:57.880 whatsoever due to our biology do you see what i'm saying yeah there is some cultural yeah i mean

00:38:06.600 look there is some cultural history behind women's jobs and men's jobs which is breaking down and

00:38:12.920 and will continue to do so although i don't see a lot of men flocking to become nurses for some

00:38:18.680 reason i don't know why that is why do you think that is because nurses make why do you think that

00:38:25.680 is well nurses make just so everybody knows who's not in ontario because i have a lot of american

00:38:30.880 listeners nurses in ontario make a really good living like i think at the top of their career

00:38:35.340 we're talking 90 to 100 000 a year it is a great job it is a great job for benefits it's a great

00:38:41.100 job to take, you have shift work so you can take care of family. My mom was a nurse for 40 years.

00:38:46.940 And I think it's because there's this inherent driven sexism that goes with gender. So for

00:38:55.920 example, when I've created my list of the masculine, my list of the feminine told boys 0.57

00:39:01.020 to behave this way, girls to behave this way, they're not equitable lists in our society.

00:39:06.020 They're hierarchical, right? The masculine is still considered to be better. It's better to 0.99

00:39:11.080 be rational i mean given these lists realizing i don't believe in these lists but it's better to

00:39:15.520 be rational it's better to be scientific you got to be competitive you got to be this you got to

00:39:20.200 be that so when women become doctors and lawyers and politicians we are stepping up when men take

00:39:27.740 on more feminized labor um positions they are stepping down stigmatized absolutely it is yeah

00:39:36.400 By the way, interesting, fun point. One of the internal teachings for conservative politicians is to be more emotional rather than always be 100% just reason-based because you actually are more persuasive to more people when people think you're emotional and passionate about something rather than,

00:40:05.540 well, I've added two plus two and I've gotten four. Therefore, the answer is this.

00:40:09.940 So politics is changing that way. This is a good time for me to talk about something that I also

00:40:19.380 feel very strongly about, which is the phrase toxic masculinity. And look, in my mind, if a man

00:40:29.920 is acting badly uh especially towards women that is not a masculine behavior that's just a shitty

00:40:39.820 behavior okay like masculinity to me means uh being being strong but being protective and being

00:40:48.380 respectful and helping your fellow citizens and helping particularly in in this in this uh point

00:40:57.520 women. So to attribute to masculinity poor behavior, maybe it's learned behavior,

00:41:09.380 I think is a disservice. Like I identify as a male. I like being a man and I like being masculine.

00:41:19.540 I have certain traits that I would consider more feminine. Like I like babies and I like

00:41:26.520 nurturing and I like doing those things. I know this is all, you'd say, no, no, no, that isn't

00:41:31.460 masculine or feminine. I'm just talking about traditional role models. No, 100%. We're talking

00:41:35.840 about traditional lines of thinking. Right, right, right. So, but I think to be a good man,

00:41:42.640 you should, you know, help raise babies and you should help women who are going through emotional

00:41:52.360 crisis. All of those things are being a good man and a good human being at the same time. So

00:41:57.640 I really worry that the phrase toxic masculinity is creating a definition of masculinity which

00:42:06.620 really isn't masculine. It's just another definition of femininity. And that's what I

00:42:11.360 worry about. I think a lot of people who really do talk intellectually anyways about toxic

00:42:16.920 masculinity aren't, will make that very clear distinction. But again, it's interesting because

00:42:23.660 when we talk about something that's toxic, we've talked about, we're talking about something that

00:42:27.540 was originally a good thing or, you know, and, and then has been turned bad, has been gone to

00:42:33.320 its extreme. I don't like any extremities. I don't like any true believers. I always get very nervous

00:42:39.220 when somebody says, I a hundred percent believe in anything. I'm like, if you can't question it,

00:42:45.660 you make me uncomfortable because you have to be able to question every single thing at every

00:42:50.300 single turn including my viewpoints on gender including i i love to listen to other people's

00:42:56.780 viewpoints and i think that's what we're missing but the idea of toxic masculinity are these still

00:43:03.100 to me these enforced gender roles based on your sex and you mentioned protection which i think is

00:43:10.460 an interesting one the idea of protection i think a can come off as amazing right you somebody's

00:43:19.020 somebody's going to hurt you and i protect you however i do that look i think that's a very

00:43:24.300 human thing to protect a lot of people there's a lot of moms who would step in and protect their

00:43:28.940 kids and we've seen those videos where they lift cars so we we have this in us but i think the

00:43:35.580 protection that's problematic is the control right for example let me give you an example right um

00:43:42.380 sexual assault is rampant everybody knows that we can't even just we can't debate that so i have

00:43:47.420 two choices as a let's say as a parent or as a teacher what do i do i'll use as a teacher i'm

00:43:53.420 not a parent do i control what my young women wear at school or do we have significant consequence

00:44:02.300 when boys or girls for that matter step out of line in response to what they're wearing and i

00:44:08.780 think for a very long time we've been doing the former and i think it's about time to do the latter

00:44:14.220 it's a different kind right rather than holding the victim or the individual who is just trying

00:44:20.140 to live their life the way they want to live it rather than holding them responsible for

00:44:24.060 not wearing anything too revealing because it's also very um do you get that at school

00:44:30.780 do you get that argument that they're wearing too revealing clothing oh for a long time for a long

00:44:36.140 time i've been a teacher for a little while right we used to have all those rules we don't have them

00:44:39.580 anymore because i refuse to enforce them you know oh my god don't wear a shirt off your shoulder i

00:44:43.900 don't we don't want to see your bra heaven forbid we see your midriff right i mean these were all

00:44:49.020 very very common and still to this day very common in my opinion um and i had a student sit me down

00:44:55.340 one time he goes joe like why why is it okay why is me showing my bra strap such a huge distraction

00:45:04.460 when in actuality i should be able to wear whatever i want to wear and if people can't

00:45:09.340 handle it around me shouldn't you be talking to them and she was 16 at the time and this was

00:45:15.020 probably about maybe seven years ago and i went you're a hundred percent right i will never ever

00:45:21.100 enforce a dress code ever again because you're right that we're we're putting the onus on the

00:45:27.180 wrong people and then that amazing art i don't know if you ever saw this it was by her name's

00:45:32.040 gone but it was an artist on the east coast and she put together a visual of clothing of women

00:45:39.440 that had been sexually assaulted or raped what they were wearing right they were assaulted and

00:45:45.020 it and the reason why it was so incredibly powerful is because there were no high heels

00:45:49.620 there were no mini skirts there was no you know all of this revealing nobody was wearing a bikini

00:45:55.300 nobody you know it was sweatsuits and and jeans and sneakers and a hat and in that you got a very

00:46:04.900 real picture of what sexual assault was which is never about sex it's only about power anyways

00:46:11.220 yeah and and but even for me for a long time i was the teacher because that protection quality

00:46:17.780 that you were talking about i had it well i have to protect why are you wearing revealing clothing

00:46:22.980 i have to get at your your deeper underpinnings right i have to get at your psychology there

00:46:27.940 when in essence there needs to be that ideological shift to where we're laying the blame or where

00:46:34.580 we're laying the responsibility and i think yeah and i i 100 agree with that and and uh i do i do

00:46:43.380 i do and you know we we've done so much in our society to lift up females uh which is great

00:46:52.660 uh it's fantastic we have left some boys behind and they're they're playing they're they're they're

00:47:02.820 playing grand theft auto and they're watching porn that's what they do and they get all their

00:47:09.380 signals from i'm not i'm not picking on grand theft auto but so so you know that to me is not

00:47:19.800 being a man okay like like i would say to any uh young man who's living his life gaming and

00:47:26.180 watching porn you are not being a man right now you got to step up and i will use the phrase man

00:47:31.980 up take your responsibilities seriously this is a bit of jordan peterson maybe you know make your 0.82

00:47:37.680 bed uh-oh make your make your bed treat treat women with respect have goals in life and work

00:47:49.240 hard for those goals why don't we you know let's let's get our boys back on track here we got to

00:47:55.120 do this for our society otherwise the cycle will keep repeating itself and i think that lesson is

00:48:01.200 true for young boys and young girls. And here's where I think it starts. You obviously have

00:48:07.340 parents. Nobody can control what goes on in the classroom. Want to know what we control? What goes

00:48:11.680 on in our schools. So when I talk about education and I talk about educational curriculum, and I

00:48:17.780 think that the Ontario government, which in, you know, right now, decided to go back to the 1998

00:48:25.360 health curriculum. I can't embrace, I can't quite articulate how horrible of a step back that was.

00:48:35.520 And the reason why they did it was because of their conservative base, was because of their

00:48:39.520 traditional base, was because people don't want people talking about sex and sexuality at school.

00:48:45.120 But Tony, if we're not doing that in school- No, Joe, just to be fair, that was not the issue.

00:48:52.700 the issue was at what age are you talking about sexuality in school and i think all well like if

00:49:00.520 we talk about grade one so so again for those who aren't in ontario just so we understand are on

00:49:05.420 because a lot in the states i just realized how the state's educational system works which is

00:49:09.780 very different so when the ontario government comes up with curriculum um that's what every

00:49:14.960 school has to teach from kindergarten all the way to grade 12 and they were talking about at what age

00:49:21.200 do we start talking about it? But in my opinion, again, for example, I believe, and I haven't read

00:49:27.680 the curriculum in a minute, but I believe grade one, they wanted just to name body parts.

00:49:32.920 That was it. That was it. They wanted to say eyes, nose, mouth. They just didn't want to skip over

00:49:39.340 an area anymore. And I thought that's incredibly powerful. Here's why it's powerful. A lot of

00:49:46.000 people take advantage, bad people in our society are going to take advantage when a six-year-old

00:49:51.060 thinks that that's private and you don't talk about that. That makes a very dangerous mix of

00:49:57.300 what people can get away with. And the only reason we're not naming the parts in public is because

00:50:02.280 it makes us uncomfortable. It doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make, and then, and then

00:50:08.740 there's this whole idea of when do we start talking about gender right away? If we're not so protective

00:50:14.400 of the roles we think they ought to play. Why can't we talk about fluidity when they're in

00:50:21.060 grade two and three? Grade two and three kids want to wear anything. You have little boys be like,

00:50:26.780 I have two moms. I want to wear a dress. And everybody's like, uh-oh. Well, why? 0.89

00:50:33.740 So we need to bring that in at a young age. Nobody's talking about sex. Nobody's talking

00:50:38.920 about STIs in grade three that's later yeah but I definitely think talking because you're talking

00:50:45.020 about how do we get boys from doing these you know from rolling into this particular category I'll

00:50:50.780 tell you how because we have to start having those conversations and if that toxic masculinity the

00:50:56.640 term you don't like or if the or if those roles are being set in their family and perpetuated in

00:51:01.980 their family the only way we can possibly hope to change that is by educating not one way not

00:51:08.900 one way. I'm not saying everybody needs to be this multivariant human being. I'm saying open

00:51:15.340 up the door for possibility in our educational system. Yeah. Okay. I'm doing a lot of listening

00:51:22.960 on this one. I'm not quite sure where I stand on it. It's hard. I get why it's hard. Yeah.

00:51:31.400 Yeah. And I want to protect trans people. I want to make sure they're safe and healthy. And that involves a lot of education. It's maybe part of the final frontier in terms of these rights-based fights that have to be done to get to a better society.

00:51:56.080 Um, that's one of the, one of the ones where, uh, you know, we've already crossed a threshold

00:52:02.580 when it comes to, uh, to lesbians and gays, but, uh, trans have still some battles that

00:52:08.660 they've got to fight.

00:52:09.780 Uh, and, uh, we, we've got to be, in my view that we've got to be there for them, but I,

00:52:14.540 I'm, I'm just, there's something I I'm trying to be honest with you.

00:52:20.020 I like the honesty because I think that's important, right?

00:52:23.260 different people coming from different perspectives. I think it's important to be

00:52:27.260 honest. It's just the age thing that I'm still hung up on. You know, when do we start that

00:52:32.700 discussion with our young people? Who initiates it? And I know parents can be good parents or

00:52:39.980 bad parents. They can be knowledgeable parents or ignorant parents. I get all that. I'm just 0.99

00:52:45.980 a little still uncomfortable. That's all. Yeah. And I think that that discomfort sometimes,

00:52:52.780 and i love having these discussions right especially with people who just honestly have

00:52:56.780 them not yelling at me that i'm trying to convert their kids to be like first of all i'm not trans

00:53:02.060 a lot of people think i am because i have short hair which i think is funny um but a lot of people

00:53:06.940 if you come at me with aggression i sometimes just get sarcastic i don't really ever get

00:53:11.740 aggressive but i i implore people to have honest thoughtful conversations because that's the only

00:53:20.860 way we get through with some degree for example if a little boy comes to school in in grade two

00:53:27.180 and and his you know the the girl sitting next to him is wearing nail polish and he's like

00:53:33.100 well you get to paint your nails why don't i get to paint your nails but our whole society has now

00:53:38.700 relegated that somehow to either his sexuality or him wanting to be trans there's the problem 0.88

00:53:46.140 because then at that point we close off his opportunity not to be gay not to be trans

00:53:53.100 although that should be his choice but to just be a little kid who thinks it's cool to paint your

00:53:59.260 nails right that's it you know and unfortunately let me ask you this yeah yeah no i i'm really

00:54:07.900 interested in this uh because i i haven't had kids in uh secondary school for seven years now

00:54:17.500 my kids are older than that so uh so i i you know i'm missing out on some of this but are you do you

00:54:25.100 get a sense still uh that um like peer pressure to conform is still a big thing in in in the school

00:54:36.460 culture? Of course it is. It's still a big, I think it's hysterical when adults say, oh, my

00:54:43.460 kids are led by peer pressure. But then I look at their house and it looks like page seven out of

00:54:47.560 the Ikea catalog. I'm like, oh, love, we are all conforming to peer pressure on some level, right?

00:54:54.400 The kids are actually doing it, in my opinion, less. And as they get older, you can see them

00:55:01.000 doing it more because, well, they have to do it more to fit in or to do this. You know, I work at

00:55:06.960 a private school. I love the school I work at. It's an alternative private school. But as you

00:55:10.440 can see, like I have tattoos. Well, I didn't have tattoos when I started there or the one I had,

00:55:15.980 he couldn't see. And my boss at work, he's a self-professed conservative and we joke with

00:55:24.860 each other. And every day he'll see a new tattoo. He'll be like, Joanna, you got a little dirt on

00:55:29.380 your arm. I'm like, oh, I'll go take care of that. Don't worry, Wayne. I'll go wash that off for you.

00:55:32.920 No big deal. But what he's done, he's 73. He runs, you know, he's a part of a very particular

00:55:40.580 demographic, but I've even seen him transition and change his beliefs based on the kids that

00:55:47.320 sit in front of him. You know, and I've been a teacher for long enough to see some pretty big

00:55:51.460 changes. And in the last 20 years, we used to fight, my class used to have heavy debates,

00:55:57.580 heavy debates on gay marriage. Then they got bored of it because they're like, who cares? 1.00

00:56:01.580 Then I started seeing heavy debates on gay adoption. Who cares? Then I saw heavy debates 0.96

00:56:07.840 on trans issues. And those are kind of getting thrown out the window as we go. For example,

00:56:14.260 this year, I had a student come up to me and say, Joanna, because I've never done this before,

00:56:18.320 are you going to ask people their preferred pronouns so we know how to properly address

00:56:21.980 them? And I'm like, see, that's why I teach because I learned something from you all every

00:56:25.480 freaking day now out of all of the kids that i asked that for and we talked about it how many

00:56:33.240 wrote they them one maybe two yeah yeah but but what's cool is i got to have that discussion with

00:56:42.360 my grade seven and eights and and the grade seven and eights listen and they understand that there

00:56:48.600 could be this diversity and they try to even though they might joke especially some of the

00:56:53.080 the younger guys they they're uncomfortable right they're uncomfortable so they joke they're

00:56:57.860 uncomfortable and so sometimes they make fun or they tease a little bit but then it's my job to

00:57:04.500 say okay okay I get why you're uncomfortable there I get why you're making that joke but can we talk

00:57:10.180 about the reason you're making the joke you know and so just to talk it through like that I think 0.66

00:57:15.880 is so yeah you know i i thought i thought uh gay jokes were really funny until two of my best

00:57:22.520 friends uh came out as gay when i was in high school so and listen i still think maybe i better

00:57:29.420 rethink this yeah you know exactly but when you were in high school and i was in high school my

00:57:34.840 gosh i remember i've looked back because i grew up in the 80s and i look back at the 80s and 90s

00:57:40.180 movies. And I think about the language that was used, particularly about gay men. Nobody talked

00:57:47.320 about gay women, I don't think, for a very long time. But that language, like the F word and not

00:57:52.520 the swear word, but that F word was in every single movie as an attack. It was 100% common.

00:58:00.840 So we have to be able to have those conversations. Now, everybody knows we can't say that word.

00:58:06.180 and and and that's the part of censorship and I want to come back to censorship

00:58:10.480 um a little bit because I think it's incredibly important because I think a lot of people know

00:58:15.920 they can't say the word but they really don't like it any word for that matter they don't like it

00:58:21.980 and they still think it's funny and they just don't say it but nobody's having the conversation

00:58:28.560 that needs to be had do you understand what I mean by that um not really just go go through that

00:58:35.700 again. I don't want to censor, and we're talking about obviously slang or derogatory words for gay

00:58:42.960 men. I don't want to silence people that still have homophobic thoughts because I can't fix

00:58:51.560 that thought if I can't hear you say it. I can't have a discussion anymore. I want to be able to

00:58:57.780 have a discussion i can't remember the last time i heard that phrase used in in front of me uh

00:59:06.740 but if it were ever used in front of me i'd say dude not cool like you know just don't

00:59:15.860 yeah yeah that's the thing about censorship right censorship because we talked about cancel culture

00:59:22.820 censorship it's funny because i really don't want to hear a a bigot or a white supremacist or a

00:59:29.540 whoever getting up there and and spewing garbage but at the end of the day that individual thinks 0.95

00:59:36.340 that so you know what get on stage and say it so we can deal with you i used to think this way 1.00

00:59:40.740 about jerry springer remember that show and all those morons in and they'd wear their kkk hats 0.97

00:59:46.500 and then they take them off and then they'd fight and i'm like you know a lot of people would think 0.98

00:59:52.100 oh, well, you're just highlighting it. No, no, no, no, no. Nobody walks away from Jerry Springer

00:59:55.820 going, wow, those guys are brilliant. No, no, no. There has to be a place. Yeah, I agree with you.

01:00:04.000 We have to hash this out as a society. And if you bury it, it doesn't disappear. It just goes

01:00:09.740 underground. And it gets scarier and more violent. And it gets scarier. It gets reinforced

01:00:15.220 to be scarier and more marginal you know like you you get into the q anon universe and all this 0.99

01:00:22.820 other stuff that is just wacko but is is is fed by you know denunciation by people who want to

01:00:31.740 marginalize it and cut it off twitter or whatever right so that that doesn't seem to be working too

01:00:37.420 well is all i can say on that i got to tell you one one political story he said you said bigot so

01:00:43.560 I've got this one story.

01:00:45.620 I'm so excited right now.

01:00:47.220 It was before I was in the Ontario caucus, but it was told to me by Ernie Eves.

01:00:50.860 They were in the late 70s, early 80s.

01:00:56.000 They were having a big battle.

01:00:57.840 Bill Davis was premier about whether to extend French language services.

01:01:03.780 Right.

01:01:04.420 And big battle in the Tory caucus.

01:01:08.100 You know, a lot of the rural MPPs didn't want to see extended French language services.

01:01:15.640 So they're having this big battle in caucus.

01:01:19.280 And this guy named Lorne Henderson, who represented Sarnia Lampton, stands up.

01:01:24.100 And Lorne was about 350 pounds.

01:01:27.380 He was a farmer.

01:01:29.220 His each finger was like a cucumber.

01:01:34.040 His nose was bulbous.

01:01:35.900 like just you know really big guy but you know he he kind of had the common sense of the of the

01:01:42.800 rural farmer so he stands up and he says well i i don't like where this is going premier i don't

01:01:49.280 think we should be going down this route premier you know i have bigamists in my riding and what

01:01:55.400 he meant was bigots but he he misspoke and he said bigamists and everybody starts giggling

01:02:01.560 my favorite mistake i've ever heard he says oh yeah yeah you laugh at me but you all have bigamists

01:02:06.840 in your writing too so that was that's my that whenever somebody says bigots now i always think

01:02:13.660 of bigamists so there you go oh my gosh i think and i i think all of that is just and then i'd

01:02:20.500 like to roll i don't i i realize we've already been on an hour but i'm having such a good time

01:02:24.840 but i would understand if you need to go otherwise we can let it go a little bit longer a little

01:02:29.840 little while longer joe let's keep it going all right you cut me off then tony you say okay joanna

01:02:34.220 enough's enough uh i'm a teacher i can go for a solid eight hours um so i think i think that

01:02:40.080 that's a really good point too because we've kind of talked about a lot of these big issues and you

01:02:44.540 said something earlier that i really would like to speak to is the idea that out of paul as a

01:02:49.160 politician and and speaking about the state of our politics right now this notion about getting

01:02:56.780 reelected and only having a certain amount of juice, you called it rocket fuel? What'd you

01:03:01.600 call it? Rocket sauce. You only have so much. So what are you going to spend it on? I think

01:03:09.140 is incredibly important. And you also spoke to the notion of the internal conservative party

01:03:17.460 maybe trying to teach their members how to be a little bit more emotionally driven. And all I can

01:03:22.720 think in my head is you know like all of those movies like wag the dog or any political satirical

01:03:29.140 movie where we teach the candidate what to wear how to tilt their head how to roll up their sleeve

01:03:34.500 at the right time how to do this instead of this i swear to god if i became a politician i just

01:03:39.740 pointed everybody because i'm like this means the same thing means the same thing we've just

01:03:45.980 switched it out and we think as though we're being respectful we're not yeah and all of this play

01:03:52.820 all of this acting that goes on and that goes on in every single party every single party no holds

01:03:58.680 barred the acting to get your rocket you know to get your things passed hopefully that you really

01:04:07.640 like and and the you know the secondary maybe primary to get re-elected that's your that's your

01:04:17.120 goal right that's our goal and i i can't help thinking as a politics teacher this is the flaw

01:04:22.500 in democracy the flaw in democracy is the performative aspect where i'm so busy worrying

01:04:32.000 about getting re-elected or worrying about what i can get even though this is the right thing to do

01:04:37.240 what can I get through the legislature is the real reason people are very disenfranchised with

01:04:46.340 the entire, and again, every party across the board. My favorite quote from Lincoln was, is,

01:04:53.580 I'd like to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky. It's my favorite quote. And it depresses

01:04:58.880 me every time I say it. But I think that's the flaw. That's our flaw. It's not a flaw. It's

01:05:07.020 human nature okay like that's the first thing i'd say like uh politics look i'm i'm gonna be

01:05:14.440 unapologetic about certain aspects of politics first of all it's partisan oh it would be so

01:05:20.500 much better if people would agree more no no the whole purpose of politics is to debate issues to

01:05:28.900 be passionate about issues to disagree passionately you should be respectful but disagree passionately

01:05:35.900 with somebody and then yeah you know and then it'll be resolved sorry say that again

01:05:41.660 disagree passionately intelligently because if i have to watch the house argue about things

01:05:47.220 and people slam on desk one more time and just inadvertently go through the speaker to call

01:05:52.200 this person a name i can't anymore yeah no but yeah and and you're right that that performative

01:05:57.900 stuff wears thin after a while there's no question about it but but you know it it should be the

01:06:02.980 place where you disagree fundamentally on some really important issues. If you can't do it there,

01:06:08.760 you can't do it anywhere. So I don't have a lot of time for people who want politicians to agree

01:06:14.100 more. But look, this isn't a debating society. You can only affect change if you are elected

01:06:27.660 as a government being elected as an opposition member doesn't count okay you got nothing and

01:06:36.420 it's the most frustrating job in the world believe me i had it i was in politics for 25 years i was

01:06:42.660 only four years in opposition those were the four worst years bar none yeah you can be a the worst

01:06:50.060 backbencher if you're in government it's better to be the worst backbencher in government than to be

01:06:56.060 a front bencher in opposition no question let me just let me just give a little point here because

01:07:01.780 again we have a lot of people listening who even in canada who don't quite get the system in canada

01:07:06.480 our prime minister and our legislature is elected together they're elected together it's called a

01:07:12.080 fusion of powers and it allows a majority government pretty much to pass whatever it is

01:07:18.040 they want to pass as long as it doesn't tip the constitutional issues right as long as you keep

01:07:23.700 confines of the constitution gives them a lot of power and a lot of privilege to do whatever the

01:07:28.840 heck they want so so i would argue that the prime minister of canada has the most power

01:07:34.180 in the elected world absolutely most power if they have a majority if they have if they have

01:07:40.880 a majority he he appoints the cabinet he appoints every member of the upper chamber

01:07:48.840 every senator that uh whose term is there's a vacancy they appoint every single senator

01:07:57.520 they appoint every single supreme court justice you talk about fusion executive legislative

01:08:06.500 judiciary all coming from one except for one at one exception one man that short six months yeah

01:08:14.580 That short six months, Kim Campbell. So, so yeah, that's a lot of power. That's a lot of power. And I'll tell you, you know, look, being, being in the inner cabinet as I was with Stephen Harper, people will scoff at this, I'm sure, but he gave us a lot of room to debate a lot of issues.

01:08:37.920 we debated issues in caucus we debated issues in cabinet uh it wasn't just stephen harper making

01:08:44.600 decisions but if he wanted to make a decision he could he's the prime minister there's a lot

01:08:50.800 of deferential authority given to the canadian prime minister yeah more so than in the u.s by

01:08:57.220 far because you have division of powers more so in the uk where um where things have evolved in

01:09:04.800 the UK where different cabinet members have a lot of authority apart from the prime minister

01:09:11.740 and within the prime minister's caucus she or he faces continual push and pull and opposition

01:09:21.320 there's something called the 1922 committee in the UK conservative party where they are

01:09:28.080 backbenchers who force the prime minister to come to their meetings and explain things

01:09:32.600 and justify things. We don't have anything like that in Canada. I'm telling you right now. Now

01:09:36.540 caucus can work that way, but you know, a lot, quite frankly, there's a lot of people in caucus

01:09:41.640 who spend their time sucking up to the, to the leader or prime minister, because that's the

01:09:46.620 better way to get a better, a better plum, a better appointment, a better cabinet position,

01:09:51.960 a better, you know, opposition position. So, um, you know, and I saw that frequently. I didn't care

01:09:58.680 because I'd already had a political career and I had the power to walk away. But many people,

01:10:05.540 oh, Prime Minister, that's a great point. You are 100% right on that. Well,

01:10:09.740 can we debate it for a minute or two? That'd be nice. So look, that's human, but I'm telling you,

01:10:16.980 that's human nature. Politics is human nature in a specific field. So if you don't like how

01:10:25.580 politics is being played out, look in the mirror, folks. I'm sorry, but that's the reality.

01:10:31.080 People ask me, I've been approached by a couple of people to talk about running, and I said,

01:10:35.100 I don't think I'm going to do well. I don't think I'm going to do well. And here's why.

01:10:40.240 I'm not very good at tempering. I'm not very great at compromise. I love discussion. I love

01:10:47.100 discussion. But for example, if I was running under any party, one of my main tenets would

01:10:55.340 have to be, listen, do you want more social services or less? And then we can talk about

01:11:01.680 what your tax base is. But you're going to have to first decide over here. Because anybody that

01:11:06.460 steps to you and says, I'm going to give you more for less, you're being sold land that you

01:11:10.260 shouldn't be buying. It's just not going to happen. I don't believe it can happen. And I think

01:11:15.160 that's also when people blame politicians, 100%, you have to look at the population and what you're

01:11:20.340 voting for. I mean, we voted for a gentleman in Ontario who promised a buck a beer. That was an

01:11:26.040 actual thing he said. Now, I might not have voted for him, but the people that voted for him are

01:11:32.380 now complaining. I like to just roll that clip. Guys, he said who he was. You just didn't believe

01:11:37.300 it. And you like the fact you thought your taxes were going to go down, which seems to be this

01:11:42.600 main sort of you know staple of what people are because they're making decisions based on how

01:11:47.980 much money's in their pocket because it's hard well you know they have humans have a right to

01:11:52.280 do that you know that's kind of you know it's is it in my pocket to to buy a new bicycle for my

01:11:58.360 seven-year-old or is it going to some wasteful government program that's a that's a continuing

01:12:03.020 theme in political life right you have to go in the hospital for 10 minutes and then you were like

01:12:08.380 oh we should have put more money here or oh they would say you know the the doctors are being paid

01:12:14.340 too much so there'd be that but uh you know look the the the fact of the matter is um uh you know

01:12:23.320 politics is is very reflective sometimes there's a time lag i grant you that but it it is reflective

01:12:30.420 of society uh and uh and when when it isn't uh the bums are thrown out and the the the new the

01:12:37.980 new government is already elected and then people's confidence in the government increases

01:12:43.740 and the popularity of the prime minister increases we saw this in 2016 2015 with

01:12:49.320 Justin Trudeau and then of course you know he has to make decisions and some decisions are good and

01:12:56.240 some decisions are bad and now he has a negative popularity and the liberal brand is being eroded

01:13:02.760 that's just you know that's the cycle I'm not I'm not blaming Trudeau I'm just saying like you've

01:13:06.980 been empowered, dude, since 2015. They're not going to love you anymore. They want this or

01:13:12.460 they want that. Or why didn't you do this on indigenous? Or why didn't you do this on this 1.00

01:13:18.560 file? So that's the cycle. And that's the good thing about representative democracy is you get

01:13:25.200 a chance to kick the bums out if you want to. But let me go back to your point, 1.00

01:13:31.320 which is why you wouldn't feel comfortable in that kind of politics and this is the point

01:13:38.600 that has to be emphasized if you're teaching a politics class politics is a team sport

01:13:45.720 it's a team sport you have the debates internally and a caucus i've seen rip-roaring debates people

01:13:54.040 yelling people screaming people you know shaking their fist at their fellow colleague you know

01:13:59.300 and don't forget caucus for your listeners are of the same party it's when you caucus just your

01:14:06.700 just your party is represented in your caucus and that's where you debate where you're standing on

01:14:12.420 issues and you have the debate you conclude the debate you come to a decision as a collective

01:14:21.140 and that is the decision and if you as a caucus member feel that you cannot abide by that decision

01:14:28.900 you better quit now. You better quit that caucus and stand as an independent, whatever. But you

01:14:34.320 cannot walk out of that caucus room and say, I disagree with all of my colleagues. This is where

01:14:39.720 I stand on this issue. You're done. Because no one, your constituents may thank you for like a

01:14:46.800 half a minute, but what you're doing is you are making it tougher for every single other caucus

01:14:54.960 member who have to answer to their constituents about an unpopular decision well why are you

01:15:00.640 taking that position so and so isn't taking that position you know and and so the the idea of

01:15:06.400 solidarity is that's how i would put it is so you stand or fall together you make the decision

01:15:12.580 everybody gets their say everybody gets their five their five minutes or their two minutes at

01:15:17.400 the microphone but at the end of the day you make a decision collectively and you stand by that

01:15:21.340 decision. If you cannot do that, you do not deserve to govern because government means making

01:15:26.880 tough decisions. And if you cannot have that solidarity of the team, you are not able to make

01:15:33.680 the tough decisions that are necessary. And, you know, the greatest master of his caucus

01:15:39.900 in parliamentary history, probably, was Brian Mulroney, who, you know, was down at 13 percent

01:15:47.740 in the polls but every caucus member stood behind him because of the way he worked his caucus that

01:15:54.360 he respected his caucus if if your if your spouse was in the hospital he would visit your spouse in

01:15:59.500 the he did crazy stuff that you know was so time consuming but was important for caucus solidarity

01:16:05.900 behind him and uh that's a is it a lost art it's not a lost art but it you know it's it's a it's

01:16:13.680 an art that is losing favor and uh you know it has consequences you know justin trudeau does not have

01:16:20.600 the same uh caucus solidarity that he had six years ago because he doesn't do some of the

01:16:27.280 little things that are important anyway uh that be that as it may that's why and so when when if

01:16:33.160 somebody come somebody in your class says i'd like to run in politics uh just just remember

01:16:39.860 it's a team sport okay like it really is and so yeah you get to have influence yes you get to

01:16:46.600 represent your community yes you get to push certain policies all of that is true and it's

01:16:51.280 exhilarating when those policies are are adopted and becomes the policy of your province or country

01:16:55.900 all of that is absolutely true and it's the the greatest job on earth as far as i'm concerned i

01:17:01.660 loved every minute of it or almost every minute of it uh and uh and but but you have to understand

01:17:09.420 the rules of the game. And it's not all about you and where you stand. It's all about your seat

01:17:16.360 mates. It's all about your common goals. You've got to put some water into the wine, man,

01:17:23.600 or it's not going to work. And I think it's important because, yeah, it is about common

01:17:28.000 goals, right? But I'm wondering, I'm wondering with this voting apathy, with the disengagement

01:17:35.360 of a lot of people like you just described a system that i buy that i want to watch but because

01:17:42.480 all of those caucuses are behind closed doors and we never want to admit that we've disagreed and

01:17:46.880 come to a conclusion i think that might be a failure i think that might be what's lacking

01:17:52.080 i would love to see i would love to see yeah because the media the media will crucify you

01:18:00.000 if there if there is a disagreement in your own caucus do you think the media is going to record

01:18:06.080 wow there was a refreshing debate in the government caucus about this issue and people

01:18:11.120 disagreed good for them no no no they're not they're never going to write that they're going

01:18:15.520 to they're going to write a post there was division yeah people disagreed with the prime minister

01:18:22.720 yeah so you can't do it what if they started publicizing what if they took what if they said

01:18:28.960 you know what we're really tired of sound bites because that's how the media works because let's

01:18:32.960 be honest we want to see 140 characters in a twitter or we want to see a 30 second tick tock

01:18:38.080 so what if the party finally said i'm going to take control over this did we have a great debate

01:18:42.960 yes did person a b and c disagree yes but but as a party we needed to come to some sort of conclusion

01:18:51.680 in the sense of how do we work all of these opinions and how do we still come up what's

01:18:56.560 best for ontario what's best for canada and how do we do that i am telling you people would buy

01:19:01.920 into that yeah they'd want the problem and then they would see an authenticity that they think

01:19:06.640 they're missing and authenticity is is the holy grail of politics these days i i totally get that

01:19:12.560 the problem is that the whole idea of caucus secrecy is so you can speak to your mind

01:19:21.440 right and if it that if that is broken like we had a guy when i was first elected uh as part of

01:19:27.040 the harper government we had a guy garth turner uh who represented milton who would who would uh

01:19:34.800 attend the caucus meetings walk out of the caucus meetings and post what was going on

01:19:39.360 at the caucus meeting on his blog so we said to him like dude you can't you can't do that like

01:19:45.440 i'm i'm speaking from the heart my constituents may not like the way i'm speaking about an issue

01:19:52.320 maybe i was speaking uh pro l lgbt but my constituents weren't quite there yet i don't

01:19:59.280 want them to know necessarily what i'm pushing because uh you know uh it's going to affect me

01:20:06.640 electorally dude stop stop posting on the blog what we're talking about when we're talking freely

01:20:15.440 to to one another as colleagues he continued to do it we had to kick him out of caucus

01:20:19.960 yeah that's just one person pulling out excerpts pulling out soundbites pulling out whatever putting

01:20:28.100 on his what i'm talking about is and you made a very very good very honest point look my people

01:20:34.060 aren't ready for these viewpoints yet but i'm wondering i'm just imagining idealizing i don't

01:20:40.200 know what a world looks like when if we have those honest conversations consistently and even

01:20:48.700 if our our constituents aren't necessarily there yet how many more people will buy into the system

01:20:56.300 will buy into an idea will buy into an honesty because i think all people say you know all

01:21:02.980 politicians and they'll fill in the blank and i'm like you know what people don't go into politics

01:21:07.220 to get rich people don't go into politics they go in because they think they can make a difference

01:21:12.980 and they go in they go in for the adulation i'm just kidding everybody likes the t-shirt if you

01:21:21.140 see somebody representing you know and they're so polished and they're so this and they're so that

01:21:27.940 that's where you lose us you know you you started this whole conversation talking about trudeau

01:21:32.580 um the older one not the younger one um and and obviously you would have been coming off the heels

01:21:39.860 or right around the time of the war measures act and the flq and all of that and this guy gets in

01:21:46.340 national gets a media you know correspondent in his face with a microphone in his face and the

01:21:52.280 famous how dare you do you really think do you think this do you think you can do that and he

01:21:58.060 with a smirk on his face says just watch me now you could love him or hate him because of that

01:22:04.400 yeah and then that was but i kind of i kind of love him now for that i miss that honestly

01:22:10.280 do you know what i mean i miss that honesty i miss that i truly miss that and you will see

01:22:17.500 minutes of it but i i i think if we can i think politicians think they're going to lose a lot

01:22:24.740 more than gain if we put more things front and center how do you how do you measure like

01:22:32.740 okay i hear what you're saying and i agree authenticity is valued now uh how do you uh

01:22:40.740 how do you deal with the the trump factor then because i don't think he's authentic you don't

01:22:46.500 i don't think oh i think that guy i would love to like i think that guy knew exactly or his people

01:22:54.020 knew exactly how he was playing it yeah i've even thought that misspelling words in his tweets

01:23:00.660 yeah purposeful yeah i've even thought that in his base i think he did i am obviously not a trump

01:23:08.420 fan i think he did a really good job unfortunately of tapping into fear tapping into dissension

01:23:16.340 deciding how he could manipulate that how he could get those people to vote for him

01:23:21.700 and a guy with the apprentice became president. I don't think that was authentic at all. That was

01:23:32.100 the best example of the manipulation of all media sources. He did a great job. Even right down to

01:23:40.180 when he debated Clinton and stood right behind her. I'm like, who taught that guy that move?

01:23:45.780 That's a good move. That's a good TV move. And then I thought of Reagan and Nixon. And I mean,

01:23:53.860 sorry, I thought of Nixon and JFK being on TV for the first time and who got to manipulate that

01:24:01.140 source. So yeah. And everybody blames Trump and I'm like, guys, 70 million of you voted for him.

01:24:07.460 You can't blame you. How do you teach your students

01:24:12.820 uh in this age of media manipulation how do you teach them to to be critically assessing media

01:24:20.100 it's so hard so i start right in my it's so funny you say that so i i teach my school goes from seven

01:24:26.580 to twelve and i have a seven and eight uh global issues course that i just created um because they

01:24:33.860 take more courses at my school than they would at a regular elementary so this is an extra course

01:24:38.260 and we just did a unit on social media and the media in general and real and fake news and things

01:24:46.340 like that. And the only way I can start them doing it is by going finding stories. And we just did

01:24:54.180 this assignment. I said, go find stories you think are fascinating. Go find stories that drew your

01:24:59.600 attention or if you were on Twitter or whatever, and then go find out who wrote them. And then

01:25:05.420 where is it posted? Who posted it? Who fact checked it? And then I want you to go find at

01:25:11.060 least three other sources that talk about the same thing and talk about it in a similar way.

01:25:17.560 Can you do that? For example, I had a kid who said, Joanna, the CIA just admitted that the

01:25:23.960 Illuminati existed. I said, honey, no, they didn't. And he goes, yes, it says right here,

01:25:28.360 CIA.gov. I said, what else does that URL say? Because it was like this long, right? Afterwards.

01:25:34.140 I'm like, there you go. But that's as easy as it is. Right. And I also think we got to use some

01:25:41.600 common sense. Yeah. Yeah. I sometimes just think we have to use common sense. And we also have to

01:25:48.120 be aware of what drives us as a society and where the ridiculousness is, i.e. who gets married,

01:25:56.180 who gets divorced, who cheated on who, what this celebrity is doing, how much this celebrity is

01:26:01.580 paying. Look, if you're going to be interested in all that, take ownership, because that doesn't

01:26:06.660 matter. But for the other things like COVID is a great example. Oh, our first mention of COVID

01:26:14.480 on this program. The first mention. Well, who wants to keep talking? I'd love to never talk

01:26:21.100 about it again. But the idea that everybody's a virologist, I can't, right? Everybody's like,

01:26:27.400 i did my research and i saw a funny tick tock where it said listen unless you ran clinical

01:26:32.280 trials that have been peer approved you didn't know such thing yeah and i like that i like that

01:26:38.120 um the fact that you know just because we have this incredibly powerful thing at our at our source

01:26:46.200 um or you know that that it doesn't come easy you know and nor a lot of people like well it was

01:26:52.280 better when we were kids when we had to go to the library and spend 17 hours there i'm like

01:26:56.200 was it because those books those books were all decided who wrote them why they got to write them

01:27:03.320 who funded them what was considered legitimate information and i grew up in an era where

01:27:08.360 guess what nobody in my high school or even at university spoke about residential schools

01:27:14.680 at all and i took politics and history so so there's fake news or at least what i get

01:27:22.200 more worried about than fake news which is ironic is the omission i worried about what they don't

01:27:31.480 right yeah but that's why we need educated uh young people who are critically thinking right

01:27:41.480 that seems to be a common goal here joe yeah yeah yeah yeah well we're almost at an hour and a half

01:27:47.960 i love it it's my longest podcast ever i appreciate you for coming it is no i usually i

01:27:53.720 try to be around somebody told me once like it's a 45 you should be 45 minutes that's the drive to

01:27:58.280 work well joe rogan's three and a half hours the one i'm listening to right now so that's it we're

01:28:04.040 gonna have a whole other podcast we're gonna fight about joe rogan jordan peterson and i'm gonna add

01:28:09.400 on there just because ben shapiro because i know you're probably like you're ben on that list

01:28:14.120 somewhere no i only listen i've only heard ben shapiro once when he was a guest on joe rogan

01:28:19.000 and um i didn't i found him quite annoying actually but anyway that's just me he is incredibly

01:28:25.080 annoying um but thank you so incredibly much i really appreciate you coming on i would love to

01:28:30.120 have you back i think we have a list of things we could discuss um can i ask you a quick question

01:28:36.040 favorite favorite canadian prime minister ever uh i know i'm supposed to say i know i'm supposed to

01:28:42.760 say stephen harper no no no you can't um i would say overall uh either harper or mulrooney

01:28:51.520 yeah because they well mulrooney achieved some big things uh and he was eventually vilified for

01:28:59.260 it um but harper was also a genius at getting a bunch of incremental things done uh that

01:29:06.540 cumulatively were important so yeah i they they had they were it was different times the 80s versus

01:29:12.940 uh versus 2006 to to 15 different different times so favorite liberal favorite liberal

01:29:23.500 i'll give you provincial or federal yeah um you just shifted in your seat you're like

01:29:31.100 yeah i know it's it's it's no one has ever asked me that before um well definitely uh

01:29:39.260 i would go with uh i would uh well edward blake i always had a soft spot for edward blake

01:29:46.140 lake wow well i know he was never he was never prime minister um but he he really pushed for

01:29:53.020 free trade at a time when um mcdonald was pushing his uh you know sort of canada first policies

01:30:01.100 which I thought was eventually, eventually where we ended up a hundred years later.

01:30:06.100 I actually did that when I was a high school student, I did a whole essay on Edward Blake.

01:30:12.620 So I guess I'll, I'm going to stick with Edward Blake.

01:30:14.660 You're going to stick with Edward.

01:30:16.060 I think that's fairly safe.

01:30:17.380 I think that's a safe and he's really old.

01:30:20.340 Like it's a really long time ago.

01:30:21.820 Yeah.

01:30:22.820 Well, thank you so much.

01:30:23.820 I could have said Sir Charles Tupper, but nobody would know who that was.

01:30:26.100 Tupper?

01:30:27.100 I know Nova Scotia, right?

01:30:28.820 Yeah.

01:30:29.820 Yeah.

01:30:30.820 yeah, yeah. History teacher. I got that stuff jammed in my head no matter if I want to be there or not.

01:30:37.140 I really appreciate it. Thank you for sticking around. I can't wait to have you back on. And

01:30:42.100 to all our listeners, thank you for hanging out. We will see you next Tuesday. Same bat time,

01:30:47.460 same bat channel. Have a good day, guys. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - December 07, 2021

The One Where I Debate the Blue

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