Full Comment is Canada’s podcast for compelling interviews, controversial opinions and fascinating discussions. Hosted by Brian Lilley. Published by Postmedia, new episodes are released each Monday.
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Water rationing could be coming to your city next
33:25
33:25
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
33:25
If you want the real story about why residents in one of Canada’s biggest cities have for weeks been under orders to ration their water usage, you won’t get it from Calgary’s mayor or city bureaucrats. As local veteran Postmedia journalist Don Braid tells Brian in this week’s episode, the catastrophic water-main explosion is a tale of municipal mis…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada’s biggest superfan says leave your ethnic hatreds at the door
32:32
32:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
32:32
Nav Bhatia is instantly recognizable as the turbaned, fanatically exuberant Raptors superfan courtside at every home game. As he tells Brian, he immigrated to Toronto from an India riven by ethnic conflict, to find peace and undreamed-of prosperity here. Discussing his new memoir, The Heart of a Superfan, Bhatia talks about his experience with bigo…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Liberals have good reason to fear Pierre Poilievre
48:01
48:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:01
It may be that the leader of the Conservative party has been preparing for the job of prime minister his whole life. He once entered an essay contest about “If I were prime minister,” advocating for making Canada a bastion of freedom. As Andrew Lawton, author of the new biography, Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life, discusses with Brian, the now op…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Regular-people rules don’t apply to ‘Prince’ Trudeau
58:48
58:48
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
58:48
He gets away with wearing blackface while calling other people racist. He spoils himself with opulent trips abroad and refuses to answer for it. As Stephen Maher, author of a new book, The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, explains, the prime minister has always seen himself as having been born into royalty — and he’s acted like it. Th…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
We’re under attack from Chinese electric cars
52:00
52:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
52:00
They sound like a bargain: Cheap Chinese EVs selling in Canada for around $15,000 each. They’re an even better deal for the Chinese, because our government promises to pay them more than that sale price for every EV they sell here, as Flavio Volpe tells Brian this week. The president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association explains how t…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
It’s too late now for Liberals to replace Trudeau
44:02
44:02
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
44:02
Polls suggest the Tories are just too far ahead for Liberals to avoid a decimation in next year’s election. The prime minister seems defiantly bound to leading his party into 2025, even as his attacks against Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre grow more incoherent, as Chris Selley discusses with Brian this week. The big problem, Chris suspects, is that t…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
TikTok terror: How Hamas successfully hijacked your social media
44:47
44:47
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
44:47
Praising terrorist “martyrs,” open praise for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and inciting violence toward Jews: social media platforms have been flooded since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, with alarming and disturbing content that American online platforms seem unable to control. Tal-Or Cohen Montmayor, whose organization CyberWell deploys o…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Profiting from despair: How decriminalization advocates exploited B.C.’s opioid crisis
50:22
50:22
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:22
fIt wasn’t just that funding for the out-of-control opioid crisis flowed to those promoting radical, unproven policies. Advocates leading the charge to B.C.’s doomed drug decriminalization experiment were personally investing in businesses to supply opioids to addicts, profiting off the back of a massive social crisis, as Vancouver psychologist Dr.…
…
continue reading
Don’t expect the foreign interference inquiry to do much to impede Beijing’s stunningly successful capture of Canada’s critical institutions, says Jonathan Manthorpe, author of Claws of the Panda. China’s most insidious infiltration isn’t happening at the ballot box but in our universities, corporations, the political class — and, perhaps most corr…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Ottawa just guaranteed we’ll all be paying higher taxes soon
42:01
42:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
42:01
The recent budget’s tax hikes won’t be enough to get us out of the fiscal mess the Trudeau Liberals have made with unrestrained spending and endless deficits, as Robert Asselin tells Brian. Asselin once advised Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau and is now with the Business Council of Canada. He says that with deficits becoming structural and in…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Gen. Rick Hillier says Canada faces ‘death by a thousand cuts’
51:45
51:45
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
51:45
The Canadian Victoria Cross has never been awarded in its 31 years of existence. Gen. Rick Hillier aims to change that, and he joins Brian to discuss the new “Heroes Among Us” project launching with Postmedia — and his worries about the general state of our military, and our nation, today. Hillier lays out in stark detail how Canada’s world stature…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada has become a hub of Islamist terror financing
46:05
46:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
46:05
Islamist extremism is on the march, as Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis and al Shabab unleash attacks against the West. Highly organized support for radicalized violence parades openly on our city streets. What connects them all is money, as Haras Rafiq tells Brian this week. And he says Canada has become a critical ne…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
‘Target on my back’: Selina Robinson on the NDP’s surrender to antisemites
40:36
40:36
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
40:36
All she did was tell the truth. Before she knew it, Selina Robinson was being hounded out of B.C.’s cabinet for saying the UN had allotted Jews a “crappy piece of land” in 1948, with anti-Israel activists accusing her of insulting Muslims. Robinson joins Brian this week to recount how she was first targeted weeks prior by a “vicious” mob who wanted…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Trudeau’s big party tent is coming apart at the seams
48:33
48:33
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:33
New Democrats and even other Liberals are now fighting Justin Trudeau’s carbon-tax scheme. This, as the prime minister’s abandonment of Israel has lost him a significant segment of long-time supporters. Postmedia’s Lorne Gunter joins Brian Lilley this week to unpack the chaos that appears to be consuming the Liberal party right now. They get into h…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Liberals cry 'racism' to cover up another Chinese interference scandal
56:01
56:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
56:01
The Trudeau government didn’t just fight for years to hide the embarrassing truth about two scientists caught leaking secrets from Canada’s highest-risk pathology laboratory to China — including for bioweapons research. As former CSIS analyst Phil Gurski and Conservative MP Michael Chong discuss with Brian this week, the Liberals tried painting con…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The ‘Online Harms’ Act could censor Twitter, Netflix, and us
53:06
53:06
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
53:06
Beware of governments making laws to “protect the children,” warns Ian Runkle, this week’s guest. The Liberals’ Bill C-63 rules to stop online child exploitation and revenge porn seem well-intentioned. But the Online Harms Act is so broad it could end up censoring popular streaming entertainment, says Runkle, a lawyer specializing in civil libertie…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
We're getting zapped by Guilbeault's radical, no-fuel, electrified future
46:55
46:55
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
46:55
We won’t need roads where we’re going. At least that’s how Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault wants it. He wants to end funding for new roads in Canada and ban cars that use gas or diesel, while forcing our heating and energy to become all-electric. Meanwhile, as energy researcher and commentator Parker Gallant tells Brian this week, we…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Danielle Smith challenges Trudeau to call an election
34:46
34:46
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
34:46
The tension between Ottawa and Alberta is rising. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has most recently attacked Premier Danielle Smith’s plans to restrict children from medically transitioning genders. This, after his environment minister demanded the province curb its oil industry and overhaul its gas-dependent power grid. Smith joins Brian Lilley this…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Israel is invading Rafah regardless of what Trudeau says
37:32
37:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
37:32
Eylon Levy spends his day debunking all the patently ridiculous propaganda against Israel. The latest uproar the government’s official spokesman is facing is the fevered campaign to try keeping Israel from invading Rafah. As Levy tells host Brian Lilley, this plays right into Hamas’s hands. Levy discusses how the international media and naive gover…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Not all transgender people think Danielle Smith’s gender policies are unhinged
36:50
36:50
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
36:50
It’s been a frenzy since Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced sweeping new policies limiting gender transitioning for children. She’s been accused of endangering lives and was blasted by the prime minister. What isn’t happening, as guest Julia Malott tells Brian this week, is a respectful discussion that accepts that all sides want what’s best …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Jean Chrétien looks better now compared to the alternative
48:44
48:44
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:44
Liberals were praising Jean Chrétien on his 90th birthday recently. Then, almost immediately afterward, they were distancing themselves from Canada’s 20th prime minister after news he had once tried watering down an Indigenous rights declaration. That’s the peculiar, contradictory legacy of “the little guy from Shawnigan” that former Liberal party …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
‘Islamofascism-phobia’ and the Iranians standing with Israel
42:39
42:39
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
42:39
After Hamas’s Oct. 7 mass slaughter of Jews in Israel, a surprising thing happened: Iranians inside the Islamic Republic and Persians around the world declared their support for … Israel. Ontario MPP Goldie Ghamari was one of them. She joins Brian this week to explain how Islamofascism promoted by Tehran and Hamas is the common enemy that Jews and …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Jordan Peterson on why everyone should be afraid of what happened to him
39:57
39:57
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
39:57
The verdict is final. The courts have now decisively refused to overturn a decision by the College of Psychologists of Ontario that ordered Jordan Peterson into a mandatory rehabilitation program for his politically incorrect tweets, which had nothing to do with his practice and involved no actual patients. As Peterson tells host Brian Lilley, his …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The Liberal MP who thinks his party is getting things wrong
49:12
49:12
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
49:12
He’s publicly objected to his own Liberal government and the prime minister turning against Israel’s war on Hamas. He fought for his party to stand firm for Quebec anglophones against the province’s attacks — and lost. Anthony Housefather has been breaking publicly a lot lately with his own Liberal party on major issues. This week, host Brian Lille…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
We shouldn’t be making things this hard for Canadian winemakers
46:43
46:43
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
46:43
Somehow Donald Ziraldo beat the odds: He and his business partner made an international success out of their Inniskillin Winery in Ontario. Starting back in the days when Canadian wine was dismissed as inferior plonk, they went on to produce and sell highly regarded, award-winning vintages all over the globe. But their story is far too uncommon, as…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Best of 2023: Canada’s great addictive hard-drug giveaway experiment somehow goes awry
49:38
49:38
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
49:38
Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2023, a year where serious questions were raised about whether Canada’s “safe supply” approach to drug addiction was making things worse. A long-time proponent of harm reduction, Dr. Sharon Koivu, an urban doctor in London, Ont., discusses with host Brian Lilley how she has watch…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Best of 2023: England’s ‘strictest headmistress’ on how old-school education saves kids
48:20
48:20
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:20
Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2023, a year that saw massive controversy over the state of Canada’s schools. At Katharine Birbalsingh’s inner-city free school in London, students are not to speak in the hallways. Discipline is strict. The kids, heavily drawn from minority groups, memorize knowledge and learn d…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Special: Rex Murphy’s year-end interview with Pierre Poilievre
30:10
30:10
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
30:10
An extended video version of this interview will be available starting Tuesday, December 19, 2023, online at National Post (nationalpost.com). Special guest host Rex Murphy sits down in person with federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for a year-end interview. They discuss what’s behind the Tories’ remarkable rise in the polls this year. Po…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Trudeau botched 2023. The Liberals won’t allow a repeat in 2024
50:45
50:45
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:45
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started the year in fine form. Twelve months later his party is melting down in the polls and Pierre Poilievre is heading what looks like an election-winning juggernaut. But the Conservative leader shouldn’t get too comfortable, as the Full Comment year-end politics panel discusses. Host Brian Lilley is joined this wee…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada is a criminal hotbed and the Mounties can’t handle it
39:32
39:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
39:32
It’s no secret the RCMP is broken. But as Garry Clement discusses with Brian this week, the force’s inability to investigate serious national crimes — money laundering, narcotics, organized crime, Chinese interference, terrorism and more — is turning Canada into a haven for lawlessness. And innocent people are paying for it with their lives. Clemen…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada’s worst fiscal crisis in generations is brewing
50:28
50:28
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:28
The financial trouble the Trudeau Liberals have put Canada in looks disturbingly unlike previous debt and deficit hangovers, as William Robson tells Brian Lilley this week. The losses Ottawa has pushed onto the Bank of Canada are choking off desperately needed income, explains Robson, president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute. Wages are losing g…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
As CBC defunding looms, the network doesn’t know what to do
44:41
44:41
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
44:41
A lot of the criticisms against Canada’s public broadcaster are fair, acknowledges Richard Stursberg, who was the CBC's executive vice president from 2004 to 2010: The programming doesn’t always reflect the country outside of downtown Toronto; the CBC competes with private broadcasters for advertising, even though it’s government-funded. The proble…
…
continue reading
Journalists for major news organizations joining the terror attack against Israel. Newscasters that refuse to call Hamas terrorists. Campus lefties insisting the torturers, rapists and murderers are the real victims. All of this and more are how the story westerners hear about the Israel-Hamas war is being distorted to vilify the Jewish state and b…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Driven into the ditch by Trudeau, Liberals have no clear way out
53:11
53:11
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
53:11
Almost exactly eight years after rebuilding the Liberals and winning government, Justin Trudeau looks like he could be done as party leader. His once powerful personal brand seems irreparably ruined, especially after his recent surrender on his signature carbon-tax policy. As National Post columnist Chris Selley and host Brian Lilley discuss this w…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Ben Shapiro on why every Jew he knows is getting a gun
36:37
36:37
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
36:37
Host Brian Lilley is joined this week by American podcaster, journalist and author Ben Shapiro to discuss the antisemitic pro-Hamas marches in Canada and the U.S. after the terrorist attacks in Israel — and the sense of danger that has American Jews buying guns in case they need to defend their families. How did our society become so degraded? Shap…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The difficult history behind the Nazi soldier in Parliament
51:07
51:07
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
51:07
Historical ignorance is the generous explanation for the House of Commons applauding a veteran of the Nazis’ Waffen SS Galicia division during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But the embarrassment and outrage that followed shed little light on exactly how Ukrainians like Yaroslav Hunka found themselves first wearing the infamous…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Obliterating Hamas in Gaza is Israel’s only option now
43:05
43:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
43:05
Gaza not long ago had one of the fastest-growing economies in the world — until Hamas took over, turned it into a terror base and began using Gazans as cannon fodder for anti-Israel public relations, just as its doing now. As Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, discusses with Brian this week, Hamas’s Islamist theocracy has few fans am…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The housing crisis is a sign of worse things to come
38:44
38:44
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
38:44
The shocking political realities behind Canada’s badly broken housing market are sinking in — and the damage spreads much deeper and wider than the generations being unfairly priced out of starter homes. Ben Rabidoux, founder of Edge Realty Analytics, is the guy both federal Conservatives and Liberals turn to for deep housing insights. He joins Bri…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
England’s ‘strictest headmistress’ on how old-school education saves kids
48:07
48:07
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:07
At Katharine Birbalsingh’s inner-city free school in London, students are not to speak in the hallways. Discipline is strict. Students wear uniforms, sit in rows and listen to instruction. It’s teacher-led learning, not child-centred. The kids, heavily drawn from minority groups, memorize knowledge and learn duty. It’s what used to be considered a …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Trudeau isn’t being taken seriously about India
44:30
44:30
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
44:30
After the prime minister dropped his bombshell assassination accusation against India, the world has waited for him to back it up. But Ujjal Dosanjh says that when it comes to credibility on this file, Justin Trudeau — and Canada — don’t have much. And the unserious way Trudeau has handled allegations around the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar hasn’…
…
continue reading
Don’t call it cancel culture: that masks the grimness of the authoritarian era we’re living in, says author Brendan O’Neill. It’s an anti-enlightenment, he says, that is rapidly and fervently obliterating centuries of western civilizational progress. O’Neill, author of the new book A Heretic’s Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable, joins Brian this we…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The working class inevitably becomes conservative
42:50
42:50
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
42:50
It’s not just that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are leading in national polls: it’s that the party is bringing in new groups, including “the people who get stuff done,” as guest Lord Daniel Hannan calls the working class. The prominent British journalist and Tory politician joins Brian from the Conservative policy convention in Quebec City, whe…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Pierre Poilievre is picking the right fights
50:04
50:04
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:04
As federal Conservative party members prepare to gather for their policy convention in Quebec City, they’ll be pushing for a platform that takes on the culture wars, head on. Meanwhile, polls currently show party leader Pierre Poilievre on his way to a majority government as voters rally to his message about the rising costs of housing and living. …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The amazing story of Terry Fox you haven’t heard
50:44
50:44
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
50:44
Bill Vigars was starting a new gig at the Canadian Cancer Society when he flew to the East Coast to check out an unknown kid with one leg planning to run a personal marathon a day across Canada for cancer research. Before he knew it, Vigars was helping Terry Fox make the Marathon of Hope a national phenomenon that’s kept Terry’s legacy alive for de…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
How COVID’s ‘pandexicon’ changed the way we speak—and think
45:51
45:51
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
45:51
Things were different in the “before times.” Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we weren’t all experts in viral variants or polymerase chain reaction tests. We’d never heard of “vaccine apartheid” or “social distancing.” No one drank “quarantinis” after enduring a “covidivorce.” And “self-isolating” and “lockdowns” were things to be avoided. In his ne…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Inside Canadian school boards, ‘if you disagree…you’re punished’
46:48
46:48
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
46:48
Mike Ramsay was friends with former Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto, whose suicide after allegedly enduring false bigotry accusations in an anti-racism session has shocked Canadians. And Ramsay says he’s experienced similar vilification. He’s been called a “white supremacist.” He’s been suspended as a school trustee in Waterloo, Ont. He says it’…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Crime reporting today is making things worse
49:53
49:53
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
49:53
Formerly one of Canada’s top crime reporters, Tamara Cherry witnessed gruesome violence and terrible trauma. What she says she didn’t realize was how the way she and others covered the crime beat was worsening pain for survivors, responders and reporters themselves. Cherry, author of the new book The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
The real reasons Taylor Swift isn't coming to Canada (for now)
48:39
48:39
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
48:39
The economics of the music business have been turned upside down in recent years. For artists and fans alike, concerts now are king. Legendary publicist, writer and music maven Eric Alper joins Brian this week to discuss why this summer’s concert season in particular is making history, why some concert tickets now cost more than plane tickets, and …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada could be an Arctic superpower, but Ottawa walked away
38:53
38:53
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
38:53
It’s where we should be building up capabilities against Russia’s hypersonic missiles and Chinese spy aircraft coming over the North Pole. But news the Liberal government is closing the Canadian International Arctic Centre is the latest indication Ottawa doesn’t get the importance of the North. After the Harper government made the Arctic a bigger p…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Price-fixing at Canada’s grocery stores is bigger than just bread
38:40
38:40
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
38:40
Food inflation is showing no signs of letting up soon, as guest Sylvain Charlebois tells Brian Lilley this week. But grandstanding politicians yelling about “greedflation” by allegedly avaricious grocers are looking in the wrong place, says Charlebois, professor of food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. The recent guilty plea by Cana…
…
continue reading