Topping off a disastrous first few months in office, even a healthy does of Dani Dollars couldn't wash down the stink that was the Alberta UCP's Bill 1: the Sovereignty Act. But as the feds remain "prudently" silent, who is going to step up to the defend a now seriously threatened federation? Now that provinces are regularly experimenting with the notwithstanding clause to expand their powers, is it time to re-evaluate Canada's federal constitution before our wayward premiers unilaterally dismantle it? This week on the pod, your hosts debate whether its time to ditch federalism altogether and ..read more

By now, Canada has become so used to being pushed around by Big Brother America it almost seems second nature, but since the sowing of the legacy of Norman Bethune and Trudeau senior being amongst the first of Western leaders to recognize the PRC, we've been less accustomed to the bullying antics of the Middle Kingdom. But, as Napoleon once warned, China is a sleeping dragon whose awakening cannot be taken lightly, leading many to worry that the recent embargoes of Canadian agricultural products, kidnapping of Canadian citizens and the public dressing down of the Canadian prime minister are ju ..read more

This week, Loblaws announced it was freezing food prices for three months, cleverly managing to ignore the previous two years of skyrocketing produce costs (and record profits). Following a distressing pattern of similar behaviour, however, ranging from the fixing of bread prices to a temporary bump up and then retrenchment of Loblaws' staff's "hero pay", Canadians can hardly expect different from their grocery oligopolies by now. Unfortunately, with the cost of living crisis in full swing, it's behaviour that will soon be bringing malnutrition and widespread hunger to what was once the Great ..read more

The episode title speaks for itself. Three hundred and thirty years since the Glorious Revolution and the establishment of constitutional monarchy in Britain, now is the best and most obvious time to end this antiquated and costly institution. When the best argument to keep something is merely that it's difficult to do away with, a healthy, well balanced, mentally sane person would realize they're in a relationship of convenience at best or miserable co-dependence at worst with their lordship.  This week, Liam and Jacob articulate just how "British North America" can finally sever itself ..read more

While the world focusses its attention on the crowning of King Charles III, the CPC held another coronation this Saturday for who is now its unquestionable supreme leader: Pierre Poilievre. Liam and Jacob watched the results announcement live and experimented with a streaming broadcast of their quick-takes and on-demand reaction. In the beginning of this special episode, they were joined also by Chris Curtis of the Rover, an independent Quebecois journalist reminiscing about the time he was nearly killed by Charest's SQ goons during Quebec's student uprising.  While it was a regrettable ..read more

While the verbal assault against Chrystia Freeland by a large, angered Albertan known to his friends as "Moose" this week dominated political headlines and was called out by the Minister of Public Safety as a "threat to democracy", Danielle Smith's plans for the Sovereignty Act, a constitutional crisis that very well could out Canadian democracy under real strain went mostly ignored. This week on the pod, your hosts discuss how the progressives can effectively respond to these anti-democratic challenges without falling to the level of moral denouncements and high-horse finger-waving.  ..read more

Ever since our episode on religious schooling, listeners have been hankering for a round 2, and now Speech from the Throne is finally obliging! Longtime friend and fan of the show, a mystery man known online only as "Gabe", has been brought to the show to debate Jacob once again on the issue of publicly funded religious schooling ... only this time, it's personal. After twelve haunting years of Jewish formal education before university, Gabe is on a mission to ensure no other child will ever suffer as he did. Who will reign in this verbal clash of iconoclasts? Will the Kenney model of pluralis ..read more

Journalism has always had its risks, and after Rachel Gilmore this week unveiled a coordinated harassment and terror campaign directed towards herself and other female (as well as BIPOC) journalists only to receive crickets from police in response, it seems the field is not getting any safer. But was a mass-market model that generated as much profit from journalism as possible while relying on taxes from said profits to fund police who protect those reporters always something of a fantasy to begin with?  Does the older subscription model, where journalists are embedded in a political move ..read more

State-funded church schools have been controversial in Canada since before the country was even founded, yet three provinces still maintain Catholic school-boards to this day. While most reformers seek to exorcise church control over education entirely, some (like the roundly mocked) John Tory have sought to spread the model of publicly funded religious schooling to other religious denominations.   This week, your hosts debate the issue, with Jacob coming out swinging for religious education as a way to promote cultural pluralism and hedge against anti-state radicalization; and Liam stron ..read more

Pope Francis has issued an apology (of sorts) for the genocidal actions of his church in their managing of Indian Residential Schools, but repairing the damage of forced conversion has been halting at best. One potential source of remediation still stares politicians in the face: taxing large religious institutions. This week, Liam and Jacob discuss how the Canadian state should begin redistributing the stolen, colonial wealth that helped build the Roman Catholic Church into one of the richest organizations in human history, taking the spoils and redirecting it towards the Church's many victim ..read more