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 president Stephen LeDrew and National Post columnist Chris Selley appraise this week with host Brian Lilley. They discuss the reverence for Chrétien in the Liberal party and certain media, despite his cringey opinions and debatable morality. They also look at how much weirder the Liberals have become since the man stepped down. (Recorded January 18, 2023)
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Jean Chrétien looks better now compared to the alternative

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.

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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. That lofty self-image has given Trudeau preternatural confidence and bravado, but it’s also made him capricious and vain, as Maher tells Brian, as they recount the moments in the prime minister’s political life that show why Trudeau isn’t like the rest of us. (Recorded May 31, 2024)
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Regular-people rules don’t apply to ‘Prince’ Trudeau

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 the ultra-low price is made possible by China’s dubious business practices and its aggressive plan to dominate strategic industries, dumping boatloads of cars here that will overwhelm North American businesses and workers, all while raking in subsidies from Canadian taxpayers. A worried Washington just whacked Chinese EVs with a 100-per-cent tariff. Canada is doing nothing — something Volpe says needs to change “yesterday.” (Recorded May 17, 2024)
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We’re under attack from Chinese electric cars

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 the Liberals have no better option — no obvious candidate who could outdo Trudeau. Chris and Brian also talk about the Liberals’ denial of a growing sense of Canadian lawlessness — from campus invasions to killers out on bail — and Poilievre’s intriguing and unprecedented promise to use the notwithstanding clause to get tough on crime, if need be. (Recorded May 16, 2024)
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It’s too late now for Liberals to replace Trudeau

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 open-source monitoring of antisemitism on social media, joins Brian this week to explain how Hamas and its backers exploit weaknesses in online content screening. And, she says, they can leverage the algorithms in TikTok, Twitter and Facebook to spread messages that promote terror, spread misinformation and fuel the hatred seen at protests gripping our cities and our university campuses. (Recorded May 2, 2024)
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TikTok terror: How Hamas successfully hijacked your social media

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. Julian Somers tells Brian this week. Meanwhile, leaders promoting ever more “safe supply” grew too friendly with pharmaceutical producers. Somers, an addictions specialist, explains how this complete abandonment of harm-reduction principles, including any focus on recovery, created the catastrophe that has B.C. now desperately reversing course — even as other Canadian governments plan to repeat its mistakes. (Recorded May 2, 2024)
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Jean Chrétien looks better now compared to the alternative

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