Lean Out with Tara Henley

Canada’s immigration system was once the envy of the world. And for decades, the country enjoyed a bipartisan pro-immigration consensus. But during the Trudeau years, that consensus fell apart. Our guest on the program this week delivered the 2025 McGill Max Bell Lectures on this topic. His new book explores where we went wrong.

Tony Keller is a columnist at The Globe and Mail. His book is Borderline Chaos: How Canada Got Immigration Right, and Then Wrong. It has been shortlisted for the Donner Prize, which will be awarded tomorrow night in Toronto.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

We know that young women are increasingly unhappy — with high rates of depression and anxiety — and our guest on the program this week says there’s good reason for that. In her new book, she argues that girlhood has dramatically changed in the Internet era and that young women have been transformed from people into products.

Freya India is a British writer and commentator, and a staff writer at Jonathan Haidt’s newsletter After Babel. Her new book is GIRLS: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything. 

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

What does it mean to be a man? Our guest on the program this week has published a book that examines that very question. It is part memoir, part meditation on masculinity, and part detective story — as he unearths the secret life of his charismatic alpha male father and forges a new version of manhood, putting himself and his family back together on the page.

Tom Junod is an award-winning American journalist and a senior writer for ESPN. The film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is based on an article that he wrote for Esquire. Tom’s new memoir is In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In recent years, viewpoint diversity has become a loaded term. But our guest on the program this week says it is vital that we renew our commitment to dialogue, especially across lines of difference. He has edited a new book that brings together prominent professors and journalists to make the case for free speech, intellectual humility, and societal pluralism — in higher education, politics, and the literary world.

John Tomasi is an American political philosopher and the president of Heterodox Academy. He is the editor, with Bernard Schweizer, of the new book Viewpoint Diversity: What It Is, Why We Need It, and How to Get It.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

There can be no doubt that we are living through politically charged times — and this is especially true at North American universities. My guest on the program this week has spent the past decade making a documentary about unrest on campus. She says many faculty and students are now afraid to debate the big issues of our time, and she worries that we are losing the ability to speak across differences.

Ric Esther Bienstock is an Emmy Award-winning Canadian filmmaker. Her new two-part documentary, Speechless, is available for streaming now on CBC Gem.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

We are at a pivotal moment in Canada, as we reflect on our past and try to forge a more unified future in the face of tensions with the United States. Our guest on the program says now is a good time to reexamine our key institutions. This week, he has published an entertaining new book about the office of Governor General, just as speculation abounds that we may be about to get a new one.

John Fraser is a veteran Canadian journalist, an author, and an academic. He is a former Master of Massey College, and the current executive chair of the National NewsMedia Council of Canada. His latest book is The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada’s Highest Office.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In the United States right now, a group of feminists is taking stock of the movement — where it is at and where it’s gone wrong. Our guest on the program this week is one of those feminists. Her new book argues that our problem is we’ve bought into an idea of radical autonomy, which is not possible for human beings. It is, in fact, disconnected from physical reality.

Leah Libresco Sargeant is an American writer. She runs the Substack newsletter Other Feminisms and her latest book is The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

This week on the Lean Out podcast we are shifting our focus from the political to the personal. Our guest on the program has written a remarkable memoir about her time in the food world, her story of addiction and recovery — and what she learned from her years collaborating with the late Anthony Bourdain.

Laurie Woolever is an American writer and editor. Her latest book, a New York Times bestseller, is Care and Feeding: A Memoir.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

As tensions mount within the United States — and between the United States and Canada — it has never been more important to understand each other. Our guest on the program this week is the head of a depolarization non-profit and his latest research paints a nuanced and complex portrait of Trump voters and the cultural attitudes and policy positions that energize them.

Jason Mangone is the executive director of More in Common U.S. Its latest report is Beyond MAGA: A Profile of the Trump Coalition.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Many of us grew up reading classics from the great Judy Blume, from Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Blume, now in her eighties, is famous for writing about childhood and adolescence with humour and heart. This week, our guest on the program has published a remarkable book documenting her life story.

Mark Oppenheimer is an American journalist and author. He’s the editor of the online religion and politics magazine ARC. His latest book is Judy Blume: A Life.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com