The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

We’re going to get right to it. A deep dive into Ontario Politics and Queen’s Park. The stories and the players. With us to do that, two journalists who know the scene better than most: Steve Paikin and Jessica Smith Cross.

Steve is making his third appearance on the pod. Journalist, author, documentary producer and anchor of TVO’s flagship current affairs program, the Agenda.

Jessica is making her second appearance. And with that, has attained official “friend of The Herle Burly” status. She’s helped launch the excellent TheTrillium.ca and serves as its Editor-in-Chief. Prior to the Trillium, she was Editor-in-Chief of iPolitics and Queen’ Park Briefing.

Join us to discuss Ontario and the start of the next election!

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

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The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

Greetings, Herle Burly-ites! And a happy, pre-rum and coke weekend to you loyal pod listeners. We’ve assembled our #PolicyPanel again to give us their thoughts on what has easily been the most contentious piece from the recent budget: the capital gains tax debate.

Tyler Meredith, Ken Boessenkool, and Dr. Jennifer Robson are here to talk about those goddamned – or those absolutely spot on (depending on your point of view) – Capital Gains tax measures.

Tyler is the former Head of Fiscal and Economic Policy for Prime Minister Trudeau and Ministers of Finance, Chrystia Freeland and Bill Morneau. Today, he’s a Founding Partner at Meredith/Boessenkool Policy Advisors.

Ken is the other, more conservative half of that founding partnership. He’s one of Canada’s leading policy strategists, having worked for Prime Minister Harper, Premier Klein, and Christy Clark among others. And he’s a research fellow at the CD Howe Institute.

Jennifer has been in senior roles in policy development and research with the Federal Government. She’s now Program Director and Associate Professor of Political Management at Carleton University. Her research centres on the intersection of household finances and the design and implementation of social policy.

So who better to dive into this topic and tax policy more generally? The answer is nobody. Nobody, godammit!

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

We’re joined by two fine writers today, each of whom just launched books dealing with the same subject matter: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his rise and his rule.

Stephen Maher has been writing about Canadian politics since 1989 as a columnist and reporter for Postmedia, iPolitics, and Maclean’s. He’s a multi-award-winner, and his latest book is called: “The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau.”

Paul Wells has, for years, been one of one of Canada’s great political journalists. Formerly at Maclean’s, the National Post and The Gazette, he now publishes his own widely read subscription newsletter, paulwells.substack.com. His book is: “Justin Trudeau on the Ropes: Governing in Troubled Times.”

As you might expect, we’ll talk about what compelled them both to write about Trudeau and contrast their respective takes.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

Our guest today is a long-time friend of the pod, back for his third appearance, Andrew MacDougall!

Andrew is the former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Harper. Now he lives in London, England where he’s a Director at Trafalgar Strategy, and writes about politics and current affairs, and appears frequently on TV, in all the best journalistic places. That includes his most recent piece in The Star on the snap, soggy election call by UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.

Today we’re going to talk about what this election is about and the issues confronting the United Kingdom. And the overlap and lessons for he Canadian political scene. With more on Poilievre, Trudeau, and Singh.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

This pod is a real treat for all you data nerds. With us today is pollster, data scientist, former Herle protégé and proud daughter of Humboldt, Saskatchewan … Kyla Ronellenfitsch!

I mean, what can I tell you about Kyla the overachiever? She started her career with me at the Gandalf Group – I think she was about 11 years old at the time – and ended up leading the research for the Ontario Liberal Party during the 2018 election. Tough gig, that one. Kyla’s been dividing her time between Canada and the U.S, for the past few years. In 2021, she founded her own full-service polling firm, Relay Strategies, based in Ottawa. She also consults with Change Research out of San Francisco, on thought leadership and product development. Kyla holds a Master of Science in Analytics from the University of Chicago, and Master of Political Management from Carleton. And she’s the first alumnus of that latter program to return as an instructor.

Today we’ll be taking a data deep dive into a fresh qual and quant study (1) from Kyla. She’s explored attitudes about Trudeau as Prime Minister. Just exactly how bad is it out there for him? What do people think of Poilievre? What difference might a change in Liberal leadership make and what would people be looking for in any new Liberal leader?

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

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(1) https://relaywithkyla.beehiiv.com/p/welcome-1st-relay-kyla-ronellenfitsch

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

Greetings you curious, you courageous Herle Burly-ites. The Honourable Tim Houston, 30th Premier of Nova Scotia is here!

Premier Houston was first elected to the House of Assembly, representing Pictou East, in 2013 after a successful career in business. He was elected leader of the PC Party of Nova Scotia in 2018 and in 2021, running a masterful campaign, took down a popular Liberal government … winning a very surprising majority.

Today, we’re going to dive a little deeper into his background and experiences in politics. What shaped his vision for Nova Scotia? And then, the big issues at hand:

• Healthcare.
• Climate Change.
• Housing.
• And finally, the Portapique massacre and the RCMP.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

You highly engaged politicos probably know that The Herle Burly’s first cousin, once removed, is Hotel Pacifico – your 5-star podcast destination for all things in B.C. politics – and part of the Air Quotes Media universe.

Today, we’re bringing the 2 pods together – a little like a 60-minute shotgun wedding – because our guest is Geoff Meggs, who, along with Kate Hammer and Mike McDonald, is one of the 3 fantastic people you can listen to weekly at Hotel Pacifico. Geoff is a decades-long political player in B.C. – both as an elected official and senior backroom strategist. He was Chief of Staff to Premier Horgan from 2017 until Horgan’s retirement in 2022. He served 3 terms as a member of Vancouver’s City Council. He was comms director to Premier Glen Clark. Chief of Staff to Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell. And he’s a helluva thinker and writer who contributes regular opinion pieces to our online magazine, “Quotes”.

So, who better to talk about what are pretty massive political shifts, in B.C.?

• Drug policy changes.
• Working people and their relationship with both the NDP and CPC.
• Horgan’s NDP vs Eby’s NDP vs Singh’s NDP.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

I’ll just say it: We’d be hard pressed to find a more relevant or newsworthy topic than what we’re going to talk about today. Israel. Hamas. And the war in Gaza. The rise of antisemitism. The protests on college campuses all over North America.

With me to do that is Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed.

Ambassador Moed has been in the post since August of last year. Immediately prior, he was the Deputy Head of African Affairs for Israel’s Foreign Ministry. And he spent 10 years working in Cyber Security for the Israeli government. So, the bulk of this pod will be spent exploring some of the more, frankly, uncomfortable questions on peoples’ minds.

Why did the war in Gaza have to be fought in this manner? How does it end? How does it help the hostages? (Who’ve been held captive 209 days as of this recording.) What comes next? And what of the response here in Canada and North America. Both from government and in culture.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

One of my favourite things about this gig, is the panel conversations we put together here on the pod. I think they’re unique conversations, with a level of experience and depth of thinking all-too rare these days in media.

This series is one of my favourites… The Chiefs are back! Making their 5th appearance here on The Herle Burly, 3 former Chiefs of Staff to some of Canada’s most accomplished heads of government.

Ian Brodie – first Chief of Staff to Stephen Harper, and central to the founding of the CPC. Now … Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary.

Tim Murphy – former Chief of Staff to Paul Martin … now CEO and Managing
Partner at McMillan LLP.

Brian Topp – former Chief of Staff to Rachel Notley in Alberta … Deputy Chief to Roy Romanow in Saskatchewan … and one of the architects of Jack Layton’s Orange Wave. Today, he’s a founding partner at GT&co.

We struck this panel to discuss the issues from the perspective of people who think about them NOT as campaigners do — i.e., what might be ideal in a political sense — but rather, from the POV of what’s possible to deliver in a governing sense. And so today, 7 days after the federal budget and its suite of measures, we’ll do a situation assessment of the government and all the parties. So, all the governing grist you could ever want, packed into the next hour.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.

Joining me on the pod, are all the policy chops you could ever want. Our own Herle Burly Budget Lock-up! THE policy panel is here making their 4th appearance on the show: Dr. Jennifer Robson, Sean Speer and Tyler Meredith.

I’ll just remind you of their bona fides…

Jennifer has held senior roles in policy development and research with the Federal Government. She’s now Program Director and Associate Professor of Political Management at Carleton University. Her primary areas of research are at the intersection of household finances and the design and implementation of social policy.

Sean is a former senior economic advisor to Prime Minister Harper. Today, he’s Senior Fellow at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He’s also a Founder and Editor-at-Large at the very excellent, TheHub dot ca.

Tyler is the former Head of Fiscal and Economic Policy for Prime Minister Trudeau and Ministers of Finance, Chrystia Freeland and Bill Morneau. Today, he’s a Founding Partner at Meredith/Boessenkool Policy Advisors.

Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.