Beyond the Ballot with Renee Merrifield and Jim Csek

The Prime Minister's in-flight food bill for 3 trips was $195,400. It’s been confirmed that Canadians will never be told what is in the security agreement Carney signed with China. And Canada has fallen from 2nd to 19th in the U.S. News Best Countries rankings, dropping behind the United States for the first time.

The contradictions are stacking up faster than the explanations. The cost per asylum claimant now exceeds the average Canadian salary. The Senate concealed 200,000 signed postcards opposing a hate speech bill in a warehouse. And Housing Minister Gregor Robertson says he believes Aboriginal title and fee simple title should co-exist on private property.

Join Jim Csek and Iain Burns as they make sense of it all.

Today on The Really Big Show:

►The Canadian Taxpayers Federation reveals Carney billed taxpayers $195,400 for airplane food on 3 flights to London, Rome and Brussels, including $93,780 for a single Rome trip, more than double what Trudeau spent on the same destination in 2024

►Food Banks Canada recorded 2.2 million visits in a single month, double the usage of 6 years ago, with 1 in 3 clients being children and nearly 1 in 5 being employed workers who still cannot afford groceries

►Steven Guilbeault confirms he will resign his Montreal seat this summer, telling the House "the fight is not over" while hinting he is not alone, with 14 Liberal MPs having already signed a letter expressing similar concerns to Carney

►Canada has fallen from 2nd place in 2023 to 19th in U.S. News and World Report's Best Countries rankings, dropping behind the United States for the first time, with the publication noting its reformed methodology now measures statistical indicators rather than perception

►Canada has failed to reach a trade deal with the U.S. nearly a year after Carney promised one, with serious doubts growing about the fate of an agreement CBC calls "crucial to the Canadian economy"

►Poilievre says Liberal MPs admitting they never read the Alberta MOU signals the pipeline is "all an illusion" and that Carney has told them it is never going to happen anyway

►Canadians will never be told what is in the security agreement Carney signed with China's Ministry of Public Security, the same ministry that operated secret police stations on Canadian soil

►China's foreign minister arrives in Ottawa for the first time in a decade as a new Montreal Institute for Global Security report warns of China's "systemic" interference in foreign countries, with its executive director saying Beijing has "murdered Canadian citizens, harassed Canadian citizens and stolen top intellectual property"

►The total government cost per asylum claimant has hit $82,000 annually, more than the average Canadian salary of $68,000

►Carney refuses to explain remarks caught on a hot mic telling Housing Minister Gregor Robertson "what are you doing, this is stupid, you've got an off-ramp, take it"

►Housing Minister Gregor Robertson says he believes Aboriginal title and fee simple title should co-exist on private property, which is precisely what the Cowichan ruling declared, yet the federal government is simultaneously appealing that same ruling days after Liberals and NDP voted to reject a Conservative motion protecting private property rights

►A former RCMP deputy commissioner told a Senate committee that organized crime is infiltrating Canada's West Coast fishery through fishing licences and crab quotas held by unknown beneficial owners

►The Senate concealed 200,000 individually signed postcards opposing Bill C-9 in a Gatineau warehouse marked for destruction, with senators told only a sample box would be delivered to their offices before the voteThe Prime Minister spent more on airplane food for 3 flights than most Canadians earn in 3 years. Last month 2.2 million of those Canadians visited a food bank. Is there a clearer illustration of who this government is governing for?

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Steven Guilbeault resigns from the Liberal caucus today. China's foreign minister arrives in Canada tomorrow for the first visit in 10 years. And Ottawa is announcing an LNG deal with Germany from a facility that has not yet made a final investment decision.

Join Jim Csek and Iain Burns as they make sense of it all.The Liberal coalition is fracturing over climate, the trade relationship with Washington is deteriorating while Mexico moves ahead without Canada, and a Buy Canadian policy that allows fully foreign-owned companies to qualify as Canadian suppliers is being defended without irony.

The announcements keep coming. The details keep undermining them.

Today on The Really Big Show:

►Carney calls Alberta's independence referendum a "dangerous bluff", as Smith fires back that this is a decision for Albertans, not Ottawa, and confirms she will campaign for Alberta to remain in Canada

►Carney confirms the Clarity Act does not apply to Alberta's October referendum, describing it as "a question about a question," but warns any future binding independence vote would require a clear majority well above 50% plus 1

►Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault resigns from the Liberal caucus today over Carney's climate policy rollbacks, with sources saying he will remain as MP until the House rises to protect the government's slim majority

►Conservative MP Branden Leslie tables a motion demanding public release of the letter signed by 14 Liberal MPs expressing concern over Carney's environmental rollbacks, a letter CBC obtained but whose signatories the party refuses to name

►Ottawa is set to announce an LNG supply deal with Germany from the Ksi Lisims facility in B.C., four years after rejecting Germany's east coast LNG request, with Ksi Lisims yet to receive a final investment decision

►U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer warns Canada has taken a "different" approach to Trump's tariff policy and says it is "hard to see where that ends," as Mexico begins formal CUSMA renegotiation talks while Canada has yet to officially engage Washington

►Apple warns Bill C-22 would force companies to break encryption by inserting government backdoors into their products, saying it is something the company will never do, as Conservatives, NDP and Bloc all oppose key provisions and the government signals amendments are coming

►Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrives in Canada tomorrow for a 3-day visit, the first Chinese foreign minister to do so in 10 years, as CSIS has linked China's disproportionately high diplomatic presence in Canada to espionage, foreign interference and intimidation of Canadian politicians

►Federal managers confirmed Carney's Buy Canadian policy allows 100% foreign-owned companies with a Canadian address, a GST number and one employee to qualify as Canadian suppliers, with officials unable to confirm whether that employee must be Canadian

►Labour Minister Patty Hajdu says cabinet wants better relationships with unions despite invoking Section 107 of the Labour Code 10 times in 2 years to quash legal strikes by email, bypassing Parliament entirely, a record now subject to Federal Court litigation

►Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Nicolas Vincent and a Commons committee report both conclude immigration-driven competition is a key factor in Canada's youth unemployment crisis, with job creation down to 6,000 per month from 34,000 in late 2024 and the ability to find work at its lowest point in 30 years

►74,000 rejected asylum claimants remain eligible for federal health benefits, with taxpayers spending $38.79 million on counselling and $12.41 million on home visits for asylum claimants in 2025 alone

►Canada lost its WHO measles-free status in November 2025 after an outbreak killed 2 Canadians, yet a Public Health Agency memo downplayed the designation as "merely a classification"

The Liberal coalition is cracking, the housing market is hitting a financial inflection point, and Parliament just voted to leave property rights unprotected after a court ruling that has B.C. homeowners asking whether their homes are safe. Jim Csek and Iain Burns are here to bring you the day's news.

The cracks are showing on multiple fronts simultaneously. Steven Guilbe

ault may be days away from leaving the Liberal caucus entirely. Insolvency filings are at their highest level since 2009. And the House Leader just told 44,869 Canadians who signed a petition asking MPs to be held accountable for lying that Parliament has no business policing political speech for truthfulness.

Today on The Really Big Show:

►CTV News reports Steven Guilbeault could resign from the Liberal caucus this week, escalating his earlier cabinet resignation over Carney's decision to roll back Trudeau-era industrial emissions regulations

►A letter signed by 14 Liberal MPs expressing concern over Carney's environmental policy rollbacks was obtained by CBC News, which reported the contents but did not publish the names of the MPs who signed it

►The Bloc Québécois has publicly invited disaffected Liberal MPs unhappy with Carney's environmental rollbacks to cross the floor and join their party

►Liberals and NDP vote 199 to 139 to reject a Conservative motion to protect property rights, following a B.C. court ruling granting the Cowichan Nation Aboriginal title over 1,846 acres of privately owned land near Richmond, as property owners across B.C. ask MPs whether their homes and investments are safe

►Equifax Canada reports Canadian insolvency filings jumped 18.8% in the first quarter of 2026 to the highest level since 2009, with homeowner insolvencies up 11%, mortgage delinquencies surging 52% in Ontario and 36% in B.C., as Equifax warns Canadians have hit a "financial inflection point"

►The Privy Council's own focus group research finds most Canadians have resigned themselves to U.S. tariffs never being fully removed, with no consensus on whether Carney is on the right track despite his repeated promises to "get an even better deal"

►Eby concedes the Pacific coastline is federal jurisdiction, not B.C.'s, a significant legal admission that could limit his ability to block a federally designated pipeline project under Bill C-5

►Prime Minister Carney met with Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to advance a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement targeting conclusion by end of 2030, which would more than double two-way trade to $70 billion annually

►Federal taxpayers have spent $97.8 million housing asylum claimants in hotels in Peel Region alone, with committee testimony confirming no criminal background checks are conducted before accommodation is provided and services can flow before eligibility is confirmed

►Peel Police's Extortion Task Force dismantled an international criminal group targeting South Asian business owners, arresting 17 suspects facing charges including violent extortion, fraud and firearms offences

►Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner challenged Tim Hortons in the House of Commons over lobbying records showing the company was still seeking expanded temporary foreign worker access as recently as October 2025, weeks before launching its "hire local" campaign targeting 10,000 Canadian workers

►Five years after the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced ground-penetrating radar had detected what it claimed were 215 buried children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, no physical evidence confirming the claim has ever been presented

►Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon says Parliament has no business policing political speech for truthfulness, responding to a Liberal MP's own petition signed by 44,869 Canadians calling for MPs to face court-ordered fact-checks and suspension for lying

Catherine Swift: Canada’s economy in a ‘nut’ shell

95% of Canadians are feeling financial pressure. 52% of the average household's income now goes to shelter. And 47% say the country is on the right track, the highest figure since 2017. Jim Csek and Iain Burns try to make sense of a country where the numbers tell completely different stories depending on which ones you look at.

The gap between how Canadians feel about their own lives and how they feel about the country's direction is not a contradiction. It is a portrait of a population that has learned to separate the government's narrative from their own reality. Housing is consuming more than half of household income. One in 10 Canadians is using credit cards to cover monthly expenses. And cabinet won't disclose the budget for a Governor General swearing-in ceremony while promising $60 billion in spending cuts.

Today on The Really Big Show:►A survey finds 95% of Canadians are feeling financial pressure from rising food, housing, utility and gas costs, with 91% saying they have no control over their situation, 49% cutting back on essentials and 10% relying on credit cards to cover monthly expenses►A federal housing department memo calculated shelter costs now consume 52% of the average Canadian household's annual income, up from 38% a decade ago, with middle income families increasingly unable to buy homes and pushing rental demand higher►Abacus Data finds 47% of Canadians say the country is on the right track, the highest figure since 2017, with 76% saying the rest of the world is heading in the wrong direction and 80% saying the same about the United States specifically►Newfoundland's independent review panel declares the new Churchill Falls MOU with Hydro-Québec "not in the public interest," saying it echoes the terms of the 1969 contract widely considered the worst resource deal in Canadian history, as Premier Wakeham vows to renegotiate while Quebec warns it may walk away entirely►CPP Investments CEO says the Carney government's airport privatization plans represent "interesting opportunities," as the fund posts a 7.8% return and grows to $793.3 billion, with Ottawa and the pension funds jointly hosting an investment conference in September targeting $1 trillion in new capital►YouTube warns that the CRTC's new discoverability requirements will downgrade independent Canadian creators globally, cutting the foreign revenue that makes up the bulk of their income►Pearson Airport has seen corrupt baggage workers smuggling drugs through unwitting passengers' luggage, a quadrupling of immigration court filings since 2017, and organized crime networks operating across restricted areas, raising serious questions about security oversight at Canada's busiest airport►The Canadian Human Rights Commission says Parliament should withhold federal funding from municipalities that fail to build homes, echoing a Conservative campaign proposal Carney's government has since adopted, as Canada faces a shortfall of 4.8 million units►The Assembly of First Nations demands mandatory consultation on all future foreign trade treaties, arguing First Nations hold an inherent right to self-determination over any agreement affecting their lands and resources►Caroline Mulroney, Ontario's Treasury Board president and daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, is resigning from Doug Ford's cabinet and her York-Simcoe seat effective June 5, triggering a byelection alongside one already pending in Scarborough Southwest►CRTC research confirms a sharp generational split in how Canadians consume news, with over-55s relying on television while under-45s turn to social media, as Canadian broadcasting revenue continues a structural declineIf 95% of Canadians are under financial pressure how can 47% say the country is on the right track? Let us know what you think in the comments.The Really Big Show: The thinking Canadian's daily briefing, independent and informed.

Martha Hall Findlay is not your typical energy commentator. She is a former Liberal MP, former chief sustainability officer at Suncor, one of the architects of the Pathways carbon capture project, and now director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. She ran for the Liberal leadership on a platform of building the Northern Gateway pipeline. She spent years championing carbon capture as Canada's path forward on emissions.This May she published a piece in the Globe and Mail recommending Canada pause the entire Pathways carbon capture project. She joins Jim Csek to explain why, and to make the case for what Canada should be doing instead.This is a wide-ranging, deeply informed conversation on energy from someone with rare credibility across the political spectrum.Topics covered:► Hall Findlay's argument for pausing the Pathways CCUS project: a global consensus no longer exists, the project would reduce global emissions by just 0.02%, and Canada has more urgent priorities for the billions of dollars it would cost► Why she was one of the original architects of Pathways and what changed her mind: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Trump's election, the collapse of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, and a world that has simply moved on► Canada's 25-year failure to capitalize on its energy resources and why Hall Findlay says that crosses party lines, noting no major pipeline was built under Harper either► The chicken and egg problem blocking a west coast pipeline: producers will not increase output without a viable pipeline, and no pipeline will be built without committed production to fill it► David Eby's opposition to the pipeline, the constitutional reality of federal jurisdiction over interprovincial infrastructure under Section 92(10)(a), and why Hall Findlay says Eby cannot legally block construction► The tanker ban as an explicitly anti-pipeline measure that was never genuinely about coastline protection, with Hall Findlay calling it un-Canadian from the moment it was proposed► Supply management in dairy, poultry, and eggs: Hall Findlay raised this as a Liberal leadership candidate and still believes Canada would be better off without it► The IPCC's actual science versus how it has been reported: the reports work on probabilities and possibilities, not certainties, and have been consistently misrepresented by media and environmental groups► Why investor confidence does not return simply because regulations are trimmed and the reputational damage of being a flip-flopping jurisdiction takes years to repair► Quebec's fracking ban and the natural gas sitting under the province that a separatist referendum's economic reality might eventually unlock► Why indigenous partnership is not a challenge to be managed but an opportunity to build major projects the right way, with Hall Findlay drawing on lessons from Trans Mountain and Northern GatewayHall Findlay spent years building the case for carbon capture. She is now the one recommending Canada pause it. Watch the full conversation to understand why.Do you think Canada should continue pursuing carbon capture?Let us know in the comments.The Really Big Show: the thinking Canadian's daily briefing, independent and informed.🔴 Live every weekday at 9AM PST📍 Independent. Unapologetic. Canadian.👉 Support the show: https://thereallybigshow.caSubscribe | Share | Comment — help us grow independent Canadian media.#canadiannews #canadapolitics #canada #nowmedia #thereallybigshow #marthahallfindlay #carboncapture #canadianenergy #pathways #pipeline

The Really Big Show sat down with Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman for a conversation covering the state of Canada in 2026: antisemitism on the rise, a military without backpacks, a media that serves the government, an immigration system that stopped working, and an economy strangled by ideology.We spoke about:► The Canadian military readiness crisis: 20,000 personnel short of full complement, military housing units declared unfit for habitation by the auditor general, the Snowbirds grounded until the 2030s, and a procurement system where buying a helicopter takes longer than building one.► The Online News Act and the captured media landscape: Lantsman commits to repealing the Online News Act, calls the CBC's structural conflict of interest exactly what it is, and praises independent media for asking the questions the parliamentary press gallery will not.► Canada's regulatory labyrinth and squandered prosperity: the story of a country with the food, the oil, the critical minerals, and the human talent to be the wealthiest nation on earth, choosing poverty through ideology and bad policy.► Antisemitism in Canada: Lantsman's grandparents survived the Holocaust and her parents came to Canada because it was the safest place in the world to be Jewish. She says she can no longer make that claim with the same confidence today, and explains why 10 years of Liberal government accelerated the crisis rather than contained it.► The immigration system that was once the most admired in the world and what went wrong when targets were set well above half a million a year without the homes, doctors, or infrastructure to support it.► The Liberals' shameless political operation: Lantsman's frank assessment of how the Carney switcheroo worked, what conservatives can and cannot adopt from that playbook, and why Pierre Poilievre has won every policy argument even while losing the election.► Property rights and Aboriginal title in BC: Lantsman's moral and practical argument for fee simple property rights as the foundation of government's obligation to citizens.► The anti-American rhetoric and the hypocrisy of a prime minister whose firm moved its headquarters to New York while telling Canadians America is the enemy.► Canada as a future energy superpower: why C-69, the tanker ban, the emissions cap, and the industrial carbon tax make that future impossible under the current government.► The numbers that define Liberal Canada in 2026: highest household debt-to-income ratio in the G7, food inflation running at 6.2%, housing costs consuming over half of typical buyer income, and food bank usage near record highs even among working families.Melissa Lantsman grew up in Thornhill, the daughter of immigrants who came to Canada from the Soviet Union via Israel in the 1970s.Melissa Lantsman grew up in Thornhill, the daughter of immigrants who came to Canada from the Soviet Union via Israel in the 1970s. She went on to become one of Canada's top political strategists, then the MP for Thornhill, and now deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada under Pierre Poilievre.The Really Big Show: the thinking Canadian's daily briefing, independent and informed.🔴 Live every weekday at 9AM PST📍 Independent. Unapologetic. Canadian.👉 Support the show: https://thereallybigshow.caSubscribe | Share | Comment — help us grow independent Canadian media.#canadiannews #canadapolitics #canada #nowmedia #thereallybigshow #melissalantsman #antisemitism #canadianmilitary #onlinenewsact #canadianeconomy

The Canadian military flew a signals intercept aircraft over the Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa in 2022, lied about it when journalists asked, changed their story when the tail number was identified, and have been blocking ATIP requests ever since. Brian Isted, a former Canadian Army captain, military intelligence analyst, and founder of True Patriot Love Media, explains what he found when he went looking for answers. On recruitment: Canada has a current complement of approximately 55,000 personnel against a full complement of around 75,000. But it is not that Canadians do not want to join. Isted says six-figure numbers of Canadians have applied in recent years and cannot get in because of bureaucratic and administrative dysfunction so severe that by the time applicants complete a sixteen-month process, they have already found other work. Meanwhile the military pursued a DEI-driven push to recruit non-citizens who in some cases had been in the country for only a few months, placed them together in officer training platoons, and experienced massive attrition and serious conflict between different national groups. The irony, Isted notes, is not lost on anyone.On equipment: military police officers were sharing pistols because there were not enough to assign individually. When the pistols broke, they were cannibalizing existing firearms for parts because the weapons were so old that replacement parts no longer existed. Isted spent close to two years in procurement and has firsthand exposure to this. Seven of fourteen audited military housing units were found unfit for habitation by the Auditor General. Isted personally found asbestos removal teams quietly working in buildings where soldiers were sleeping, scheduled for times when soldiers were supposed to be away.On the DEI apparatus: Isted says the military is in a woke DEI legacy project driven by senior leadership more interested in their post-military careers than in operational readiness. General Janine Carignan, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, struck him as a nice person who does not look like she belongs commanding a force designed to kill people. Right-wing extremism was identified at the senior leadership level as the primary domestic threat to Canada, a claim that prompted people in those meetings to look around at each other in disbelief. Isted says frontline police officers and honest senior military people know what the actual threats are and it is not right-wing extremism.On capability: Canada could not defend itself without American and NATO support. The NYPD is larger than the entire Canadian Armed Forces. Canada's strength is at the special operations and senior leadership level, where it punches well above its weight internationally. But people are leaving the building because they are embarrassed of what it has become.On the COVID vaccine mandate: hundreds of people were released under what amounts to a dishonourable discharge, making them ineligible for government employment, for refusing a mandate that has since been shown to be scientifically unsound. Nobody in the chain of command that vindictively pursued those soldiers has faced any consequences.Soldiers were sharing pistols because there were not enough to go around. How much would it cost to fully equip the military police branch with individual sidearms and how does that compare to the $1.3 million spent on the LGBTQ veteran camera project?Let us know what you think in the comments.#canadiannews #canadapolitics #canada #thereallybigshow #canadianmilitary #freedomconvoy #brianisted #truepatriotlove #cafveteran

Canada's housing market does not need to crash dramatically to destroy a generation of wealth. It just needs to stay exactly where it is. Ron Butler, founder of Angry Mortgage and one of Canada's most widely followed mortgage analysts, joins Jim Csek and Iain Burns for a conversation that covers everything the government does not want Canadians to hear about what is actually happening to their homes, their mortgages, their cities, and their country.In this exclusive interview Butler delivers a systematic and unsparing account of how Canada's housing disaster unfolded and where it is headed. Toronto is the epicentre. Condos that sold for $1,300 to $1,600 per square foot in 2021 are clearing at approximately $745 per square foot today. That is a 40 to 50% loss on paper for buyers who never intended to close, assumed they could flip through assignment, and now face developers seizing deposits and litigating them for the difference. Approximately 10,000 to 15,000 people are in what Butler calls true catastrophe, lose everything territory, having refinanced their primary homes to fund deposits on investment properties that are now worth far less than the mortgage and closing costs combined.Then there is Brampton. The number one city in Canada for mortgage delinquency and court action. Butler explains why: during the foreign student boom, residents jammed 18 to 24 students into 3,500 square foot homes, collecting $800 a month per person. That income is now zero. The students are gone. The mortgages remain. The houses are going into default and prices have dropped 40% from March 2022 peaks with no floor in sight.Butler walks through his five-point program of disaster for Canadian real estate: unbridled foreign investment post-2009 that hopped from Vancouver to Toronto when bans arrived, COVID-era rates at historic lows that produced irrational buying at peak prices, pandemic work-from-home delusions that drove people to buy in places they would never have chosen, the rise of the leveraged real estate investment coach industry that convinced Canadians you could buy 12 properties on a 1.59% rate, and the co-signer phenomenon where parents who believed Toronto prices go up 8% forever co-signed mortgages their children could not qualify for and now face losses on both properties simultaneously.On the housing strategy: Build Canada Homes is social housing. Not one unit is for sale. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the program will produce approximately 26,000 additional homes over five years against Carney's promise of doubling supply to 500,000. Butler calls it the same lie Trudeau told forever and says it will never get past 100,000.On the root cause: Butler names the Anglo disease. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom all made the same mistake. They converted a place to live into a financial instrument. Every buyer had a substantial mortgage, typically 80 to 95% leverage, on an asset they believed could only go up. Trees do not grow to the sky. The aftermath always arrives.On where it goes next: down, then flat for years. No recovery. No requirement for prices to increase. The 1990s saw prices fall from 1990 to 1994 and then go nowhere for years while inflation continued to erode real values. The flat market is not the end of the pain. It is the pain continuing quietly while everything else gets more expensive. Kelowna is about to add 30% more rental capacity to a population that is not growing 30%. Rents will fall further. Young Canadians will keep leaving for Houston, Costa Rica, and Portugal because the math does not work here and they know it.The Really Big Show: The thinking Canadian's daily briefing, independent and informed🔴 Live every weekday at 9AM PST📍 Independent. Unapologetic. Canadian.👉 Support the show: https://thereallybigshow.ca#canadiannews #canadapolitics #canada #nowmedia #thereallybigshow #canadianhousing #ronbutler #mortgagecrisis #torontorealestate #angrymortgage