Full Comment - podcast cover

Full Comment

Postmediacms.megaphone.fm
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.
Last refreshed:
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Download Metacast podcast app
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

Harry and Meghan are the Royal Kardashians

The hatchet job Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been doing on the Royal family never seems to end. The exiled Royal couple have been dishing out interviews, documentaries, and now Harry’s “tell-all” book, all banging on about how badly they think they were treated. Even Americans, with their soft spot for celebrity victimhood, are tiring of the shtick, says Kinsey Schofield, long-time Royal watcher and creator and host of the royal-news website ToDiForDaily.com. She joins this week with gues...

Jan 16, 202340 min

The unlikely Conservative ‘pit bull’ of Parliament

Melissa Lantsman doesn’t fit the Conservative stereotype, which may be why the Liberals seem to fear her relentless question period attacks. The daughter of Jewish immigrants and a proud lesbian in an urban Toronto riding, Lantsman has been a rising star in Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party. Lantsman talks with guest host Brian Lilley about how she came to be Conservative. And why she thinks the Trudeau Liberals have emboldened intolerance, and made living in Canada more difficult and less a...

Jan 09, 202341 min

Best of 2022: Killing off the sad and the poor with MAID

Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2022. With disturbing recent developments in the federal Liberals’ medical assistance in dying (MAID) regime, including government workers pushing it on injured veterans, and doctors pondering euthanizing babies, we’re revisiting our interview with Dr. Sonu Gaind. He’s supporter of MAID for those suffering terminal illnesses. He’s even the physician chair of the MAID team at Toronto’s Humber River Hospital, where he’s chief of...

Jan 02, 202356 min

Best of 2022: ‘Used by the CBC’ — Wendy Mesley after the ‘N-word’ incident

Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2022 and this was one of our biggest hits. After a stellar, decades-long career at Canada’s public broadcaster, Wendy Mesley made a big mistake: she used the “N-word” with colleagues, off the air, while talking about covering the racism issue. She paid dearly for it: her reputation was ruined, she was portrayed as a bigot and her nearly 40-year CBC career was flushed away. Mesley, now free to speak her mind as co-host of “The ...

Dec 26, 202245 min

Special: Rex Murphy in discussion with Premier Danielle Smith

An extended video version of this interview will be available starting Tuesday, December 20, 2022 online at National Post ( nationalpost.com ). Special guest host Rex Murphy sits down with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to discuss her recent elevation to the premier’s office, why she’s determined to stand up to those, from environmental groups to the federal government, that she believes have been unfairly targeting Alberta — and how she's already begun to fight back. (Recorded December 17, 2022...

Dec 19, 202236 min

Offering euthanasia to struggling veterans is government policy

Multiple veterans looking for help say they were instead offered medical aid in dying by Veterans Affairs Canada. It’s clear that it’s not just one rogue agent — it’s department policy, as Mark Meincke discusses this week with guest host Brian Lilley. Meincke, himself a veteran recovering from PTSD, is host of Operation Tango Romeo, a trauma recovery podcast for veterans and first responders, where he’s spoken to several vets who were offered death by their own government. Meincke explains the s...

Dec 12, 202241 min

Interview with the lieutenant general cancelled for speaking unwokely

Lt. Gen. (ret) Michel Maisonneuve is heavily decorated, after serving 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. Then he gave a speech, while accepting the Vimy Award for his “outstanding contribution” to defending Canada and democratic values, where he criticized cancel culture, statue topplers, our weakened military, and damaging climate policies, while saluting personal responsibility and urging Canada to become a serious country again. Since then, he has been attacked and forced to resign from v...

Dec 05, 202239 min

The truth in Xi's 'very naive' insult to Trudeau

Agents of Beijing are reportedly meddling in our elections. Chinese spies have been caught infiltrating our institutions. China runs police stations on Canadian soil. When Chinese President Xi Jinping insulted Canada's prime minister recently, calling Justin Trudeau "very naive," he wasn't kidding, as Charles Burton, a long-time China scholar who served at Canada's embassy in Beijing, discusses with guest host Jackson Doughart. Xi will keep exhibiting his dominance over a Canadian government tha...

Nov 28, 202248 min

Black people can be racist, after all. (Antisemitic, too.)

Kanye West’s bigoted comments about Jews cost him his branding deal with Adidas. Kyrie Irving was suspended from the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets for promoting antisemitic conspiracies. No one should be surprised that Black celebrities are susceptible to spouting stupid, racist stuff, says Wilfred Reilly, author of the race-myth-busting book Taboo: 10 Facts You Can't Talk About. Reilly, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, joins guest host Jamil Jivani this week to discuss the bigo...

Nov 21, 202247 min

Why Trump’s ‘new right’ politics are still a force

The U.S. midterm elections didn’t deliver Republicans the “red wave” they expected. As easy as it is to blame Donald Trump, the reality of today’s American politics is more complicated, as Jai Chabria, a senior adviser to the successful Trump-backed Ohio Senate campaign of J. D. Vance, discusses with guest host Jamil Jivani this week. Although he’s not a Trump supporter himself, Chabria explains what he thinks some Republicans misunderstand about American voters, why Trump’s brand of politics ca...

Nov 14, 202244 min

A weaker Biden can be better for Canada

The U.S. midterm elections on November 8 have consequences for Canadians. An end to Democratic control of Congress could push President Joe Biden toward more Canada-friendly policies on oil and alliances, as Christopher Sands discusses with guest host Adrienne Batra. Sands, the director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute in Washington, D.C., explains how recent American ambivalence to energy security and asserting western power has impacted Canada’s foreign policy. And why younger U.S. vote...

Nov 07, 202242 min

The Emergencies Act inquiry exposes a broken system

Evidence at the inquiry into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act against this year’s Freedom Convoy in Ottawa has revealed that police and officials were unprepared and adrift. Politicians had left police ‘holding the bag,’ without resources and tools needed to deal with the protest, as Christian Leuprecht discusses in this week’s episode with guest host Adrienne Batra. Leuprecht, professor and author of Public Security in Federal Polities, explains why Canad...

Oct 31, 202235 min

How central bankers broke the economy

Make no mistake: out-of-control inflation in the U.S. and Canada is the consequence of a radical experiment by the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve. The unfairness it has created for younger generations and the middle class has been devastating. Meanwhile, the wealthy have thrived, as guest host Sabrina Maddeaux discusses with Christopher Leonard, author of the recent bestseller The Lords of Easy Money. The economic and political consequences are roiling North America even as central ...

Oct 24, 202252 min

How I barely survived a bear eating me alive

It’s the stuff of nightmares, but for Colin Dowler it was terrifyingly real. Riding his bike alone on an isolated B.C. logging road, he ran smack into a nine-foot-long male grizzly bear that brutally mauled and tried to consume him. With the predatory attack this month of a black bear that tried to eat two women in B.C., Dowler tells guest host Sabrina Maddeaux about his own harrowing tale of becoming bear prey. He describes how he fought back to narrowly escape with his life, and explains why, ...

Oct 17, 202246 min

Parents are fighting to take back race-obsessed, ‘hypersexualized’ schools

Critical race theory and radical gender ideology are turning schools from educational institutions into indoctrination centres. Asra Nomani has helped lead the battle of U.S. parents who are winning back control of schools from woke administrators and trustees. With new fronts in the school culture wars opening up in Canada, Nomani joins Anthony this week with advice for parents about how to be ‘unapologetic’ in standing up for their honour and values. And how they can get their local school to ...

Oct 10, 202233 min

Iran’s ‘revolution in the making’ isn’t just about hijabs

Protests continue to rage across Iran, weeks after erupting in response to the police killing of a young woman arrested her for not wearing her hijab. But this unleashed fury of the Iranian people has been building up for many years, as Alireza Jafarzadeh, a prominent regime critic and deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, discusses with host Anthony Furey. The growing number of regime scandals and atrocities, he says, is catching up with Iran’s ...

Oct 03, 202236 min

Our parole system makes Canadians ‘literal sitting ducks’

Myles Sanderson was in breach of parole, after 59 convictions, when he butchered 10 innocent people in Saskatchewan. A police officer and a Toronto man were murdered by a former gang member with an “extensive” record, flagged as high risk to reoffend. Dangerous people walking the streets is not an “aberration,” defence lawyer Ari Goldkind tells Anthony this week. Activism about systemic racism and anti-policing permeate Canada’s justice system, so high-risk convicts get too many breaks. But, Gol...

Sep 26, 202251 min

Poilievre turns conservatism into ‘a choice, not an echo’

The remarkable thing about Pierre Poilievre’s victory in the Conservative leadership race isn’t just how overwhelmingly he won, but that he signed up legions of new members, many of them young people, from all regions in the country. They were attracted to exactly what Poilievre’s opponents and mainstream pundits don ‘t like about him: that he’s a Conservative unafraid to stand somewhere more interesting than the middle ground, as veteran Tory strategist Michael Diamond discusses with Anthony th...

Sep 19, 202237 min

Reasons to keep calm over COVID

After more than two years of pandemic, life has returned to normal for most of us, despite panic fanatics who want us living in fear forever. But while COVID can still be dangerous, the situation is nothing like 2020 or 2021, as infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch explains in this week’s episode. And whatever this new stage is — pandemic or endemic — the important thing now, he says, is for officials to be far more honest and transparent with the public about not just the risks and re...

Sep 12, 202241 min

Oops, we hired a raving bigot to teach anti-racism

The federal Liberals handed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Laith Marouf, an “anti-racism” coach, who publicly called Jews “human feces” deserving a “bullet to the head, while also insulting Blacks, Indigenous people and others. As embarrassed officials scramble an “extensive review” into government anti-racism funding, Jonathan Kay, the Quilette editor who helped bring Marouf’s hateful behaviour to light, joins Anthony this week to discuss how the Liberals, desperate to be woke, seemingly f...

Sep 05, 202255 min

Inside the new telescope that probes the wonders of the universe and life itself

The James Webb Space Telescope is unlike anything that’s gone before it – in terms of size, power and what scientists hope it will help them understand. Greatly exceeding the capabilities of its predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, some of the Webb’s first findings have only recently been made public. Professor Adam Muzzin, an astronomer at York University, breaks down the wonders of the universe the telescope will have the power to probe – such as the formation of galaxies and planets and the ver...

Aug 29, 202231 min

Supporting Taiwan in the face of Xi’s overbearing China

The threats made by the Chinese government in response to Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan underscores how increasingly overbearing China’s authoritarian government in Beijing has become. Everyone is asking what will happen next and how the West will respond. While concerns about China dropped out of the headlines in Canada following the return of the two Michaels, the long-term issues continue to fester and worsen, says lawyer and author Gordon G. Chang. We need to get serious, argues Chang, when ...

Aug 22, 202239 min

“This is a hill to die on” – the looming fight against Liberal fertilizer rules

While the Trudeau government says new plans to reduce emissions from agricultural fertilizer usage are a harmless way to combat climate change, many farmers across the country say otherwise. It could in fact mean a reduction in food production, the closure of farms and more increases in food prices. Gerry Ritz was Canada’s agriculture minister during the Stephen Harper Conservative government and before that was a farmer in Saskatchewan for 20 years. Ritz breaks down the role fertilizers actuall...

Aug 15, 202234 min

The open-minded Canada I immigrated to is no more

Lamenting the loss of a Canada that was once more serious, more liberal and less obsessed with guilt and identity politics isn’t just for cranky old men anymore. Lydia Perovic came here in the ’90s, from a home riven by ethnic strife, enamoured with this country’s shared ideals and its agnosticism toward blood and race. But progressive media and culture mavens are dismantling so much of what attracted her, as Perovic tells Anthony in this week’s episode. The author of the new book Lost in Canada...

Aug 08, 202237 min

LIV Golf is ‘sportwashing’ a bloody Saudi regime

The golf world is at war, the instigators are a brutal, despotic regime, and it needs to be stopped, says acclaimed sports journalist Rick Reilly. The Saudi-backed LIV pro tour has golfers squaring off over the PGA versus the allure of vast sums of easy, dirty money, all while fans get the shaft. No one needed this mess, says Reilly, the bestselling author of the new book So Help Me Golf: Why We Love the Game. He joins Anthony this week to talk about how LIV’s damage can still be contained befor...

Aug 01, 202231 min

‘Used by the CBC’: Wendy Mesley after the ‘n-word’ incident

After a stellar, decades-long career at Canada’s public broadcaster, Wendy Mesley made a big mistake: she used the “n-word” with colleagues, off the air, while talking about covering the racism issue. She paid dearly for it: her reputation was ruined, she was portrayed as a bigot, and her nearly 40-year CBC career was flushed away. Mesley, now free to speak her mind as co-host of The Women of Ill Repute podcast, joins Anthony to talk about what happened, how she thinks the CBC, grappling with it...

Jul 25, 202244 min

Things you can't say about residential school grave discoveries

There’s plenty of awful things to say about Canada’s abusive residential school system. But last summer, the nation was gripped by reports that “mass graves” of children were discovered at some school sites. What you can’t say, apparently, is that those reports were mistaken and that nothing new was really discovered last year, as veteran journalist and author Terry Glavin established with his meticulously reported recent National Post feature reviewing what actually happened. Glavin joins Antho...

Jul 18, 202245 min

Airport hell is not going away

Canada recently ranked in the world for air travel delays. Flights are being cancelled by the thousands, flyers face hours-long lineups and planes sit stranded on the tarmac. Duncan Dee, former chief operating officer of Air Canada, saw this disaster coming months ago and sounded the alarm to anyone who would listen. But, as he tells Anthony in this week’s episode, federal politicians and bureaucrats ignored obvious warning signs pointing to a summer of misery, chaos and billions of dollars in t...

Jul 11, 202239 min

Conservatives have a real chance to win — or die

People are angry. Justin Trudeau has betrayed the middle class in particular, and made us all poorer for it. How Conservatives respond to this populist moment can elevate them to Canada’s party of choice or it could kill them, says Tasha Kheiriddin, author of the new book The Right Path: How Conservatives can unite, inspire and take Canada forward . The good news? Tories don’t need to become Liberal-lite to win over young, urban or immigrant groups looking for an alternative to the Liberal-NDP d...

Jul 04, 202242 min

More lockdowns are coming. Danielle Smith says she’s the resistance.

When infections inevitably start rising soon, expect pressure on provinces to start locking down again. But Danielle Smith tells Anthony there will be no such thing ever again in Alberta if she’s in charge. Smith, the former Wildrose party leader now running for leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party and premier, explains why her first order of business will be breaking the province’s toxic relationship with Ottawa. And why that means no longer following national directions on pandemic po...

Jun 27, 202236 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android