¶ Intro / Opening
Det är festivalsäson och det betyder massor av lera. Så Alex ruffar in på Amazon för att hitta ett tält som rymmer upp till fem torra vänner, en musikampingsäng.
Ooh.
Och leopardmönstrad i gungstövarar meow! Nu får alle hantera precis. Det var lagom mycket lera för Alex, vilket är betydligt mindre lera än för den där ledigt ansonde mannen där borta. Men vänta, har de bara lera på sig? Japp! Bara lera. Håll dig torr, får du hända! Hittar du på Amazon.se
🎵 Music
¶ Material Girls Revisit Heated Rivalry
Hello and welcome to Material Girls, a pop culture podcast that uses critical theory to understand the zeitgeist. I'm Marcel Cosman.
And I'm Hannah McGregor, and this week we're pulling a Material Girls First, revisiting an object of study. Uh we promised that we were going to, and we're doing. We're doing exactly what we promised. We're giving the people what they want, which is more heated rivalry content. We are simply delighted to be breaking our own rules to dip back into the heated rivalry well.
Listeners will remember that in our previous Heated Rivalry episode, Heated Rivalry by the Puritanical Eye, we were joined by Sister of the Pod Hope Rehack to help us talk about the romance of it all. Today we're taking a slightly different but no less sexy approach. Arts funding in Canada.
God, I'm so excited. This podcast episode is brought to you by the government of Canada.
Except that it's not.
Mm-hmm.
And to help us think through the Canadiana of it all, we're delighted to welcome to the show our special guest, John Bat. Born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick, John Bat, pronouns he him is the brain behind the popular Instagram account at canada.gov.ca. curating stories from the obscure and often bizarre side of Canadian history and culture.
The tales and memes ride that sweet line between education and entertainment, recounting yarns about queer musical resistance in seventies Toronto bars, celebrating inspirational Pharaoh dumpsters and skewering greedy Galen Weston. He's taken his one-man show, a cross between a TED Talk and a couple of drinks with a good buddy.
on the road all over Canada and counts Canadian music heavyweights like Springhill's Anne Murray and Greg Keeler of Blue Rodeo among his loyal followers. It's not a podcast. It's not stand-up comedy. It Canada.gov.ca Welcome John
¶ Decoding Heated Rivalry's Canadian Traits
Alright, thanks for having me.
Welcome.
So to get us in the right headspace for this conversation, I'm gonna ask both of you What is the most Canadian thing about heated rivalry? And you can answer in whatever way you want. You can relate it to content or production. Just to give you an example, I'll go first. I insist that the most Canadian thing about this series is the amount of echo that you hear when you watch.
Now do do you mean do you mean just like a sort of general like lack of population around the characters? Is that is that what this means? Just sort of like Lower lower population level, there's just more space.
I mean, maybe thematically, but like you can tell it's a Canadian production because every time they're talking in a room, there's so much echo. And American productions don't have that. They get rid of the echo.
I see.
We don't know how they do it, but they do it with US money.
Yeah. There's more people in the room to absorb the sound.
That's gotta be it.
love that premise. It's the meat bath.
Or ten percent of US population. So you
I mean, I'm gonna tag on to that and say that it's all of the brutalism. All of the brutal major scenes are constantly in or near large poured concrete buildings. They'll be like having a moody scene in a hotel room and then through the window you see just like the ugliest concrete building you've ever seen in your life and you're like, that's Toronto. I see you. I see you girl. And I will tell you, those buildings create a lot of echo, a lot of hard. walls in those poured concrete buildings.
Are we worried about like spoilers or anything at this time or are we we're under the assumption that people have seen the series?
That's a great question, John. And if the listeners to this episode haven't seen the series at least six or seven times. I'll be surprised.
All right. Something that really stuck out for me is feeling extremely comedian. Um, and I'm not sure if this is gonna resonate with either of you two or not, but after Shane and Ilya have been walked in on by Shane's father at the cottage, Shane and Ilya then drive over to Shane's Parents or where they're staying.
And before anyone's sexuality is addressed, Shane's father starts by going on a very specific apologetic rant in that he explains he was only at the house because he and his wife have the wrong iPhone chargers. Essentially saying that he needed a USB lightning charger, whereas where he was, they only had USB-C for the new phone. This moment seemed to be very of the moment and sort of a perfect dad moment. Yeah. Here is this man thwarted by technology.
a little bit confused yet presumptuous in that he just showed up to the cottage without notice. Another sort of dad thing to do, I think. But obviously the first thing he does is an instinctively apologize. in this adorable way. Obviously we're set up for the case that this event, this little moment might go extremely poorly.
Shane says that it's his nightmare to get bound out like this. But of course, in what's hopefully I think considered a more predictable outcome, his boomer parents are actually quite supportive. Mm-hmm. And his father's even apologetic, which of course is sort of this Canadian trope that we're a little too sorry all the time. And in a less humorous, but perhaps equally as Canadian mom, a chain that apologizes to his mother for not being straight.
And even tells her that he's tried. His, you know, and I think that was kind of perhaps the most heartbreaking scene in the whole show for me.
That scene made me cry the hardest.
Yeah, he had just unsuccessfully tried to date Rose Landry, sort of getting it his best shot, but it it didn't work out. So not to beat a dead horse with Canadian tropes. But we have two apologies in that scene. One very funny. And one a little more serious, but uh I think that those were sort of kind of particular Canadian moments for me for sure.
Perfect. I love it.
Yeah, Shane does a lot of apologizing. Unfortunately, it's a trope that I wish was less true. Yeah. But we are very sorry.
Yeah, it's it's definitely a thing that I get tired of thinking about. that were like that, but you you just really notice it in its absence. Like when you're in the United States and um like the way people even ask for something like I'm a get uh like this when they're at like a restaurant instead of could I please.
So I think that everything has to do with just sort of these weird little conventions that we have with with manners. But the the notion that it was instinctive for the father to go on a specific rant about iPhone chargers in this moment, I think, was was pretty
Hey, that was a longer than usual first segment. Sorry, coach.
Sorry code.
Uh sorry catch.
¶ Friendship: A Core Element Examined
It's time for why this, why now, a segment that asks the materialist question: what are or were the historical, ideological, and material conditions for our object of study to become?
Zeitgeisty. Hannah, you did a beautiful job in our previous Heated Rivalry episode outlining Jacob Tierney's commitment to faithfully adapting Rachel Reed's hockey romance book. Great job. So proud of you. Thank you. We talked about MLM or Men Loving Men romance genre. And I'm sure everyone knows that Hudson Williams and Connor Story both got matching tattoos that say sex sells. But after sex.
What's the most important element that Jacob Tierney had to get right in this adaptation? Wrong answers only.
I think that Jacob Tierney has to remember that this is a show about friendship as much as anything else.
So tender.
constantly see characters aiming to be considerate in some of the relationships that are or were sexual, they are first and foremost friends who seem to be like kind of managing each other's expectations the whole way along, which I think is sort of something very new in um relationships, like being that considerate, you're acting outside of labels.
And then so you're sort of re updating the other person along the way where the two of you are at. I obviously appreciated That uh Rose Landry wants to not just remain cordial with Shane, but wants to remain best friends, or rather become best friends. And then there's also Steadlana's loyalty to Ilya, who is his best friend before or after anything. Like they have sex sometimes, but he constantly refers to her as his best friend.
And obviously there's an element that she may be And in love with Ilya, but also I think she's so she's so beautiful and s and such a kind of a woman in her own character that like she's not hurting for other attention as well. I think is
No, Spedlam is fun. Yeah.
Svelena's doing just fine. But also like she does say in reference to Shane, who she calls Jane, because Jane is sort of Jane Doe in this element that Jane is a lucky whoever he may be. Dress out was pretty cool the way that they sort of indicate that she knows that he's obviously bisexual. Yeah. Then there's also the question to be asked as to whether or not Shane and Ilya are friends.
uh or just involved in a sexual relationship because they pretend to be frenemies, but they of course care very deeply about each other. And they seemingly act against their own best interests at times. and instead are acting in the best interest of the other. So I think it's in Jacob Tierney's best interest to get these friendships right in that regard so as to make everything else more believable, but also like spicier.
At the same time, it reminds me of people wrongfully interpreting the trailer park boys as a show about criminals.
When in fact
Like, yeah, sure, it is a show about criminals coming up with these sketchy little schemes and everything. But at the end of the day, it's a show about friendship. It's a show about these three guys that love each other. that will will do anything for each other. So yeah. I think that in this super spicy show. We're overlooking friendship.
Yeah, I mean I love that such a tender answer, John. And also, you know, fortunately for the continuity of Marcel's script, it's also wrong. So you so you nailed it. It was wrong answers only and and that was wrong. It's not the next most important element.
Ha ha ha ha!
Damn, absolutely owned.
Marcel, what's the right answer?
Okay, so the right answer is hockey. No, I don't know. I'm just fucking around here.
¶ CanCon Requirements And Hockey's Role
So, okay, so here's the thing. Heat of rivalry is a Can Con miracle. CanCon, for folks who don't know, is shorthand for Canadian content. Canadians use this term all the time, often kind of facetiously.
Yeah.
Ooh, Can Con. Here in Canada, our media companies are required by the government to broadcast a set percentage of Canadian content or Canadian produced content, Canadian created content, etc. Hannah, can you please tell the people about our current CanCon requirements? If you don't know them off the top of your head, that's okay. I've got a quote for you that you can read.
Oh, it's a quote. Where's the quote from?
It's from my favorite source, Wikipedia.
Okay. Okay. Thanks, Wikipedia. Okay, here's current CanCon regulations. Okay, radio airplay, it's thirty-five percent. Those are our exceptions for classical.
Ha ha ha.
It's a really fun.
Okay.
Otherwise it's just gonna be a lot of Glengouls. Broadcast television is fifty-five percent Can Con yearly or fifty percent daily. Great. I love that you can choose. CBC has a 60% Can Con quota. And then there's some like specialty formats that have a lower percentage, but I think because CBC is funded nationally, it has to be a little higher.
That's right. That's right. Thank you. Perfect. So listeners, when we say that something is Can Con, we mean that it's Canadian enough to count as Canadian, like heated rivalry. I w I know I said I was joking, but I wasn't joking when I said that hockey was as important to get right as sex in the series. Hockey is really important to Canadian culture. Um, and that's actually one of the blessings of having John here as a former high-level hockey player. Can you
help us explain to our non-Canadian listeners why hockey is so important to heated rivalry as a Canadian television series. Like why is it different in Canada? Hockey means differently in Canada than it does in other places.
I think what's interesting is some of the mistakes that are made in the past aren't made here. Like if you think of the Mighty Ducks trilogies. There's things that they do on the ice. The create a license that's taken is pretty funny. The Mighty Dex is famous for the flying V that they do, which of course is is offside every single time they do it. You can't do this in in hockey. Or I or at at any given moment, like if a player's about to do something sort of
Outrageous. He'll just like take off his helmet, put it to the side, and then do the thing. And it's like, that's an immediate penalty, illegal equipment. You'd get taken off for that, of course, like instantly. They don't really make those mistakes with this as much. Obviously Jacob Tearing has experience making other hockey shows. I think that hockey is first and foremost a vehicle for this show. The sport itself kind of takes a back seat. We don't want A lot of hockey in the show.
Yeah.
Really don't.
Like that's why this show I don't think is super interesting to like hockey players per se.
Unless they have a heart.
No, I know, but I'm I'm not trying to sound contradictory here, but Hockey but it's not why hockey? Because it's a Canadian show. I mean Lucky, but
Qua qua.
Like hockey.
Sorry, sorry.
Hockey S.
I'm agreeing with you that like if you're going into it for the hockey content, you're gonna be disappointed.
Yeah.
because they're not playing a lot of hockey.
¶ Hockey As Performative Masculinity
I recently saw this really amusing video essay from an account called Trade Movies Podcast, in which an argument was made that hockey is drag.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Love that. And basically the the the individual is saying that if drag is exaggerated gender expression via performance art, then hockey is definitely drag. Hockey is performative masculinity turned up to eleven. You can't fight in real life, but you can have mutual combat in hockey, which often ends up with the two guys, you know, hugging each other or patting each other on the back as if to say good job on the fight.
You know, guys change their appearance for the playoffs. Like they grow a beard. I mean it can't get any more kind of dragged than that. And if men are supposed to suppress emotions, the quintessential hockey interview is the perfect example of where, you know a man just takes all of his own personality out as much as possible and just says generic things like get pucks in geek and and that kind of
So I think that hockey is an excellent choice for Rachel Reed here because it is such performative masculinity. It's obviously it has the worst culture. It's obviously the most toxic hockey Canada involved in all of these sexual assault things. I think Rachel Reed knew what she was doing by going after hockey here. It was sort of a fuck you to hockey and to to the NHL. It was like, Oh, you guys think you're so not gay? Allow me to write six books on how gay you are.
That's exactly what Rachel Reed was doing. And I I think she did a a really great job doing that. She's also like a hockey fan. There's no question about it. So this is this is sort of someone battling that. or reconciling those two things. I think a lot of women in Canada have a super hard time. You know, that maybe the goalie on their favorite team is implicated in a in a sexual assault.
case. I mean it's not easy to be woke and a hockey fan. Yeah. It's not. I think with heater rivalry it has to be hockey. I don't think there's any question about that if you're gonna make this show because it's about hockey being toxic and it's about hockey being I I don't know if she was sort of inadvertently saying that hockey is drag, but I think that there is obviously an argument to be made there. Hockey, the higher level you play, the the gayer it gets behind closed doors. Like you know.
Say more.
Well, guys I mean guys in the dressing rooms when it like it it's a it's a game where you shower after the game. Guys are constantly commenting on each other's parts. That's very much part of locker room culture. I don't know if I mean, I'm sure women do this as well, but maybe more
I'm not sure.
We don't.
Yeah, well men men do it constantly. Um in fact most guys' nicknames are sort of uh an indication uh of something else.
Uh interesting.
Then there's the questions of like initiations and that sort of hazing. That's often very gay stuff. So You know, it has to be hockey. Yeah. But I don't think that the show really is about the sport itself. I think that the game itself, like the rules and regulations of hockey and the time spent on ice actually takes a backseat.
¶ The Montreal-Boston Hockey Rivalry
How about talking about the Montreal Boston NHL rivalry in the show? Because I spent seven years in Montreal. So I have a deep love for the Habs. I dislike the Montreal Metro's logo so much, but I can't bring myself to buy any Boston Raiders merch because I have a hatred for Boston with all my heart.
So I understand the problem that Shane and Ilya have with being rivals, but can you help make sense of that rivalry to folks who like haven't lived in a place where you are required to hate the other team?
The Boston Bruins Montreal Canadians rivalry is really interesting. I think that you have these two port cities, you have these two Cities with like very big working class populations. Toronto and New York City, there's a lot of money. You know, with the the the Rangers on the leaps, it's there's less rage in the fans. Fans at the old Boston Garden and the old Montreal Forum are rabid people. They are lunats. about the game. I think that that's what makes that rivalry so serious.
You also had Boston play a certain style for so many years. Montreal sort of this finesse team with the park and then you had people like Brad Marchon and uh I don't know, other guys on that team like Chara who were just assholes and uh played sort of dirty hockey and whatever.
Bunch of brutes.
Yeah, I think what's interesting though, there's also like maybe the Irish element, this certain toughness about them, but Ravalries.
Just all the Catholicism.
I honestly
Angry Catholic.
It has to be uh about something with with the calf.
For sure.
But I think that, you know, some rivalries are forever, but their intensity can kind of vary depending on the season. The rivalry between Montreal and Boston right now, I don't think is nearly as serious as it has been in the past. I would almost argue that like Montreal and Tampa have like a bigger rivalry at this moment.
Interesting.
They're about to like face each other in the playoffs. You know, they beat us in the Stanley Cup final a few years ago. They've sort of made fun of us. Couture office sort of said that we're a bunch of babies and this kind of thing. I'll kill Montreal and Ottawa, I think have like a really strong rivalry right now. Those teams really hate each other at this exact moment. Uh in a way that this show. Um it's funny because at the end of episode six.
It's being suggested that perhaps Ilya go play for Ottawa instead. And in that way they wouldn't be rivalries and he'd only be two hours away, et cetera. That is not accurate. To 2026. Yeah. That wouldn't really be like a oh, we won't be rivalries anymore if you go play for the Sens. Well, the Sens are a good team and they're in the playoffs and they're in the Atlantic Division and Montreal and Ottawa, those two teams hated.
Having grown up in Ottawa, it's wild to me to hear a person say the sentence the sends are a good team.
I don't like
I don't know if I've
Like Like nor do I like Sen's fans or do I think the senators should exist at all? I didn't say that. I said it there I said they're in the playoffs.
Ha ha ha!
It's just sort of when I was a kid, the sentence defining feature was being extremely bad at H.
No, I didn't say I I didn't say I respect them at all.
Ha ha ha
And I think that's a good thing.
That's very much the vibe that gets carried over in the books, right? Like there's whole chapters where Ilya is like reckoning with the fact that he's the best player on a terrible team. And he gives pep talks to his teammates, like, I'm tired of losing. So it seems like the hockey culture that's being represented in the television show, which is adapted from Rachel Reed's novels, is out of date. It's not our current hockey culture, but it is very recognizable to millennials, that's for sure.
Okay. Marcel, so we've talked about two of your favorite sports, sex and hockey. And now we want to talk about my favorite sport, which is
Ha ha ha.
Canadian funding for the arts. It's my turn.
Hannah, you are a comedic genius. Did you know that?
Did you know?
All right.
¶ Heated Rivalry's Public Arts Funding
I think one of the things that's really cool about this show, and one of the reasons why I wanted us to make a podcast episode about taxes and Canadian funding for the arts. Is because I have seen so many people online noticing and talking about how this series is funded by Canadian tax dollars. Hannah, I know since taxes are your favorite sport, can I get you to please read this hefty quote that I pulled from turbotax.ca. Folks, this is a tax filing software website.
I just wanna point out that after our Oscars episode this Second time we've quoted from a tax website unless we're going to be able to do that. That's right, folks. It's exciting content. Okay. Quote, thank you, Canadian taxpayers, for your service is a comment made so frequently on social platforms that it's almost as viral as the show itself.
half joking, half sincere, loons, as the fandom calls itself, are openly thanking Canadians and their tax dollars for funding a show with great writing, great acting, and great yearning. It's a rare site, public cultural funding that's visible, respected, and genuinely appreciated. Instead of taxes being framed as a burden, they were suddenly tied to Canadian pride.
However, that success isn't accidental. Heated Rivalry is Canadian-owned intellectual property produced by Bell Media for streaming service Crave, filmed across Ontario and Quebec and sold internationally. Its success sits at the intersection of government fiscal policy, ooh, baby, and popular culture. We're witnessing a moment when Canada's longstanding approach to funding and prioritizing Canadian culture and entertainment Bubbles up and receives its own applause.
My God, beautiful, beautifully fiscal. Ooh, fiscal. So, okay, you guys, I don't know about you, but Longstanding is such a remarkable term for a funding model that's both less than 75 years old and is also under constant threat of elimination from our various governments.
I mean, I hope we can come back to this maybe in our concluding conversation, but the irony of people publicly thanking Canada for funding the arts when the Nova Scotia government has just defunded the arts. We will get to that in the final segment. Instead, Marcel. I want to know if you were able to find any information. how much heated rivalry actually got funded.
Yeah, you know that this materialist girl loves to crunch numbers. And I felt very thwarted by how busy I've been because I couldn't dig as deep. I really wanted to see some budget. I couldn't find a budget, but I did find a CBC article written by Catherine Morrison that does talk about it. And Morrison interviewed.
Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Mark Miller, about heated rivalry. And Miller straight up brags about the feds giving$3.5 million. And this is so funny. It comes up so many times. Plus tax credit. towards the series. The feds love to talk about how this series got tax cut. So as far as I can tell, the money that the federal government funded
Heated rivalry goes through the Canadian Media Fund, which is one of the major funders of Heated Rivalry, alongside the private monies from Bell Media, Sphere Abacus, and Crave. So Given that each episode is said to have cost about under three million Canadian, it sounds like Canadian taxpayers paid for about one-fifth of the budget plus tax credit. Um, John, can I ask you to please read this next quotation again from TurboTax.ca?
Quote By almost every metric, heated rivalry is a best case outcome. It's become Crave's most watched original series, been sold internationally across multiple regions, boosted interest in Canadian music and tourism, and given Canadian talent global visibility. Cultural funding is a small slice of total tax spending, but its impact is outside.
Heat of rivalry made that impact impossible to ignore. Taxpayers could point to something specific and say, Oh, that's where some of our tax dollars went. Taxes don't just fund services, sometimes they fund stories. And occasionally one of those stories gets popular enough that people actually start thanking Canadian taxpayers and
I I I love the idea of um people pointing at you did rivalry and going, oh my tax dollars.
What does that work?
When um I feel like the political alignment between people who don't want to pay for the arts and people who don't want Gay stuff on TV is like pretty. Pretty strong alignment.
The Venn diagram is a circle.
If you're gonna preach to the choir, it's definitely take arts funding and and make gay hockey shows with it for
Right.
That's called keeping those people in the liberal and NDP parties, uh, for sure.
Yeah.
I think what's really interesting too about that quote too is talking about how it also boosts interest in Canadian music and tourism. For example, look at the resurgence that Wolf Parade is getting right now.
So happy for Wolf Parade.
I think they're headlining Oshega because of that one song in that I'm not kidding. They are.
Okay. I was gonna save this for our closing section, but I have to tell you right now because it came up organically. Okay. So Wolf Bray recently, like a few years ago, did a reunion tour. I think this is like pre-pandemic. So they were here in Edmonton. Obviously, we went. It was a wonderful show. Listeners might know my special lore of having been Dan Beckner's neighbor for about a year and a half in Montreal. That was very cool. And so I went to say hello.
As I do, because I'm nothing if not a fangirl. And um while we were chatting, this Beautiful, hot young thing came up to talk to him about how great the show was and how she was positive that Wolf Prade was going to be huge. She was like, You guys are gonna be huge. I just know it. And he was like,
🔊 Chant
Really cute.
No arguably bigger than Drake. Coach is saying no. I'm saying yeah.
I say yes.
Great. Okay. Sorry. Thank you for letting me share that story. My friend Michelle pr reminded me recently about that story. And she was like, and look, she was an oracle.
There must have been a choice though too with the Canadian music like Feist is in there and and Wolf Parade and and um there's definitely some good choices made at very opportune moments for the music. Yeah. Good for those Wolfray guys who I think like kind of all ended up in different cities and uh Dan was doing operators and handsome furs. I think most of them had retreated back to Victoria or
That's like the correct word for going to Victoria originally.
I didn't say retirement.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha.
¶ CanLit Versus Television CanCon Standards
Okay, so on the topic of federal funding, right? We know heated rivalry, the series is like maybe a fifth funded by the government. Do we know if Rachel Reed's Game Changer series? Funded by the government?
So I'm prepared to be wrong about this. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no. It's really unlikely because her publisher, Karina Press, is an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises, which had been a Canadian publisher, one of the biggest. Canadian publishers and Harlequin, to the best of my knowledge, has never been supported by the Canadian government because it was never considered to have been a publisher of Canadian literature.
But didn't we just talk about how the television adaptation is definitely considered Cancon?
1000%. We absolutely did. And according to Morrison's article, that culture minister, Mark Miller, he called the show, quote, a Canadian content triumph, end quote. The Canadian-ness of television and literature are measured by totally different standards.
Hell yeah!
Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I'm seeing people talk about Reed's books as canlit. I'm seeing that now. So maybe this will be a watershed moment for romance genre finally breaking into the canlit world. I don't know, but this is very new. So Hannah, I would love it if you could talk a little bit about why Canlet is so much more generically constrained than television.
I will summarize this for you in a very short anecdote. Okay. So I work in a publishing program. Um, that publishing program was founded by a publishing scholar named Rolly Lorimer. And Rolly wrote essentially published like the textbook on Canadian publishing. It is called Ultra Libre.
It was at the time meant to be sort of like this is the one thing you need to read to understand how the Canadian publishing industry works. It's obviously quite out of date now. Mm-hmm. But when I first started My then boss basically plunked it down on my desk and was like, you have to read this.
'Cause this is like the book that is like at the heart of the creation of this program. And I was like, cool, okay. And so I started reading it and my marginalia is Vicious because I fundamentally disagree with a number of premises of this book. But one of the core premises of the book is that right up front, he says that he will not be discussing Harlequin as an example of a Canadian publishing success.
because he is interested in Canadian publishing as an industry that contributes to culture and romance publishing does not make a meaningful contribution to culture.
That's a perfect anime.
I kind of like get that argument like that well, no, that just like I it's just I don't agree with it, but like I I see no, I don't. But I'm just saying like it's almost like hiding behind this excuse that like
love is universal and it's not actually about like there's no local element to romance or there, you know what I mean? Like there's no contribution. So I kind of like I'm like, okay, I get where you're I waver on my guest. But like Hido rivalry is sort of like a a great example of how that's not true.
It's a much sweeter explanation than the real historical explanation, which is that historically Canadian cultural funders considered popular culture to be inherently American. And so when we're looking at like the Massey Commission in the early years of Canadian cultural funding, what we're looking at is an attempt to fund specifically Canadian culture and anything that was genre. So romance, sci-fi fantasy, pulp, crime fiction, that kind of stuff, anything that was genre.
was inherently popular, which meant it was inherently American, not Canadian.
Wait, what? We gotta talk about this in the next segment. All right.
I can't wait.
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¶ The Massey Commission's Cultural Agenda
This segment is called The Theory We Need, because usually it's the part of the episode where we bring in a theoretical framework to help make sense of our object of study. Marcel loves to go rogue. And so it's probably not the first time we've done this, but instead of theory, we're doing history.
That's right, folks. It's an all historicized episode. Drop that sound effect.
His name.
Historicize historicize it's always time to historicize. We are gonna talk about the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences. more commonly known as the Massey Commission, which Hannah was so ready to talk about, but I said no. I said, you need to wait. We're gonna talk about it now.
Hannah.
I know that you know plenty about the Massey Commission because we did our degrees at the same time and with professors from the same generation. So our education about Canadian literature. pretty similar. John, I'm curious, did you study the Massey Commission in school at
If I did, I I don't remember.
It's not very exciting. So it really could go either way.
Ha ha ha.
Okay, so in order to get deep into the origins and impact of the Massey Commission on arts funding in Canada, I pulled out an old fave from my bookshelf, The Cornerstone of Canlit dissertations since 1992. Paul Litz, the Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission. Hannah, can you please start us off with a quote from Paul Litz?
that explains how the Massey Commission lives on in our national narrative. Again, this is from 1992, but I think we'll all agree it's still this is still how we talk about it.
Absolutely. Quote: The Massey Commission has long been associated with the dawn of a new era in Canadian cultural affairs. it issued the first clear warning about the dangers of dependence upon American culture in the post-war world, and proposed a deliberate and coordinated strategy for state-sponsored Canadian cultural development.
This strategy included endowing federal cultural institutions with the resources they needed to play leading roles in national cultural life and asserting the federal government's right to fund university education. End quote.
So as we see from this quote, the origins of the Massey Commission are often framed as a combination of patriotic Canadian self-articulation and anti-Americanism. We're taught that Canada needed government support to protect its culture from the influence of big, bad American culture. But like many Western countries in the post war period.
The Canadian government in the late 1940s and 1950s was extremely anxious about the possibility of a socialist revolution. And one of the key sites of that anxiety was What kinds of materials are Canadians consuming and where are they coming from? We almost never learn, for example, that the initiative for a national commission on culture in Canada came from Canada's Minister of Defense. But it did because culture was one of the ways regular people were being influenced by socialism.
John, can I ask you to read this next quote also from Paul Litt, please?
Sure. Quote, here was a portentious moment in the history of the nation. People who read books had been singled out as a significant political constituency. Ordinarily, these people would be liberals. Minister of Defence Claxton contended, but in these perilous times they probably were leaning towards the National Labour Party, the C C F. Something should be done to reclaim their affections.
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Because of growing rates of literacy, reading was no longer confined to rich people who vote liberal. Working class people and immigrants were reading too, so anything making its way to their eyes and ears was suspect. It's worth noting that American culture was only considered threatening if it was mass or popular culture, because that meant that it was potentially socialist.
Elite American culture as well as elite British and elite French culture was fine because it reproduced existing class hierarchies. So the impetus to nationalize cultural production in Canada was an attempt to reaffirm the Canadian state's existence. Hannah, can you read this next quote from Lit, please? Mm-hmm.
Quote, the commission was interested not just in culture in Canada, but in Canadian culture. As the commissioners themselves put it, their work was, quote within a quote, concerned with nothing less than the spiritual foundations of our national life, end quote within a quote. They operated on the premise that their enterprise deserved the support of all patriotic citizens because culture was what bound Canadians together and distinguished them from other nationalities.
It followed that the Canadian state had an obligation to support the cultural activities which legitimized its very existence. In short, the Massey Commission was driven by cultural nationalist ideology. End quote.
¶ Challenging Canada's Unified Culture Myth
Beautiful. Thank you. So John, as an expert, as someone who researches and publishes about cultural production in Canada. I really want to know, what do you make of this idea that there is a culture that binds Canadians together? This is obviously a trick question, but please feel free to answer. Follow your
I have one answer, and it's that culture follows this the traditional routes of trade, which is north-south and not east-west. So Maritimers, for example, we have much more in common culturally with New Englanders than we do with people from British Columbia.
British Columbians might as well be from a different country. Maritimers do not understand British Columbians at all. And British Columbians do not understand Maritimers. There is a huge cultural misunderstanding between those two areas of the country. Trade goes north-south and culture typically goes with it. So the notion that sort of Canada is this unified thing is crazy. We're way too big to be that. Yeah. So that's my take there.
Yeah.
That's great. Thank you. I couldn't agree more. So this brings us back to this. absolute monoculture of Canadian content, heated rivalry, a show we absolutely love and which is downright imposing, unwelcome feelings of nationalism in me.
Okay, okay, Marcel, you know I want to grapple. having nationalist feelings, but I would like that grappling to be supported by a thesis, please.
All right. Nice save, Hannah. Let's move to our final segment, people.
Let's do it.
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Before Marcel pulls her goalie, which is a metaphor that I am fairly certain doesn't make any sense in this context. He's going to deliver a hat trick I think that's wrong as well, of a thesis.
Brutal.
Hi.
Hi sticky.
Is that a thing?
She's gonna high stick a thesis. Yeah.
The goalie pulling the goalie here. Like, is she masturbating? Is that pulling the goalie here?
Holy Nagalie is how Marcel referred to when she and her partner started trying to get pregnant.
Well, yeah.
She said they were pulling the goalie. Yeah. So the fact that she incorporated it into this script is crazy.
That does make sense.
Appropriate for the sexy show.
Ja.
Yeah, just quite.
Yeah, okay. Yeah,'cause that's how the shots on net go in.
Yeah, understood.
Okay. Anyway, good, good. Okay, it's alright.
We're all thinking about jizz. Marcel, give us a thesis.
You know I don't like that word.
¶ Taxpayer-Funded Smut and Nationalism
I do. Damn is right.
If you go to the Wikipedia page for Canadiana, you are greeted with the following caveat. Quote, this article is about the general term describing distinctly Canadian things, end quote. Maybe I'm sleep deprived, because I know that I am, but this utterly nondescript description for a word that has its own Wikipedia page feels completely apropos to the very notion of Canadiana.
There is not now, nor has there ever been a singular Canadian culture, but there have been active and sometimes repressive attempts by the government of Canada to enforce one. This is why our government funds the arts after all. Don't get me wrong, taxes should fund cultural endeavors. I want my tax dollars to pay Rachel Reed to write? And then Jacob Tierney to adapt hockey smut. I do not want my tax dollars to pay for military occupations, ethnic cleansing, or genocide.
By funding the worldwide phenomenon that is heated rivalry, it may seem as though the feds have finally done it. Sponsored a monolithic Canadian culture. And to that I say, Well then start funding the literary smut, you cowards. In this essay, I will Okay.
¶ Anne of Green Gables as Propaganda
All right.
ご視聴ありがとうございました
Really?
Well d well done. And I'm I'm sure you were going to wonderful places for another ten or fifteen minutes. But uh No, you know what though, I am reminded of something you know, we were sort of kind of almost touching on literature as propaganda. And I'm wondering how many of you are familiar with the history behind Anne of Green Gables being drawn. into Japan by the US military as a means of promoting this idea of of a Western strong woman in An.
Absolutely amazing story and it's it's true. It it did it it did.
I knew it was huge in Japan, but I didn't know that it was a a military drop.
That's the thing. So a lot of people have always wondered because I'm from New Brunswick. I grew up going to Prince and Roman Island every summer. For summer vacation and specifically to Cavendish, where Woosy Mama Gaubery is buried and where Anne of Green Gable's house is, which is brilliant because it's just a house.
that they put Anne's name on. Anna's fictional it's a fictional character. Yeah. The notion that people are coming from all over the world to see a house that a fictional character lived in is brilliant.
They paint the gables green to make it work.
Yeah, the house looks exactly as though it's described in the like they built it.
That's all I need.
It's essentially a genius sort of tourism moment for the government of Prince Rhode Island to sort of say like, hey everybody come here. But one of the highest represented groups to come are busloads and busloads. Of Japanese people. And everyone used to have their theories as to why this was. It was like, oh, you know, the Japanese are they really like her red hair because obviously Japanese people.
don't often have red hair. Uh and some people would say that they were Japanese culture too of sort of uh serving the man being sort of a patriarchal uh culture. You know, and is this sort of big F U to the patriarchy. She does what she wants, she says what she wants, whatever. So there are all these theories.
Break a slate over your head.
Yeah. But so there were all these theories as to why the Japanese were so enamored with and the truth is the book was dropped by the thousands into Japan during World War Two. So they're that's how they all became so familiar with it. Then there were these like anime versions of Anna Green Gables and everything like that. So just
I think it's interesting how we even used sort of progressive literature as propaganda in the past. Uh I just thought it'd be interesting to to bring that up'cause I think it's sort of relevant to this conversation about
Totally. I love that.
And a great example of something that is so regional, but then gets sort of, you know, turned into a Canadian cultural icon when it's like very specifically a series of books about PEI. Yeah.
She goes to Halifax at one point.
Yeah, it's a good one. And even in Japan they built a a massive amusement park called Canada World.
Um
Yeah.
Yeah.
We need to go there.
Yeah. And it's um it's all about Angry and Gables. It's but they
I'm obsessed.
¶ Exploring Canadian Regional Identity
I love other countries unheimlich representations of Canadiana. Yeah. Yeah. What I want to talk about is regionalism. And, you know, particularly in the context of Heated rivalry, you know, something that interests me about this is that it is, I think, another good example of. Something that is actually very central Canadian being treated as Canadian no qualifiers needed. And that was, you know, so I'm from Ottawa. We have established.
And lived in Ottawa for the first 22 years of my life and then moved to Edmonton for my master's. And I remember having a conversation with, you know, a fellow student who was asking me. if I was headed out east for the holidays. And I was like, No, I'm I'm going to Ottawa And they were like, That's not out east and I was like, No, out east is the maritime Yeah. Yeah. And they were like, Oh, so is Ontario central Canada? And I was like, No, no, no, that's Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
And they were like, So what's Ontario? And I was like
It's Ontario.
The center of the universe.
Upper Canada? Like, I don't it's Canada. You don't need an adjective.
I'm guilty of this in the same way of thinking that Manitoba is the same as Alberta, Saskatchewan and and British Columbia for being at where I am. Um Of course they would think yeah, we just say out west. Of course they would think that Ontarians and people from Prince Arrow Island are the same, which holy shit, they could not be any more different. Uh but yeah.
Soundly different, right? But I do think that there is this tendency, in particular, because Ontario is the financial center of the country. And it is where the cultural industries are located for the most part. So there's a tendency to treat Ontario things as though they are Canadian things. It was very striking. Gord Downey died after I had moved to Vancouver. And it was really interesting being an Ontarian and like grieving that death.
so deeply and seen so many people in Vancouver be like, tragically hip, I guess I know one of their songs.
Interesting.
'Cause it's not Canada's band. It's like Kingston's band.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I had a similar experience here in Edmonton where like obviously like both Trevor and I from Ontario and so we were both like really engaged when they did their final show. We like watched it, we like sat down and people were like, I don't care about that guy. I was like, what do you what do you mean? He's the conscience of Canadian music.
Yeah, I don't think there will be a s a similar wave of grief uh when Chad Kroger passes away of there. God no. You know, I know.
No.
Personally.
For a couple of reasons.
Yeah, for enough. Yeah, exactly. Um, but I think what is interesting about the show happening in like Quebec and Ontario is like you know, there's a stereotype that absolutely it it could not happen in Alberta. You're not gonna have two gay hockey players in Alberta. That's crazy talk. Whereas like none of these players are from where they play. So it it it it definitely could have been.
Uh like a a guy playing for for a Calvary team and a guy playing for an Edmonton team. I mean all the stars on those teams are from Ontario anyway, you know, McDavid and and whoever else. So yeah. But yeah, there's obviously that stereotype that Ontario's gay. Quebec Quebec is definitely
I'll burn it.
Quebec is definitely good.
There's not.
Yeah, exactly. Using an umbrella, uh speaking French, just very gay things.
Funding the arts, all very gay things.
¶ Nova Scotia's Arts Funding Cuts
Yeah, exactly.
You know what, on that, can we pivot back to the defunding of the arts in Nova Scotia?'Cause I know, John, that's something that you brought up when we were emailing about this episode. So like and I think
being a maritimer yourself, like that's something that I think you are maybe a little bit more attuned to than like I heard about it because I have friends in Nova Scotia who like posted about it, but I got the distinct impression that it was a much bigger deal than the news that I was getting.
Maritowers are I think a little more invested in their provincial politics because we're such smaller provinces and so we tend to n have personal relationships with our politicians much more so than in Ontario where it's Doug Ford is just a celebrity that you can't stop. He's like Donald Trump, he's just like a like a truck, yeah. Driving through and and
smoking everyone in his way. Yeah. Whereas like in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, I think we are much more in touch with the people that are um fucking Okay. I I would also say and you know Hannah Hannah sort of sort of stole my line here. I did mention this in the email to say that Tiny was especially bad. that, you know, Heater Rivalry is enjoying this massive success. And it's a writer from Nova Scotia.
Yeah.
From Halifax and then all of a sudden they go and say we're gonna cut all this funding to the arts. So the timing, the optics are are brutal in that regard because a Halifax writer is enjoying all this worldwide success. And then go around and basically kind of stab the arts in the back.
But also Nova Scotia has a huge film industry and everything. Like obviously Trailer Park Boys being filmed out there. But also this hour is twenty two minutes and everything like that. Lots of um Canadian film and TV shows filmed in Nova Scotia. They were also very famous for their tax credits. And that was the reason why so much was shot there. John Dunsworth, the guy that played Mr. Leahy on uh Trail Card Boys, was very vocal.
about how damaging it would be for them to get rid of the tax credits. So they've been defunding yards for for years, but Tim Houston, the current premier, is is is particularly egregious. But it it's not just The conservatives in Nova Scotia, it's the liberals in New Brunswick, it's the liberals in Ottawa. Austerity is the new thing. Everyone's so thrilled with.
Mark Carney because he isn't Pierre Polyev, but he's much more conservative, which is apparently what what we all what people want. It's not what I want, but apparently we want austerity. We want a super conservative guy, but that Plays hockey and is kind of funny and is is basically not Pierre Pauliev, who basically just looks like a stumbling drunk. Anyway, it's it's just a shame where we're at because we feel like we've dodged this big bullet with Polyev and with federal conservatives.
Um, and what we've gotten instead of Polyev is significantly more conservative policies and austerity across the board. So we're we're in no better shape than uh we thought we would be.
Everybody's so horny for Mark Carney Bank Daddy. And I find it very disappointing anytime somebody I know is like, well, he has some good points. I'm like, incorrect. Bad take. It's interesting how He himself has used the success of Heated Rivalry to try to sort of add a veneer of like fun leftyism to his. Persona.
The bar was so low. All he had all he had to do was not be an asshole.
Yeah.
Not be vocally homophobic. Literally. And he's a winner. And so he just acted like a regular guy. And everyone's like, oh, wonderful. Wonderful.
Yeah. Champion, a champion of the arts.
Original impetus for this episode was to think through the weird kind of nationalist impulse that Heated Rivalries is giving me. And what I'm sort of noticing from our conversation is the way that It feels like it's working. Like the Fed to celebrate the success of this series.
And say, like, we fund the arts, isn't that great? Look at everybody's so proud. Canadians are so proud. And we watch it, we watch the show and we're like, thank God some of my money went to not killing children in Gaza and instead like Went f and turned some wonderful romance novels into a crave television show that I can watch on repeat.
That three point five million dollars could have been used to build, I guess, like one tenth of a plane.
Sure. Yeah. I'm trying to think through like how It allows us this tiny, tiny, tiny amount of money that they put into this television show that is so beautiful and wonderful and life-giving for so many people. This worldwide success of a television series. Yeah. And it allows us to then feel good and maybe not think about all of the other horrifying atrocities that our government is implicated in. Is that what's happening? Am I wrong or is it the children who are wrong? Someone's wrong here.
¶ Pleasure in Cultural Funding Disjunction
I think it was the viewers that sort of commandeered this thing about it being taxpayer this or that. I don't think it was any sort of government psyop no to direct attention over to this. In fact, I think if anyone if anyone in those political parties has suggested that they do that, that idea would have been shot down very quickly.
Yeah. No, you're so right.
So I think that it's more of something that we have than like, Oh my God, isn't it so funny that they got funding for this or whatever? It's like, well Yeah, it's funny. It's a way that these things get made. It's necessary. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've made the argument that there should be more for that. But uh it it's I don't think it's any sort of elaborate conspiracy on the part of the government to draw attention away from the West Bank or Gaza. So
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do think a lot of why people attach themselves, why the fandom attach themselves to, you know, this is funded by the taxpayers of Canada is the disjunction between what we expect from cultural nationalist culture. I said culture twice, but you know what I mean.
know what you mean.
versus heated rivalry, right? Like if we go back to the Massey Commission, there's this very clear sense that what is being funded is high culture. Um, that as you said, that sort of reinforces existing class. structures. So like you know, the massey commission funds like the National Film Board, the National Ballet, the National Library and Archives, right? These sort of elite institutions of cultural production.
And then over time it spreads and becomes something that sort of funds culture in a wider way. And then you end up with this really interesting sort of seeming disjunction, right? Which is like. This is hot gay hockey smut that is also like, you know, as John pointed out, very tender, very sweet.
Wheat.
very oriented towards relationships. Like it has all of this stuff in it that just doesn't feel like high culture. And so then to have like funded by the taxpayers of Canada, like I think that's part of the pleasure of it. for people, like for the viewers. And yeah, politicians have tried to plant their flag in it, pun intended, but I'm not sure
If it's
Totally successful. Right. I think a lot of us look at Mark Carney being like, ha ha, I love mm. I was about to say I think a lot of us roll our eyes at that. Unfortunately, I actually do think that a lot of people are like, Mark Carney and The heated rivalry guys. What a great per like I think some people are tricked by that. But that's fine. You can't stop people from uh being silly.
Whereas like maybe Other voters might be like this is very Trudeau coded. Mm-hmm. But who knows?
Um we'll explain what that means in a follow up episode.
All about Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry.
We can't. We can't. We simply don't have time. I
No.
Can I ask one last thing, which is, you know, like you, Marcel, I have an ongoing fraught relationship to enjoying Canadiana because I have such bone deep disdain for the Canadian state.
¶ The Aesthetic Appeal of Regional Culture
and for the kinds of politics that align themselves with the Canadian state in its various projects. And at the same time, I find the specificity of Canadian regional cultures. So deeply pleasing. And I'm just wondering, John, if you can talk a little bit to wrap the conversation up about why. specific Canadian regional cultures are so aesthetically pleasing.
Because all you're talking about are people. It it there's no relationship to the state whatsoever. What you're talking about are people that find themselves in the geographical area that we call Canada. It doesn't matter where those people are. Those are the people that you know.
And that's why you're so interested. You're interested in people. My account is about people. Um, I'm no defender of Canada. And in fact, if I could have done all this over again, I would not have called it Canada.gov.ca. I I
It's really funny.
It's
Yeah. But it also has pigeonholed me and I think it it runs the risk of of me seeming like I'm sort of rah, rah, rah, defender of of the nation, defender of the state, which I absolutely am not. We have a a truly embarrassing history. a factually genocidal one ourselves. So I think that what people appreciate about my account is it's not just a blind celebration of this country, but I'm interested in the stories of the people here. And I think that
I've set it up in such a way whether I meant to or not, as to be the stories from the people from the geographical area that we call Canada. But um, you know, at the end of the day, People love to share something together. They love to relate to something together. In the Maritimes, we have something called the Gaelic gas. Where people will agree by just taking in a big deep breath. It's like, oh yeah, I saw him the other day. Yeah, yeah. That that's sort of this.
That's that's uh I mean it's it's found in the Ottawa Valley as well, but it is part of our language in the East Coast in in Nova Scotia, Prince Rhoda, and New Brunswick. That's that's an example of something that um people get very excited about because it reminds them of the people that they love. And that I think at the end of the day, that's where our our love sort of lies.
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Material Girls is a Witch Please production and is distributed by ACAST. Unlike everyone's favorite gay hockey show, we don't have government funding, but we do have you. If you like the show and want us to keep making it, and if you like literally hundreds of hours of bonus content, why don't you head on over to patreon.com slash ohwitch please. And sign up for as little as$5 a month for ad-free episodes, bloopers, and our unhinged monthly mailbag episodes.
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dot ghost.io and mine, you'll just google it or something. You can find links for all of these things on our website, ohwitchplease.ca, where you'll also find past episodes, transcripts, reading lists and merch, as well as our three other shows, Gender Playground, a podcast about gender affirming care for kids, Making Worlds, a video podcast about sci-fi fantasy and the radical power of imagining otherwise, and of course our Witch Please reboot.
John, where can the people find more from you?
I'm in one place doing one thing and that's on Instagram doing my account, which is called Canada dot gov.ca so they can find me in the search function. uh Instagram, canada.gov.ca. I also have upcoming shows. Beginning of May, I'm going to be in St. John, New Brunswick, Mumpton, and Charlottetown, Prince Over Island. I'm heading in June to Port Hope, Ontario, where I'm doing a show at a goat farm called Oat Goat. In Port Hope, Ontario.
John, you're living the dream.
Yeah, man. These are I this is crazy. I was driving home from a show in Toronto at the Owls Club and a guy DM'd me and said, Hey, like I see you're on your way back to Quebec because I'm sort of posting along the way. He said, Do you want to stop in and see my goat?
And
It takes a certain person to agree to this, I think.
Because that might be how you die.
Guy said, Do you want to see my goats? I said, Yes, I do. And he told me where to pull over at what exit. I went and saw these guys. This guy's Nigerian dwarf goats. What? Um, there's hundreds of them. They're they're about the size of a puppy. Yeah. And I spent the afternoon with this guy at his goat farm. I actually come to realize it's quite the operation. It's called Oak Goat. And he has a music festival every August called Goachella. Not not kidding.
And yeah. So you gotta look up Oak Goat. Shout out Oak Goat.
Speed with which I'm looking up good.
So I reached out to him recently and said, I think I'd like to do a show at your Go Farm. He was like, We're absolutely gonna do a Canada.gov.ca show at Oatco. Um so that's kinda oh it's
Oh like oat could
Yes, that's right. Outcoat. Um and then in September I'll be in St. John's Nathan Land. I'm going back to the Rock. Nice. I have some other shows that are that have yet to be announced. Some of those have yet to be officially announced on my account, but I've got some other ones in the works. So keep your eyes peeled on the the bio section of my account to see where I'm going because I always have my yeah my tickets listed there. So there you go.
And I will vouch for it. John puts on an excellent live show, so it's absolutely worth seeking out.
hockey here in Edmonton.
Oh yeah!
Yeah.
Yeah.
Our show, which is also fine. God, I regret every decision that I've made in my life that I'm not performing at a goat farm. Our show is produced by Hannah Rehack, aka coach. Thanks to the whole Witch Please Productions cabinet in the parliamentary sense, not the furniture. It's another Canada reference. Gabby Ayori. Zoe mix. And everyone who's been helping out with transcripts. And thanks as always. Speaking of CanCon to Auto Syndicate for the use of our theme song shopping mall.
At the end of every episode, we will read out a five-star review that you have left for us. So hey, coach, who do we have this week? Hmm? Is that the name?
I think.
Okay. And they say my brain would not be the same. OMG, what can I say about Material Girls and the Witch Please Productions work in general? Y'all have enriched my thinking, made me snort laugh, given me goosebumps, widened my understanding of community, and kept me company. through hard times since your first run of Witch Please in twenty sixteen. Holy macaroni. At least that's when I found you.
The Material Girls project has been a welcome expansion and it's always interesting to see what Hannah and Marcel will or won't find when they dig into a new topic. This review is long overdue. Hears to many more fantastic episodes and projects ahead in a non-burnout inducing way. Exclamation mark. Oh my gosh, thank you, Brug.
Mm. We'll be back next week with an episode of Material Concerns, but until then.
Later taxpayers.
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