Canada is Boring

In this episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys and Jesse wade back into Canadian politics to unpack Pierre Poilievre’s slow slide from “inevitable” prime minister-in-waiting to a guy desperately trying to stay relevant against Prime Minister Mark Carney. Through a series of clips, they look at PP’s shifting persona, from attack dog to awkwardly “human” and back again, his bromance moment with Joe Rogan, and his current strategy of going after Carney’s biggest strength: his economic reputation. Along the way, they talk centrist politics, privatization, why Carney is hard for Conservatives to hate, and how much of this is really about policy versus pure political identity. Plus: bike-safety video confessions, dad bods, and a detour into capoeira, cold McCafé, and pressure-washing as a personality type.
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In this episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys and Jesse dive into the bizarre, lucrative world of psychic mail-order scams led by one of Canada’s most successful fraudsters, Patrice Runner.

Starting with his obsession with old-school magazine ads and get-rich-quick schemes, we follow Runner’s journey to partnering with celebrity psychic Maria Duval, licensing her name for North American “psychic predictions,” lucky talismans, and vibratory crystals. Over two decades, his company Infogest Direct Marketing raked in more than $175 million USD from mostly older, vulnerable believers across Canada and the US—selling false hope, fake artifacts, and rigged “personal” letters.
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In this special friends–only episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys and Jesse dig into the story of how CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, allegedly spied on Indigenous and environmental activists protesting the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, and then shared that information with oil companies and the National Energy Board.

They walk through the BCCLA’s decade‑long legal battle, heavily redacted court documents, and the cozy hospitality events between petroleum companies and Canada’s intelligence service. Along the way, they wrestle with the line between “national security” and corporate protection, and, of course, veer off into compost toilets, subway etiquette, and renting excavators.

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Rhys and Jesse dive into the legendary Canadian documentary Project Grizzly and the life of its unforgettable star, Troy Hurtubise—the man who spent years and thousands of dollars building bear-proof armor so he could safely get face-to-face with grizzlies. They cover: Troy’s near-fatal first encounter with a grizzly and how it sparked a lifelong obsession The evolution of his absurdly overbuilt Ursus bear suits, tested with trucks, swinging logs, and baseball bats His later inventions, from fire-resistant paste to the dubious Angel Light x-ray beam The Trojan ballistic armor suit that looked like Halo meets RoboCop—and still failed to sell His tragic, cinematic death and why Quentin Tarantino calls Project Grizzly one of his favorite films Plus: cinema verité rants, powdered wigs and blues dancing in Montreal.
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Rhys and Jesse dive into the wild life of Red Ryan, a Toronto-born hooligan who grew into one of Canada’s most notorious early 20th‑century criminals. From leading street gangs at 10, to hard labor in Kingston Penitentiary, to a wartime desertion and a “most daring” prison break that even inspired Ernest Hemingway, Ryan’s story is packed with chaos.

They unpack how Ryan pulled off a decade‑long scam as a “reformed” model prisoner—writing a book, sculpting Virgin Mary statues, charming a prison chaplain, and emerging as a media darling with his own radio show—while secretly robbing banks on the side. It all ends in a bloody liquor store shootout in Sarnia that shocks a country that thought it had found its redemption poster boy.

Plus, in the STD (Small Talk Dimension) zone, Jesse recounts a ridiculously elaborate 1745 powdered‑wig dinner party, complete with questionable Scottish accents, Jacobite plotting, and a near “diplomatic incident” over a misunderstood signature.
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