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When he first became prime minister a year ago this month, Mark Carney vowed to improve affordability, build badly needed projects quickly and make Canada more resilient and competitive in the face of President Donald Trump’s trade antagonism. As William Robson, president emeritus of the C.D. Howe Institute, discusses with Brian, the situation on all those fronts isn’t much better and, in several respects, worse than before. Canada keeps getting poorer, our fiscal situation is worse, the investment climate remains uncompetitive, projects we need aren’t happening, and Carney’s fiscal moves, from the GST grocery refund to green subsidies, are as economically misguided as the policies from the last guy. Carney can’t just blame Trump for it all. (Recorded March 20, 2026)
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Travis Dhanraj is not who you’d expect from a CBC critic. He’s not a conservative. He supports public broadcasting. As the host of Canada Tonight, he championed diversity. But as he tells Brian, he eventually discovered how shallow the broadcaster’s commitment was to its proclaimed values and its mandate. He explains how political coverage was controlled by a handful of politically biased personalities exercising veto control over shows seeking conservative perspectives. He also tells Brian about the preposterous stunts the CBC used to pay lip service to its standards, the corporation’s degrading human resources practices, and the lack of accountability and transparency from the top that, once he dared to challenge it, had network executives trying to silence him. (Recorded March 12, 2026)

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Confusing messages are the only guarantee after the Cowichan ruling and the Musqueam deal. The August court case confirmed a First Nation band has “title” over B.C. land that belongs to private property owners, while the federal government’s deal confirms Musqueam rights and title over Vancouver. Dwight Newman, a law professor specializing in Indigenous rights, tells Brian that assurances to private property owners that they won’t lose their land only go so far. What might not be targeted today could be tomorrow, he says. They discuss how the court case and government deal, along with the growing power of UNDRIP in Canadian law, only give more power and leverage to First Nations. And not just in B.C., but across Canada. (Recorded March 5, 2026)
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Tehran’s nuclear-weapons race was a risk the U.S., Israel and others couldn’t tolerate, and its terrorism and brutality have only worsened. Its development of weapons that could reach Europe is a growing, grave threat. But as more than one of this episode’s guests says, the war with Iran involves other states, too — including China, which faces losing another supplier of the cheap oil powering its own ambitions. It’s also a message from U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing that the U.S. won’t ignore adversarial aggression. Brian speaks with John Bolton, former presidential security advisor; Rick Hillier, Canada’s former chief of the defense staff; former U.S. intelligence officer, Jonathan Panikoff; Eylon Levy, former Israeli government spokesman; Vivian Bercovici, former ambassador to Israel; and Postmedia’s Adam Zivo, reporting from Tel Aviv. (Recorded February 27–March 1, 2026)
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A third Conservative crosses the floor. Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre runs damage control after one of his MPs goes off script on the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. And Ottawa wins a “psychological victory” after the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s emergency tariffs. Chris Selley and Lorne Gunter join Brian to discuss how, with all these developments and more, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mojo seems to just get better every day. Meanwhile, Conservatives can’t seem to catch a break. With a snap election still extremely possible, and the NDP seeming only weaker and unlikelier to compete for Liberal votes, they discuss why Poilievre is facing a dangerous situation for his party, and his leadership. (Recorded February 20, 2026)
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