Think runaway immigration is being fixed? Think again
The Liberals claim they’ve stopped the flood of temporary workers, foreign students and other immigrants that blew up our housing crisis and devastated the youth job market. Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservatives’ immigration critic, tells Brian that the reality is nothing close to what they say. Five-million people remain here on temporary visas. Hundreds of thousands of more people are still being allowed in. And the asylum system is being exploited as a backdoor by thousands more making dubious refugee claims. Rempel Garner explains why we need drastic solutions to close temporary residency programs, weed out unfounded asylum claimants and start sending non-permanent workers home. (Recorded September 12, 2025)
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49:54
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49:54
Don’t let police take away your right to self-defence
What can you do when someone attacks you or your family? After recent high-profile, violent home invasions, police have made it seem like you need to give up and not fight back. That’s wrong, as criminal lawyer Solomon Friedman tells Brian. Friedman explains how the power to defend yourself, your home and others, including killing an assailant if it’s justified, is consistently endorsed by court rulings from long before it was codified in Canadian legislation. But police don’t seem to like it. He and Brian discuss why the message cops are sending is so dangerous, making innocent people into defenceless targets while encouraging criminals to become fearless. (Recorded September 5, 2025)
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55:23
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55:23
The rich, populist Republican radical who paved the way for Trump
The U.S. Republican party today isn’t what it used to be. But the evolution toward President Donald Trump’s MAGA-ism began decades ago when William F. Buckley launched a revolution on the American right. As Buckley’s official biographer Sam Tanenhaus tells Brian, the late conservative icon was a lot like Trump: a media-savvy wealthy elite who rebelled against the very establishment he came from. In his new book, Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America, Tanenhaus lays out the improbable, fascinating story of the arch-Catholic New Englander who chummed around with hardcore leftists but transformed the GOP into a political powerhouse. In no small part by engaging Republicans in the culture war that eventually put Trump in the White House. (Recorded July 24, 2025)
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54:09
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54:09
They crushed our rights for COVID. We still haven’t won them back
We all know governments used the pandemic as rationale for stripping away basic Charter rights, even if some think it was justified. John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, remains at the forefront in fighting to get them back. He has a new book out, Corrupted by Fear: How the Charter was betrayed and what Canadians can do about it. And he discusses with Brian why it’s so important to expose the junk science, careless courts and gross media negligence that made it easy for governments to wield dangerous powers so irresponsibly. COVID may be over, Carpay explains, but if we don’t rebuild our culture of freedom, history tells us governments will do it again — and sooner than we think. (Recorded July 11, 2025)
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49:05
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49:05
The man who saved Canada’s Conservatives from political irrelevance
Before Pierre Poilievre, before Brian Mulroney, there was one leader who made federal conservatives an electoral force to be reckoned with. Before John Diefenbaker, Canada had begun to resemble a Liberal one-party state. Bob Plamondon, author of the new book Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker's Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence, talks with Brian about how Dief became a political sensation bigger than any other prime minister. How he stood against Soviets, while standing up to America, and championed equality before it was fashionable. And Plamondon explains how the three-time prime minister created the blueprint for the common-man conservatism that animates the party even today, turning the Tories “from a party of losers into a party of winners.” (Recorded June 26, 2025)
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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.
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