The Herle Burly

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! There's drama afoot within the conservative movement in Canada. Fights about what the party stands for and where it's going. It's all over Twitter and it's openly spilling into the pod-verse, national media airwaves, opinions in print, and into the hallways of Parliament. If you're a friend of Air Quotes Media, you know it has been talked about over at Curse of Politics.

Today we talk with one of the most thoughtful voices on the topic: Ben Woodfinden. Ben is an academic, a thinker about Conservative politics, worked for Pierre Poilievre in the run-up to and during the 2025 election, and has been active in this debate for the last couple of weeks. 

He doesn't think Poilievre has to leave for the Conservatives to be successful, but he does think they need to broaden their message. He shares his view that the Party needs to adopt a more patriotic position about Canada and demonstrate more love for Canada, including fiercer opposition to what Trump represents. At the same time, he thinks the Conservative Party of Canada's appeal to young people and its disruptive, anti-establishment energy is genuinely onto something and shouldn't be thrown away in the process. 

A smart, candid conversation about where conservatism in Canada goes from here. Stay with us. 
Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.
Greetings you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! Last week The Wall Street Journal published a backstory on what Mark Carney's been doing in Europe. Building alliances, stiffening spines against Trump, searching for sovereignty out of rupture, calls from one of his personal cell phones. It didn't contain exclusively new information, but it was fascinating detail in an American publication that prompted another question: How do journalists cover Mark Carney's government and what's actually different about this prime minister?

Prime Minister Carney is an internationalist with a following in Europe and the US. He's a known quantity to economic journalists everywhere. His government gives the impression of frenetic pace. He's managing the most difficult American administration in living memory. That's not a normal beat.

To help figure out what it's actually like to cover Mark Carney day to day, we've got three of the best journalists in the business:

Paul Wells, publisher of his own brilliant and widely read newsletter, https://paulwells.substack.com; Janyce McGregor, senior reporter at CBC News Network and a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery; and Mackenzie Gray, national reporter with global news covering Parliament Hill. 

It was a genuinely revealing conversation. 
Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.
Greetings you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! Today on the show, somebody who bears the proud designation of most appearances on the pod. We call her the economist explainer-in-chief, but more officially, she's the senior vice president and chief economist at the Royal Bank of Canada: Frances Donald!
This one's got range. Frances walks us through the contradiction of retirees sitting on record wealth while showing up in the bottom income bracket, why productivity has become Canada's most tired yet most important word, and what actually happens if CUSMA falls apart. Spoiler, it's a story that’s a regional nightmare, and how data talk of Canada as a whole misses the story of those various regional economies and various demographic economies, where Canadians are experiencing things very, very differently from each other. And buckle up for a genuinely wild story about a trucking exec who's already quietly quit Canada and moved his whole operation to Texas. Finally, Frances leaves us with an economic metaphor: Canada is an out of shape guy who needs to lose 100 pounds. 
Settle in for an hour with Frances Donald. 
Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.
Greetings you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! Artificial intelligence (AI) is here, and it is integrating itself in society in rapid ways.
Some boast AI has the power to transform our economy and produce growth rates we once knew in Canada. Others hype soon-to-come breakthroughs in science and medicine as a result of AI. These are exciting advancements … should potential meet reality.
People on the other hand – workers, students, voters – feel AI might put them out of a job. AI’s impact on how we organize ourselves as a society, and how we maintain cohesion in a world of massive power-hungry data centres and even more massive wealth concentration, is nothing short of enormous if not frightening … just consult with James Cameron and remember what Skynet was all about.
So to talk about it all we’re joined by the minister tasked with managing “AI for All” – Canada’s new national artificial intelligence strategy. Join us for a discussion with Evan Solomon, Canada’s first Minister of AI. 
Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail.
Greetings you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! It’s been a little over a year since the last federal election in Canada and this past week the House of Commons rose for the summer. It’s hard to argue it’s been anything but a good year for Carney Liberals. But that was last year. 
So, what does the Carney government need to do differently in year two? On Alberta separatism, what’s the message and who should be the messenger? On CUSMA, what are the implications to a non-renewal? And how should the government think about the Fall Budget over the summer? 
To answer those questions we're joined by The Chiefs! Three former Chiefs of Staff to some of Canada’s most accomplished heads of government:
Ian Brodie – first Chief of Staff to Stephen Harper. Now, Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, and Senior Advisor at New West Public Affairs.
Tim Murphy – former Chief of Staff to Paul Martin. Now, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategic Affairs Officer at AECON.
Brian Topp – former Chief of Staff to Rachel Notley in Alberta and Deputy Chief to Roy Romanow in Saskatchewan. Now, founding partner at GT&co. 
Thank you for joining us on #TheHerleBurly podcast. Please take a moment to give us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Watch episodes of The Herle Burly via Air Quotes Media on YouTube.
The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.