The Herle Burly

The Herle Burly was created by Air Quotes Media with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as CN Rail, and the Canadian Climate Institute.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! When Ukrainian drones hit the Russian internet giant Yandex this week, bot traffic and propaganda posts reportedly fell off a cliff. That tells you something about how manufactured and polluted our information space has become. Andrew MacDougall, five-time Herle Burly guest, former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Harper, now partner at Trafalgar Strategy in London, and senior policy fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, joins David to explain the attention economy. Are we paying big tech with our time and our brains instead of our money? And is it taking a wrecking our mental health and our democracy?
Andrew argues that regulators have spent years trying to clean up the mess instead of shutting off the machine that makes it. He wants to go after the business model itself: make people pay for social media, end anonymous accounts, and use competition and product liability law against addictive design. David offers a few counterpoints. He points out that Canada has managed a genuine national consensus in the face of Trump 2.0, and the two dig into why Mark Carney's steady, analogue style is landing with anxious voters. Then they tackle the AI wave about to supercharge all of it, and why governments are doing nothing about it while 75% of Canadians want it regulated.
Is democracy about to fall into the gap between our Paleolithic brains and godlike technology? Have a listen.
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, and the Canadian Climate Institute.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! David sits down with his old friend who's now at the centre of the federal government’s policy agenda: The Honourable Steven MacKinnon, Canada’s Minister of Transport and Government House Leader.
Minister MacKinnon lays out why Ottawa the agenda is necessary as he pushes back on privatization claims and comparisons to Ontario premier Mike Harris’ sale of the 407. He explains how Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, changes federal labour disputes, and David presses him on whether it amounts to the end of the right to strike. They also discuss how the government plans to meet its duty to consult First Nations while approving projects within a year.
MacKinnon offers a candid admission that, with a crowded agenda and the previous NDP deal, the Trudeau government didn't spend enough time on the economy. The conversation wraps with his case for why the Liberal brand still owns the political centre to this day.
It's an insider's view of what the government is actually doing and why. Join us.

Order a copy of Anthony's new book here: https://www.indigo.ca/products/untitled-77?variant=46685129572562. 
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, and the Canadian Climate Institute.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! This week David sits down with Anthony Scaramucci. The man immortalized in the dictionary as a unit of time.

From Wall Street to the White House to fellow podcaster on The Rest Is Politics: US, Anthony is out with his new book, All the Wrong Moves. He argues that three catastrophic decisions — China's admission to the WTO, the bailout of Wall Street after 2008, and the deficit-financed invasion of Iraq — set the stage for Donald Trump.

Scaramucci knows Prime Minister Carney personally, going back three decades to their Goldman Sachs days, and he doesn't hold back: calling Carney the best of any Western leader at managing Trump, "not even close." And he even brings us the receipts, literally revealing a photo of the pair at his annual Davos wine party. 

He also gets candid about his own reasons for joining the Trump administration in the first place, what it cost him personally and professionally, and why, despite still calling himself a Republican, he's actively working to see MAGA politically destroyed.

The conversation ranges from the unraveling of the post-2008 financial system and the strange marriage of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party that produced MAGA, to what a post-Trump America might actually look like, and whether the damage done to allies like Canada and the UK can ever really be undone.

Join us for a sharp, funny, and brutally honest conversation.

Order a copy of Anthony's new book here: https://www.indigo.ca/products/untitled-77?variant=46685129572562. 
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, OECTA, and the Canadian Climate Institute.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! Three years ago, David convened our second Ontario Liberal leadership debate in studio, no podiums, no clock, just candidates talking. Now, with the party searching again for its way back from third place, we’re doing it a third time.
All five contenders for the Ontario Liberal leadership sat down face-to-face with David for a wide-ranging, unscripted conversation covering affordability, healthcare, the economy, trade with the U.S., and what it actually takes to beat Doug Ford. The goal wasn't to stage a roast but to let each candidate make their case for a very serious job. If you're a party member with a vote coming up, this one's essential listening.
Five candidates, one contest, and a party finding its way out of the wilderness.
The candidates (in order of introduction): Dylan Marando, Stephanie Bowman, Navdeep Bains, Lee Fairclough, and Eric Lombardi. 

Our goal is simply this: To help eligible voters make an excellent choice. 
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, and the Canadian Climate Institute.
Greetings, you curiouser and curiouser Herle Burly-ites! This week, we indulge in a little podcast inbreeding here at Air Quotes Media with our colleagues Mike McDonald and Geoff Meggs – hosts of Hotel Pacifico and two of the sharpest political strategists in the country – to dig into the extraordinary unraveling happening on the right in British Columbia.
Once a stable coalition of free-market Liberals and Conservatives, the province's "not-NDP" option has collapsed into open civil war under new leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, with nine MLAs fleeing her caucus, breakaway parties multiplying, and a culture war base increasingly hostile to the "board of trade" politics that used to define the coalition. Mike, former chief of staff to Christy Clark, and Geoff, former chief of staff to the late John Horgan, walk us through how a party that nearly beat David Eby a year ago has since imploded so spectacularly. And why the province's upcoming by-election could decide whether Findlay survives at all.
But this isn't just a BC story. As Mike and Geoff argue, the forces tearing apart the province's right (radicalization, purity tests, a rejection of business-class conservatism in favour of culture-war populism) are the same ones reshaping Conservative politics nationally and beyond. David, Mike, and Geoff also get into Eby's precarious hold on power, the fight over Indigenous rights and DRIPA, the collapsing softwood lumber and forestry sectors, and whether a snap fall election is coming.
If you think what happens in BC stays in BC, this episode will change your mind. 
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.