Published by Postmedia
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.
Listen on Apple PodcastsBritish politics has become a farce, with Andy Burnham now the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade. And no one knows what he really stands for or if he’ll even outlast the last six, as Daniel Hannan, head of the Institute of Economic Affairs and independent member of the House of Lords, tells Brian. They discuss the reason why so many prime ministers keep falling, and what the new Labour leader’s chances look like. They also get into the fates of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, and why Hannan thinks they both need to take an important lesson from Canada’s Conservative party to beat Labour and start cleaning things up in Britain. (Recorded July 23, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As unit commander in the largest homicide squad in the country, Hank Idsinga has seen more than most people would ever want to. He discusses with Brian what it’s really like in blue, the many things that are done right, and the many things done wrong, including the recent exposé of corruption by some Toronto officers. The author of the new book The High Road: Confessions of a Homicide Cop, Idsinga reveals the vitriolic antisemitism he saw on the force, and discusses the “abysmal” handling of anti-Israel demonstrators in Toronto. He also busts myths about purported low crime rates and politically popular gun bans, and explains how real policing is nothing like those shows on TV. (Recorded July 23, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF and more — they’re treated by governments and the media as neutral humanitarians working for everyone’s rights and welfare. But as Danielle Haas tells Brian, a new investigation by her organization EiGHT found them rife with bias, particularly against Jews and Israel. It uncovered charities refusing to acknowledge atrocities committed by Hamas, while ostracizing and even dismissing workers who dared speak up about human rights violations and blatant antisemitism, including within the organizations themselves. EiGHT, made up of former NGO leaders, is calling for transparency and oversight for charities whose discrimination goes largely unscrutinized, despite raking in billions of dollars in donations and funding. (Recorded July 17, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two new pipeline plans and an enormous $13-billion Meta data centre have been announced for Alberta in just the last few days. Brett Wilson, the veteran Calgary-based investor, joins Brian to explain the potential of the province to boom after just a slight loosening of the anti-development chokehold Ottawa had Alberta in for a decade with Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault running the Liberals. Several other major projects are coming, too, Wilson says, and the customary controversies, protests and complaints just aren’t happening like they used to. But he says there are too many obstructive Trudeau policies still on the books that Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to undo for Alberta, and Canada, to reach their full potential. (Recorded July 9, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Balancing protection for kids online while ensuring free speech and privacy for everyone else isn’t easy, which is why Ottawa has muffed it so many times, leaving Canada decades behind other countries in monitoring the harmful excesses of social media algorithms. With Bill C-34, the new Safe Social Media Act, the government just maybe has something workable, as Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary, tells Brian. She explains the strengths and potential weaknesses of the legislation, how far it will go in protecting people from harm, concerns about the new “digital regulator,” and whether the government is now going to force us all to scan our IDs and carefully watch what we say online. (Recorded June 25, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As Liberal MPs moan anonymously that Prime Minister Mark Carney is a mean boss, his defenders say it’s just high performance expectations (unlike the last leader’s). But, as our Political Hack panel looks back on the parliamentary sitting just ended, they question Carney’s own performance: his damage to Canada-U.S. trade negotiations; broken promises on affordability; and a disgraceful bailout for B.C. condo speculators. Meanwhile, his fundraiser for 24 Sussex risks turning into another sleazy Liberal donation grift. Yet Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre seems unable to dent lofty Liberal popularity numbers, and the NDP isn’t helping. Brian discusses it all with hosts of Postmedia’s exclusive Political Hack newsletter, Stuart Thomson, parliamentary bureau chief, and Tasha Kheiriddin, national columnist. (Recorded June 26, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
President Donald Trump’s deal with Iran is seen as a total capitulation to the Islamic Republic, and most of all in Israel, which fought alongside the Americans. Brian speaks with Eylon Levy, former Israeli government spokesman, and Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer now with the Atlantic Council. Levy explains how the deal allows Tehran to drive a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, just as America’s historic support for the Jewish state wanes — perhaps permanently. Citrinowicz analyzes why the joint U.S.-Israeli operation was ill-conceived from the start and why it’s ending badly, and warns that Israel’s ongoing battle to curb threats from Iran and its proxies may now only serve to further alienate the White House. (Recorded June 18 and 19, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tech firms and civil libertarians are sounding the alarm about “lawful access” legislation the Liberals seem hellbent on passing before summer. They warn that the backdoor it would create to access people’s encrypted internet communications puts us all at risk and makes it impossible for secure platforms to operate in Canada. Security officials say it’s necessary to keep up with the online criminals they lack modern tools to catch. Former national security adviser to the prime minister, Richard Fadden, tells Brian why Bill C-22 strikes a reasonable balance and the fears of serious privacy violations are unwarranted. Natalie Campbell, senior director at the Internet Society, explains why the dangers are real, and even graver than most people realize. (Recorded June 11 and 12, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A prime minister walks into a synagogue for an antisemitism speech and makes things worse. It’s not a joke, as our three guests all agree. Because Mark Carney and his government fear landing on the wrong side of Muslim leaders and their voting blocs, they say, his lecture on preserving Canadian tolerance refused to acknowledge why it’s so endangered: radicals who so rabidly hate Israel that they’re destroying Canadian values with their violent attacks against Jews. Brian is joined by Talia Klein Leighton, of Canadian Women Against Antisemitism, Amir Epstein, of the Jewish activist group Tafsik, and activist Ariella Kimmel. They explain the shock in their community after Carney’s speech and how more Jews say they now realize the Liberals are not their friends. (Recorded June 5, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What happens when you invite the migrants of the world, as former prime minister Justin Trudeau did, to flood into Canada? You end up with an avalanche of false refugee claims, bad actors gaming the system to stall deportations, and Ottawa spending nearly $1 billion a year to provide gold-plated health plans for tens of thousands of people who shouldn’t even be here. Immigration lawyer and policy specialist Richard Kurland details for Brian the unmistakable abuse that some people are using to stay in Canada, despite not being eligible to settle here. And he explains how Trudeau’s wholesale wreckage of our once excellent screening, hearing and deportation system has made it easier than ever for them to keep doing it. (Recorded May 27, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After a brutal decade under Justin Trudeau’s draconian anti-development policies, there’s real optimism in the western oilpatch again. Paul Colborne, CEO of Calgary-based Surge Energy, tells Brian why he’s convinced Prime Minister Mark Carney is serious about boosting oil production, including with more pipelines, and why investors are clamouring to get in on it. He explains why he even sees benefit to the carbon-tax and emissions-sequestering conditions in Carney’s memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. And why he doesn’t believe B.C., First Nations or some anti-oil Liberal MPs will stand in the prime minister’s way of using resources to get us out of the disastrous, money-printing economic dead end the last prime minister left behind. (Recorded May 22, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The growing sense about Mark Carney in Washington is that maybe he doesn’t actually want trade peace, as Tracy Moran, National Post correspondent in the U.S. capital, tells Brian. The prime minister’s “waiting game” tactic is out of runway: Talks have dried up and there’s not enough time now to head off the July 1 deadline when President Donald Trump gets to revise, or worse, declare an end to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement. Troublingly, Carney has managed to aggravate the Trump camp with continuous provocations, and the American public is souring on Canada. Meanwhile, she says, the White House is preparing tariffs that, this time, could be far more punishing than previous ones—with no more carve outs for CUSMA goods. (Recorded May 14, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you haven’t been paying attention to the Alberta separatism movement, you really should. It’s been making huge and rapid strides, with significant support and evidently enough momentum to trigger an independence referendum this year. To find out what’s driving the movement, Brian talks to Keith Wilson, an Alberta constitutional lawyer and leading voice for secession. Wilson explains why he thinks there is no future for the province as part of Canada — regardless of who’s in charge in Ottawa — because Confederation will always be a bad deal for Albertans compared to what they could achieve on their own. And he explains why he believes most of his fellow Albertans will soon come around to seeing that, too. (Recorded May 7, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They’re blowing windfalls. They’re setting up government agencies to subsidize favoured schemes. They’re dithering on infrastructure. And they shrug at Canada’s uncompetitive tax regime. The policies of Mark Carney’s Liberals, confirmed in last week’s economic update, are increasingly giving off strong Justin Trudeau vibes, as Brian discusses with Ian Lee, professor at Carleton’s Sprott School of Business, and Carlo Dade, at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. They consider how, a year after getting re-elected on promises to undo the damage of Trudeau’s devastating decade and make Canada more economically resilient, the Liberals seem to have no new playbook. And they warn of more destruction, particularly in the face of U.S. trade negotiations, if they don’t find one soon. (Recorded April 29, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford is the one man still alive who was personally in the room with then prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau when provinces and the federal government agreed, together, to a new Constitution Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He talks to Brian about the real basis for Section 33 — the notwithstanding clause — and how it came into being. He explains why the story that the federal government is telling about the clause’s alleged misuse is false, why Ottawa’s attempts to override it are unconstitutional, and why the Supreme Court has no authority to weigh in on its use, as the justices are now doing at the justice minister’s request. (Recorded April 17, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s running short of oil, electricity, food, medicine and currency, but Cuba’s communist regime is digging in as the Trump administration demands economic and democratic reforms. Brian discusses the situation with his guests, former State Department insider Mike Gonzalez, now with the Heritage Foundation, and author and longtime regime critic Humberto Fontova. They explain Washington’s imperative to finally curb Cuba’s malign global influence, including inside the U.S.; the motivations for the Castro family and its cronies in defying the pressure; and the challenge of total regime change. They also explain why news about President Donald Trump’s plan is scarce and largely spurious, and why so few people know what’s really going on. (Recorded April 17, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It’s not actually official that Canada’s defence budget meets NATO’s two per cent of GDP target, despite the press releases claiming so. Yes, spending has been going up, but what is it really meant for? This is Brian’s discussion this week with David Perry, president of the Global Affairs Institute, and Christian Leuprecht from the Royal Military College of Canada. They explain how the government still can’t figure out if it wants to project power or sit on the sidelines and criticize those who do, and whether it wants excellent equipment or just the grandest job-creation promises. We might suddenly think we’ve become serious about defence, but our allies and our enemies have reason to question how serious we really are. (Recorded April 2, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Canada’s two national opposition parties, the Conservatives and NDP — now under Avi Lewis — are relentlessly focused on affordability and dismantling a system they say screws non-elites. As this week’s panel discusses, both Lewis and Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre clearly stand for something, which raises questions about what Prime Minister Mark Carney stands for … besides fighting President Donald Trump. Brian is joined by former Conservative campaign director Jenni Byrne, longtime NDP strategist Kim Wright, and former Liberal adviser Warren Kinsella. They break down how the new NDP leader, unlike the last one, will make life more difficult for the Liberals. They also consider the likelihood Carney will prorogue Parliament after securing a majority, and how much it will (or won’t) help him. (Recorded April 1, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you think the Supreme Court will be reluctant to rewrite the Constitution, as Ottawa wants it to by handcuffing Section 33, then you haven’t been paying attention, as Bruce Pardy tells Brian. It doesn’t matter that the notwithstanding clause explicitly gives parliaments the right to override certain court rulings, or that it was key to the Charter of Rights being passed in the first place, says Pardy, a constitutional scholar at Queen’s University. The rule of Canadian constitutional decisions is that there are no rules. For decades, justices have simply invented interpretations and dreamt up Charter “values” that align with their left-wing politics. And our constitution is conveniently designed to keep that happening — forever. (Recorded March 27, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices