Bonus Episode 177 – What the hell is wrong with Canada w/ Rob Rousseau (Unlocked)

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Rob Rousseau returns to the podcast to answer the age-old question that has stumped generations of thinkers: what the hell is wrong with Canada?

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https://www.twitch.tv/robrousseau

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The the last time we spoke was during actually like a a poignant moment of like of concern right like I was I’ve been thinking about this a lot of like how media they they perform this concern of like oh we’re concerned as like a class of people

For the certain these people these human beings and some usually some almost entirely in some far off land um and we’re worried about them and we’re frantically upset by any of Injustice to them so I realized like that was the last time we spoke and it’s just so it’s

So crazy how like the amount that like they pretended to care about say ukrainians about Iranians about you know whatever and then how they like openly don’t care about Palestinians like that you just have to you just have to like live with that it kind of just gives the whole

Game away doesn’t it like it’s uh it’s hard for it’s hard for anyone that’s working in this kind of ecosystem either in politics or media to pretend that anything that they say is real you know at this point when it’s it’s very clearly selectively deployed very generously I would say describe it as

Being selectively deployed kind of outrage or concern um versus this situation where we’re just we’re we’re witnessing over the last couple months one of the most [ __ ] depraved like events that I think any of us have ever seen and we we’ve lived through some you know we’re getting up

There in the Years and we’ve lived through some horrible moments and this is one of the most depraved one of them and you know complete either Silence from our media class maybe some light hand ringing while ultimately just jinning up support for the the monsters that are doing the the genocide and the

Mass murder it’s really really something else actually so so yeah this is um this episode is is called what the hell is wrong with Canada and it’s uh we’re GNA we’re going to attempt to ask the question what the hell is wrong with Canada because it’s it’s strange you

Know we live we weal I think we talked about this a little bit before but like you know we’ve live uh in the sort of like um we we’re the satellite of the US right like the big Evil Empire and so it’s and also like the you Canada is

Relatively small like we’re smaller than the population of California and and our you know like our foreign policy footprint is basically to follow whatever footsteps that the US the US sort of like whatever fool hearty Adventure the US sort of is going on Canada goes along with with notable

Exceptions like Iraq 2003 but like I think it’s interesting at this point to think of that’s that’s in terms of like our foreign policy but like the that doesn’t make it less insane insanely like imperialistic and and psychotic and so like what’s interesting to think about how Liberals are leading this

Genocidal war in in like leading the charge really I mean like like the Biden regime is responsible for this genocidal War like the decisions that like Israeli policy makers make is in tandem with the US Empire so like this is like when we talk about like Iranian proxies like the

Israel is like the greatest proxy and not just for the us but for like the EU obviously too and so like there’s an interesting thing that’s happening with the Machinery of kind of liberal interventionism or liberal sort of humanitarian concern the performance because this is not something that like conservatives particularly deal with

Right like this is not they don’t trade in these GS like they are like blood and soil nationalists most of the time whereas for Liberal class it’s again that concern or like the performance of concern it’s like oh it’s terrible what’s happening in Ukraine oh it’s terrible what’s happening in Iran but

Like we we see like we see that like on the on the flip side though is that like the same political sort of geopolitical alignment you know reflects on too so I was hoping we could sort of get into you know we never talked about the hunka Affair hunka hunka burn and racism

Affair one of my favorite things to ever happen in this country following following the news in this country I was just having an absolute great watching that happen because because it’s an interesting it’s an interesting kind of like appetizer for for this thing so tell us people who don’t know can you

Tell us what happened yeah um well we we inv invited uh zilinsky into our Parliament and it was kind of it was very funny because the liberal like the Justin Trudeau Christia Freeland and like the melan J and the whole kind of cabinet it was

Kind of their they they felt so we we’re important like look he’s coming to talk to Canada we’re part of this this big struggle you know against the evil Bad Russians you know Christia Freeland it’s her whole life’s work it’s like the culmination of her life’s life’s work generations of her family’s

Work exactly yeah absolutely to kind of create this sort of uh uh Ukrainian nationalism um anti- Soviet anti-russian that kind of whitewashes these kind of Ukrainian nationalist figures from the past um so they they invite zalinski to uh the parliament you know everyone gives him the big Standing

Ovation and then the Speaker of the House in the parliament says and now as a special guest we’ve invited uh this this Brave Ukrainian hero from the Past who fought the Russians during World War II and um introduced this guy and uh you know gave a big wave to everyone and

Like that’s that was the funny thing for me is because so everyone in the whole Parliament stands up and applauds and that was word that was Verbatim what he said not not all the social Democrats oh yeah no they were all they were all there they’re all smiling and that was

My favorite part was definitely Christy freeland’s face in that moment just beaming just be beaming with pride like it was just the absolute best day of her entire career this stuff and you know that was the I I missed I don’t know what the beginning of the intro was but

That was Verbatim what he said he fought the Russians during World War II and I think even watching it it was almost so blatant that I I kind of skipped over it I almost wasn’t really paying attention uh because I was thinking more about the zalinsky thing and then you know later

On that evening you see people start like taking that clip and and posting it and being like wait what who in World War II like what is this and and I really believe that it was the sort of like uh uh tanky [ __ ] posters on Twitter that that helped turn that into

A big Scandal I think everyone would have probably rather just turned the page on that and probably if it hadn’t become a big scandal with like especially with like even Zionist like Jewish groups getting involved and being like hey that’s actually not okay these Jewish groups that are that are normally

Like uh benab or whatever that are normally all about kind of like propagating this this kind of Zionist uh propaganda um they started complaining as well and saying like whoa what the [ __ ] like why are you why are you um applauding this guy and as people looked

Into his past and what that actually meant those words you know fought the Russians during World War II um which led to this a big International Scandal um and yeah it was just amazing for me because I’ve been I’ve been watching this stuff I’ve been watching this stuff

Play out and talking a lot about you know this the Ukraine conflict and how it’s not quite as uh black and white as our as our media class and political class would have us believe in the the role of these like um uh Ukrainian nationalists in in you know this the

Movement that we’ve been promoting and arming and funding and the way they’ve been rehabilitating these people like Stefan Vander who helped perpetrate the Holocaust and committed these terrible atrocities against Jewish communities and polish communities um so it was this it was this crazy moment where all of that

Really came to a head and and the quiet part was said out loud and we got this just amazing image of the Canadian Parliament including zilinski uh applauding this guy and that was actually another funny part of this thing because people were like we should apologize to zilinsky apologize to the

Ukrainians it’s like why they love this guy they go tell them about what this guy was about and they probably think it was like yeah great good we think this guy’s is fantastic the idea that zilinski didn’t know the idea that Christia Freeland didn’t know what the implications of that were the entire

That everyone in our [ __ ] Parliament didn’t understand who was fighting the Russians during World War II it’s just incredible right that was their whole excuse we’re just so stupid we’re just so stupid and ignorant we just didn’t put this together we didn’t vet this guy we didn’t Google this guy

Enough you know um but the idea that they don’t know like these people these are not stupid people I don’t think I mean maybe kind of a little bit but I don’t think they’re that stupid but it was more just like a we’re sorry we got

Caught kind of thing in my view yeah I mean and the crazy thing about that is that like the the the and I remember yeah they did say they fought the Russians and then you think about that it’s like not even factually true because it was a Soviet Army and the

Soviet Army was this like multiethnic and also included ukrainians too so like like what liberals the like a liberal like the liberal blood lust on Ukraine is is so insane because it openly rejects like a like a large portion of Ukrainian history which the role of the UK of Ukraine in the history

Of the Soviet Union is just written off and one side of the Ukrainian diaspora which happened to show up here in the 40s and the 50s gee I wonder why like what were they leaving why were they leaving and like that confirmation bias then gets translated into like generations of anti-communists that like

You meet on the street here like I met I meet some ukrainians here and definitely I don’t bring up Russia because I know better but like Ukraine is a large country with tens of millions of people if you really want to play the game of this group of like right-wing

Nationalists speaks for the whole then don’t then like then don’t get mad when like you know like other countries around the world invite you know the trucker Convoy people like pler like show them around right like this is the strange double game that liberals in particular like to play that they under

The guise of like concern and like ethical like you know ethical whatever they find like the most reactionary forces and they put them up because the most reactionary forces are aligned with their with their foreign policy because the Liberals are the reactionary forces now I mean and they have been for a long

Time it’s just that Sheen of respectability and concern and like Justin Trudeau wearing I am a feminist or like this is what a feminist looks like t-shirt like we live like these are some cynical [ __ ] ghouls who think like nothing of our intelligence like we’re talking about like they’re they’re

Destroying like they’re destroying a country called Ukraine by funding this insane proxy war and like helping it along and at the same time employing this insanely racist you know like um uh immigration policy where ukrainians like the the door is flung open to any Ukrainian who can afford to leave right

Middle classes usually and upper classes who can then come here and set up lives no problem but like ask like a gin they’re letting in like 1,000 and all of those people are insanely vetted like it’s it’s crazy and like even that clip of like Justin Trudeau like saying like

Oh there’s a genocide in Ukraine and like keeping mom on Gaza like this whole sort of inflection of foreign policy of the Liberals is now being shown for like how bogus it is so I’m thinking like what like so I guess I want to ask the question like what the hell is wrong

With Canadian foreign policy like first of all do we have a foreign policy or are we just like a side note to the US yeah I mean that’s that’s always been my understanding of it is that we’re we’re a junior partner in the Empire right we’re like the on the on the

Playground the US is the big bully and we’re the ones behind it going like yeah yeah like friendly people the big bully in front of us and like one of one of Biff’s goons like the goons in in in one of goons that’s I would say that’s all

We are exactly we’re like flea we’re flee from Red Hot Chili Peppers um but that’s it like you pointed out with Iraq with there’s certain other cases where there might be some kind of a difference or we might not be involved in this or that or we might have a

Different sort of rhetorical stance but I think it’s it’s mostly uh performative okay yeah I think yeah that’s it I think it’s mostly performative it’s mostly just like a good cop bad cop routine whether it comes to Iraq whether it comes to Cuba whether it comes to Vietnam for example we might have

Slightly different stances we might not get involved in certain things but we’re also not meaningfully doing anything to challenge the us and what it’s doing you know um we’re simply kind of just taking this other stance we’re we’re providing a sort of different Viewpoint from the

Part of the sort of the Empire the west or the rules based order the fourth whatever you want to call it but we’re not really meaningfully doing anything to challenge that I think Vietnam is a good example too because like we get you know we weren’t involved in Vietnam a

Lot of like soldiers that didn’t want to go deserters came here to to escape the draft and stuff like that we’re still like I said we’re still not doing anything to challenge the US on its Vietnam policy we’re also still producing chemical weapons and Napal stuff here that gets shipped over there

And dropped on Vietnamese villagers while we’re simultaneously kind of taking this moral High Ground so I think sometimes you might point to some differences like that but ultimately yeah we’re the we’re the the flea we’re the we’re the the Goon or the the the TH or whatever you wanna whatever you want

To call it the henchmen C because yeah like the the weird reputation that can Canadians like inculcate in themselves as that oh we’re not we’re not the evil empire of the US at least liberal some kind of liberal or sort of you know whatever Social Democratic I mean it’s hard to say

Canada is a relatively Big Country it’s got a lot of different people in it with different opinions so it’s not like there’s a simple way of like representing it but at the same time there is this kind of branding that Canada likes to sort of you know sell as

Oh we’re this like s we we believe in I remember that stupid remember when we were kids uh and that horrible I am Canadian thing and one of the lines was like I believe I believe in peacekeeping not Empire or some [ __ ] like that I’ll

Clip it in here but like I was like no you don’t that’s not even true excuse me no I tell people this often like literally like what a lot of people in our generation think of as like Canadian culture was literally from that ad campaign like they literally cooked up

This ad campaign and sold that to us and we were like yes this is this is good our our whole culture comes from a [ __ ] beer commercial and like Tim Horton I guess we like showing up early to the hockey rank with a with a [ __ ] bad coffee I don’t know that’s that’s

Our culture that we cherish so much it’s embarrassing hey I’m I’m not a lumberjack or a fur Trader and I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dog sled I have a prime minister not a president I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my backpack I believe in

Peacekeeping not policing diversity not assimilation and that the beaver is a truly proud and Noble animal a to is a hat a Chesterfield is a couch and is pronounced Zed not z z Canada is the second largest landmass the first nation of Hoy and the best part of North

America my name is Joe and I am Canadia Canadian national identity is very flimsy the more you look at it like it’s a flimsy oh attempt to like station or sort of like create yourself out of this relatively like you know again like a footnote or like a footnote to a larger

Sort of settler Colonial project which is what what Canada is right like it’s this weird offshoot of British imperialism like the US that didn’t develop into the superpower that the US did but into like the superpowers resource Hub and like you know and a place where and like a weird but because

Of I think public health care I think and like the sort of nominally Social Democratic like undertones to Canadian neoliberalism like that’s basically holding it together I feels like the idea that like Canada is not the US so it’s like this kind of negative identity

But then on top of that like you know when you see the maple leaf like yeah like what is it it’s like this hollow signifier of of of like Bland like it actually I the more the more I age the more I realize that Justin Trudeau is

Like the perfect Canadian in a way because it’s like pure artifice and underneath like a sort of liberal humanitarian arist but underneath is this like cynical like warmongering monster so like in a weird way it’s like a yeah like it’s he’s actually like a like he’s a deserving

Like we deserve a guy like Justin Trudeau as the leader like he should just stay leader because who else can do it better yeah absolutely um and it’s like that’s what’s been absolutely hilarious also about this kind of growing reactionary movement in this country as well that

View him they really think he’s this like communist like left-wing uh Marxist or something you know it’s it’s really incredible and they they’re holding up Pierre PV as being some kind of like workingclass hero this like absolute nerd lifelong conservative political operative um no but it’s it’s true like it it is really

Flimsy and uh it’s it’s amazing for me sometimes like I mentioned I grew up in eastern Ontario in a small town Brockville Ontario I think I talked to you about that before and uh I’m very I’m very like would be very ripe to accept this Framing and accept this kind

Of version of Canadian identity and through some miracle I managed to kind of deprogram myself from it um by probably by some combination of taking psychedelic drugs when I was a teenager and uh learning about Marxism and stuff like that and you start to realize like

Oh [ __ ] all that is just completely fake yeah wow so but you see how a lot of people totally buy into that uh that exact framing as flimsy as it is there’s a lot of people in this country that believe it and a lot of people around

The world that believe it too maybe we can sort of for people who don’t understand the Geo the sort of like geography of Canada and its population maybe this would be a funny time to go into it because I think our last episode two we talked about the weird role

Quebec plays in in the sort of dynamics of Canada because of its population but then we can also talk about Alberta because Alberta is the kind of like dark Bizarro World Quebec where like and and where it’s like this weird Outpost of like Western cowboyism in and they and

They adopt that identity like they have cowboy hats like they think of themselves as the West even though there’s like far more Western provinces that like don’t use the rhetoric um of like cowboyism yeah I mean you’re even seeing this kind of like growing kind of secession movement in Texas right now

And you see the same thing in Alberta the Alberta exit people that want to have their own little cowboy a little or just be a little part of America Society you know yeah so can maybe explain a little bit of the of of Alberta because Alberta plays a strange role right

Because it is also like a huge source of wealth for like the Canadian state but it is a kind of like it sort of Fashions itself as this bad boy and like a kind of alternative to like the other provinces like it’s not social de it’s not like liberal BC like British

Columbia and it’s not Quebec and it’s not Ontario that it has its own identity and because of its population and its resources it does try I mean but it fails to kind of throw its weight around so maybe explain Alberta to people who might not

Know well I don’t know I mean you did a pretty good job setting the table there um it’s a place that I try not to uh visit very very much you know I’ve been I’ve been a few times but I think I think you kind of nailed it there I

Think there there’s been this effort to kind of adopt this uh sort of a a little pocket Nation inside the country uh I guess that’s really based around it’s like a pro State it’s like a little pocket pocket Pro State basically where the whole like oil and gas industry has become like an

Essential cor part of people’s identities uh in addition to all the kind of cowboy stuff that you’re talking about and um any you know similar to to where that kind of identity sort of pops up everywhere I think it’s uh it’s kind of this like hostage situation thing where you have

These massive conglomerates that are the ones that are really profiting from that and people have been kind of convinced that you know these companies are somehow on their side or working for them or trying to improve their lives in any way when all they’re really interested in doing is just siphoning

Out all the resources and uh and putting it into the bank accounts of the shareholders and CEOs and board members of these largely foreign countries that are uh part of the sort of oil and gas industry and like there’s been this and despite all the the the environmental

Consequences as well of the whole like the tar Sands and the the oil and gas production there just massive like tailing ponds of like [ __ ] toxic chemicals and just the the landscape has been just absolutely decimated by this industry but any efforts to kind of like

Regulate that or rain it in or try to initiate some kind of a transition into more green energy is me with this like almost violent hostility um like the whole idea of even having like a carbon tax which has basically been the the centerpiece of like Trudeau’s sort of

Neoliberal approach to climate uh legislation has been met there with like this this like this like apocalyptic anger and the idea that like that’s and that’s the reason why the you know because people are losing their jobs people have making less and less money less and less ability to kind of like

Profit uh from the workingclass standpoint uh in this industry and yeah there’s this kind of like uh Stockholm syndrome mentality where instead of blaming the oil and gas companies for exploiting the land and exploiting the people giving some people that work in the industry a few crumbs giving a few

Like people that live in the in the province a few crumbs while largely just extract ing all the profits for themselves and people have this this mentality that when you try to challenge them that you’re you’re attacking them personally you’re attacking their lifestyle um and that’s the kind of I

Think mentality that a lot of albertans have then there’s a lot of wonderful people in Alberta I should say as well that I that I know of especially in the cities and and a lot of people that have really great values Progressive values but this is largely the people that are

Are sort of like overseeing the political climate there yeah well I think it’s it’s worth pointing out because I think what I was saying a moment ago was talking about when the NDP tried to become the the leading party in Alberta and uh you know the NDP the Social Democratic party the party

That’s going to be better on all these issues and you saw just time and time again in Alberta even if they were trying to give some kind of semblance of uh redbear kind of Social Democratic uh policies they were still trying to be the nice reactionary party and we’re

Going to work with the oil companies we don’t want to go against them we’re not going to do any kind of just transition we’re not going to meaning like push back against the way that like our province is being exploited either environmentally or politically or economically we’re going to be the good

Responsible uh pipeline oil and gas party and they obviously got decimated by these like blood drinking reactionaries who still viewed them as being uh you know uh green Communists basically so I mean it’s the same kind of situation in BC like you said I think

As a sort of society I think it has kind of a an a semblance of being a lot more tolerant a lot a lot less reactionary than a place like Alberta you have the NDP in power there as well and I’ve implemented policies that you can you

Can talk about that are that are good I think I mean I’m not I’m not from BC it’s a um but you know it’s there there are things you can point to there’s also things like the ways that under uh the NDP they’ve still been like sending out

You know RCMP thugs to like bust up these uh uh indigenous blockades uh protesting the Coastal Gas link Pipeline and these kinds of things so um you also it’s it’s a province especially like in the cities that’s completely like at the mercy of these like real estate developers uh housing is just an

Absolutely the housing crisis in BC is probably just as bad as anywhere and despite having a Social Democratic party you don’t see them meaningfully really doing anything about that either not really building public housing not really doing anything to push back against the landlords or the real estate

Developers so this is all just to say that the NDP even though they might have this kind of uh nominally Social Democratic veneer you see when they’re actually in charge of these provinces it’s just kind of a different flavor of Canadian reactionary that with maybe a SL slightly different rhetoric maybe a

Few more um Crums given to the the masses basically and so yeah this was a this is there was a a some kind of Zoom call with Selena Robinson who I guess is the education minister in the uh BC the NDP and who since October 7th also has

Been working with these like Zionist groups to like uh um revamp Holocaust Education in BC and basically tie in the whole idea of the Holocaust with Israel and kind of promote this idea that uh this is very like Central kind of COG and Zionist propaganda about the role of

Israel in like protecting Jewish people and being in response to the Holocaust um and then was doing this Zoom call and Zoom call and was talking about uh you know Palestine and we just basically gave this very basically a standard white supremacist kind of colonized her mentality when she talked

About the land the land that Israel was founded on and you know we see this we in the same thing it said about the foundation of Canada the foundation the the settlement of Canada in the United States in Central and South America just basically like oh this is just some

Crappy people piece of land nothing was growing on it the people there weren’t doing anything with it yeah yeah yeah there was a few hundred thousand people but like there’s no real like economy there’s no real Society there and until Israel came and breathed life into this

Uh into this land you know we we have a whole generation and we know from the data that it’s 18 to 34 year olds that have no idea about the Holocaust they don’t even think it happened they don’t even understand that Israel was was offered to the Jews who

Were who were misplaced displaced um so they have no connection to how it’s started they don’t understand that it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it you know there were you know several hundred thousand people but other than that it didn’t produce an economy it didn’t have it couldn’t grow

Things it didn’t have anything on it and that it was the folks who were displaced that that that came and the people who had been living there for generations and together they worked hard and they had their own battles right we know the history and again this is not this is

Not just about exclusive to Israel this is kind of the kind of colonizer mentality I think that that people talk about the settlement of North America Central South America and um people got very angry about that because it’s this very racist Trope this idea that uh you

Know it’s just nothing was going on there nothing grows there until Israel until the you know uh until Israel settled the the land and then they they they established these beautiful cities and be this e wonderful economy and all these green this green environment and uh well people got really angry about

That especially in the context of what’s happening right now this genocidal mass murder campaign that we’re fully supporting and that she as a Zionist also supports um regardless of what her rhetoric is about that uh people got really upset about it um she did get ultimately after all the pressure that

She was getting removed from her post by the uh David eie the the premiere of uh BC and I think that’s that’s been the amazing thing for me is that there’s been more of a backlash over that over the fact that she got consequences for these like ignorant

Statements there’s been more of this backlash over that than anything that she said or the fact that our government is supporting this like [ __ ] genocide in in Gaza and now the latest thing that’s happened and this also speaks to how completely pathetic most people in any kind of

Institutionally left position is in this country um so not only did she you know lose her position uh and and you know she’s had to apologize she’s apparently had to take like Islam islamophobic sensitivity training or something like that um but some some Pro Palestine activists went to her office and wrote a

Bunch of slogans on the ground a bunch of slogans in chalk free Palestine free Gaza we don’t accept your apology you know they put posters uh there was one that said Zionism equals Nazism like on her office and now there’s been this big like circling of the wagons moment with

People in the media class in the political class being like oh this has gone too far now this is disgusting yeah and um you know it’s not just like centrists or reactionaries or liberals doing this but all the people that are in the NDP in the NDP establishment

Chiming in jug meet sing is saying we we got to draw the line here about these hateful messages being being left on the sausage on the on the on the ground and outside the office you see um uh oh sorry I’m [ __ ] blanking on his name uh ay Lewis excuse me ay Lewis

Who Naomi Klein’s husband Mr Naomi Klein exactly yeah and you know what in in his credit he’s been he’s gone pretty hard over the last three months in in three four months in defending Palestinians and criticizing Israel but he gets involved too like oh this is just someone trying to discredit the

Movement no one should pay attention to this like this is just childish and immature jug me sing is talking about how hateful it is yeah and uh yeah it’s just it’s just amazing and there’s been more of a backlash over that than anyone that actually supports the mass murder

Of Palestinian little kids and I think that says pretty much all you need to know about how our political class operates across this the political spectrum and our media class as well there’s been way more hand ringing over this than you know the over 30,000 people that have died with our full

Support over the last four months yeah and what’s what’s crazy is that you have this like I mean she’s talking that the clip of her she’s talking to benai Bri which is the right flank the right Wing flank of the Zionist Lobby in Canada hard rights I mean these are Ultra nationalist

Zionists they’re not like some liberal zionists but at a certain point though you realize that the difference that like when it comes down to waging a genocidal War shooting children shooting babies like letting them starve like letting their corpses rot watching them expire in a hospital that like a that

The liberal media class will take the far right flank of of the Zionist movement happily so at this point you have Jesse Brown the founder and like leader of Canada land who for four months has been falsely like sending out like accusing people of anti of anti-Semitism has been playing the same

Game that zionists always play which is completing completing conflating Zionism with Judaism which is like the most cynical which can be easily undone with the fact that like like a growing number of Jews in Canada partly because of Israel itself are now anti-zionist proudly and loudly and the fact that

Like this is too much for guys like Jesse Brown Like Jesse Brown would rather see his media project that he’s built up for like what a decade and a half how old is Canada land at this point like it’s pretty old something like that yeah like he’d rather Smash It

To The Ground to defend Zionism and like he’s been doing it constantly it’s insane like and this is like an ostensibly liberal Canadian character like it’s crazy like it’s so like it’s as if it’s as if like the October 7th like triggered in a class of people this like deeper

Reactionary um it’s like deeper reactionary operating system that was always linger lingering in them that had this overlay of like almost typically Canadian right like social democracy liberalism oh we’re not like a fascist whatever but like like their foreign policy is not like they’re no different

Than Trump like in effect right the same people who decried Trump for four years who threatened to like jump off of buildings Right In the End Produce the same like agree with like the same fundamental like political principles when it comes to certain issues right when it comes to other stuff they’ll

Break with him but like no when it comes to Zionism no we’re Ultra nationalist Zionist it’s crazy yeah it’s been a I think that’s been one of the most fascinating elements of this is seeing that mask slip uh for for a lot of people and I think the Ukraine thing kind of started

It like we saw the whole support for fascism in Ukraine you see a crack in the facade there the hunka thing was the ultimate example of that uh really spelling that out for everyone just what we’ve been supporting there um and then like you said I think October 7th in the

Last four months has been the the the the ultimate kind of inciting incident for people to just completely drop whatever facade was there I can’t stress enough like we’re talking about you know uh Jesse Brown and you know def obviously defending Selena Robinson now that’s the whole thing he’s he’s

Throwing his body on the tracks for that can’t be stressed enough though that when people when Pro Palestine when Pro Palestine excuse me uh activists targeted Indigo which is um yeah which is the CEO of indigo is Heather ricean who not only she’s not only a Zionist but actually funds like it contributes

To this fund that supports people that don’t want to go volunteer tax break for it too yeah and when people engaged in a direct action at Indigo Jesse described uh Indigo as a a just a jewish-owned bookstore these activists going after this like Jewish owned bookstore this is a massive

Billion dooll conglomerate like this is a huge chain of bookstores that has in fact like like swallowed up all mostly most local like bookstores like it’s become this big uh national chain M billion dollar conglomerate and Jesse Brown’s describing it like it’s this small little mom and pop operation the shop around the

Corner yeah exactly this little Jewish owned book stop like it’s [ __ ] crazy and like it’s the thing like it’s it’s with that with the incident with Heather Risman the thing with Selena Robinson people are taking this time to point at direct action being done towards people that are supporting the

Mass murder of of Palestinians and framing it like it’s the Christown act they’re framing it as if they’re the victims they’re the victims of violence they’re the victims of discrimination and that’s I think the ultimate like sickness of of Zionism really is the fact that they can engage in the the

Most depraved barbaric violence all the while acting as if they’re the ones being victimized and know how that like this is happening to us people are being mad people are getting mad that we’re we just killed tens of thousands of little kids oh we’re the victims now we’re being the victim of anti-semitism

This is just like the Holocaust this is just like the uh yeah the cryistal act or like any of these kind of horrifying uh uh incidents and I think that was the thing that that people are pointing to as kind of the hateful the hateful statements as as or hateful messages

Like jug me Singh described it uh this this note outside uh Selena Robinson’s office that said Zionism equals Fascism and um or Zionism equals Nazism and I’m sorry but like if you don’t want to be like a to being a Nazi then you should stop acting like a Nazi like that’s

That’s there’s no other way to describe what Israel is engaging in right now what they’ve they’ve been engaging in over the last several decades uh you’re keeping people in a concentration camp for the last 20 years you routinely drop bombs on residential neighborhoods in this Camp um you know you’re Mass

Murdering tens of thousands of people there are stories today about like Palestinian civilians like they’re getting kept being kept in stadiums they’re being stripped down and humiliated and de and degraded and it’s like this is like there’s no other way to describe it like there’s there’s

Literally no other way to describe it so but instead of like internalizing that or maybe asking questions about why people are making these comparisons it’s just like oh no with the the rise of anti-Semitism right now is just so alarming uh you know the the way people are being targeted like that just

Because of their just because of their identity and not the fact that they’re supporting uh you know genocide and that’s truly one of I think the most sick things about what we’ve been seeing over the last couple of months yeah just to I mean I’m gonna let

You let you go now because let you go soon because but I wanted to I wanted to ask you about like what and I think this is kind of like a this is one of the kind of orbiting issues in Canadian politics which is the question of immigration right immigration and this

Is like this also like a I feels like this is like a carbon copy of the US where it’s a kind of uh it’s a dog whistle like anxieties around immigration is like a dog whistle for a certain class of a certain class of voter but that class which is

Traditionally we think of them as this like oh right-wing chuds or whatever is that it’s actually going to be bigger than that and it’s strangely tied to economic the economic anxiety under neoliberalism and so like you have this very cynical game that like americ like Canadian policy makers and like the

Capitalist ruling class play which is well our population doesn’t reproduce enough uh Millennials especially aren’t reproducing anything close to like what we need for like labor cost to keep them low of course that’s what that means uh so we’re gonna have to bring in an army

Of people from around the world and and this is like a typical game in a lot of like you know so-called like in a lot of the global North right like immigration is a spigot is like a human spigot that they turn on and it’s largely to the

Benefit of the sort of capitalist ruling class and so on the one hand like yeah like these people are necessary like if you want to get your Tim Horton like you need to look at a South Asian face and you need to like answer to like South

Asian phase so like the sort of the like the the and this is so troubling for probably millions of Canadians maybe I don’t know how real it is this anxiety because it’s been around for a while immigration isn’t new to Canada in fact it’s built on immigration especially white European immigration like that’s

What the settler Colonial project is it’s an ongoing colonization and so now that now that the sort of like the ostensible whiteness of this project of that immigration project can’t be relied upon that like yeah like the same problems of like population Decline and like the global North and historically

White European countries it’s also affecting them too and so like the source of of migration the source of this like cheap labor pool right are these like not largely but I mean and they’re not not predominantly but like a good number of them are South Asian and

A lot of them come through these what are essentially exploitative student programs right like students like this class of there’s a class like they haven’t like the the universities universities have stagnated in this country universities and colleges secondary and higher education they it stagnated partly because of

Neoliberal funding and like the cuts and like the abuse of Education as like this easy thing you can just beat on to like you know like to help make your name as a politician I remember that you probably remember too Mike Harris that was like their base when we were kids

There was like education chaos because like conservatives were like it’s fun to beat up on teachers and it like rils up our base because people hate teachers the fact that they have two months off so it was like this game that they played that like played La out for us in

Like chaotic ways we had like two I think you and I are roughly the same age so like we had two strikes major strikes when we were like in school that like shut down schools and you know it’s like this is like a game they play and like

One of the things though is that like this the immigration is bigger the immigration question so-called is way bigger than any political party but the way they’ll cash in is reflective of the sort of neoliberal like Sheen that the part have so like I don’t know I’ve been

Saying this for a while informally but there is going to be a backlash coming like and this going to be an angry mean you know like frothing at the mouth like backlash we kind of got a taste of it through I would say like you know through like the [ __ ] Trudeau stuff you

Kind of get a taste of it but it’s so stupid because it’s all fixated on liberals whereas like it’s not like a kind of educ it’s not like a kind of like a comprehensive sort of materialist understanding of how politics works but it’s only fixated on liberal which is

Like which is like a typical conservative chud thing to do that like oh it’s just the liberal’s fault that I’m poor it’s the Liberals fault that like I’m that neoliberalism hurts me and it’s like sorry buddy it’s called neoliberalism it’s bigger than any party

But like I don’t know do you feel do you feel that like this next election that’s coming because correct me if I Wrong Trudeau is not going to be on the ticket right like he’s maxed out his chips that’s uh um that’s been my attitude like I don’t want to predict

What’s going to happen I guess my my feeling about this is that if he feels like there’s a wave coming that’s going to uh wipe them out he’s going to gracefully uh uh you know walk into the ride his horse into the sunset and say like well my work here is done and

Probably leave someone like melan Jolie or chrisa Freeland to to take the fall for him big time that’s that’s been kind of my my view on that and and right now like that does look like what’s about to happen uh there is this big backlash coming and like you talked about when

You when you talk about the um that kind of like anti-immigrant aspect of our sort of reactionary wave that’s happening right now like that’s all tied into these like [ __ ] up anti-semitic conspiracy theories as well about how Trudeau and the world economic Forum like they’re not just like uh you know

Importing people into the country for work or whatever but they’re trying to destroy the white race they’re like they’re trying to bring people in to like destroy the white race and contribute to this whole like great replacement kind of theory um but yeah I think like you talked about I think it’s

Been kind of under the surface simmering under the surface for a long time and I think that’s the main issue the main thing is that like we’re living in this kind of like decaying neoliberal economic structure where all the results of the reforms of the 80s and 90s now

Are kind of like bearing fruit we talked about the housing crisis in like every major city it’s basically this kind of standard of living that used to be available to people people is just going away the idea that you can own a home the that idea is for a whole generation

Basically is being lost and I think there’s been this yeah this really kind of reductive uh effort to blame the Liberals for that and they should have some blame for it but like you pointed out it’s it’s not the Liberals the conservatives were were happy to oversee

This all this process as well the de-industrialization uh you know the the the support for the wealthiest classes and and and this kind of stuff that has led to all these major Economic Consequences and like you know I think about I you know I talk about my hometown of Brockville which has

Definitely become since I lived there um way way more diverse and I think about someone there that maybe at one point used there used to be industry there there was like a Proctor and Gamble Factory you know all that stuff went away in the in the 90s during that

Period And I think if you don’t really have any kind of materialist analysis of what’s going on around you or you’re list listening to like right-wing cranks explain it you look around you see that things are way more diverse you see that housing is more expensive it’s way more

Difficult to get a a job that you can raise a family on and you can put two and two together be like this is the problem this is this is the issue here and I think that’s a lot of people take that message which is totally uh not

Accurate um and they’re they blame the people that are coming into the country rather than the wealthy and powerful people who Outsource these jobs and who are price gouging at the grocery store store and who are trying to who are building you know million dooll mcmansions rather than affordable

Housing um but it’s much easier to blame the the South Asian people and other other immigrants that are coming in for that than to blame the actual people that have power in our in our society um like that’s the thing when you talk about housing with a lot of these people

And I I try to kind of like get messages out there to uh speak to some of these concerns but the same I he the same thing it’s just a supply and demand thing there’s just not enough housing there’s too many immigrants we don’t have enough resources to bring all these

People in and then that’s why it’s driving up the price and you know they don’t stop to think about you know what that means and what the solution for that could be like in our political class across the whole political Spectrum whether it’s the NDP or the conservatives or the Liberals when it

Comes to housing it feels like the only solution we ever hear about is like let’s just give the right the right uh combination of like tax cuts and incentives to the real estate developers and then just ask them really nicely to build affordable housing with the these

Incentives that we’re giving them and lo and behold they don’t [ __ ] do it and like we’re not building housing that can like that people can afford to live in um to say nothing of the fact that it’s not even a supply and demand issue because there’s so much empty housing

And and uh vacant housing that people just don’t even live in that’s being held as speculative assets and I mean that’s a whole other aspect of it as well it’s like we’re going to blame the foreign we’re gonna we’re going to ban foreign ownership of of real estate so

You don’t have any Chinese people coming in and owning real estate and the idea that real estate just shouldn’t be a speculative asset for anybody whether they’re foreign or domestic is just not discussed the idea that the state should just be building housing then saying it

Costs this much is just not discussed um the only solution we have are these neoliberal public private Partnerships where we incentivize developers and just the problem just continues getting worse and worse and then the more people are struggling the more people are getting uh see the prices of groceries going up

The price of housing going up uh all these economic consequences which are consequences of neoliberalism um the easier it becomes then especially when no one on the left side is offering an alternative to that the easier it is for like cranks and demagogues and right-wing people to just

Scapegoat immigrants and blame all the problems on on people coming into this country and uh you know a lot of people are buying that so it does seem like now we’re on the verge of this like real reactionary wave um coming into the next election cycle and that’s something that

I’ve been kind of worried about you know ever since Trump was elected I was kind of like we’re always kind of chasing the political trends of the United States when’s our big reactionary populist moment coming and it kind of the can keeps getting kind of kicked down the

Road there and it really now feels like with this kind of you know the Convoy thing was like kind of a an early sign of that you see however ridiculous it is you see Pierre PV somewhat successfully like speaking to these people’s economic concerns and our media class obviously

Willing to give him this kind of crit undeserved credit for that oh he’s speaking to Canadians economic concerns these coffee table issues while he’s not offering any actual meaningful solutions to any of these problems um so it it does seem like we’re on the verge now of

Some kind of like big reactionary wave election um and I I don’t know I don’t know what that’s going to mean you know I think it is going to lead to a lot more scapegoating of people uh immigrants I think it’s going to lead to a lot of these Economic Consequences

Getting a lot worse and um you know I don’t know where the that’s going to leave us but I guess that’s one of the reasons that you know I’m trying to do the kind of analysis or commentary that I’m doing and I’m glad that you’re doing what you’re doing so at least there’s

Some people we’re not getting invited to opine on these things on CBC or global news or in the National Post or the Globe and Mail or wherever else but at least there’s some people that are trying to like meaningfully you know address like why these things are

Happening and why these uh why we’re headed in this direction Rob it’s always a pleasure to talk about Bleak Trends and Canadian politics with you thank you very much for your time everybody you should check out his twitch Channel you got a lot of followers it’s growing a lot since uh

Last episode you got over 10K yeah I just passed 10K on twitch.tv I do my show trrs uh every single day uh starting around noon Eastern uh twitch.tv Rob rouso I do a lot of interviews there I brought back my podcast recently actually 49th parel and

That’s kind of a place where I can let some of these interviews and stuff that I do there live and uh yeah doing this talking about this stuff every single day so the more of the marrier you want people want to check it out well I’ll I’ll uh I’ll

Link to that in the uh show notes and thank you thank you rob this was always a pleasure