I am not sure what to say in response to Stephen. He seems to exist in an echo chamber where he only talks to other people who share his views. Other than the beginning of the interview, his perspective can be summed up by:
"I am a good person, right?" I believe all the right things, and know all the right people, so that must make me a good person.
He has no curiosity about the rest of Canadians, and their perspective as I guess that we don't matter, and are not good people because we don't believe what he believes.
Forty percent approval in one province is an election-winning number and that is precisely the problem with the way we are governed. It's not about the people, it's about the party and its narrow, self-interested perspective and, to a lesser extent, the personal ambitions of the executives. This is not democracy; it's a caricature of democracy.
I had to stop listening at about 23 minutes because he went into opinion and belief about effectiveness of vxns in 'ending the pandemic' rather than actual science. We don't know fully what 'ended' the pandemic, and for some it hasn't yet ended. So much of the division happened because we preferred opinion (on any side) over fact. Health Canada knew vxns didn't prevent spread by summer 2021, i.e. before the election, because the CDC knew. Your point about having open honest conversations on such issues is well-taken Tara.
Did you notice a statement he made when discussing the mandates? The polls showed 40% of Ontarians supported the mandates and “that is an election-winning number.” What I read is that, when Alberta makes noise about the system being broken, this is the stuff they are talking about. Less than half of Ontario has a greater voice than another significant contributor to Canada, in its entirety. Add Saskatchewan and Manitoba to that number and the needle barely notices.
No one should question why I have cried my last tear for this broken nation.
By the way, I also stopped listening to a person who declared themselves to be in favour of governmental strong-arm tyranny.
Yes, this too. The hypocrisy of extracting resources in the West that go to the good of all Canada but then turning around and shaming folks for making a livelihood from those resources, and treating these regions as though we are a bunch of hicks rather than the innovative entrepreneurial and still-kind-to-most place that we are--as well as not adding the seats in the House of Commons that should be required by population growth--all of these things are not a good look for this or other Canadian governments. To say the very least.
I see it as deeper. As I said, in any given federal election, the results are in before a single vote west of Ontario is counted. This is seen by Ottawa as equitable?
Going into the pandemic, I generally had faith in the legitimacy of our governments and institutions. Coming out, hatred and disgust are the words that come out on top. Pretty sure I'm in company. It's not fading, just solidifying into concrete. 'Grind on'. That's a good descriptor.
What the hell, Tara? Why didn’t you push back on this guy about the mandates??? About vaccine harms??? About the fact that mandates DID NOT WORK??? About the fact that they’re not actually vaccines???Why does no jabbed journalist want to dig into that?
The amount of times I heard the shoulder shrug in his voice:‘that’s just the way it is.’ A clear indicator he’s just a mouthpiece for the establishment. Disappointing you gave him so much air time without challenge.
I loved at the end though, ‘How do we stop people being so angry? How do we get back to the good ole days of immigration consensus?’ ‘Well, let’s just wait until they solve the housing crisis for us, then everything will be okay.’
Get somebody on who’s a counterpoint to this fool; that’ll stop all your listeners from being so angry at you for cavorting with people who just want to go back to the way things were. And for seeming like one yourself. The way things were wasn’t that great - maybe aim higher.
Right??!! And it’s not just Sweden but all over the world. Alex Berenson’s Substack is chock full of evidence disproving efficacy and proving lack of safety, and reams of data now show time-correlated spikes in all-cause death and pretty much every heart-related issue and cancer out there. This milquetoast ‘some evidence of elevated myocarditis’ or whatever it was Tara said in her question to this guy, shows how much she’s hiding behind the mainstream narrative on the jabs, and eliminates her credibility. That and she’s back to writing for the MSM herself.
While I agree with your assessment of the evidence, I don't agree with your conclusions about Tara. For myself, I appreciate that she gives people the space to give their side of things, no matter how uninformed they are. People don't want to come to interviews where there is the possibility of evisceration. She allows people to speak, and then it is our job to sift through all the voices and figure out where the truth lies, to the extent possible. I definite did not love this guest, but I always have the option of just not listening. And, I was glad to see that even a Liberal party hack is starting to see the chinks in the Trudeau facade.
Yes, she does do that, and I've had pushback from people who disagree with my critical comments about Tara; her giving people space is a positive facet to her work. But she's a journalist, not a talk-show host, and she has an obligation as a journalist to uncover the truth. This guy spoke lies about the efficacy of the jabs and the lockdown measures, and she didn't challenge those lies. She let them stand, which means she failed at her job. She's milquetoast because she doesn't seem to be able to assess the evidence about the jabs (being jabbed herself) and draw a conclusion based on that evidence, presumably because she doesn't want to alienate her readers who might get upset at the prospect of having injected themselves with a harmful, experimental substance. This guy is getting space in the Globe for his book, so he doesn't need Tara to give him space - he's not airing any radical views, he's just regurgitating the headlines we've all been seeing since 2015. The most radical person Tara has had on is Peter Menzies, which isn't saying much. Substack is supposed to be the place where journalists can speak truth to power without censorship, and she's not doing that. I subscribed to her because I thought that after leaving CBC she'd fulfill her potential as a Canadian journalist spearheading the effort in taking apart the 'Trudeau facade' among other things, and that's just not happening.
I don't think we will broadly agree on this, but did want to say that I was introduced to Konstantin Kisin via Lean Out, and I love his work, individually and on Triggernometry. You have my full throated agreement that Peter Menzies is pretty mainstream!
I guess we all have different expectations of those we follow on Substack. Thanks for mentioning Kisin - I’ve caught glimpses of him here and there and I like him, but will check him further on Substack.
Fighting with myself a bit over this guy's tone, I listened until he said, regarding vaccine mandates, "... generally I am in favour of them." I gave a muffled curse on this quiet Sunday morning and turned off the podcast. Enough. If this is the position taken by a "journalist" in Canada, heaven help you, hey.
Tara, thank you for having a guest with a different opinion. It's nice to hear an opposing perspective. Some people will be upset that you didn't push back enough, but you did a great job offering the facts and letting him provide opinions. Sometimes, people will tell you exactly what they're thinking.
To this guy's publicist: For goodness sake, know your audience! We're all here because we're sick of mainstream media. Don't come on and promote yourself as one of those virtuous journalists who we're looking to avoid.
My favourite part was when he boasted about supporting vaccine mandates. Meanwhile, he spent the pandemic in Florida working on his sailboat. Talk about being out of touch with the average Canadian.
Fuck togetherness. I want revenge. Helpful? No. My logical brain says that's pointless and destructive. Deep seated emotions don't respond to rationality. Look at the last thousand years of the Middle East. Thankfully we're not there yet, but we're on the road.
I am not sure what to say in response to Stephen. He seems to exist in an echo chamber where he only talks to other people who share his views. Other than the beginning of the interview, his perspective can be summed up by:
"I am a good person, right?" I believe all the right things, and know all the right people, so that must make me a good person.
He has no curiosity about the rest of Canadians, and their perspective as I guess that we don't matter, and are not good people because we don't believe what he believes.
Forty percent approval in one province is an election-winning number and that is precisely the problem with the way we are governed. It's not about the people, it's about the party and its narrow, self-interested perspective and, to a lesser extent, the personal ambitions of the executives. This is not democracy; it's a caricature of democracy.
I had to stop listening at about 23 minutes because he went into opinion and belief about effectiveness of vxns in 'ending the pandemic' rather than actual science. We don't know fully what 'ended' the pandemic, and for some it hasn't yet ended. So much of the division happened because we preferred opinion (on any side) over fact. Health Canada knew vxns didn't prevent spread by summer 2021, i.e. before the election, because the CDC knew. Your point about having open honest conversations on such issues is well-taken Tara.
Did you notice a statement he made when discussing the mandates? The polls showed 40% of Ontarians supported the mandates and “that is an election-winning number.” What I read is that, when Alberta makes noise about the system being broken, this is the stuff they are talking about. Less than half of Ontario has a greater voice than another significant contributor to Canada, in its entirety. Add Saskatchewan and Manitoba to that number and the needle barely notices.
No one should question why I have cried my last tear for this broken nation.
By the way, I also stopped listening to a person who declared themselves to be in favour of governmental strong-arm tyranny.
Yes, this too. The hypocrisy of extracting resources in the West that go to the good of all Canada but then turning around and shaming folks for making a livelihood from those resources, and treating these regions as though we are a bunch of hicks rather than the innovative entrepreneurial and still-kind-to-most place that we are--as well as not adding the seats in the House of Commons that should be required by population growth--all of these things are not a good look for this or other Canadian governments. To say the very least.
I see it as deeper. As I said, in any given federal election, the results are in before a single vote west of Ontario is counted. This is seen by Ottawa as equitable?
Oh for sure! I totally agree.
Going into the pandemic, I generally had faith in the legitimacy of our governments and institutions. Coming out, hatred and disgust are the words that come out on top. Pretty sure I'm in company. It's not fading, just solidifying into concrete. 'Grind on'. That's a good descriptor.
What the hell, Tara? Why didn’t you push back on this guy about the mandates??? About vaccine harms??? About the fact that mandates DID NOT WORK??? About the fact that they’re not actually vaccines???Why does no jabbed journalist want to dig into that?
The amount of times I heard the shoulder shrug in his voice:‘that’s just the way it is.’ A clear indicator he’s just a mouthpiece for the establishment. Disappointing you gave him so much air time without challenge.
I loved at the end though, ‘How do we stop people being so angry? How do we get back to the good ole days of immigration consensus?’ ‘Well, let’s just wait until they solve the housing crisis for us, then everything will be okay.’
Get somebody on who’s a counterpoint to this fool; that’ll stop all your listeners from being so angry at you for cavorting with people who just want to go back to the way things were. And for seeming like one yourself. The way things were wasn’t that great - maybe aim higher.
The evidence that this guy referenced with respect to the effectiveness of mandates is bonkers. Just look at Sweden!
Right??!! And it’s not just Sweden but all over the world. Alex Berenson’s Substack is chock full of evidence disproving efficacy and proving lack of safety, and reams of data now show time-correlated spikes in all-cause death and pretty much every heart-related issue and cancer out there. This milquetoast ‘some evidence of elevated myocarditis’ or whatever it was Tara said in her question to this guy, shows how much she’s hiding behind the mainstream narrative on the jabs, and eliminates her credibility. That and she’s back to writing for the MSM herself.
While I agree with your assessment of the evidence, I don't agree with your conclusions about Tara. For myself, I appreciate that she gives people the space to give their side of things, no matter how uninformed they are. People don't want to come to interviews where there is the possibility of evisceration. She allows people to speak, and then it is our job to sift through all the voices and figure out where the truth lies, to the extent possible. I definite did not love this guest, but I always have the option of just not listening. And, I was glad to see that even a Liberal party hack is starting to see the chinks in the Trudeau facade.
Yes, she does do that, and I've had pushback from people who disagree with my critical comments about Tara; her giving people space is a positive facet to her work. But she's a journalist, not a talk-show host, and she has an obligation as a journalist to uncover the truth. This guy spoke lies about the efficacy of the jabs and the lockdown measures, and she didn't challenge those lies. She let them stand, which means she failed at her job. She's milquetoast because she doesn't seem to be able to assess the evidence about the jabs (being jabbed herself) and draw a conclusion based on that evidence, presumably because she doesn't want to alienate her readers who might get upset at the prospect of having injected themselves with a harmful, experimental substance. This guy is getting space in the Globe for his book, so he doesn't need Tara to give him space - he's not airing any radical views, he's just regurgitating the headlines we've all been seeing since 2015. The most radical person Tara has had on is Peter Menzies, which isn't saying much. Substack is supposed to be the place where journalists can speak truth to power without censorship, and she's not doing that. I subscribed to her because I thought that after leaving CBC she'd fulfill her potential as a Canadian journalist spearheading the effort in taking apart the 'Trudeau facade' among other things, and that's just not happening.
I don't think we will broadly agree on this, but did want to say that I was introduced to Konstantin Kisin via Lean Out, and I love his work, individually and on Triggernometry. You have my full throated agreement that Peter Menzies is pretty mainstream!
I guess we all have different expectations of those we follow on Substack. Thanks for mentioning Kisin - I’ve caught glimpses of him here and there and I like him, but will check him further on Substack.
Fighting with myself a bit over this guy's tone, I listened until he said, regarding vaccine mandates, "... generally I am in favour of them." I gave a muffled curse on this quiet Sunday morning and turned off the podcast. Enough. If this is the position taken by a "journalist" in Canada, heaven help you, hey.
I have a feeling both of you voted for him previously.
Buyers remorse?
Tara, thank you for having a guest with a different opinion. It's nice to hear an opposing perspective. Some people will be upset that you didn't push back enough, but you did a great job offering the facts and letting him provide opinions. Sometimes, people will tell you exactly what they're thinking.
To this guy's publicist: For goodness sake, know your audience! We're all here because we're sick of mainstream media. Don't come on and promote yourself as one of those virtuous journalists who we're looking to avoid.
My favourite part was when he boasted about supporting vaccine mandates. Meanwhile, he spent the pandemic in Florida working on his sailboat. Talk about being out of touch with the average Canadian.
Fuck togetherness. I want revenge. Helpful? No. My logical brain says that's pointless and destructive. Deep seated emotions don't respond to rationality. Look at the last thousand years of the Middle East. Thankfully we're not there yet, but we're on the road.