Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers Game with Ryan Gradowski. This
Speaker 1: is episode number eighteen. And if it's the first time
Speaker 1: you're listening, welcome, And if you've been here every week,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening again. If you haven't listened before,
Speaker 1: you haven't done it. Please like and subscribe on wherever
Speaker 1: you're listening Spotify, Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio app would really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And if you can give me a review on top
Speaker 1: of it, that's just a cherry on the cake. So
Speaker 1: for those who have been listening, I have worked in
Speaker 1: politics my entire life. It's the only thing I've really
Speaker 1: know how to do. I was a journalist and a
Speaker 1: writer for a little bit of time, and then when
Speaker 1: I was my teenager years, my first shot was working
Speaker 1: at Victoria's secret selling bras. So if everything goes belly up,
Speaker 1: that's all I have to fall back on. But I
Speaker 1: am super excited about campaigns and elections. I follow them
Speaker 1: across the entire world, and we actually have our first
Speaker 1: major elections and starting this podcast. It's not in this country,
Speaker 1: but it is in our neighbor to the north in Canada. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes I too forget that we have a neighbor to
Speaker 1: the North, but we do. It's up there, and it's
Speaker 1: their first election since twenty twenty one, and it's their
Speaker 1: first election without Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the ballot
Speaker 1: leading the Liberal Party since twenty eleven. Now, I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of drama in American politics, especially since
Speaker 1: the age of Trump. American elections have been very exciting
Speaker 1: since twenty fifteen, but the Canadian election is full of drama.
Speaker 1: I mean Canadian drama. It's not like the Sopranos are
Speaker 1: breaking bad, but it's well, it's Canada, so it's like
Speaker 1: a serious episode of Glee. But it's interesting. And here's
Speaker 1: the backstory. Justin Trudeau has been the Prime Minister of
Speaker 1: Canada for a decade, longer than any American president except
Speaker 1: for Franklin Roosevelt, and under his tenure he's fundamentally altered
Speaker 1: Canada on a permanent basis through mass immigration. When he
Speaker 1: became Prime minister, Canada had a population of thirty five
Speaker 1: point nine six million people close to thirty six million,
Speaker 1: right say thirty six million, And by the time he left,
Speaker 1: Canada's population increased to forty one point five million. In
Speaker 1: proportion to America, it would be like US as adding
Speaker 1: sixty million people during a decade when we added about
Speaker 1: twenty five million, right, So it's substantially higher than immigration
Speaker 1: rates in the United States, and we're talking about pedal
Speaker 1: to the metal, full blown mass immigration. Remember, Canada has
Speaker 1: a very low birth rate. Canada's official fertility rate when
Speaker 1: Trudeau took over was one point six children per women.
Speaker 1: It's now one point three children women. There's no natural
Speaker 1: growth in Canada's population. Every generation of Canadians is smaller
Speaker 1: than the one that came before it. The birth rate
Speaker 1: is so low that by the end of this decade,
Speaker 1: even with mass immigration and the alleged idea that immigrants
Speaker 1: have so many kids, which they mostly don't anymore. That's
Speaker 1: besides the point. But even with the immigration, the natural
Speaker 1: growth that's birth minus deaths, will be negative numbers for Canada.
Speaker 1: Immigration not only increased the overall population, but significantly changed
Speaker 1: the racial makeup. Cana's white population is shrunk from seventy
Speaker 1: three percent the year the Troupeau took office in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen to sixty eight point five percent in their last deck.
Speaker 1: In their last census, which was twenty twenty one. It's
Speaker 1: much lower than that now more than six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand Southeast Asians, one hundred and fifty thousand Chinese,
Speaker 1: three hundred fifty thousand Blacks, one hundred and seventy thousand Filipinos,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy thousand Arabs, one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: thousand Latinos, and one hundred thousand West Asians have moved
Speaker 1: to Canada and their overall quote unquote visible minority population,
Speaker 1: that's what they call minorities who are non natives. But
Speaker 1: visible minority population grew from nineteen percent in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: to twenty six point five percent. Now, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, it was well less than ten percent, So
Speaker 1: in the lifetime of a millennial, Canada's population has changed
Speaker 1: significantly in a very short period of time. This massive
Speaker 1: population growth has put a strain on resources and housing
Speaker 1: because remember, while Canada is a large country, one of
Speaker 1: the largest physical geographic countries in the world, most people
Speaker 1: live in a very very small area. The average home
Speaker 1: price in Canada has increased by more than fifty percent
Speaker 1: over the last ten years, and it's put a strain
Speaker 1: on the nation's socialized healthcare. Over the last nine years,
Speaker 1: when Canada increases population by more than five point five
Speaker 1: million people, they only added thirty eight thousand more people
Speaker 1: into the medical field. The medium waytime between referral by
Speaker 1: a general practitioner and receiving treatment in twenty fifteen in
Speaker 1: Canada was eighteen point three weeks, which is still in
Speaker 1: American terms, it's a very long time. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: it's over thirty weeks, according to the Fraser Institute. Think
Speaker 1: about what this means for someone in Canada needing to
Speaker 1: see a specialist. It's quite literally life or death, which
Speaker 1: may be part of the reason why they legalize assistant suicide.
Speaker 1: All the effects of mass immigration at this scale had
Speaker 1: a deteriorating effect on the life of the average Canadian,
Speaker 1: and Trudeau's approval ratings plummeted. Trudeau's Liberal Party was losing
Speaker 1: special election after special election, even in safe seats. Right
Speaker 1: before he announced his resignation, Trudeau's Liberal Party was set
Speaker 1: to lose the next election by more than twenty points
Speaker 1: to the Conservatives. Twenty plus point loss would effectively have
Speaker 1: ended the Liberal Party. They would have held onto less
Speaker 1: than twenty seats. It'd be like the Republicans winning parts
Speaker 1: of Chicago, Maryland, New York City, Los Angeles, or like
Speaker 1: the Democrats winning the Dakotas and Louisiana and West Texas.
Speaker 1: And then two things happened that fundamentally altered this entire election. First,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, Trudeau resigned and was replaced by a
Speaker 1: new leader of the Liberal Party and current Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: Mark Karney, who is far less problematic for a lot
Speaker 1: of Canadians and a lot of people have fewer issues
Speaker 1: with him. So it took the pressure off the party
Speaker 1: when an unpopular prime minister resigned, kind of like how
Speaker 1: the Democrats would have lost places like New Jersey and
Speaker 1: Virginia had Joe Biden said on the ballot. But he
Speaker 1: was replaced by Kamala Harris, who was still in the loser,
Speaker 1: but by a lot less than what Joe Biden would
Speaker 1: have lost. Side, another thing happened. President Donald Trump started
Speaker 1: talking about annexing the country, referring to Trudeau as the
Speaker 1: governor instead of the prime minister, and openly speaking about
Speaker 1: turning to our fifty first state. Then come the trade
Speaker 1: wars and all the other rhetorics. This sent shock waves
Speaker 1: throughout Canada, and the population rallied behind Prime Minister Carney
Speaker 1: almost as a middle finger to Trump and the broader
Speaker 1: Conservative movement. Air Polaverre, the head of the Conservative Party
Speaker 1: of Canada. I'm sorry if I pushed his name, by
Speaker 1: the way, Calm Pierre. Pierre's lead fell from twenty five
Speaker 1: points in December twenty twenty five to a deficit of
Speaker 1: losing by two to six points in most polls. It's
Speaker 1: a thirty point turnaround in four months. It is shocking.
Speaker 1: It's jaw dropping. This stuff doesn't happen. The Conservatives have
Speaker 1: only led in two poles since Karney took over as
Speaker 1: Prime Minister on March fourteen, and the Liberal Party that
Speaker 1: was destined to basically end as a functional party, could
Speaker 1: win a larger majority than it had under Trudeau in
Speaker 1: a mere four and a half months. The electionist eft
Speaker 1: for Monday, April twenty eighth, the day before one of
Speaker 1: the most important days in American history, my birthday, and the
Speaker 1: Conservative Party could make it or break it. It could
Speaker 1: come back if the polls are wrong, especially which sometimes
Speaker 1: they are. A lot of times they are, but we
Speaker 1: don't know. Stay tuned for my next guest to discuss
Speaker 1: whether or not the Conservative Party of Canada has the
Speaker 1: momentum to do it.
Speaker 2: Be right back.
Speaker 1: With me this week is Jonathan Kay. He is an
Speaker 1: editor at Couilette and a Canadian, so it's great to
Speaker 1: have someone in the program to discuss the election. Who's
Speaker 1: up there, Jonathan, Thanks for being.
Speaker 2: Here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned before in the show, going into
Speaker 1: this election, the Liberal Party came back from the dead.
Speaker 1: They went from a twenty five point deficit to to
Speaker 1: two to six point lead depending upon what poll you believe.
Speaker 1: Part of that is Trudeau resigning. Part of that is
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's rhetoric. Is there something else that Americans don't
Speaker 1: know about that has really shifted this election in such
Speaker 1: a short period of time.
Speaker 2: No, that's pretty much it. This is going to be
Speaker 2: a really short podcast. So look, yeah, Canada's system of government,
Speaker 2: there's not the same level of checks and balances and
Speaker 2: separation of powers you have in the United States. So
Speaker 2: as a result, if you have a majority government, as
Speaker 2: Trudeau effectively did, it technically had a minority, but the
Speaker 2: party propping him up was this this left wing entity
Speaker 2: called the NDP, and it was essentially acting as a
Speaker 2: rubber stamp. So you have an enormous concentration of power
Speaker 2: in the prime minister, and if the prime minister is popular,
Speaker 2: the government's popular. And if the prime minister is unpopular,
Speaker 2: the government is unpopular. And Canada has no term limits,
Speaker 2: so the same prime minister can serve three, four, five
Speaker 2: terms in a row. The only limit is getting elected
Speaker 2: and moretality, you know, like I mean, you literally, I mean,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you do. You have premiers and prime ministers
Speaker 2: who really do serve beyond their ability to Yeah, And
Speaker 2: the way things work is, I mean, sometimes you get
Speaker 2: they lose the popular vote, but they still end up
Speaker 2: in power because we have maybe depending on how you
Speaker 2: count them, five parties in most writings buying for votes,
Speaker 2: so you get vote splitting, and sometimes the incumbent will
Speaker 2: get in with like thirty percent of the vote. So
Speaker 2: as a result, you get premiers in the provinces and
Speaker 2: prime ministers who hang on like they wait too long
Speaker 2: to quit and.
Speaker 1: Didn't get a majority of the vote. I think in
Speaker 1: the last election of the one before.
Speaker 2: That, his first term, his first term, he did get
Speaker 2: a majority. And interestingly that was kind of the same phenomenon.
Speaker 2: You had Stephen Harper, who at the time was the
Speaker 2: conservative incumbent and had won some majority, but he by
Speaker 2: this time. I mean it happens to every politician. Uh,
Speaker 2: they become unpopular, People blame them for all sorts of things,
Speaker 2: sometimes with good reason. Scandals pile up. They developed like
Speaker 2: just kind of a closet full of cronies that like
Speaker 2: they can't seem to get rid of it. It just
Speaker 2: it happens with with politicians.
Speaker 1: And America I can't possibly understand.
Speaker 2: Except America, and it never happens in they.
Speaker 1: In America, we never have a politician who's too old
Speaker 1: and it clings the power for too long. It just continues.
Speaker 2: Although that that that joke swings both ways, depending upon
Speaker 2: if you're red and blue. But sure, yeah, sure, Uh.
Speaker 1: Chris McConnell is literally like quote unquote stroking out in
Speaker 1: the middle of Preston.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's the thing you have, Like the
Speaker 2: the incumbency reelection rate in the United States is so high,
Speaker 2: and especially I think in the House of Representatives that
Speaker 2: like I think you've got like what twenty term guys
Speaker 2: who just kind of phone it in every two years.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and by the way, we have kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit equivalent of that in the writings. That's
Speaker 2: kind of the equivalent of our districts. And anyway, all
Speaker 2: of this to say, politics in Canada is often very personal.
Speaker 2: It's it's attached to the leader, and if the leader
Speaker 2: is popular, you know, the fortunes of the party go
Speaker 2: with the fortunes of the leader for the most part.
Speaker 1: And it's a lot like the UK. It's more like
Speaker 1: the UK than the United States.
Speaker 2: Not sure, it's you know, it's it's a parliamentary system,
Speaker 2: right right, And it's not only as a parliamentary system.
Speaker 2: It's a parliamentary system in the media age and in
Speaker 2: the social media age.
Speaker 1: So now I want to just prep something for the
Speaker 1: for the audience. Canada has a first past the post
Speaker 1: election system, which means is that correct? Am I wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So the way I think we're we don't have
Speaker 2: like transferable votes or like sometimes parliamentary systems they've experimented with.
Speaker 1: It's not like representational like it is in like Germany.
Speaker 1: Let's say you have you have to win your respected district.
Speaker 1: As a Canada as well, so.
Speaker 2: There aren't party lists sometimes. Again, every system is different,
Speaker 2: where like you know, you might have some candidates elected
Speaker 2: on the basis of a party list and others represent
Speaker 2: geographical runs. Candidate is very simple. It's in your riding.
Speaker 2: There are more than three hundred, three hundred and eighteen
Speaker 2: at one point, I think they added a few more.
Speaker 2: But the idea is that in your riding, you know,
Speaker 2: there's ten parties, and you know, everyone else wins eight
Speaker 2: or nine percent of the vote, and you win like
Speaker 2: eleven percent of the vote. That's it. You win. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's yeah. So it's and and again another subplot. You
Speaker 2: have a lot of especially younger political activists, who want
Speaker 2: proportional representation, which actually Trudeau promised last time around, and
Speaker 2: then I forgot about anyway, I keep I keep tripping
Speaker 2: over myself on tangents. But the long and short of it,
Speaker 2: the Liberals were very much identified with Trudeau, who's extremely
Speaker 2: unpopular for a variety of reasons. And so if you
Speaker 2: looked at the polls a couple of months ago, when
Speaker 2: Trudeau was still the leader of the Liberal Party and
Speaker 2: the Prime minister, it looked like the Liberals were going
Speaker 2: to go down to a historic defeat in the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five elections. He quit, and actually, you know, all
Speaker 2: the evidence is he didn't quit out of his own volition.
Speaker 2: He really thought he was going to lead the Liberals
Speaker 2: into yet another election. But there was what was effective,
Speaker 2: effectively a revolt in his own caucus. It was a
Speaker 2: very genteel Canadian revolt where you know, people would say
Speaker 2: to reporters, oge, I'm worried about the party under its
Speaker 2: current leadership, and I mean, I love Trudeau to death.
Speaker 2: You know, it's those voters.
Speaker 1: As an American, I can't imagine your own party forcing
Speaker 1: a sitting president or prime minister out of afice.
Speaker 2: So it's I mean, it's a little different the United States.
Speaker 2: In the United States, he really do get say, you know,
Speaker 2: congressman and senators from Party X voting down legislation that's
Speaker 2: supported by the president, who's also from Party X. Like
Speaker 2: there is a little bit more independent minded. It's different,
Speaker 2: at least in Canada's current iteration of the parliamentary system,
Speaker 2: where most members of Parliament are expected to be you know,
Speaker 2: I think it was Pierre Trudeau's memorable phrase trained seals.
Speaker 2: You know, they sort of clap at the appointed time,
Speaker 2: and they blew at the appointed time, and they support
Speaker 2: the leader and they support the legislation and to the.
Speaker 1: Extent they have a quiet revolt against Trudeau was pretty
Speaker 1: a big deal.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't quiet. I would say it was
Speaker 2: genteel in the sense that, yes, media leaks were weaponized,
Speaker 2: but weaponized like they gave him kind of due warning.
Speaker 2: Like at first it was the Quebec For complicated cultural reasons,
Speaker 2: the Quebec caucus of all parties tends to be a
Speaker 2: little bit more independent minded because they exist during their
Speaker 2: own French media and cultural sphere. And at least the
Speaker 2: revolt against Trudeau to some extent, started in Quebec. But
Speaker 2: like people, it's like everywhere else. They they live and
Speaker 2: die by the polls, and the polls suggested that a
Speaker 2: Trudeau led the Liberals into the next election, the Liberals
Speaker 2: would get trounced. And as soon as Trudeau quit, it
Speaker 2: didn't take more than a week or two you saw
Speaker 2: Liberal fortunes start to rebound, at least if the polls
Speaker 2: are any guide. And you and the guy who was
Speaker 2: you know, party establishment, and I think Trudeau himself favored
Speaker 2: this guy. His name is Mark Carney. This isn't my line,
Speaker 2: but it's accurate. He looks kind of the way a
Speaker 2: Canadian prime minister would be depicted in a nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: five movie about some kind of like fight between Canada
Speaker 2: and the United States. He looks like you would kind
Speaker 2: of expect, you know, a Canadian prime minister to look
Speaker 2: very you know, he's very cuts, a dashing figure, but
Speaker 2: also eminently forgettable. His his campaign has been somewhat vapid,
Speaker 2: but his campaign has more less consisted of I mean,
Speaker 2: he's a very accomplished guy. He used to be Governor
Speaker 2: of the Bank of Canada. He went to the UK
Speaker 2: and had the same job. His name's Mark Karney. By
Speaker 2: all counts a nice guy. I actually know a guy
Speaker 2: who who went to UH studied economics with him and
Speaker 2: said he was perfectly, perfectly decent guy. But he you know,
Speaker 2: his campaign has to some extent. I mean, there's three
Speaker 2: prongs to his campaign. I hate Trump and I'll fight
Speaker 2: against Trump, which everyone is in Canada is saying. He's
Speaker 2: he's saying, Soto Voce, I'm not just In Trudeau. So
Speaker 2: if you hate Justin Trudeau, don't worry, I'm not him.
Speaker 2: And then he's also just kind of borrowed the political
Speaker 2: demands of the of the Conservatives, who are the main opposition.
Speaker 2: Well capital c Conservatives, No one, None of your American
Speaker 2: listeners should mistake them for like actual conservatives by American standards.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody in Canada supports universal healthcare, we all
Speaker 2: support rights to abortion, we all hate but a punishment.
Speaker 2: So like there's there's no one, there's no mainstream party
Speaker 2: in Canada that has a platform that a red state American.
Speaker 1: There's a populist party in Canada doesn't ever win anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's this guy Maxime Bernier, who formerly was
Speaker 2: a Conservative. But even him, like he's he's sort of
Speaker 2: a non entity in politics. You know. I think I
Speaker 2: think he gets like two or three percent of the
Speaker 2: protest but which actually hurts the Conservatives. But he's more,
Speaker 2: i would say, like kind of wind bag populist than
Speaker 2: than like, you know, he doesn't have like a to
Speaker 2: my knowledge, a well developed policy on you know a
Speaker 2: lot of the issues that that traditionally conservatives would.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about Trump in a second,
Speaker 1: but I want to stick to Canada and Trudeau, especially
Speaker 1: for an American audience who sometimes even for guess we
Speaker 1: have a neighbor to the north, how much immigration under
Speaker 1: Trudeau fundamentally altered Canada in a very real way, and
Speaker 1: it was the number one issue for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: Healthcare to see a doctor is significantly longer. Home prices
Speaker 1: have increased substantially as you've increased the population by I
Speaker 1: think five million over the course of nine years. How
Speaker 1: much is immigration still play in this election? Is it
Speaker 1: still because Pierre I'm going to pronounce his name, Yeah,
Speaker 1: his his, he's not a he's not a Trump person
Speaker 1: on immigration though he said we need to reduce immigration,
Speaker 1: for sure. But how much is immigration still part of
Speaker 1: the conversation as it was, let's say a year or
Speaker 1: two ago, and it was seemed to be in all
Speaker 1: the like Canadian press.
Speaker 2: One thing that's happened. I'm going to address the substance
Speaker 2: of your question shortly, but I'll just say right off
Speaker 2: the bat, this is one instance, as with the carbon
Speaker 2: tax a few other things, where one of the things
Speaker 2: that liberals have done which have made themselves more electable
Speaker 2: is they just kind of like thrown in the towel
Speaker 2: in this issue. Even before he resigned. Trudeau, so there's
Speaker 2: a couple of I guess mid to late twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four he recorded this this kind of odd home video
Speaker 2: where he said, Hey, I get it, immigration levels are
Speaker 2: too high. I'm like slashing immigration levels. There's all sorts
Speaker 2: of sub programs, temporary worker programs and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and like across the board, the Liberals kind of stole
Speaker 2: the plank for any opposition party that was opposed to
Speaker 2: enormous immigration levels. They kind of just renounced their own
Speaker 2: policy on immigration.
Speaker 1: And the Conservatives didn't then move further to the right.
Speaker 1: They just stay where they were. Right.
Speaker 2: Look, so immigration is a funny issue in Canada because interestingly,
Speaker 2: Trudeau massively expanded the number of immigrants who come to Canada.
Speaker 2: Even before he took power. I think Canada was immigrating
Speaker 2: something like one percent of its population every year. So
Speaker 2: I think something you know, even in the late Harper years,
Speaker 2: something like three hundred thousand that went up under Trudeau.
Speaker 2: I think four hundred thousand. It's tricky because there's also
Speaker 2: temporary foreign workers and refugees in their own class. But
Speaker 2: you had a country that was immigrating about one percent
Speaker 2: of its population every year, and you know, in American terms,
Speaker 2: this would be the equivalent of like four million new
Speaker 2: immigrants to the United States every year. On top of
Speaker 2: like refugees and people coming on pieces, and you know,
Speaker 2: in American terms, it would there's just there'd be no comparison.
Speaker 2: It would be politically untenable. And what I think it
Speaker 2: should be should be said is when this was happening
Speaker 2: the Harper Harper years and even the first couple of
Speaker 2: Trudeau terms, there wasn't a huge amount of published public pushback.
Speaker 2: To some extent was artificial because it was seen as
Speaker 2: you know, it stigmatized as racists, or at least it
Speaker 2: once was. Before the liberals renounced their own immigration policies,
Speaker 2: the liberal friendly media accused anyone who wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about issues being a big racist. Now suddenly it's okay.
Speaker 2: But even among conservatives, there is not the instinctive pushback,
Speaker 2: the reflexive pushback against immigration in the East in the
Speaker 2: United States, in part because there's all sorts of industries
Speaker 2: here that have come to depend on temporary foreign workers.
Speaker 2: You know, I was just out in British Columbia, you know,
Speaker 2: small city called Colonna, which you know, it's the equivalent
Speaker 2: of I don't like ask in Colorado or something like that.
Speaker 2: And just like every retail establishment you go into is
Speaker 2: staff by temporary foreign workers. And if businesses had to
Speaker 2: depend like you know, your average McDonald's or Burger King
Speaker 2: or Tim Horton's or anything like that, Like if they
Speaker 2: had to depend on just native foreign workers who are
Speaker 2: citizens and such, that they wouldn't be able to at
Speaker 2: least for now, they wouldn't be able to keep their
Speaker 2: shifts staffed. However, things, as with a lot of things
Speaker 2: Trudeau did, he just never knew when to say quit.
Speaker 2: And the arithmetic just got insane. And here in Toronto
Speaker 2: where I live, which I think the four million people
Speaker 2: here and I think something like one hundred thousand or
Speaker 2: more of those immigrants end up in Toronto every year.
Speaker 2: I mean, home prices have just gone through the roof
Speaker 2: because there's only so much land, and you just got
Speaker 2: tons of people coming in, a lot of them who
Speaker 2: have a ton of cash. Because for all it's touchy
Speaker 2: feely reputation, Candidis, immigration laws are actually very hard headed
Speaker 2: from an economic perspective. You know, they emphasize English and
Speaker 2: French fluency, job skills. You get a lot of doctors
Speaker 2: and engineers who come here. It's a points based system.
Speaker 2: It's not you know, some people may.
Speaker 1: Explain it points based system to American Hounians who doesn't
Speaker 1: have to you know.
Speaker 2: Like you're you're you're an investor and you have a
Speaker 2: lot of cash to invest or. You have job skills,
Speaker 2: the language fluency, your your secondary schooling. It's a sense
Speaker 2: the test, not a specialist necessarrea. But it's more or
Speaker 2: less trying trying to bring in immigrants who will assimilately
Speaker 2: quickly be economically productive and hit the ground running in
Speaker 2: terms of either starting a business or being employed or
Speaker 2: buying real estate. There was an investor class. Actually lost
Speaker 2: track of what they've done with the investor class status,
Speaker 2: but you could just come in and say, hey, I've
Speaker 2: got ten million dollars to invest in a new business,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of your fast track. So it
Speaker 2: was you know, Canada's reputation on the world stage is
Speaker 2: like sort of very touchy feeling, and people sometimes assume
Speaker 2: that everything about Canada's immigration is based on like, you know,
Speaker 2: the tired poor, the hungary family reunification, like kind of
Speaker 2: almost quasi refugee type criteria. But that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Right and over that time period I experienced earlier because
Speaker 1: even though Canada is a gigantic country physically, most will
Speaker 1: live in a very condensed area, so that much population
Speaker 1: and wages have stagnated. In Canada, the average GDP per
Speaker 1: capita I think was fifty three thousand dollars in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, right Portraito took over, and it's still
Speaker 1: about fifty four to fifty five thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the economic performance. Now, I'm not an economist, I
Speaker 2: don't know how much of this is due to immigration,
Speaker 2: but I I mean, economists themselves will debate the impacts
Speaker 2: of immigration on macro economies. But I will say that
Speaker 2: a lot of politicians, including politicians on the right, were
Speaker 2: kind of conflicted about immigration because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: like a lot of my hearings around a lot of
Speaker 2: my friends. If you already have a job and you're
Speaker 2: already in your house, people actually kind of like immigration
Speaker 2: in many ways. You know, when I go to the
Speaker 2: medical clinic, sometimes the nurses they all happen to be
Speaker 2: from Philippines. If you're if you're you're looking for like
Speaker 2: a medical specialist, many of them are from India. As
Speaker 2: I said entrepreneurs, I was talking to a manager this
Speaker 2: place called Kelowna. Had a long conversation with a manager
Speaker 2: at a Denny's and he and one of the things
Speaker 2: he said is he said, look, because everybody in his restaurant,
Speaker 2: it was clear, was from somewhere else. And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, tell me about the labor situation here, and
Speaker 2: he said, the thing is it's cheaper to bring in
Speaker 2: temporary foreign workers, not just in terms of wages that
Speaker 2: he said, in terms of I think the depression he
Speaker 2: used was employment availability. So you know, they will take
Speaker 2: any shift they've come to work, Whereas you know, someone
Speaker 2: who's a native born Canadian, it might be like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm doing childcare that day, and I have
Speaker 2: the side hustle on Uber and you know, I'm also
Speaker 2: I'm studying, I'm doing this, and you know I'm doing
Speaker 2: elder care and weekends don't work for me. And so
Speaker 2: he just like, for a variety of reasons, entrepreneurs and
Speaker 2: employers often have just found it easier to hire immigrants
Speaker 2: and temporary for foreign workers. So you know, this happens
Speaker 2: in the United States to a certain extent too, where
Speaker 2: you have the business class, if you want to call
Speaker 2: the you know, maybe it's part of a conservative constituency
Speaker 2: that likes immigration and finds it does for them lower,
Speaker 2: you know, make payroll management easier, which often does mean
Speaker 2: paying lower wages. And if you're more working class and
Speaker 2: you don't have a home, and you're competing with all
Speaker 2: these new families for homes and home prices are going up,
Speaker 2: you're competing for jobs maybe at the lower end of
Speaker 2: the wage spectrum. You know, this dynamic will be familiar
Speaker 2: to any American. So there's been a huge pushback, and
Speaker 2: that pushback has gradually climbed into the middle socioeconomic rung.
Speaker 1: So it was time for medical care.
Speaker 2: Has increased the medical care so that that's its own issue.
Speaker 2: Since I have been in journalism, you know, since the nineties,
Speaker 2: there's never been a time where people weren't concerned about
Speaker 2: wait times in medical facilities. I should also say that
Speaker 2: healthcare generally speaking, is a provincial responsibility. So now it's
Speaker 2: muddled because there's you know, Canada Health Act. And as
Speaker 2: with the United States, the federal government is plowing cash
Speaker 2: into everything, even things that aren't federal responsibilities. So and
Speaker 2: also just in general, the fed government government often just
Speaker 2: gets blamed for everything. You know, you talk to people
Speaker 2: like they want the federal government to like put a stop.
Speaker 1: In their trees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I've done so many campaigns and they'll sit there and say,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like my neighbor's overgrown bush, and like, well,
Speaker 1: this is a congressman, So.
Speaker 2: I I think I can talk that. You know, there's
Speaker 2: this's I think my barber who I talk politics with,
Speaker 2: because it's hilarious. He wants the next prime minister to
Speaker 2: get rid of bike lanes in his neighborhood and blame
Speaker 2: it for them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I want to get to Trump because Trump, really,
Speaker 1: despite him being a foreign leader, has had an immense
Speaker 1: effect on this election. Trumps sitting there and talking about
Speaker 1: annexing Canada and calling Trudeau governor. How has this affected
Speaker 1: the Canadian voter?
Speaker 2: So external threats always help incumbents because you know, we're humans,
Speaker 2: which means we're we're mammals, which means you know, we
Speaker 2: we have kin based you know, often tribal instincts, and
Speaker 2: when there's an external threat, we it often provides like
Speaker 2: a bonding moment within our our groups and it enhances
Speaker 2: the status of our leader. I think this is part
Speaker 2: of our evolutionary psychology. And you saw this on the
Speaker 2: provincial level. So I happened to live on Ontario. We
Speaker 2: have a again nominally conservative premier and he did gangbusters
Speaker 2: in the most recent election, which was conducted amidst the
Speaker 2: most unhinged protectionist bluster being admitted by Trump, and he
Speaker 2: did great. He happened to be a conservative. But there
Speaker 2: was this press conference where he put on like a
Speaker 2: baseball cap that I forget what it said. It was like,
Speaker 2: you know, screw you Trump or whatever, and it people
Speaker 2: are like, yeah, protect us from Trump. And again he
Speaker 2: was a conservative. He got a nice majority, and the
Speaker 2: rule's got to boost because again it's an external threat.
Speaker 2: People rally around the flag and the liberal and by
Speaker 2: the way, my suspicion is no way to prove it.
Speaker 2: The reason Trudeau hung around despite his horrible poll numbers
Speaker 2: is his political instincts were correct that if Trump won
Speaker 2: the election, that at whatever carbon blob was sitting in
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister's chair at the time that happened, would
Speaker 2: get a huge bump in the.
Speaker 1: Polls for carbon blob.
Speaker 2: No, because that carbon blob would be painted red and
Speaker 2: white and would be would protect everyone from the evil Trump.
Speaker 2: And honestly, like, maybe this isn't something conservatives want to hear,
Speaker 2: but you know, Trump's election has been like absolute rocket
Speaker 2: fuel for progressive politicians who are otherwise fighting a headwind.
Speaker 2: Everyone was sick of so many of the progressive causes,
Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, finally their day is done.
Speaker 2: And then Trump gets elected and it's like, oh great,
Speaker 2: now you've got these progressives, you know, dawning the mantle
Speaker 2: of patriotism, not just in Canada but Europe, saying like,
Speaker 2: oh this is you know, where the where the thin
Speaker 2: progressive line protecting you from trump Ism.
Speaker 1: Well it didn't really work for the For the German
Speaker 1: uh Liberal Party, they lost a landslide and that was
Speaker 1: toast Trump.
Speaker 2: I don't followed German politics because it's so boring, okay,
Speaker 2: And whenever I think I understand German politics, I talked
Speaker 2: to someone that's from Germany and says, oh, but that
Speaker 2: only works at the provincial level. That's I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't know what accent that was.
Speaker 1: Germany and Austria. They had elections post Trump, and the
Speaker 1: populist did very, very well. In the center right either
Speaker 1: came in first or second. The popular section human first
Speaker 1: in Austria.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pretend I understand central European politics.
Speaker 1: Okay, or any European An election in Western Europe. I
Speaker 1: think Portugal is coming up. Portugal is in a few weeks,
Speaker 1: and I'll cover that. Yeah, I love, I love, I
Speaker 1: love politics in a way that is probably unhealthy. So
Speaker 1: I do follow all these countries and what else, not
Speaker 1: minor countries, but other countries that I know no American
Speaker 1: otherwise would know.
Speaker 2: Possibly the capital of Portugal is Lisbon.
Speaker 1: True. The one thing I love about Canadian politics, if
Speaker 1: I could just wax Poever.
Speaker 2: No one has ever started a sentence that way.
Speaker 1: I know. But the one that I find, okay, the
Speaker 1: one I find immensely amusing that I love is Quebec
Speaker 1: politics because Quebec, being a former French colony and then
Speaker 1: becoming a province of had a lot of its own
Speaker 1: independence and almost breaking away from Canada twice. They they
Speaker 1: have their own French only politicians that really only campaign
Speaker 1: in French speak French. Sometimes when I watch French, oh sorry,
Speaker 1: when I watch Canadian debates, the French politicians will be
Speaker 1: talking about completely and utterly different things than anybody. And
Speaker 1: there was this comedian, and I don't know what she
Speaker 1: was Canadian community. She was yeah, the Liberal party will
Speaker 1: talk about increasing government, the Conserative party will about crediting government,
Speaker 1: and the French politician will talk about producing the price
Speaker 1: of cigarettes for children.
Speaker 2: So and by the way, it goes beyond that. In
Speaker 2: terms of media culture, there's TV shows obviously Canadians have
Speaker 2: never heard of that are like in Quebec. Everyone stops
Speaker 2: what they're doing to watch. It's like they have their
Speaker 2: own celebrity star systems. So they're like Quebec celebrities that
Speaker 2: I mean, some of the Quebec celebrities escape containment, like Celenion.
Speaker 2: But you know, I mean there are a few commonalities,
Speaker 2: like hockey and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: so it used to be the case. I think it
Speaker 2: was Dick Morris. I think Dick Morris gave a speech
Speaker 2: in Toronto a couple of decades ago and said, from
Speaker 2: his knowledge of Canadian politics, regionalism is our race where
Speaker 2: But that's dated so that doesn't really exist anymore except
Speaker 2: in Quebec. But it used to be that Alberta had
Speaker 2: its own super distinct identity. Newfoundlands certainly absolutely had its
Speaker 2: own distinctive identity the Atlantic provinces. Now that's been diluted
Speaker 2: a lot because of globalization, immigration, as you know, labor mobility.
Speaker 2: People moved to the oil fields. You know, a lot
Speaker 2: of white collar workers moving around the country during COVID
Speaker 2: just wherever they can get a home and working remote. So,
Speaker 2: but Quebec is different because it has its own language
Speaker 2: and culture, and you know, the equivalent would be like
Speaker 2: if there's no real equivalent in the United States because
Speaker 2: even your you know, your former French speaking areas like Louisiana,
Speaker 2: at least since you know the early.
Speaker 1: It's almost in the same as Texans being Texas. Being
Speaker 1: Texan is a personality trade within that.
Speaker 2: So but but you know, but that's not even that.
Speaker 2: Like I've been you know, if you go to Austin,
Speaker 2: I mean Austin. When you're in Austin, you might as
Speaker 2: well be in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, they to be from Austin, they're not
Speaker 1: from Texas. Yes, but that's the closest I have because
Speaker 1: we don't actually.
Speaker 2: But there's the language thing. It's like, yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: have to be Like imagine if everybody in Florida spoke
Speaker 2: alligator language and they had their own alligator celebrity truth.
Speaker 2: I mean, that would be different and like when election
Speaker 2: time came, all they would care about is like, you know,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do about like the shorter
Speaker 2: devaligator food, Like it's just having your own langue, language
Speaker 2: and culture go together. Quebec is Canada is a bilingual country.
Speaker 2: It's that's one little quirk we have, although weirdly there's
Speaker 2: no you know, people in English Canada we try and
Speaker 2: predict this stuff. But Mark Kearney, who's French is weak
Speaker 2: and who like didn't want to take part in the
Speaker 2: French language debate. At first, people say, oh, this guy's
Speaker 2: gonna at clauborated because it's French, is terrible. But people
Speaker 2: I don't know in Quebec they kind of like the guy.
Speaker 2: So I like in English Canada, there's this whole cottage
Speaker 2: industry of trying to predict how things will play in Quebec,
Speaker 2: and we always get it wrong.
Speaker 1: My last question is if you could you know, I
Speaker 1: know what Poles say in your gut as a Canadian citizen.
Speaker 1: Do the Conservatives have a chance to pull it out?
Speaker 1: Or really is it liberals to lose?
Speaker 2: I had no idea, so I so every political prediction
Speaker 2: I've ever made in public, since I like my ber
Speaker 2: mitzvah has been completely wrong, and so I wrote a
Speaker 2: you're talking to somebody who once wrote a column. Stephen
Speaker 2: Harper came to visit This is way back before he
Speaker 2: was Prime minister, like in the in the primordial days
Speaker 2: of my early employment at the National Post. It was like,
Speaker 2: what was it, nineteen nineties and he came to visit
Speaker 2: the National Post at a tour board and I found
Speaker 2: him like very cranky and condescending, and I wrote this
Speaker 2: eight hundred word column. I was like, oh man, this
Speaker 2: this guy thinks he's going to become prime minister with
Speaker 2: a joke. And I started like ticking off sort of
Speaker 2: people who I thought would make a great replacement for
Speaker 2: Harper after his predictable flame out in the election. And
Speaker 2: then he got a majority government. And this is before Twitter, thankfully,
Speaker 2: so no one could like rub my column in my
Speaker 2: face and say, yeah. I think people were a lot
Speaker 2: more casual about their predictions before social media, because like
Speaker 2: half of your brain is saying, how will this look
Speaker 2: when it's rubbed in my face when I'm wrong? But
Speaker 2: I remember at that moment I said, I'm never making
Speaker 2: a prediction of political prediction, because literally, if I told
Speaker 2: you that A is going to win, it means B's
Speaker 2: going to win.
Speaker 1: By Alge is doing a good campaign at least.
Speaker 2: The problem the problem with me. I feel feel for
Speaker 2: the guy because his main campaign plank was vote for
Speaker 2: me or you're going to get four more years of Trudeau.
Speaker 2: And then Trudeau says, Okay, I'm leaving, and this this
Speaker 2: hole in the air, and Mark Karney becomes the liberal
Speaker 2: carbon blob and it's a lot easier to campaign against this,
Speaker 2: this guy who everyone hates. I mean even a lot
Speaker 2: of liberals hated Trudeau. He was just kind of it's
Speaker 2: something about truth. He was very dated, like this is
Speaker 2: this social justice guy and like, you know, going on
Speaker 2: these like drag shows and like and I'm like fairly
Speaker 2: socially progressive, but even my gay friends were like, you know,
Speaker 2: he'd go to Pride and act like he'd never been
Speaker 2: in a Pride parade and just start acting out let's
Speaker 2: speak like an idiot, and everyone was just sick of
Speaker 2: the guy. The performance performed of social justice crap and
Speaker 2: like sort of his Maudelin displays of contrition about Canada's
Speaker 2: allegedly genocidal history. The whole act graded on everyone. And
Speaker 2: when the day he announced that he wouldn't be running
Speaker 2: in the next election was the day that life became
Speaker 2: difficult for Polyev because that was his big A lot
Speaker 2: of Canadian politics is like it's just you're sick of
Speaker 2: one guy and so you vote for the other guy.
Speaker 2: It even happens in our mayoral elections, like we had
Speaker 2: this this uh blow dried Harvard grad named David Miller
Speaker 2: as our mayor in Toronto, and when people were sick
Speaker 2: of him, they voted for this, Like alcoholic Rube named
Speaker 2: Rob Ford my.
Speaker 1: Favorite Canadian Polisian of all time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was just like this sort of
Speaker 2: like YouTube celebrity for all the wrong reasons. And that's
Speaker 2: kind of what happens, is like they were sick of
Speaker 2: one extreme, so they go for the other. And Pouliev
Speaker 2: was hoping to benefit from that, and he had every
Speaker 2: reason to benefit from that, and he was saved by
Speaker 2: the Liberal rank and file who, in their very genteel
Speaker 2: Canadian throat, clear and way, told Trudeau to take a hike,
Speaker 2: which he did. And if Trudeau had hung on because
Speaker 2: there's no real mechanism that the Liberals had available to
Speaker 2: them to get rid of Trudeau, to force the issue realistically, like,
Speaker 2: if Trudeau had wanted to run in the next election,
Speaker 2: he probably could have. And that's what Pouliever I think expected,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately he didn't get that. He got someone who
Speaker 2: had kind of a neutral reputation who then got the
Speaker 2: benefit of Trump coming in and essentially threatening to destroy
Speaker 2: the North American economy of spite and giving a huge
Speaker 2: shot in the arm to Canadian the Canadian left. And
Speaker 2: I don't want to predict that the Canadian well, I
Speaker 2: guess I do want to predict that the Liberals are
Speaker 2: going to win because the oppoite WI happened. But like
Speaker 2: you know, that's between Trudeau quitting and Trump getting elected.
Speaker 2: That explains ninety five percent of what's happening in Canadian politics.
Speaker 1: Well, Johnathan K, thank you for being on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to read your stuff or read your
Speaker 1: tweets anything?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm on what used to be called Twitter at
Speaker 2: John K j O n kay or you'll get more
Speaker 2: of my mordant, acerbic, say anything bad boy Canadian social
Speaker 2: and media offerings. But then my main gig is Quillette,
Speaker 2: which is QUI double l E doublete It's an Australian outlet,
Speaker 2: but my boss lets me publish all kinds of Canadian stuff,
Speaker 2: assuming anyone listening to this has any appetite for you know,
Speaker 2: usually like Americans call me when something, some huge epic
Speaker 2: thing happens in Canada, like an election or something, but
Speaker 2: then I don't hear from them in five years. So
Speaker 2: it could be that like this sort of states your
Speaker 2: audience until the next election. Bet who maybe we'll have
Speaker 2: another trucker protest or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Great, Well, thank you so much for being on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Will speak to you soon and we'll see what goes
Speaker 1: on on Monday. Hey, we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for the ask Me Anything segment. You
Speaker 1: can literally ask me any kind of question. Please email
Speaker 1: me your questions. It's always great to get more and
Speaker 1: different opinions and different questions about broad subject issues. It's
Speaker 1: Ryan at Numbers Game Podcast dot com. That's ryanat numbers
Speaker 1: Plural Game podcast dot com. Shoot me an email over
Speaker 1: anything and I'll see if I know the answer, if
Speaker 1: I could research it and give you my opinion. So
Speaker 1: my question today was, as a Catholic, what will be
Speaker 1: the legacy of Pope Francis, and who do you think
Speaker 1: will be the next pope? Okay, I am very interested
Speaker 1: in this question because I am a Catholic even though
Speaker 1: I look and act and sound and everything Jewish, and
Speaker 1: I'm from New York City. I'm a Jewish last name,
Speaker 1: so people get confused all the time, but I am
Speaker 1: in fact, born and raised Catholic on both sides of
Speaker 1: my family. And hearing non Catholics do panels on radio
Speaker 1: and television and podcasts in the last day and a
Speaker 1: half or two days since he passed away has been
Speaker 1: infuriating because they don't know what they're talking about. Most
Speaker 1: of the Catholics know what they're talking about, but definitely
Speaker 1: the non Catholics. They've been giving analysis over his Pope
Speaker 1: Francis's leadership as a changing doctrine and you know how
Speaker 1: we altered the Catholic Church and all the rest of
Speaker 1: the stuff. A pope doesn't have the ability to change
Speaker 1: doctrine on his own. That didn't happen. A pope doesn't
Speaker 1: have the ability to change the Bible or to change
Speaker 1: the Catechism on his own. None of that stuff actually happened.
Speaker 1: While Pope Francis was Pope Francis who I had a
Speaker 1: more critical opinion of, primarily because when there were big
Speaker 1: issues affecting Catholics in countries that were predominantly Catholic, that
Speaker 1: were that were that would have been a negative media
Speaker 1: attention story for him, Like when Ireland legalized abortion, Pope
Speaker 1: Francis was nowhere to be seen. He didn't to Ireland
Speaker 1: a campaign against abortion. He didn't do really anything. He
Speaker 1: didn't take a brave step whatsoever. He kind of let
Speaker 1: the vote, you know. Labor Is and I got into
Speaker 1: a fight. I remember one time with some of my
Speaker 1: Catholic friends who said, oh, he would have been laughed
Speaker 1: out of the country, and I was like, yeah, and
Speaker 1: Peter died on a cross for Christ. I mean, so
Speaker 1: what he would have been laughed out of the country.
Speaker 1: Who cares you do what's right, especially if you are
Speaker 1: a religious leader and a moral leader in the same
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be as respectful as possible in the
Speaker 1: same vein as Pope John Paul the Second, who really
Speaker 1: liked good media and good press. Pope Francis really liked
Speaker 1: good media and good press and set things that were
Speaker 1: doctortally untrue and were in conflict with the church in
Speaker 1: order to garner positive press. It didn't change the doctrine
Speaker 1: of the church. It just got him positive mentions from
Speaker 1: liberal media. I have a big problem with that as
Speaker 1: a person who tries really hard to stay as close
Speaker 1: to the faith as I use as I possibly can,
Speaker 1: and I don't just chasing whatever, you know, the whims
Speaker 1: of a good headline or a good news article when
Speaker 1: I see fit. That's my big thing. His legacy is
Speaker 1: changing the College of Cardinals. He really made it much
Speaker 1: more in the same quote end quote liberal vanishm it's
Speaker 1: not like an American liberalism, it doesn't transfer as easily,
Speaker 1: but made it much more liberal than a lot of
Speaker 1: young priests in the Catholic Church are. Young priests in
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, especially from Western countries, are much more
Speaker 1: conservative than people of post Francis's generation, much more a
Speaker 1: part of the believer in the doctrine, and there's a
Speaker 1: conflict in generations within the priesthood. So that's his ultimate thing,
Speaker 1: is how he's going to change how we changed the
Speaker 1: car College of Cardinals and how that will affect the
Speaker 1: church going forward in the future. That's really his biggest legacy.
Speaker 1: It's not a sexy legacy, so no one's not It's
Speaker 1: not a sexy American news headline, so no one's going
Speaker 1: to really be that interested. People who hated him will
Speaker 1: call him a communist or socialist warrior. People who loved
Speaker 1: him will call him a uh, you know, supporter of
Speaker 1: the poor and the downtrotted or whatever whatever have you.
Speaker 1: But really that's really the biggest part of his legacy.
Speaker 1: Who will be Pope next? I would love to be
Speaker 1: Cardinal Sarah. It's probably not gonna be him. He's too old.
Speaker 1: They really try not to pick someone in his age bracket.
Speaker 1: He would have been a great pope, though that would
Speaker 1: have ever happened. So I don't think it's gonna be
Speaker 1: Cardinal Sarah, which by some people on the right on
Speaker 1: social media and saying, oh it's gonna be him. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be very, very unlikely going to be
Speaker 1: Cardinal Sarah. He's also way too conservative, I think for
Speaker 1: the current college of cardinals, my money, if I had
Speaker 1: to bet, would probably Cardinal Pietro Pauline. He is probably
Speaker 1: also butchered his last name like Pierre from Canada. But
Speaker 1: Cardinal Pietro is uh basically second in line. He's probably
Speaker 1: the safest bet, the dark horse. The only one who
Speaker 1: probably could upset this. It would be Cardinal Pi's a
Speaker 1: balla that is a person's real name. He is from
Speaker 1: Italy and his name is pieceabala It would be like JK.
Speaker 1: Rowling or writing cardinal names and Harry Potter. But Cardinal
Speaker 1: piece of bala Is is from He's from Italy. But
Speaker 1: he is the cardinal for the Middle East and very
Speaker 1: very bravely offered his life in exchange for the hostages
Speaker 1: during the during the war there over Gaza. And that's
Speaker 1: a very honorable thing. That and a really real act
Speaker 1: of courage on behalf of Cardinal of like that we
Speaker 1: haven't seen very often. So that's my bet, though we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't make any decisions. I don't let the white
Speaker 1: smoke go from the from from the Vatican.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening again this week. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast
Speaker 1: where you get your podcast. We'll see you guys next week.