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Full Comment is Canada’s podcast for compelling interviews, controversial opinions and fascinating discussions. Hosted by Brian Lilley. Published by Postmedia, new episodes are released each Monday.
239 Episodes
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The federal Conservatives were still licking their wounds from the Liberals’ recent minority election victory when they were rocked by a stunning and dispiriting floor-crossing. And they failed to stop the government from passing its budget by a razor-thin margin. That was 20 years ago, as Ian Brodie, former chief of staff to prime minister Stephen Harper, reflects on with Brian. And it looked a lot like what Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are going through today. Back then, it took less than a year before the government fell and Harper’s Conservatives won their first of three election victories. Brodie explains what lessons Poilievre and his team can learn from that time, and why Conservatives shouldn’t be too shaken by their recent troubles. (Recorded November 14, 2025)
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1He promised a historic budget. He warned of big sacrifices. He said he had a vision. But what Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered was not much more than a big-spending, big-government Trudeau-style plan, with a bit less hostility to business and some long-overdue military funding, as Tasha Kheiriddin and Stuart Thomson, curators of Postmedia’s Political Hack politics newsletter, discuss with Brian. They look at some of the odder budget choices and at the rough reception the plan has gotten from some corners. They also consider Carney’s lack of progress on other promises. And they discuss the floor-crossing frenzy that (so far) seems to have fizzled out with a single defector from the Conservatives — and why it played out the way it did. (Recorded November 7, 2025)
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From Elizabeth May’s permanent iron grip on the Green party; to Jagmeet Singh’s self-destructive Liberal alliance; and the sabotaging of NDP campaigns by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein’s “leap manifesto”: Mark Leiren-Young, a committed environmentalist, saw all of it from a front-row seat. He had worked to help elect the politicians he thought were committed to fighting for his cause. But, as he tells Brian — and describes in his new book Greener Than Thou: Surviving the Toxic Sludge of Canadian Ecopolitics — he discovered they turned out to be more committed to fighting with each other, while being lousy at politics. For people truly interested in his kind of change, Leiren-Young explains why these parties might be better to disappear entirely. (Recorded October 31, 2025)
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Did Republican icon Ronald Reagan detest tariffs or love them? For President Donald Trump and his fiercely loyal army of acolytes, the answer is whatever the president says. As Brian discusses with Postmedia political columnists Lorne Gunter and Chris Selley, there’s no reason to be surprised that Trump blew up trade talks over an ad being run by Ontario that quotes Reagan denouncing tariffs, saying it was “fake” (it wasn’t). The lies, absurdism and overbearing demands of a president who insists his word is law have become a familiar pattern. But Canadian politicians like Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney who think they can appeal to America’s logic are acting just as irrationally. (Recorded October 24, 2025)
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The elbows are down, the prime minister is backslapping President Donald Trump, but America’s tariffs just keep coming, and hurting Canada more. The ugly truth is that Ottawa’s been foundering in trade talks with the White House, as former diplomat to the U.S., Louise Blaise, and former trade minister Ed Fast discuss with Brian this week from the Banff Forum in Quebec City. They explain how Mark Carney’s government missed important opportunities, failed to maximize its leverage, and unnecessarily antagonized Trump with anti-American rhetoric, needless irritants and, most recently, a gratuitous Palestinian declaration. As we near negotiations for the crucial Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, they explain how Ottawa can alter course to improve things — before they get far worse. (Recorded October 17, 2025)
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It’s a major backer of Hamas. It’s an ally of the United States. It has alienated Arab neighbours and spreads toxic propaganda through Al Jazeera but maintains relations with Israel. Since Oct. 7, 2023, the enigmatic Qatar has been a linchpin in negotiations over the war in Gaza. Brian talks to two guests about how this tiny, gas-rich emirate has taken an outsized role in the Middle East. Alon Ben-Meir, retired New York University professor and author, explains how Qatar became central to a Hamas-Israel peace deal. And Haras Rafiq, who tracks Islamism and terrorism, discusses how Qatar nonetheless continues to promote radical Islamism in the region and in the West, especially in Canada. (Recorded October 10, 2025)
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The public safety minister admitted his government’s sweeping plan to confiscate thousands of previously legal gun models with a “buyback” is badly flawed. But as Ian Runkle, a lawyer specializing in firearms law, tells Brian, it’s far more troubling than that. Ottawa plans to recreate a form of the hated gun registry that it abandoned long ago. And gun owners won’t necessarily be compensated for turning in their weapons, but will risk violent police raids if they don’t. Tens of thousands of resisters, including no small number of Indigenous Canadians, could face arrest and jail time. And, says Runkle, it all seems for the sake of placating one small Quebec anti-gun group and punishing non-Liberal voters. (Recorded October 3, 2025)
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No military in history has been as careful as Israel to minimize civilian casualties in war. And no country has been criticized for it like Israel has — including by Canada. That’s the assessment of guests Richard Kemp and John Spencer, former military men and two of the highest authorities on urban warfare. They explain to Brian the groundbreaking lengths the IDF goes to in Gaza to mitigate harm, and wholeheartedly reject claims against Israel by Prime Minister Mark Carney and his confederates in the U.K., France and Australia who last week recognized a Palestinian state. The antagonism of Canada and co. suggests they don’t really want Israel to succeed, helping Hamas to prolong the war. The West, they say, has “blood on its hands.” (Recorded September 26, 2025)
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When he was elected, Prime Minister Mark Carney promised a trade deal with President Donald Trump, a blaze of new major infrastructure projects and a return to affordable middle-class home ownership. Today, Canadian and American trade negotiating teams are barely speaking, the only prioritized projects recently announced were already in the works, and the housing plan looks like a monumental boondoggle with hazy deliverables, as Brian discusses this week with Stuart Thomson and Tasha Kheiriddin, the team behind Postmedia’s Political Hack insider newsletter. As Stuart and Tasha describe, Carney enjoyed a good first week in the House with civility from returning Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. But that can’t last as so many of the high expectations Carney has set collide with governing reality. (Recorded September 18, 2025)
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The Liberals claim they’ve stopped the flood of temporary workers, foreign students and other immigrants that blew up our housing crisis and devastated the youth job market. Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservatives’ immigration critic, tells Brian that the reality is nothing close to what they say. Five-million people remain here on temporary visas. Hundreds of thousands of more people are still being allowed in. And the asylum system is being exploited as a backdoor by thousands more making dubious refugee claims. Rempel Garner explains why we need drastic solutions to close temporary residency programs, weed out unfounded asylum claimants and start sending non-permanent workers home. (Recorded September 12, 2025)
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What can you do when someone attacks you or your family? After recent high-profile, violent home invasions, police have made it seem like you need to give up and not fight back. That’s wrong, as criminal lawyer Solomon Friedman tells Brian. Friedman explains how the power to defend yourself, your home and others, including killing an assailant if it’s justified, is consistently endorsed by court rulings from long before it was codified in Canadian legislation. But police don’t seem to like it. He and Brian discuss why the message cops are sending is so dangerous, making innocent people into defenceless targets while encouraging criminals to become fearless. (Recorded September 5, 2025)
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The U.S. Republican party today isn’t what it used to be. But the evolution toward President Donald Trump’s MAGA-ism began decades ago when William F. Buckley launched a revolution on the American right. As Buckley’s official biographer Sam Tanenhaus tells Brian, the late conservative icon was a lot like Trump: a media-savvy wealthy elite who rebelled against the very establishment he came from. In his new book, Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America, Tanenhaus lays out the improbable, fascinating story of the arch-Catholic New Englander who chummed around with hardcore leftists but transformed the GOP into a political powerhouse. In no small part by engaging Republicans in the culture war that eventually put Trump in the White House. (Recorded July 24, 2025)
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We all know governments used the pandemic as rationale for stripping away basic Charter rights, even if some think it was justified. John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, remains at the forefront in fighting to get them back. He has a new book out, Corrupted by Fear: How the Charter was betrayed and what Canadians can do about it. And he discusses with Brian why it’s so important to expose the junk science, careless courts and gross media negligence that made it easy for governments to wield dangerous powers so irresponsibly. COVID may be over, Carpay explains, but if we don’t rebuild our culture of freedom, history tells us governments will do it again — and sooner than we think. (Recorded July 11, 2025)
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Before Pierre Poilievre, before Brian Mulroney, there was one leader who made federal conservatives an electoral force to be reckoned with. Before John Diefenbaker, Canada had begun to resemble a Liberal one-party state. Bob Plamondon, author of the new book Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker's Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence, talks with Brian about how Dief became a political sensation bigger than any other prime minister. How he stood against Soviets, while standing up to America, and championed equality before it was fashionable. And Plamondon explains how the three-time prime minister created the blueprint for the common-man conservatism that animates the party even today, turning the Tories “from a party of losers into a party of winners.” (Recorded June 26, 2025)
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A lot of people in the West misunderstand the motives of Russian president Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine. As Andrew Natsios, editor of the new book Russia Under Putin, tells Brian, we won’t understand the war unless we understand demographics. Russia’s population is cratering; the largest country by land mass is rapidly depopulating and becoming vulnerable, particularly to China. While posing as a defender of traditional values has won Putin fans among some American right-wingers, it’s a sham, used for propaganda purposes, and even Russians don’t believe it, says Natsios. He shares his fascinating insights into Putin’s power, tactics and fears for anyone who wants a genuine understanding of what the authoritarian Russian leader is really up to. (Recorded July 28, 2025)
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For two years, Hamas has used the suffering of Palestinians to manipulate global opinion. As Brian discusses with this week’s guests, it worked: The Hamas-engineered hunger crisis in Gaza has prompted Canada, with France and the U.K., to recognize a Palestinian state based on unenforceable conditions like democratic elections and Hamas relinquishing power — which it says it will never do. Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador, says the declarations have already destroyed ceasefire talks. Eylon Levy, former spokesman for Israel’s government, says these naïve western “student politics” invite everlasting war. And Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar, who has worked with fledgling Mideast democracies, explains how Carney has, ironically, subverted Canada’s democracy, and interests, with his reckless decision. (Recorded August 1, 2025)
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One-day sentences for aiding and abetting the Islamic State terror group, a few short years for murder, but possibly more if you’re an anti-vaccine trucker: these stories and loads of others from recent Canadian court cases seem to be undermining the public’s faith in our justice system. Brian chats with Postmedia columnists Jamie Sarkonak and Chris Selley about how things went so wrong and what to do about it. They also discuss the recent acquittal of the five hockey players for sexual assault, and how the judge’s exceptional handling of the case shows that all is not lost if we want to fix the system — if anyone in government is ever willing to try. (Recorded July 25, 2025)
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Between President Donald Trump claiming there’s a flood of fentanyl from Canada to the U.S., and people here insisting there’s almost none, the truth is elusive. A new American report gets to the bottom of what’s really going on, and its author, Jonathan Caulkins, talks to Brian about what he found. Specializing in crime systems, the professor from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College breaks down how global supply chains run by criminal organizations moving from Mexico to China to Australia feed Canadian labs with precursor chemicals. And how much of the final made-in-Canada product actually ends up on America’s streets — including, unexpectedly, in Alaska.
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We’ve lost sight of where Prime Minister Mark Carney is pointing his elbows as U.S. President Donald Trump keeps smacking Canada with more economic threats. Brian talks this week about Carney’s erratic political shapeshifting with Conservative adviser Ginny Roth and veteran Liberal adviser Warren Kinsella, and asks: Is our new prime minister emerging as a progressive, a conservative, or someone who will just say anything to placate the public? They also discuss the not-so-certain future of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, now boxing against a shadow opponent while his party members try to decide if he’s the right man to keep leading them. And, if so, what will he stand for if Carney keeps stealing his ideas? (Recorded July 11, 2025)
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For a moment it seemed all Canadians understood that, facing President Donald Trump’s tariff war, we had to make our economy as resilient and competitive as possible. As Martha Hall Findlay discusses with Brian, there was finally talk of ending Ottawa’s war on oil and gas, building infrastructure and boosting productivity. The government even yanked the aggravating digital services tax. But, explains Findlay, a former Liberal MP, now director of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, politicians just kneecapped nearly every Canadian exporter by exempting our globally detested dairy supply management system from trade talks … forever. Hall Findlay explains how this small cartel of millionaires works, why it’s so powerful, and why it hurts not just consumers, but every other trade-exposed business. (Recorded July 4, 2025)
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the poles are b.s.
I love how it dives https://thatsnotmyneighbor.org/ into controversial stuff you won’t find everywhere else, and the Monday drops from Postmedia keep me hooked week after week.
https://sprunkiretakemod.io/ Brian Lilley's expertise and engaging hosting style make the podcast enjoyable and informative.
two of the most respectable journalists in Canada, at a time where respect of journalism is justifiably at a record low.
really
Great interview and sensible guest, thanks. Good luck.
Great interview. I could not agree more.