Nuanced. - 199. Aaron Pete: Top 10 Moments of the Show!

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Aaron Pete counts down his top 10 podcast moments — featuring David Suzuki, Tara Henley, Holly Doan, Candice Malcolm, John Rustad, Kris Sims, Aiemann Zahabi, Clarence Louie, Brent Butt, and Premier David Eby. These conversations challenged assumptions, sparked growth, and defined 200 episodes of meaningful dialogue.Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

200 episodes. That's 200 conversations, 200 people smarter than me, and 200 chances to say something I'll regret on YouTube. But I didn't start this show to be safe. I started it to be curious. To challenge the ideas we inherit, to understand what drives people, and maybe, just maybe, to grow a little along the way. So today, I'll be counting down the top 10 episodes that didn't only make waves. They made me pause, rethink, and remember why I started this show in the first place. So let's get into it. Coming into number 10, we have Canadian icon David Suzuki. When I asked him how bad things really are, he didn't sugarcoat it.

We're off a cliff, he said. Not heading toward one, off it. Full stop. That moment hit me hard. Suzuki's voice carries decades of frustration. He's a scientist, an activist, a grandfather who's been sounding the alarm since before I was born. It's tempting to dismiss that kind of urgency as doom saying, but that would be missing the point. He's not just frustrated.

He's heartbroken. And it made me think if someone with that much knowledge is that worried, what excuses do the rest of us have for this level of inaction? And yet, I hold on to more hope than I feel like he does. Maybe it's generational. Maybe it's naive. But I still believe change is possible. Not because it's likely or because it's easy, but because it's necessary. Hearing Suzuki speak wasn't just sobering.

It was a challenge to prove him wrong in the best possible way. Let's take a listen. Looking at the state of the environment today, are we making progress? Are we heading in the right direction or the wrong direction? We're right over the cliff and it's too late. Too late to get back onto the cliff. You know, I used to say I felt like we're in a giant car. heading at a brick wall at 100 miles an hour

and everybody's arguing about where they want to sit doesn't matter who's driving you have to put on the brakes and turn the wheel but now I don't use that metaphor anymore I say you know a roadrunner the little bird well he's always being chased by Wiley Coyote and they come to a

roadrunner comes to the edge of a cliff and of course he does a 90 degree turn But Wiley Coyote's got so much momentum. He goes right over the cliff. And there's that moment when he's suspended and he realizes, oh my God, I'm over the cliff. That's where we are. But then people say, well, is it too late?

Yeah, it's too late to get back to the edge of the cliff. But it makes a difference whether you fall 10 feet or 100 feet. So I'm still there trying to hang on to something on the side to keep from falling all the way down. But the science is in. The science has been in for over 30 years. And I want to remind you that in 1992, in anticipation of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Earth Summit was the largest gathering of heads of state, ever in human history, and it was meant to signal a shift in the way that human beings

were living. So before the meeting, over half of all Nobel Prize winners signed the document called World Scientists Warning to Humanity. And the document opens by saying, human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future we wish for human society and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to support life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision,

our present course will bring about. Now, that was a very powerful document. They then listed the areas where we are colliding with our environment, the atmosphere, the ocean, freshwater, species extinction, and it just goes down the whole list, forestry, and so on. And then the document gets even more grim. says no more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront

will be lost, and the prospect for humanity immeasurably diminished. At number nine, we have Tara Henley. She's a longtime friend of the program. She left the CBC, not in bitterness, but in pursuit of intellectual honesty. This episode captures what happens when institutions discourage curiosity and how important it is to ask hard questions anyway.

What I admired most wasn't just what she said, but how she said it. Tara is calm, measured, and committed. It's easy to throw stones from the outside. It's harder to care enough to challenge the thing you once loved. Tara's critique didn't come from a place of vengeance. They came from grief. The grief of watching something she deeply values begin to lose its way. Tara reminded me that loving something doesn't mean never questioning it.

It means caring enough to ask the uncomfortable questions. Her call wasn't to destroy the CBC. It was to reform it, to remind of its own potential, and to acknowledge the damage done by abandoning its core values. In a time when people either cancel or conform, Her courage to chart a third path, reform. It felt rare, and it felt necessary. Here's that moment.

You know that I love the CBC. I said that on your first podcast that we ever did together. Part of the reason why I went public with my criticisms was because I felt like nobody else was going to say the things that needed to be said and that we were going to lose the CBC if we didn't have a frank conversation. I still feel that way. And this last weekend, I was invited to speak. a digital media on the crossroads, a big industry conference in Toronto. And I took the opportunity

there to make the case for saving the CBC, for not defunding the CBC. And I felt I was uniquely positioned to make that case because I have been so critical, but also because, as you can imagine, And after my resignation letter went viral, I heard from thousands of Canadians on this issue. And I've had so many conversations. And I felt like I had a decent handle on what the actual criticisms were. And that's what I wanted to talk about. I don't think the CBC has been or is currently doing a very good job of addressing those criticisms. So McGill's Center for Technology recently did a survey.

it showed the 78% of Canadians would like the CBC to continue. We hear that stat all the time in the media right now. The second part of that sentence is if it addresses its major criticisms. And it doesn't get repeated. And that's a shame because it is a conversation that has to happen. I would say there are four major criticisms that I counter all the time. One is bias. Two is mistakes, particularly in pandemic coverage,

particularly in that 2021-22 era, that you and I have just been talking about, the CBC's own records show during that period. The Ombudsman has reported a 60% increase in complaints during that time. We can't gloss over these things. We're going to have to deal with them. It's going to be painful. And then there's the complaint from within the media as a whole

that the CBC is using its $1.4 billion advantage to compete against struggling media and startups like yourself and like me. And the fourth is an abuse of the Taxpayers Trust. I know you had the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on in the past. I'm sure familiar with all the arguments there, but the executive salaries are quite high. The VPs are making almost $500,000 a year. We know last year from Freedom of Information Request,

the CBC paid out more than $18 million in bonuses. These are things that are very difficult for the taxpayer to, accept. And there has to be a conversation about that as well. Even when you look at the numbers from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, since 2015, there has been something like 231% increase in CBC staff making over $100,000 a year. Again, we are in a cost of living crisis. People across the country are having difficulty buying food that does not sit well. So those are the big criticisms. my piece sets out 15 ideas, any one of which would signal real change. I'm not under any illusions that the CBC is going to do these things.

I just wanted to demonstrate what it might look like to have real change. And why I wanted to do that is to come back to your question, which is what is a positive vision of the CBC? Number eight is Holly Donne. She does what people think journalists are supposed to do. Compare promises. to outcomes. There's no spin, there's no narrative, just receipts. Talking to Holly felt like stepping into a time machine, a reminder of the kind of journalism many of us grew up believing in.

No grandstanding, no partisan framing, just relentless focus on the facts. What was promised, what happened, and what didn't. It made me realize how rare that's become. We've grown, own so accustomed to editorializing, to teams and tribes and talking points that simply reporting feels so radical. Holly isn't trying to go viral. She's trying to get it right. And a world of noise, that clarity is its own kind of courage. Let's roll that clip. In terms of extracting government information, I also like to say to people, look, we don't cover what government, what politicians say. We don't go to news conferences or watch question period, really. We don't cover what politicians say. We keep an eye on what they're saying. We cover what government does. What

government does, you know, if you don't know about it, it's like the dog that didn't bark. That's the dog that can hurt you if you don't know what he did. Yes, of course, then we'll cover what politicians say, but only after we know what government did, will we ask them. Coming in at number seven is Candace Malcolm, a conversation that reminded me that sometimes The best insights come from when you're willing to hear someone out, especially someone you don't entirely agree with. We talked about history, policy, media mistrust, and indigenous issues. And while our perspectives diverged, we didn't shut each other down, we listened, we challenged each other, we've reflected. And that's the kind of exchange we desperately need more of.

What struck me most was how much nuance emerged from our disagreement. When you take the time to dig past slogans, past talking points, you find context. And context doesn't always change your mind, but it deepens your understanding. In that sense, Candace didn't just make a point. She made an impression. So let's go to that part of the conversation. We have spots in the lower mainland where indigenous people were hands. hanged. And so the power imbalance during that period would not have led people to rush in and go,

oh, I'm sure journalists care about what our circumstances are. For so many Canadians, they had no idea Indian residential schools even existed. And that's now being taught. But to think that anybody cared about these problems 50 years ago, 100 years ago, is kind of foolhardy. So when I saw that, it was like, well, maybe we're not putting in ourselves into the context of what those times may have may have had on people but but you're conflating times too right like when you're talking about how there were first nations or natives that were hung in the lower mainland like i'm sure i mean do you do you know the dates that that happened i my guess is it was in the 1800s like when we're talking about residential schools most of them opened like inner war period like we're

talking about like the 30s to the 60s right or maybe the 20s to the 60s uh first of all you know the 20s were a time uh when the spanish plague uh was killed a quarter of the global population, right? Like the average, you know, one and four children were surviving to the age of 18, right? So, like, people just died a lot more frequently back then. To which people celebrated Joseph Trutch within our region, he said the extinction of indigenous people will come at the consequence of many of these diseases. So they're not a problem to worry about, which is why he downsized Indian Reserves. reserves, which Douglas gave anticipatory reserves to. So the kind of overall ethos during that period was that all these people are going to die anyway, so we don't have to worry about them. So it wasn't like there was a lot of love for indigenous people during some of the periods we're talking about.

Well, okay, so I was talking about in an entire population, not just First Nations. Like everyone was dying from the Black plague, right? People were dying. And I'm sure you can find awful quotes because it was a different time when people had different views. I'm sure you could find quotes from First Nations. people saying awful horrible racist things but white people too and you can find awful horrible quotes but white people like like I don't think that that the two the two sides had the best relations back that and I think one had all the power and one had none of the power yeah it was definitely like regrettable circumstances but Aaron I'm talking about like the fact that there's claims that there were hundreds of children that were murdered in these schools but that we don't know the names of those kids like we don't know who they are like I mean I'm saying this as a mother, like, if I send my kids off to school and they don't come home, like, I'm not just going to say like, oh, well, oh well, no one cares anyway. So I'm just going to, I'm not going to talk about it. I'm just going to go along. Like, like, if something happens to your children, you're going to let it know, even if it's just in your community, like, you're going to have a record that's, that your child died at a school. Like, even if it's just that you, that you keep that record in your community, maybe you don't go tell the white sheriff

the street because you don't trust him. But the idea that there's just all of these children that were murdered by nuns and priests and teachers. Like you say like a lack of an evidence is an evidence. That's a pretty, that's one of the worst accusations that you can level against another human being. But it's not against a human being. It's against a broader system, right? It's not one. I'm not saying this guy was responsible, which to your point would be incredibly disrespectful. It's that the system would have caused these deaths, these people working within the system. I actually have a lot of sympathy for the individuals who worked with them. We do know that many of the people who wanted to work in Indian residential schools over the

past hundred years were not the most well-intentioned individuals. That going up into the middle of nowhere and working with kids was not something many people wanted to do. And some of them had perverse incentives, dark incentives, and harmful ideas on what they would be able to do. if they write in those. So like a bunch of, so the government recruit a bunch of murderers to go off and like kill kids. Like I just am trying to understand the accusation because, again, like, because we're writing, well, this is a super controversial topic. I've heard from a lot of Canadians.

I really respect what you're saying and I'm happy to continue this conversation as long as you want because I think I can learn from you in this instance because you're a lot more connected to it than I. But I've heard from people who say, you know, there was an Indian residential school in my community and they got more money than the public schools or the Catholic schools. and they had more resources and they had better teachers and they had nicer buildings. And I've talked to people who were graduates of these residential schools and they say that it changed their life and it made them on a better path towards succeeding in a modern economy.

So like there's two sides to it, right? It's like I'm sure a lot of people went to school and had a miserable experience and they were homesick and they were sad. A lot of people really wanted their children to attend these schools because they saw it as an opportunity for betterment. Like I said, the schools weren't compulsory. They weren't mandatory. They weren't going and scooping people up from their house to spite.

There's a sort of a thought that that was happening, that the Canadian police were going door to door and scooping kids up and taking them to these schools. That's a myth, as far as I can understand. People wanted the schools. And sure, like in any environment, there's going to be an abuse of power. There was abuse.

And there was horrible, unspeakable abuse. And it's tragic. And anyone who was involved in that, should be held accountable. There's a reason we got rid of this program. It obviously failed. It didn't work, although some people did benefit from it. But fair to say that churches have had a system to protect their own, not just with indigenous people, but there's documentaries about how they've moved people around to avoid the exact accountability that you're describing. What churches?

There's, man, off the top of my head, there's a Netflix documentary called like Mother, and she was a nun and she worked within the system and in the U.S. Okay. And that she was murdered and that a few of her colleagues were murdered and that the priest, they have documentation that he was committing these atrocities. They have documentation that churches knew and that they were deliberately moving him around. I can't remember the name of the documentary off the top of my head. But like this isn't controversial that this has happened. Yeah, I think that there's been abuses in power and they used to happen at churches and not.

they happen in other places. Number six is John Rustad. Our conversation cut through political politeness and struck a nerve across the province. I asked him plainly, would you fire Bonnie Henry? His answer didn't come from a prepared script or a cautious politicians filter. It came from conviction. What followed was a detailed critique not just of the public health decisions, but of the values guiding them. Rustad didn't hedge.

He argued that ideology had taken precedence over evidence, and the decisions made in that mindset were doing real harm. Whether you agree with him or not, what matters is that he showed his work. In politics, that's pretty rare. This conversation reminded me that tough questions aren't just headlines. They're about accountability. And in a democracy, we can't afford to forget that. would you fire bonnie henry yes well sorry i wouldn't i don't know if we need to fire her but we

would terminate her contract in whatever form that would be i look at like bonnie henry did the best you could during during covid when you look back at it you can really question a lot of decisions she made it could seem to be driven more by ideology than it did by by science but i'm not a doctor i'm not a scientist you know i can't question that myself when you compare the results compared to some other jurisdictions. Okay, maybe our results weren't as good as what we're led to believe. But I looked at it particularly from the perspective of not hiring back our healthcare workers. Every other jurisdiction in North America hired back our health care workers.

As far as I know, every other jurisdiction in the world, and yet we didn't. And I asked Bonnie Henry why we weren't doing it. And what she essentially told me was, if health care workers are not prepared to take a vaccine, then they should probably be thinking about working in a vaccine. different field. In other words, it was ideologically driven. It was not driven based on health. It was not driven based on risks. Every other

jurisdiction did this. We didn't. To me, that's somebody who's actually causing harm to our system. And that should be the first order of a doctor. You know, do no harm. That there's harm being done to our system. And I still look, I also look at Dr. Boni Henry

who went out to Ottawa and made the argument on behalf of David E.B. and his government that we should be expanding safe supply, that safe supply should be available, you know, in stores, that we should be doubling down on decriminalization. I mean, these have been utter failures in our society. Experts are telling me we have the highest level of addicts per capita anywhere in North America. And it's a particularly acute, of course, with indigenous populations.

And I look at that and I think this is not the direction we should be going. And if this is what she believes we should be doing, then I think, she needs to find work elsewhere. Number five is Chris Sims. When it comes to taxes, few people are as clear and relentless as she is. And whether you agree with her or not, her ability to break down policy into a plain language makes her a powerful communicator. We talked about the carbon tax, where it started, how it evolved, and what it means for

ordinary Canadians. But the real value of the conversation wasn't in the numbers. It was in the framing. Chris reminded me that behind every tax policy is a family trying to make ends meet, a senior heating their home, a truck driver filling their tank. This wasn't a rant.

It was a reality check. Let's go to that clip. The first, you'll be, might be surprised. I might not be telling you something you don't know, actually. You probably already know this. But the first political party in Canada to run a campaign against the carbon tax that even said ax the tax was the British Columbia NDP.

That's right. So back when Carol James, the former finance minister, was leader of the NDP, she called Gordon Campbell's idea, do you have a revenue neutral carbon tax, lipstick on a pig. I agree. That was a really good quote. And then she ran an entire election campaign on axing the tax because she thought it would be unfairer to punish people for heating their homes and driving to work and eating food.

She was right then. And I can't for the life of me explain to you why the provincial New Democrats in British Columbia have lost sight of that. In fact, there's footage of John Horgan, before he became premier in the opposition benches, railing against the carbon tax in BC. And that was back when it was about five cents a leader. You guys are more than 30 cents a liter right now with your two carbon taxes. So my point of all this is is politicians can change their minds and the NDP really reverse course on the carbon tax, unfortunately. And we want them to see them go back to axing the tax. Number four is my guy, Amon's a hobby.

UFC fighter, coach, and strategist. But what impressed me most wasn't his physical training. It was his mental discipline. We talked about mindset, pressure, and doubt, and the decision to bring on a mental coach to sharpen his edge. In a world where fighters often present themselves as invincible, Amon's honesty about his need for mental strength stood out because it was humble, it was real. The lesson, everyone, no matter how tough, needs help staying sharp. Greatness, as he put it, isn't about being great once. it's about repeating it and that hit home for me let's jump to that clip i'm wondering if you

can talk about choosing to work with a mental coach how that decision came about um and how you find somebody who's maybe the right fit to work with you about your mental game yeah well i hired the mindset mic because uh my friend who suggested it for me like listen uh i got a coach for everything else right so why don't i have a coach for the mind because in the end the final piece is the mindset, right? When you get to the top 15, everyone's well conditioned. Everyone's got skills. Everyone's got their path to victory. But if I can have someone who can have me run through a system that guarantees that I'm going to be performing my best on the night that counts, why not take that advantage, right? So that's

kind of the reasoning behind hiring him. Because, you know, to be great, it's about repeating that greatness over and over again. You know, if you're a great one night, who cares we got to keep repeating the greatness for people to be like oh wow how does he keep being great that's what really makes people love you right so that's kind of like the the reasons why i wanted to hire one and uh so far like the two times we worked together i had no doubt that i was going to perform well because i was my mind was so clear you know i knew exactly what i needed to do and uh especially in this last one where i ran into some trouble near the end and i used some of the techniques to make sure that I end up on top.

Coming in ad number three is Chief Clarence Louis, a man who speaks like he's got no time for fluff because he doesn't. Every word he shared is grounded in a belief in indigenous self-reliance and an even deeper understanding of how economics drives community success. What stuck with me was how unapologetically practical he is. he's not here to pander or to guilt anyone to change he's here to build to employ and to get results his vision isn't built on theories it's built on experience it's built on decades of leading his community not just through words but through real action the clip we're about to hear reminds us that whether you're talking about education health care or cultural programs the money has to come from somewhere And if we want sovereignty, we need economic power. It's a message that empowering as it is challenging, and one I think about constantly.

One of the National Chiefs once said, it's the economic horse that pulls the social cart. Well, yes, it is, but most of our people don't realize that. They're trying to put the cart before the horse. you know they all talk about all these social programs social elders programs youth programs education everything costs money health costs money i've never met a teacher that works for free nurses and doctors don't work for free everybody wants a paycheck and there's nothing wrong with that that's just normal and natural everybody wants a paycheck even even when i see healers these native healers that go around we have to pay them

Nobody, unless you're going to live off of welfare, the majority of our people want a decent paycheck. And they have to realize that those paychecks have to come from. And even if you work in social services or schools or in education, that paycheck comes from somewhere. I mean, the money, the funded money that goes into health and education comes from economic development. development, comes from corporate taxes, comes from personal taxes, natural resource taxes. Everything, if you connect the docks, it all goes back to economic development. Because unless you're a third world country dependent on foreign aid, which I know Canada and America and most G8 countries, they end up giving money, they ended up giving money.

given some of their economic development money to these needy countries because they depend on foreign aid but every government i don't care if it's the federal government provincial government municipal governments first nation governments every government needs money to operate and if you connect the dots where does that money come from it doesn't just fall out of the sky people you know it just bugs me that natives can't connect the dots they can't connect the dots of where does this money come from to pay my teachers or to pay our social service staff or where's the money come for youth programs elders programs on it when we bury people where's that money come from it comes from economic development it comes from business development that's where all the money comes from to run the federal prevention municipal first nation governments money just doesn't fall out of the sky It comes from economic development. Coming into number two is the great Brent Butt, comedian, writer, and the creator of Corner Gas.

This episode was a reminder that laughter isn't just an escape. It's a way of processing the world. I've had some heavy conversations on the show about war, addiction, politics, climate change. But Brent reminded me that you can approach. serious issues with a light touch, and that sometimes humor gets to the truth faster than outrage does. Brent has this gift for making you feel like everything's going to be okay, even if it's not, and in an era of cynicism, his optimism, grounded in honesty, is refreshing.

This conversation gave me a second wind. It reminded me why storytelling, and yes, even jokes still matter. I grew up watching your show I grew up looking up to you I've learned so much through your journey of highlighting individuals who are making a difference and you've done such a great job

of reminding us to look at the small moments see humor in it and make sure that we're being the best people we can be and I just I think you're just such a positive influence for people and I think I can't thank you enough for doing this.

You've been a highlight of doing this podcast I can't appreciate you. Got up stupid? How about that? Put a little twist at the end there. well thank you thanks for all that very kind words i appreciate it very much tober third i think people should absolutely read it we've got a dog cameo going on in the background for people who are just listening and number one premier david eby not just because he's the sitting premier but because this

conversation marked a turning point for me it validated the podcast in the eyes of many but more importantly it deepened my own understanding of leadership Eby didn't dodge. He didn't deflect. He leaned into that tension. He acknowledged mistakes. He tried to explain the why, not just the what. What moved me most was his reflection on trust in a world where confidence in government is absolutely crumbling. He didn't pretend that faith could be won with slogans. He talked about earning it, brick by brick, mistake by mistake. correction by correction. That's a rare kind of humility for someone in power. And that's why this conversation for me sits at number one. How do you process during that storm of reaction, whether or not you're on the right track or not or whether or not there's too much political pressure to continue? Yeah, I mean, one of the things that you do see in politics is there's always another side, even in issues where you think it should be pretty cut and dried, like, and during COVID's a great

example, like whether or not you should get a vaccine. You know, it felt to me like a pretty straightforward. Oh my God, there's vaccines like, let's get vaccinated. But there's always another side. And one of the things is that we're really seeing is, and some of it's just, you know, it's in your example, anytime you're making a change, people, you're asking people to trust, you know, we're making a change. What's coming next is going to be better. And I don't know, I wasn't alive in previous times in human history, but it felt like trust was a lot higher in institutions and government and in neighborhoods and each other. And so this is a time of limited trust. So whether it's tearing down a building or whether it's taking a vaccine or

whether it's any government policy that's going to change the status quo, you know, people have to trust that you're doing it for the right reasons, yes, but also that it's going to be a positive outcome. And so that's the big challenge of politics to my mind and doing politics well or not is your ability not just to communicate where you're going, where you want to go, but that you're actually able to come back after you made the change and say, yeah, we achieved it or earned trust by saying, no, we didn't. And maybe we could talk about decrim, but we didn't achieve what we wanted here. And so we have to go back and try again and to have the humility to say, yeah, we thought it was going to have this outcome. It didn't. And we have to keep pushing and changing.

200 episodes, and these were only just 10 moments. But what they all share is this, honesty, courage, and a willingness to say what matters, even when it's hard. This isn't just a podcast. It's a space to wrestle with ideas, to challenge assumptions, and remind ourselves that complexity isn't a flaw. It's a feature. Thank you for being part of the first 200. Let's see what we can learn in the next 200. 100.