Nuanced. - 95. Philip Slayton: Identity Politics & Freedom in Canada

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Aaron asks Philip Slayton about his experiences in law, and his thoughts on the profession. The two also discuss his books Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada’s Legal Profession, Nothing Left to Lose: An Impolite Report on the State of Freedom in Canada, and Antisemitism: An ancient hatred in the age of identity politics. Philip Slayton is a former law professor and lawyer who worked on major corporate transactions before retiring from legal practice in 2000. Since then, he has authored eight books, including "Lawyers Gone Bad" and "Mighty Judgment", and independently published "Bay Street", a legal thriller. His most recent works include "How To Be Good: The Struggle Between Law and Ethics" and "Antisemitism: An ancient hatred in the age of identity politics".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

I have the pleasure of sitting down with Philip Slayton, who's written some fantastic books. Philip, would you mind giving a brief introduction of yourself for individuals who might not know you? There's not much to say, Aaron, but I'll do what I try my best. I don't know if I believe that. I'm a lawyer by Trey. I was a legal academic for some years, and I practiced law on the dreaded, much-feared Bay Street of Toronto. and I gave that up about 20 years ago and devoted myself to writing books. My most recent book is my eighth, and I've covered a wide range of subjects,

mostly legal-related or in a vague kind of way, although I wrote a book about tennis, which had nothing to do with the law. So that's about it, Aaron. Brilliant. Would you mind walking us through? How did you end up in law school? What made you interested in the field to begin with? maybe you're more idealistic, optimistic about the profession.

And I tell you the honest story? Absolutely. Nothing idealistic about it. I was studying overseas, graduate studies in England. I started work on a PhD in international relations, and it was not going well. And one evening I was complaining to a friend of mine, who is now a very distinguished lawyer in Winnipeg, David made his distinguished human rights lawyer. He was also studying

the same place I was. And I was complaining to him about this. And I said, David, this is not going well. This is not going to end well to me. He said, well, why don't you switch to law? I said, good idea from the next day I did. Oh, such accidents, lives of mate,

right? What was your experience like, can you talk about Oxford? Can you talk about some of the experiences you had? Well, Oxford was a, I mean, I went there as a Manitoba Road scholar, it was initially quite strange and intimidating. I mean, this was back in the 60s. This is a very different place today. It was strange and intimidating.

It took a while to kind of figure out how you've lived, let alone flourished, when you flourish, let alone live, in this environment. But eventually, I came to really like it, really enjoy it. I think I got a great deal out of it. there were a lot of smart people that both teach and fellow students and it was an intellectually stimulating

environment and I got a great deal out of it was wonderful for me. Brilliant. And so when did you decide to move in this other direction, start working on books? Was there a passion for that? Well, I mean, I was practicing more of a base student as I mentioned before where the main occupation

is making rich people a little bit richer as the main equation as a lawyer that's what lawyers are basically do they make the rich a bit richer and after a while you might say to yourself this is not really serving a very useful social purpose I mean

it's stimulating, it's interesting I had a lot of very interesting clients that did a lot of interesting things but after a while I just got tired of it and I began to doubt it it's social utility which I cared about and I found myself financially fairly stable

I said, okay, I'm going to try and write a book. So I left my law firm, and I wrote my first non-academic book, which was called Lawyers Gone Bat. And that was 2007, that was published. And it still is my best-selling book, my first book, Lawyers Gone Bad. Most members of the legal profession heated it because they felt it was a slur all the percussion, which it wasn't really, if they read it carefully, the then president of the Canadian Bar Association sent a memo out of an email out to all the members of the Canadian Bar Association,

which is about 50,000 people, and said, this is a terrible book by a terrible person, don't buy it. Now, Aaron, if you got a memo or an email from the president of the Canadian Bar Association, they'd don't buy this, but what would you do? I'd buy it. So my publisher ran me, I said, this is wonderful. We love the fifth. And then in this way, my writing career began.

Fascinating. And so what were some of the highlights from that book for people who may be hearing about it for the first time? What was maybe the thesis? Well, there was a number of cases, if you will, case studies, lawyers who got into trouble in various ways. But there was, I think, I hope, some big ideas emerged from. the book. One of them has to do with the regulation of the legal profession. I mean, I was of the view then, and I think I still am of the view, that although bar associations say they're there to protect the public, in fact, what they're really there for is to protect the legal

profession, not the public. There's ample evidence all over the place of that over a long periods of time. That was one theme. Another theme was that there were some things in the nature of a legal education and in the nature of legal practice that made lawyers have insensitive to the rules and norms of society. Because after what many lawyers spend their time doing, they spend the time helping clients get away with things, to put it bluntly, or to get, you know, to maneuver around rules or to interpret rules in such way that they don't really apply if the rules of the client doesn't want to apply to them. After a while, you get in the habit of devaluing rules, but not thinking the rules are all that important, and then eventually that can invade the personal space.

You can think they're not very important for you either. So you may dip in short trust funds or behave in some other way that's not. Now, this is not, the overwhelming majority of the legal process is not like this. Let me quickly emphasize that. But there are exceptions, and I think there's some general ideas, lessons to be learned from the exception. So that was what that book is about. Yeah, you think of like a normal distribution. And the outliers are often very interesting cases, because while they're not representative of the norm, they are representative of a perverse incentive being pulled to its absolute maximum, right? Yeah, some of the opportunities they may have had to behave badly were opportunities presented to them by their profession, by their occupation. And also, as I like to say sometimes, failure is so much more interesting than success.

so bad behavior is always so much more interesting than good behavior Agreed Separating the two do you feel like You're still very proud of the law and maybe not some of the actors who operate within it I'm always fascinated by our legal system By some of the logical matrices that it follows Do you still have a passion for the law even if son I don't I still have a great I wouldn't say I'm impressed

I'm proud of it. I have a great respect for certain parts of the law. After all, law is vital to our existence as a civilized, peaceful, prosperous society, absolutely vital. But the law is a huge body of rules of all different kinds of different kinds of different ways. And the profession, legal profession, is extremely diverse. I mean, there's a huge difference, for example, between a criminal defense lawyer and a corporate tax lawyer. A huge difference. It could be they live in different worlds and do different things. So it's very hard to make generalizations about it, but in general, I don't have a passion for the law, but I certainly recognize this importance. I respect it. And I think there are many members of the legal profession who have faithful servants of the law and of society, but of course there are exceptions to that. Interesting. I definitely want to talk about nothing left to lose, which is sitting right behind me. it's a really interesting conversation to me so I'd like to hear about how this book came about for you when did it say I need to write this book I was actually suggested to be by a publisher

who said this is a book I think you should write this was somebody that I served on the Penn Canada board with I don't know about Penn Canada it's a well Penn is an international organization devoted to really protection of freedom of expression and Penn Canada is its Canadian chapter and I was president of it for a time and this particular man who was a publisher

was on the board and so we knew each other we crossed swords occasionally but we knew it and respected each other and as publisher he said this is a book I think you should write I think this is the right book for you to write and I was a little reluctant at first it wasn't my idea initially it was his idea

but I came around to think yes this could be an interesting thing to do and maybe I could have a a fresh take on what constitutes freedom, what it is, what it really means to talk about freedom. I mean, the word freedom and the concept of freedom is widely banded about, never more so than recently, freedom convoy, for example. But I think it's used in a, often in a misleading, slap-dash, ignorant way. It's used for political purposes, sometimes the way it should not be used. So I thought, a fresh look at what freedom really is or one of the constituent parts of it are, and where we are in this country, our country, Canada, when it comes to freedom, would be worth doing. So that's what I try to do.

Interesting. How do you define freedom? Well, I'm somebody who is a great believer in freedom, and in particular in freedom of expression. I said I wasn't passionate about the law. That may be true. I'm certainly passionate about freedom of expression. When it comes to freedom, though, what is freedom? I often think back to my first year political science professor at the University of Manitoba.

I remember him setting an exam question which said this. It was a quotation. The quotation was, just as a room is not a room without walls, so freedom is not freedom without limits. discuss. And I think there's a very important point buried in that. There's no such thing as absolute freedom of absolute freedom is no freedom at all. Correct. Freedom is something that is big and expansive and importance, but not unlimited. And in order to protect the important parts of it, sometimes you have to limit some of the less important parts of it. So it's a complicated

concept. It requires a lot of thinking and balance, but it's certainly worth protecting and fighting for. Yes, I would compare it to that of a chessboard. As you have freedoms to make decisions, but you don't have untrammeled freedom, then there's no game to follow, that there's no logic. Oh, there have to be rules. Without

rules, there is no game. That's what you'd say, I would say, as there is, you know, there's no rule without walls, so there's no game without rules. And that's why I have no patience for this, these people who bang the table, or honk the horns of their semi-trailers.

demanding freedom. What are they exactly is it they are demanding and what are they prepared to sacrifice and give up to get it? What are they prepared to take away from other people

in order to get? And that's a sloppy thinking that should be stopped or should be. Because the interesting thing about freedom is it's not freedom from consequence and with freedom

comes responsibility which seems like we don't talk as much about We don't talk as much about your responsibilities as a citizen when we're talking about freedom and the rights under the chart. Yeah. And it's, you know, I live in most of the in downtown Toronto. I look out of my window here. I see a very busy downtown street full of people.

I see the streetcar rumbling by. You know, I see a lot of people living together in close proximity. And all the whole in this city, despite what you've made here out there, people get along well, respect each other and live, you know, harmoniously. and efficiently and productively together. But you can't do that unless there are rules that we'll more or less follow. So just to take one maybe trivial example, but I think quite good example, if you get on the streetcar here, if you get on the fraud or transit commission, the TTC, you can light up a cigarette.

There are good reasons for that. But you couldn't interpret it as a restriction on your freedom. You should be free to do it. No, you shouldn't because there's all kinds of other people on the street. street guard will be adversely affected by what you're what could to do. And so you can fully-nilly to just to satisfy yourself do something which clearly will hurt other people in close proximity. That's part of the freedom idea. Brilliant. I think that this is a great way to start because it lays the foundation for the conversation about where are our freedoms now.

What was your understanding of where we've been and where we're going? How has freedom of expression in your opinion changed? Well, it's under threat, I think, definitely under threat for all kinds of reasons. I mean, I'm a, as I said, a staunch believer in freedom and expression with very few limits. I think there are some limits, for sure.

So, for example, you should not be free, freedom of speech, should not enable you to incite violence. I mean, that's clear. That's an old Canadian law. But on the whole, I think freedom should be, mostly untrammeled.

So, for example, I have no, I don't agree with people who say that social media should be closely regulated to stop people saying offensive, derogatory things, let's say, about other groups. I don't believe that. There's a big push now, including a legislative push, to do that. I'm not in favor of that.

Instead, I adopt what could probably be described as a kind of naive, almost idealistic approach. I believe in the mantra, somebody to speak about what I went to England to study a long time ago now, long before he was born, probably before your father was born. But I'm sitting here, on my way, I stopped to talk to a man called Jim Gibson, who was the founding president of Brock University and had also been to Oxford somebody said you should talk I didn't know him but someone said you should talk him

he's a wise man as you travel across the country to get the ship to go to England so I did he was indeed a wise man very interesting man he'd been the private secretary to Prime Minister McKenzie King can you believe that anyway so he said to me I've never forgot this

he said to me you know Philip he said at the place where you're going, Oxford University, they really only teach you one thing. But it's a very important thing. They teach you how to distinguish between a good argument and a bad argument. To me, that's a very, a great truth, and it should be the underpinnings of a civilized society,

and the underpinnings, by the way, of an education which produces people who live with that civilized society. you need to be able to know what's a good argument what's worth thinking about what's worth discussing and what's just bullshit if I can put it that way

yeah that's very important and what I see when I look around when I read the papers when I go online and all the rest of it I see a failure in many cases to do that now going back to what I was saying before if somebody is using

posting ridiculous sclerless derogatory offensive tweet let's say. To me, the answer is not to shut them down. To me, the answer is, ideally, have a population that knows what's smart, right, good, and correct, and what is, and we'll look at these tweets and say, that's not true. That's ridiculous. That's laughable. I don't believe that. I reject that. That's the way to do it. So that leads us back, and this is where the naive and idealistic part comes in, that leads us back to really education, reality. People need to be taught, given the ability to do this. So, for example, more specifically, people need to be taught

properly civics, which they're not done by large in high school now. People are graduating from high school in this city, and I'm sure across the country, who don't understand how this country is governed, who don't understand what the legal principles are, which underlying this, don't understand the history of this country like the ability to know a good argument from a bad argument. They don't have the skills to do that. They don't have the knowledge to do that. And that makes it vulnerable to rubbish, let's say, on social media and elsewhere, but let's say on social media. But what I would like to do rather than regulate these things, which is extremely dangerous about the precedent that it says, what I would like to do is rather

is trying to get people to recognize these things for what they are. I definitely I'll give me one example just to cut around end the point so there's Taylor Green

who he says you know I've been now a Republican member of the House of Representatives and I said the California

wildfires a year or two ago were caused by space lasers planted in space by Jews now it's not reason

in because it's a laughable it's possible and anybody with half a brain and half an intellect would look at that just a laugh which is the appropriate response when somebody says something like that

not to shut them down but there's that particular case to laugh so the appropriate response in the other cases is not to shut down the person not to curtail the freedom of speed not to not allow them to write that or publish that or whatever but to make certain that the people

who see it who read it We understand it, see it what it really is. I guess the danger and why I think you acknowledge that that might be what's considered idealistic or naive is that these algorithms seem to allow people to go for three hours and break something down that is not based on anything in foundation, but you go for so long and our brain feels rewarded when we feel like we're a part of something that other people aren't understanding. There's a reward system of like, nobody knows, I know, and I know better than these people. And these systems are allowing people at scale to feel that reward system at a very quick pace. I think Flat Earth is another good example where people feel a reward because they feel like they're a part of an in-group and everybody else is part of an out-group. And to your point, that's absolutely true. I don't think that, I mean, that predates social media practice.

But now it can scale, right? Like, that's the big difference is now these problems can scale. Well, I mean, if you look at some of the great fascist mass movements in relatively recent history, for example, then, you know, the Nazi part in Germany, that was, in my judgment, and not just many people would say this, I think, not everybody, but many people would say this. That was eventually millions of people joining together because they believed, They were, as John Paul Sartre said, they were mediocre people at best, leading drab lives. But they embraced what turned out to be an absurd, horrible, dangerous conspiracy theory

because it made them feel better, made them feel more important. It made them feel better. They had camaraderie with other people who believed the same thing. And then all that, you know, this horrible mass movement developed and was generated, and that's not the only example. Those are kind of precursors of the kind of thing you're describing. I mean, there's great danger out there because people can fall to these absurd, as you point out, can fall for these absurd ideas easily and for poor reasons that in some respect have nothing to do with the ideas themselves.

It's what makes them feel good, as you say, what makes them feel that they know something that other people don't, that they understand something that other people don't. They are therefore smarter and better than other people. I think that that's the starting place of the problem. The reason that I agree with you is that I think even the word ideal means something to point towards. And so to be idealistic and say, let's take the best argument and say that that's the best argument. When somebody makes a bad argument, we need to make a better argument. The reason that that works is because there's nothing underneath that that we could point to that would be better.

We can't regulating it to death. doesn't actually fix the problem of bad ideas. But having the best idea win out over time ends up having a healthier, more democratic society. And there's just, there's no right answer, but there's a right direction. And that's where when you say ideal, I agree with you,

because that's at least we can point in that direction. We can all agree that that's the direction to move in. And it's a challenge because it's not perfect. It doesn't fix it. But at least we can all agree that that's the right direction to point in, right? Yes. Although I would say this.

it's a very laborious process there's a lot of heavy lifting of both and it's a battle that never ends that's a battle will never be won the price of liberty is eternal vigilance right so the price for freedom of expression is eternal battle if you will to show people that some of these

things, these ideas these beliefs and are being pervade are ridiculous or not worth accepting or even considering there's a long laborious never-ending battle will go on until the end of civilized But that doesn't mean we abandon it. We just have to do it. Absolutely.

So do you have specific examples that you feel like are worth going through in regards to our change and understanding of freedom of expression, areas where you see real battlefields existing? Yes, sure. I've got lost. Let's focus on one that I feel particularly strongly about, and that is post-secondary education, universities. Now again, I'm an old-fashioned romantic, right? You believe that universities are a place for unimpeded thought and discussion and argument mostly for its own sake.

Now, that's just because it makes your life more rewarding and interesting if as a university student, you know, you've thought about lots of things, you've talked about lots of difficult issues with your peers and you've been taught interesting. it just enriches your life. That's the only reason for it. And if you take only that away, you've taken a lot of away. So that's the old-fashioned romantic view of what post-send education is. That has been almost completely abandoned, in my opinion, in at least two major respects. The first is that universities, even some of the so-called better universities, have become essentially vocational schools. and they pride themselves on it.

They advertise that that's what they are. If you take the subway in Toronto, there are ads in the subway for universes telling you that you'll get a good job if you just go to that universe and sign off for some particular course. That, by the way, is incredibly foolish. Because by the time you graduate, the world will change, it changes at an extraordinary pace. And the kind of job that you thought you were going to get where you start

and probably won't exist by the time you've got it. Anyway, that's another map. But the idea that you go to university to learn things to develop ideas to develop, you know, a richness of intellect that's been abandoned now. You go there to learn practical stuff that will help you get a job which probably won't exist as I say about time you graduate. That's one thing.

The other thing, of course, is the whole woe-ness business. The whole idea now that at universities, some ideas are okay but others are not. and more seriously that the ideas that are not okay since somebody's judgment are ideas that really should not be expressed should be shouted down professors who may espouse them should be fired speakers from outside who want to talk about them should be as they say

deplatformed now it's the exact antithesis in my view what a university should be it's the exact antithesis of freedom of speed in a university setting. And it's very, very unfortunate. Do you have any examples of things that you feel like are not allowed to be said or that are unpopular to say right now? Well, Aaron, there's so many examples. I mean, I can't particularly give you a list of them,

but I'm sure you know as well as I, as well as your list is from both of what. There's all kinds of things now that you say at your peril. So I'll give you one example. This is not directly pertinent to universe. Well, it is, actually. It's in the book, nothing left to lose. And it's coming from the West Coast

is the infamous Stephen Galloway case. I don't know if you're familiar with that. No. Even Galloway was a professor at UBC. I think you're a graduate of UBC, right? I am. But he was not in the law school, though. He was in the creative writing department.

And he had an affair with one of his students and was subject to disciplinary proceedings as a result of it. By the way, Stephen Galloway was not just a problem. Professor Creighter writing, he was also a very highly regarded iller-winning novelist. He wrote a myself as the cellist of Sarajevo, which is widely regarded as an excellent book. Anyway, he was essentially subjected to a sort of a secret, well, a secret almost kangaroo court process. Looking at what he did, but looking at the allegations that had been made against him,

the results were never really public, made public, and he was fired. and his life was essentially ruined. So a number of writers, including some very eminent writers, like Mark Atwood, Michael Ondarchi, people like that, were a letter to UBC's, which has become known as the open letter, which they said, they didn't defend Stephen Galloway, they didn't say he didn't do it,

or if he did do it, it was okay, what they said was, knew as a lawyer well appreciate this, they said he'd been denied procedural, justice. He'd been denied the opportunity to represent himself properly and all the other things that come along with procedural justice. That's all. And these writers, including very evident, powerful people like Margaret Aywood, were vilified, were publicly vilified and attacked for daring to say this. And that's an example, I think, of the kind of thing I'm talking

about. I mean, another example has to do with the infamous attack. acts on J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author, because of her views on transgender people, which has seemed to be not acceptable in this day and age. Well, maybe they are, maybe they're not. Maybe you agree with it. Maybe you don't. But you don't shout her down, vilify her, you know, heap of senators upon her because of a view she's expressed and she don't agree with. So, you know, this is widespread, it's endemic, it's rotting the whole system.

I think where I'm coming from on this is that I see this as a problem of educating people on where their rights come from, on where their responsibilities come from. And I think the reason that the U.S. is in somewhat of a different circumstance is that they have a story that roots in the day that they became independent and that there is a myth and ethos around that story that inspires them to take their freedom seriously. And I would say that the United States is more protective of their freedom because they understand it better, because they can root it back to a place where for Canada it was inherited. It was some of these rights came from a place that they can't take full credit for. So the story is a little bit more mixed. I think key parts of our history like World War II, World War I, give us this understanding of people fought for these rights. people helped build us the capacity to act independently and to have a voice and to have a seat at the table and to be independent in a way. But I don't think it has that clear story

that allows people to understand where their freedoms come from. And then we start to see people not appreciate them in the way that you're describing because they don't have that deep narrative that allows them to understand and appreciate where it's coming from. What is complicated, Aaron? I mean, you speak in the United States. deep respect for freedoms. I'm sure that's true. But of course, one of the freedoms for which vast swathes of the United States population wants it cling on to is the freedom or the right to bear arms, which is in the U.S. Medellate to the U.S. Constitution, which of course is misinterpreted but has created untold difficulty and mayhem in the United States. In Canada, it's true what

you say, although we do have the Charter Rights and Freedoms and I have had since, what, in 1982, and that I think was, although I was initially not faithful of it, reasons that don't really matter now, probably now, but I think it's had a huge effect on the country, a very beneficial effect on the country, although I'm a concern with what seems to be happening now with the increasing cavalier use of the notwithstanding clause in the Charter Rights for Freedom. But at least, we now have something that's codified, well thought out, out and important constitutionally

interested Yes, and section one sounds like one that other people have some concerns about how it's being used but to your point I think one of my main concerns is that it does feel like

self-censorship is growing at a very high pace. I have people when I explain my position on land acknowledgments, it's like there's a sense of relief in them that they're not crazy When I explain my perspective on land acknowledgments, it's that it's important that we take care of the land and that we do not need to mention specific nations in order to succeed at that.

I want people to care about the land that they live in, not for my benefit as an indigenous person, but because you have to live here and it would be swell if you took care of the place while you're here. and that's one of the teachings in indigenous culture that's really key that doesn't make it into some of the more Western laws, this idea that we need to operate closer to harmony and take only what needed and to be stewards of this land. That doesn't seem to be as paramount. And so there's a value in what's being proposed, but I think it's being gone about it in the wrong way. And then it's just obligated now. Everybody has it in their email signatures. Everybody has a statement about it. And if you don't, well, then what are you up to? Why aren't you following? Why aren't you following in line? Well, it's interesting as you refer to self-censorship. I think this is an important and growing problem. And in many respects, it goes out of fear. You know, the fear that if you say something that many people would agree with, you will be subjected not just to criticism. That's fair game.

In a free and democratic society, you know, people will criticize. That's fine. But not just criticism, scurrilous attack, trolley on the Internet, and all those bad things. There's ample examples of that. So people think themselves, you know what? I better be careful what I say.

Even though I want to say something that I think is important and well thought out, I know many will disagree violently, perhaps, so I better be careful what I say. Maybe I just won't say it for the sake of peace and quiet. I'll give you an example personal to me. So my new book, which is about anti-semitism, take some positions

that, what comes out in a couple of weeks take some positions that I know I've been warned by people but I didn't have to be warned I know will be highly controversial and will open me up to criticism which is fine. In fact, not only is that fine, I welcome that. I welcome a spirited debate

about what I regard as important ideas. So people said to me, you know, Philip, you're friends of mine. You better be cheerful. Do you really want to say that? I mean, just think. People are going to attack you. You really want to say that?

I mean, the people who, my friends who said that are, you know, well-educated, sophisticated, democratic, liberal people. They're not, you know, and they were saying, be careful what you say. And so once that kind of idea creeps into our society, you've got to be careful what you say, you know, even though it may be important, even though you may have thought it out carefully, even though somebody agree with you, be careful what you say. say, because who knows what will happen? That's a very dangerous thing. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that? Because being careful with what you say to your

point is a good thing. You don't want to say things off the cuff, which we've seen how... Yes, although you should be free to do that. That's part of my thing. You should be free to do that, say stupid things off the cuff. No, but I'm not talking about that. I mean, I'll give you this very specific example. In my book, for example, I am critical of the way in which the state of Israel dealt with the Palestinians and the Palestinian problem. Now, I'm not alone to that. Lots of people are, including members of the Jewish community. It's a controversial point, but many people feel very strongly in the opposite way.

And you can be sure that if at all you say the state of Israel is behaving very badly vis-à-vis the Palestinians, for example, through the settlers in the West Bank, you will be attacked. You can be sure of that, and you will be attacked and large numbers of people. I predict this. Watch for there. It's coming for me. I predict this, and people say, anything, they've got to be careful about that, you know. It's a respectable point of view.

Other people have it, but you're going to be careful about it. You're going to weigh up. You really want to say what will the personal consequences be for you. Now, I don't care. Whatever the consequences are all fine with me, but a lot of people quite reasonably do care, you know. They say, well, I have a family. Do I really want to expose them, perhaps, to this? I mean, that's the kind of thing you have to be very concerned about.

Not stupid off-the-cuff statements, but when you start to be reluctant or people encourage you to be careful about saying, voicing important but controversial ideas, then our society is in trouble. Because one of the great engines that drives our society, It's a country like Canada. I'm a great Canadian patriot, by the way.

What drives great liberal democracy like Canada is freedom of expression. Everybody thinking they have the opportunity, put their ideas out. They can be rejected if it's decided they're not any good, put their ideas out, to argue for them and listen to the arguments on the other side. That's a huge, important driver for free liberal democracy.

Once it starts being constricted, and people start getting nervous about it, And we're in trouble. And I think the point you were making earlier is that when you have people like a J.K. Rowland, who don't feel, who have no, like, because there's limitations to how free a person feels. Financially, if you're on a budget and you can't afford to lose your job, you're going to be more careful with what you say. When you're a person like J.K. Rowland, who never needs to worry about monetary value ever again, and you're still hesitant, then there's something going on because you should feel as free as possible. to speak what you have to say without the concerns of repercussions or consequences or like she's already made her success and when individuals who are able to speak

don't feel comfortable to the trickle-down effect to the average everyday Canadians are going to be impacted. To me, this point you air though, is true that J.K. Rowley, I think, is the richest woman in England and she's a billionaire, so she doesn't have to worry about the financial side of things, but people have, there are other forms of wealth too. For sure. If people are concerned about, well, what's this going to do to my reputation? Am I going to go from being a beloved author to being like a controversial person with reviled in some quarters?

Am I going to be a subject to personal attack? Am I going to be yelled out of the street? You know, this graffiti going to be sprawled under the wall of my house. Am I going to need to buy, you have security cards to go with me when I go to someone? So there's different kinds of wealth, different kinds of things you need. Money is certainly helpful for sure. But I just thought, yeah, I said it at all. I couldn't agree with you more.

only point is for everyday Canadians like myself who's on who's on a budget I immediately like the feeling is like oh I might be more bold if if my finances were taking that's the average person's feeling towards being able to say what they have to say if I add a little bit more of cushion I'd be able to have my thoughts and I understand that I understand that it's it's complicated I don't want to see no one to appear to be ridiculously you know utopian or idealistic I understand it's complicated, and a lot depends on individual circumstances. But, you know, the famous saying that the Arctic

of history bends slowly, but it bends towards justice. I'm coming over to your stuff. Maybe Martin Luther King said that, which, the same thing applies to ideas like this. It's not flat out simple, it's not binary, it's complicated, but the tendency, the push, the direction, but inclinations

have to be towards the right ideal, as you talked about earlier. Yeah. So, where you say yourself, in an employment situation, question. If I say this, which I really believe, let's say, my boss is going to be really mad at me. It's not going to like me. I may be in trouble when it comes to my job. So I've got to be really careful about this. I've got like three babies at home to feed. I've got to be careful about this. But your inclination should be towards speaking your mind as long as it's

reasonable and well foot out, even though on occasion you may decide now it's not the time. So do you feel that this has gone up in recent years? And if so, where do you see that, that mode of that change that you're talking about where it's become more difficult? Because I think of maybe like questions about Afghanistan, like was it popular to say that maybe we shouldn't be going into these countries. Do you feel like there's been an uptick in recent years? I think there's been a tremendous uptake in people being very reluctant to say. what they want to say you know I'm not now I'm talking about policy matters

ideas government direction or all the things that matter tremendous up ticket and people are recusing themselves from the debate I don't want to get involved it's not worth the trouble and I'm concerned about that and I think there's been a vast change in society

over the past 20 years or so for the for the worse part of it is has a is a result of the huge growth, something I'm just like very intensely, which is identity politics. So I'll give me an example. So Barack Obama, you may remember him, burst upon the political scene. I think it was in 2004 when he gave the keynote of speech, the Democratic National Convention. One of the things he said in that speech, I'm paraphrasing now, but it's famous, was he said something like this. He said, there are no black Americans. There are no white Americans. There are no

Latino Americans. There are only Americans. Now, very idealistic statement, massive applause. But that would be almost completely rejected today because now is very important. Are you black? Are you white? Are you litigate? What are you? And whatever you are, there's an inclination to think that other groups, people not like yourself, may be in opposition to you, they may be trying to take something away from you, they may be critical of you, when in fact you are better than they are. So my feeling is that identity politics has been enormously divisive because it emphasizes the respects of which we are different. And we are different, all of us, in various ways. But it ignores the fact we are also very similar in very many ways. And we have

similar things that are important or should be important to us we should pursue them collectively. One of them being freedom of expression. I agree with you. The thing that I receive very commonly is somebody in the beginning of a conversation saying something like I understand that I'm a straight white male and that's how the conversation begins and that's bizarre to me because I wouldn't do the same. Like unless I'm prefacing it with like a cultural perspective. I may say that I'm indigenous, but that isn't something that I think is overly pertinent to everyday conversations where it does feel like the idea of, like I personally feel uncomfortable with the idea of white privilege. And it's not to say that the term doesn't have

some sort of bearing for people, understanding that a certain group of people have been more successful and maybe acted unfairly, Joseph Trutch being a good BC example of somebody who used their authority and power in a negative way, but the vast amount of people over human civilizations have struggled and been in poverty and had to overcome incredible hardships. And we've done that more or less cohesively over the time human beings have existed. And I have people who have white skin whose parents went to Indian residential school. And I have people with dark skin who have received tremendous opportunities throughout their life, which is fantastic. But to use something like the color of your skin as a determining factor of where you are in a hierarchy to begin with,

I don't think is appropriate because it only tells a little teeny tiny piece of the story and lacks context. And I think, as we're talking about, Martin Luther King Jr. said, judge me on the content of my character, not on the color of my skin. And that seems also an unpopular statement to make. It was 1963 speech from the Lincoln Memorial. Probably one of the greatest political speeches of Bergen and American history. Well, I agree with you. Look, you can't minimize the fact that there have been great injustices in history. You can't minimize the fact that some groups because of the various attributes or ethnicity or whatever have been treated very badly.

You mentioned white privilege. You can't ignore the fact that white privilege has been a feature in Saudi of our society for a long time to something that perhaps still it is. I'm not suggesting for a minute that these things don't exist in a long important. You can't ignore the fact, for example, the members of the LGBT community, etc. Very badly treated for a long period of time. That seems to be getting better now, unfortunately.

You can't pretend these things don't happen or don't even exist today, but what you can do is say, we recognize all that. But recognizing it and acting on it is the most important defining features of who we are is another thing. What we have to concentrate on is the respects in which we have common interests.

You're not ignoring the fact that there are differences that you should be eliminated, but we have to emphasize common interests and pursue them collectively, for the good of everybody. Agreed. Can we, to wrap up the conversation on your first book we were discussing, can you explain what areas you'd like to see

maybe policy changes or perspective changes that would help re-enshrine these rights to make sure that we don't go any farther. Is there any thoughts you have on this thing? People that might be interested in that is to contact your local bookseller and buy a copy of the book and read it. I would urge people to do this. Yeah, I think the red not, again, it's complicated.

There's no kind of panacea for this. It's complicated, and I list a number of things. Well, at the end of this book, there's what I call the Citizens Manifesto, which I list a number of things which I think citizens knew by everybody should do. And they include things like, for example, it sounds almost childlike. Be careful of the police. We haven't been talked about the police.

I've got all kinds of years of the place. Support independent journalism. Very important. Sorry, did you say police? Please, yes. The police. I just wanted to make me put an eye out of the place. For reasons that we all know.

Try and change the direction of post-second education. We talked about that a little bit. There are various government reforms that I think would be a good idea. So, for example, I'm concerned about under our constitutional structure of the predominance of the executive branch, the enormous power that resides in the hands of the prime minister, the extent to which the executive, the legislature is clearly a subordinate to executive, things like that. I mean, so there are constitutional things we have to worry about.

our Prime Minister in his first election when he was elected pledged to introduce proportional representation and reneged on that pledge sometime afterward because he decided it wouldn't be good for him politically which means that there's

substantial minorities in this country that are not really represented in Parliament so there's all kinds of things in the mix from big big things to what may seem like technical legal things but it's a complicated picture but, as I say, there's no panacea.

The best thing to do is the Bible book can read. There you go. Could we talk about anti-Semitism? When does it release? Sorry? When does it release? Arch the 7th is the official day, but the book actually exists.

You see there, and it's beautiful. So my friend of mine looked at the cover and said, it looks like an eye sharp to me. How did the book come about for you? well it's a similar story to the nothing left to lose somebody rang me up and the publisher rang me up and said

I wouldn't do write a book anti-semitism and I said I don't think so so he said no no just quote unquote you're the guy as it happens I had nothing particularly going on at the moment I wasn't didn't have a project it was

during the pandemic or in the early days in the pandemic when all anybody was talking about was the pandemic so I thought this might be anti-semitism might be a good antidote to the pandemic so maybe I should get

there was also a personal element in it which I talked about in the book my father was Jewish my mother was not which created certain identity issues for me and my family my father my grandparents

fled what is was there Russia is now eastern Ukraine, but who knows, may be Russia in one of these days, and did the usual Jewish migrants trek across Europe, ending up in England and their two sons, one of them being my father, came to North American. There was a kind of a personal thing about Jewish history, Jewish identity, the nature of anti-Semitism, what it is, how it works, that I had a kind of stake in. So anyway, I sat down to write this book, and I learned it. great deal of the writing of it, which is always a big payoff, of course, if you learn when you're doing something, the biggest payoff. And I'm proud of what I've done. I think it's good. I think it's going to be controversial, which is fine, as we've been talking about. I think it's good, and I think it's novel. I think it has some new ideas about a very important

and, unfortunately, very old problem. Do you, it's interesting that this book is coming about because it feels like there's also been an increase in anti-Semitism, particularly in the last, I can't, it's been going on for a very, very long time, but it feels like there's been an increase in recent years. Well, that is the popular view. I talk about that in the book to some respects. But one of the important points I try to make in the book is, look, every anti-Semitic act is not like every other anti-Semitic act.

There are different kinds of different degrees of gravity, of different significance. And you can treat each one as if it's the same as every other one, because it's not. And if you do treat each anti-Semitic act or utterance as if it's the same as every other one, what you do is really undermine the whole concept, because if everything's important, nothing's important. I talk about that. And in my opinion, it's what I call it kind of an anti-Semitic industry as develops, with all kinds of people, including non-Jewish politics, try to outdo themselves in condemning anti-Semitism, appointing special envoys in the case of

governments, adopting absurd, sweeping comprehensive definitions of anti-semitism and so on, so on. That's not doing anybody, including the world Jewish community, any favors at all. Now, one of the things I proposed in the book is a kind of a typology of antisemitism, ranging from ones that are not acts of anti-semitters, are not particularly the important, like scrolling to graffiti on a wall, for example. That's not nice. That's not a nice thing to do. In fact, I live in my apartment here in Toronto is above an aroma coffee bar.

An aroma is an Israeli chain. Periodically scroll on the walls of the building and things like, Jews go home. Or, you know, Zatai designers or something like that. Not nice. Shouldn't be done. The anti-graffiti people come and paint over it as quickly as possible. But very different from many of the egregious, sometimes violent acts of anti-semitism you see sometimes, and extremely different.

Well, the institutionalization of anti-semitisman, once, you know, universities start using it as a deciding who to admit to medical school or not, for example, or once governments start incorporating it into government policies or rule or attitudes, once the newspaper editorial policies start to reflect here. That's a different thing altogether. So I urge in my book, I propose that it's important, to see these things for what they are, to not treat each one as if it's the same as every other instance,

and to develop a proportion of response, to largely ignore things that don't matter and take very seriously that things that do matter and know which is which. Brilliant. It sounds like you're also helping individuals sort of think these issues through, and I think that that becomes more and more important as we get, like we're in this, call it influencer culture, where people are able to choose the voices they want to listen to in a different way than we've seen in the past. At least in the past we had newspapers and they'd highlight the key kind of arguments for an issue. Now we have individuals who kind of go on one side and then that's their only perspective. At least you're trying to provide that balance for people. Thinking is become a little bit out of date, I think. A little passe d' thinking, but we should try and reinstate it as an art form. Philip, I'm so excited to read your upcoming book.

I have your book here. I'm very excited to continue to read it. I really appreciate it. Go ahead. Let me know what you think, maybe you read it? I will. I really appreciate your time. I know these are difficult issues.

I appreciate your bravery. Agree, disagree. It doesn't matter. the value is that we're able to have these conversations, and I think that that becomes increasingly important, so I appreciate you being willing to do this. Thank you. Thank you, Tim.

We're lurking in the background there, so much. Thank you, Tim. How did that turn out? That was very good.