Shaun Newman Podcast - #320 - Bruce Pardy

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Bruce is the executive director of Rights Probe (https://www.rightsprobe.org/) and professor of law at Queen’s University. A critic of legal progressivism and the expansive managerial state, he has written on a range of subjects at the front lines of the culture war inside the law. He has taught at law schools in Canada, the United States and New Zealand, practiced civil litigation at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP in Toronto, and served as adjudicator and mediator on the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal. He is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, and publishes and comments widely in traditional and online media. He is one of the creators of the Free North Declaration, a call to arms to protect civil liberties in Canada from COVID-19 irrationality and overreach. November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's.   Get your tickets here: https://snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes Let me know what you think   Text me 587-217-8500

What's up guys, it's Kid Carson. This is Alexandra Kitty. This is Danielle Smith. Hey, everybody. This is Paul Brandt. Jeremy McKenzie, Ragingdissident.com. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Monday. It has been a busy couple days. Thursday down to Calgary. Did the Western Standard Groundtable from live in the studio. If you want to see the video of that, just over to the Western Standard and check out to Rumble or their Facebook page. or of course if you listen on Spotify the video was up there as well and a ton of fun having marty back on and that type of thing and then of course Saturday night the Canadiens for Truth media launch with theo jamie and joseph on stage so that was pretty cool

experience and to anyone who came out man there was there was a ton of people uh you find listeners who came out to that show and it's super cool to meet a bunch of you and then once again by now you probably all know i love being on the stage I never thought I'd say that. But a ton of fun being up there kind of, you know, getting to kind of rain in the three characters that were there on Saturday night. But a ton of fun had great crowd and be on the lookout for Canadians for Truth. They are today's first sponsor, but be on the lookout for them as they start to launch three new shows, Warrior Patriot, Patriot Warrior, geez, I did it on stage too. For some reason I want to call it the Warrior Patriot.

Patriot Warrior Theo Flurry, way of truth to Joseph Borgo, and then Jamie Saleh is going to be unstoppable truth. So interesting stuff coming from Canadians for Truth, excited to see where they go, and look forward to interacting with them here with the podcast and everything else. I should point out, before I move any further, November 5th is closing in. Quick Dick McDick and 222 minutes are going to be doing a show in Lloyd with yours truly.

And the idea is, it's a comedy show. So Toos is going to do a little stand-up, then Quick Dick is going to perform. And then after they're done, then after they're done, we'll have a live podcast on stable. On stable. Oh, my goodness. You know, ever since I started saying, you know what, I'm not going to try and do this perfect.

I'm going to leave these intros raw, if you will, because usually you try and raw. Anyways, it's, Tews laughs at me when he was. sitting there the other night just like giggling as I stumble over words and everything else because I don't seem to do it perfectly. We're going to do a live podcast on stage. Thank you. There we go. And it should be a cool, you know, allow the fans or not even the fans, the audience to interact through online polling that type of thing to help guide the conversation because I think it's always cool that we explore topics you want to hear about. So tickets still are available for that.

if you want to head to Lloyd, November 5th at the Gold Horse Casino. Just check the show notes. There's a link there, and you can click on it and see all about it. But it should be a fun night. Now, I already mentioned Canadians for Truth, though. Clay Smiling, the team over at Prophet River, they helped get Terry Bryant on. I mentioned that multiple times.

The Alberta Chiefs Firearms Officer, so I really appreciate that. And if you're going, who is Prophet River? Well, they specialize in importing firearms from the United States of America and pride themselves and making the process. This is easy for you as humanly possible. And it doesn't matter where you're at. It doesn't matter if you're BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, blah, blah, blah, Quebec, far on the east.

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I've done it and they put you to work but it's you know a good company family owned and if you're top-in-the-notch values I might add you know, being a sponsor on this podcast. And they're always looking for good people. So if you're, you know, sitting out in one of the provinces going, man, maybe I should make a change of pace or try and find something new.

Michko Environmental, give them a call, 780214, 4,0004. Check them out, MitchcoCorp.ca.ca. Carly Claude and the team over at Windsor Plywood, they are the builders of the podcast studio table. You know, on stage, you know, bring it back Canadians for Truth for a second. and we got talking about their studio they've built. And I said, yeah, there's nothing, you know, my studio. I feel like, you know, it's like a 12 by 12.

And Joseph and Theo both were like, man, I don't know about that. Like, your studio is top notch. And the table, if you can believe it, came up on stage. That was a topic just briefly. And I thought that was pretty cool. So hats off to Windsor Plywood. If you're looking for some, you know, coffee table talk, you know, something that gets the people.

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He is the executive director of Rights Probe and a professor of law at Queens University. I'm talking about Bruce Party. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Bruce Party, and you are listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Bruce Party. So first off, thanks for joining me.

I don't know why your name. It's like so easy to say, and yet for some reason that's where I'm at this morning. Thanks for hopping on, Bruce. Not all. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Sean. Now, I follow along. You've been on different shows, and I follow up.

bunch of the people you've been on, you know, one of the guys, Jordan Peterson is, you know, almost folklore in, in my world. He's, he's very high up on my list of things.

So I've heard you there. And I'm sure a lot of people have heard you in different avenues. But Bruce, for people who don't know who you are, let's start there. Let's, let's give him a little taste to who Bruce is. And we'll jump off from there.

Okay. Well, sure. I'm, I'm a law professor at Queens University. I've been there for many, many years, probably more than I'd like to admit. More recently, I've become the executive director of an outfit called Rights Probe, which is a branch of the Energy Probe Research Foundation,

one of Canada's leading think tanks that is oriented to a pre-market way of thinking. We have a lot of think tanks who are not, but energy probe has been in the business for decades now, raising thoughtful questions about environmental dogma. That's where it started. And from there, it's grown into looking at all kinds of different issues. And Wright's probe is focused on the law, but the law as it is reflected in what I would call an eroding social fabric, if you like. The law is sort of shifting underneath our feet.

And a lot of the assumptions that people have about how the law works turn out to be not so correct. And that has become eminently apparent during this COVID period. Now, it didn't start with COVID, but COVID has been the illustration of the dark facts about where we're at, I think. yeah i think um when it comes to covid uh i think uh i think a lot of us thought law would save us you know exactly like don't worry the you know it's going to take some but the lawyers will get this and it'll just be cleaned up and not a problem and yet um well i'll steal a line from one of the

articles you wrote i'm staring right at it it says people are apt to believe that the law will save them when things go bad, but simply taking cases to court won't fix this. The law is subject to cultural tides and currents. And when the culture goes askew, the law will provide little refuge. I read that and I went, geez, that's a hard thing for me, a simpleton to understand because you think the law is there to make sure that everybody's held in check. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly so.

Exactly so. And that's what people think, that they see something in black and white, you know, a provision of the charter, for example. And they think, well, that's what it says. That's what it must mean. Therefore, I don't need to worry about all these crazy people because the institution is solid and it's going to come in and save the day. And so far during COVID, that simply has not been the case.

And that's partly because, as in the quote that you just read out, I mean, the law is a product of the culture. and you can write down whatever you want, but if the people who are inside the system, and after all, the system is run by people, if the people inside the system have a certain set of premises and ideas in their head, those ideas are going to prevail, no matter what.

And very, very hard to move them off that. And so that's the kind of phenomenon we've seen during COVID. So do you think you're a guy who's been in universities, and I've heard different, you know, stories, you know, obviously Jordan Pius and I'll bring his name back up again, right? Like following his account of where he went and everything else, you understand the ecosystem of the university is an interesting place. And we, I was literally just talking about this, that, you know, you go to university to debate things and kind of become a better you, whichever way you want to go, or at least that's my thought process on it. But has that also happened in all systems of government, the law, et cetera?

Because, like, there's so many of us, I stare at politics. I look at politics and I go, I always thought politics were just going to have my best interest in heart. And it sounds really stupid to say it loud. But I just, you know, in Canada specifically, we're a young nation. And I just assumed, you know, like we're going to roll along and things are great. and they're going to get it right. And the longer it went, and the more you're like,

what is going on? Is it just because people such as myself and others who are way more educated, Bruce, took their hands off the reins, and it's just a different type of person and they've all, I use infiltrated. I don't know if that's the right word, but they're all in those positions of power.

And they're all in agreement that COVID lockdowns, vaccine mandate, booster shots, all these things and the rest of us who have let go of the reins are on the outside looking in, so to speak, and now we're trying to break back in so that we can change some of that and change the culture, so to speak. Does that make sense? Am I? Yes.

It makes a lot of sense. It's not just a question of a whole bunch of evil individuals infiltrating. I mean, infiltration is the right word, but infiltration has happened with a set of ideas over a very long period of time. and those ideas infiltrated the university first over a period of decades into various kinds of disciplines. And the universities have been graduating generations of people who think in a particular way. And those people and those ideas now populate our institutions. And so those institutions now work largely in accordance with those.

ideas. And so those people who, you know, have some notion about what's happening and think, well, we have to defend the institutions. We have to, you know, prevent this from happening. My take is you're much too late, much too late. Those people are now the barbarians on the outside because they don't agree with what is now the prevailing ethos. And that's what I think you're alluding to in terms of what has been infiltrating. But there's a line that's sometimes attributed to Henry Kissinger, amongst others. It goes, university politics is so vicious precisely because there's so little at stake. But the irony of that is it turns out to be wrong.

I mean, it looks like the ivory tower is, you know, off on its own and is full of people with crazy ideas. And, well, they're just academics. And so they can't do any harm. So just, you know, let them be and let them theorize and so on. Turns out that some of these crazy academic ideas have been the ideas that have started in the universities and infiltrated the society, infiltrated the institutions. And it turns out the universities are very dangerous. And now we're in a state where it's almost too late because, The ideas are there.

And so the question for those of us who don't agree with those ideas is, well, what the heck do we do now? Because as far as I'm concerned, as I referred to, it's too late to defend. Now, you know, you're the revolutionaries. You're the rebels. You're not, you're not the status quo anymore. You know, when you talk about being the barbarian on the outside looking in, I had this like cold shiver go down me probably seven years ago. I'm young, 36, not old, not young. You know, the young people look at you like you're old, people who are in their 50s,

look at you're like, you know, you got the world by the tail kind of thing. But one of the things in my early political starting to pay attention that I realized real fast, when the NDP one here in Alberta, you know, there was a whole bunch of things going on with the UCP and the wild rows and everything for sure. But one of the things I couldn't stop. staring at. I haven't been able to stop staring at. More people are talking about is urban versus rural. You know, here in Canada, 83% of people live in urban centers, right? And I go, I'm already a barbarian on the outside because, and I don't, you know, barbarian sounds like you're just this evil.

It's the idea that you, you're so old school or, you know, whatever word you want to use, Bruce. And so when you talk about that, I go, okay, so how do. we get a chunk of the population to understand that we're not these evil, uh, crazy people with crazy ideas? Like I, I think all the things that are under attack right now, um, the idea that body autonomy is, as a terrible idea is, is, is crazy. The idea that, uh, farming is horrendous to the, you know, the world is a crazy idea. Um, you know, you go through, uh, fossil fuels. I mean, I live in Alberta, the home of one of the great energies of our country and the world. And, you know, you start digging into that and you start to understand fossil fuels.

I think everybody knew it was under attack, but to understand how it's under attack and how nuclear is under attack and some of these different things. And then you go, another thing that urban rural people, you know, is like a mainstay of life is guns. And then you kind of dig into that a little bit and you find that's under attack. and it's all these things that if you live in an urban center, maybe you just take for granted, maybe you just don't even acknowledge and you just buy into whatever it is. I don't know. I look at it and I go,

a barbarian, geez, I've known for a long time that I'm kind of an oddity, but there's a ton of us oddities and we're starting to see that play out in society. Gee, that's a long addition to what you said. I go, so how do we add to it to change

this or is it lost? Because I don't know. I just see a ton of us trying to get involved now, Bruce, but that takes time. Oh yes. And it's taken time in the other direction. And so, and you're asking a question that I have no answer to. I mean, I don't know. I don't know whether or not there's a solution to this, so to speak. I don't know if the solution is an easy one or a long, difficult one. I mean, maybe there's no solution at all. People sometimes talk about a pendulum swinging. Yes. Swinging from one thing over to the other thing and the other thing right now is a bad thing.

And some people say, well, you just got to hold on long enough and the pendulum will swing back. But of course, and I forget who wrote this piece, but one academic from the U.S. wrote a piece basically saying, well, how do you know it's a pendulum? I mean, maybe it's a snowball. Maybe it's just a snowball that's at the top of the hill, and as it goes down the hill, it gathers speed and volume, and there's no stopping it. It's just that when it gets to the base of the hill,

it just breaks apart, and that's the end of the story. So there's a danger in sort of imagining the metaphors, as though the metaphors are true. They might be, but nobody knows. And the one difficult thing about the whole context of this is that The kind of society that you and I might articulate as the one that we believe in and the one that we thought we sort of had is in the course of human history has been the exception, not the rule. Right? So if you think of the societies who have had sort of a genuine individual autonomy, rule of law, capitalism, property rights, all those things.

I mean, pretty slim pickings, if you start from the beginning of recorded time. Most human societies are not based on the idea of genuine individual autonomy. They're based on oppression of one person by the next. And many, many societies over time have had slavery, for example. Now, who's to say that this society that we imagine in our heads and the ones that we thought that we lived in was not an aberration? And we're just not going back to the normal. I mean, I don't know.

But I don't think we can assume that what we regard as ideal is the normal and that will go back to it inevitably. I don't think that that necessarily is the case. Can I just say it's refreshing that you don't know? I truly mean that because I ask a difficult question, which maybe, you know, maybe there is. If we do step one, step two, step three, we're out of this. Right.

but I haven't heard anything that credible where if you just start, you know, it's nice to hear somebody say, I just, I don't know, that's a difficult question. So my hat's off to you for that because I think that's, uh, sometimes that's just needed, right? Like to be like, I don't know. This is a difficult question. You know, you bring up Snowball versus pendulum. I go, even if it is a pendulum, look at, look at, uh, um,

look at Russia. Look at Soljanitson. Right. The pendulum might. take a hundred years before and even then this could be like you think of how bad it can get look at the look at the Holocaust that wasn't that wasn't a you know 10 days and it was over like these are horrendous times look at our own country I've had on um um a few different first nations men and I've heard stories of the late 1800s and I think it was about a 20 odd year period where they

weren't allowed to gather the different bands because they didn't want them and you know like you hear that and I go holy shit that was 20 years and think of our first nation's culture and how they've been persecuted over the last hundred so to act like even if it was a pendulum you know you go back to you know I think it's soldier Nitson who talks about you know if he could go back to the start should fight this thing with everything you got go kicking and scream and so that you don't let it get too far down, whether it's the snowball or the pendulum. We act like the pendulum's two years and all of a sudden it bounces back two years. Yeah, that's right. I don't, I'm not so sure that's the case at all. No, no, I doubt it. It just, that's not, that's not what the evidence

shows, I think. And there might be another way of thinking about this. Instead of, instead of trying to think of going back to something, because after all, I mean, it, it's probably the case that there was never an ideal actual reality moment anyway, that the society was never perfect. I mean, it did run on certain ideas, and those ideas were good. But, you know, it was, it was never a paradise. And so instead of trying to go back to something, I'm not sure that I don't prefer to think, well, let's go forward to something that is in accordance with the ideas and principles that we hold dear and not worry about reversing stuff. Let's just, it's far enough advanced now that reversing course is very unlikely.

Let's go forward and promote certain ideas and try to fashion an understanding of the things that have worked in the past, but are also sound in terms of the principles that we think ought to apply. And that will rid us of the inclination to something. think that we're a rearguard action, which I'm not sure is going to work anyway. You're talking about proactive versus reactive, correct? Yes, correct. Correct.

Correct. Yes. And it also, so it also tends to, one of the weaknesses that I perceive in the, amongst the forces who don't approve of where we're going. as I alluded to earlier, is that they believe they're defending things that might or might not still exist. And I think that's a mistake because it doesn't, number one, it doesn't take account of where the institutions really are at now. And number two, I think it fails to understand some of the forces that have got us here. And this in a sense might be, so in this camp that we're alluding to, who are not approving of where we're going, you have two different kinds of people with two different sets of ideas that are working together because they have common cause.

And the common cause is that they don't like where the progressive forces of the world are taking us. and by progressive I mean woke, liberal, authoritarian, and so on. But those two forces inside this common camp, and the two different sets of ideas that they have, I can roughly describe as conservative and liberal. And when I say liberal, I mean liberal in the real sense, in the classical liberal sense, as in liberal meaning liberty. And these two philosophies have an awful lot in common,

right now, but they do have also some fundamental differences. And those differences are being glossed over right now because you can't afford to fight with the people who are on your side. But the differences are this. I mean, there's lots of them, but let me just name a couple. The conservative view of things tends to be a collectivist view in the sense that they approve and support institutions. And their natural inclination is to try to defend the institution, that exist and have been taken over. And the liberal is skeptical and not trusting of institutions because they regard institutions as collectivists,

whereas they think decisions should be made by individuals. And so even within this common group, there is quite a large difference of inclination about where the solutions lie. And there are a lot of conservatives today who are really conservatives who believe in institutions, who believe in the value of the group

and of culture and so on, traditional values, but have taken on the mantle of liberty because the progressives are imposing upon their liberty to live their lives their way. But at bottom, they're not liberty people. They are tradition people, and they believe in institutions

whereas the liberals, the real liberals, don't believe in institutions really. They believe in individual autonomy. And so there's a bit of a gap between these two philosophies and groups of people inside the common camp trying to fight toward the common goal. And part of the challenge going forward

is to try to reconcile these two philosophies so that they can live together without fighting amongst themselves. I want to make sure I heard this correct. Liberals, skeptics, individual, conservatives, group, institution. Right.

Is that not flipped on an absolute effing head right now? Well, it is, it is, if you, it is, so there's, there's a problem right now

with understanding the word liberal. Because if you take the word liberal, is it in what it has become, I mean, you think liberals, you know, liberal party of Canada, right?

That's not what I'm talking about. You're talking, you're talking about the actual idea. theology of a liberal person. I'm talking about the idea of a liberal based upon the, I mean, the word liberal is based upon the word libertas. The Latin word libertas, it's common root with the word liberty. Liberty and liberal go together. The liberal mantra is, don't tell me what to do. Now, that's completely the opposite of what the modern liberal has come to me. The modern liberal is an illiberal, progressive, woke authoritarian who wants to dictate

your cultural values and your language, your pronouns, your behavior, and so on, right? So the modern liberal is not liberal. I'm talking about the real liberals, the real original, classical liberals who are the real liberty people. And that's one thing that those real liberals and the conservatives right now have in common. Because as you say, the conservative mantra to some extent has been flipped on its head. They are the liberty people now too. But if you scratch below the surface of those liberty people, there's going to be a moment when you realize that to a certain extent they don't really mean it. what they believe in is their version of cultural values.

They believe in family. They believe in church. They believe in institutions run in a certain way. They believe in merit. They believe in no abortion. They believe in no suicide. Those are cultural values. And if you contrast some of those things with the liberal view,

the liberal would say, and I'm talking about the real liberal now, the real liberal, the real liberal would say, those things are none of your business. Let's take assisted suicide, for example. The social conservative, even those who have taken on the mantle of the liberal people, the liberty people, might say, and I've talked to certain individuals

who have expressed this to me, they would say, look, if we were in power, we would outlaw assisted suicide, medically assisted suicide, because suicide is wrong. And the liberals would say, it's got nothing to do with you. It's my life. I will decide.

If I want to retain a doctor to kill me, I will do it. Stay out of it. And so you have these two philosophies that are in something of attention between each other, but right now are in common cause and in a common camp. You ever think, A, I appreciate that breakdown. I come back to it. I'm a hockey player. I want nothing more, Bruce, than to talk about the upcoming season.

And I don't know, listeners, I don't know, maybe they get annoyed. Maybe they don't. Who knows? Once upon a time, that's what I got to do. I got to, you know, I was, I don't know where I was heading, but, you know, like, sitting down with Don Cherry and members of the hockey lore of that, you know, cloth. I was really in my wheelhouse. Right now, I feel so out of my damn wheelhouse, but I can't see a way forward.

except going down this path. And this path at times sucks because I feel absolutely and utterly useless. Like I'm, I've walked into, you know, I'm going down, I'm going out in the ocean in less than the castaway raft, right?

I'm Tom Hanks there with, you know, and I would house wall for my sale and everything else. And I'm just like hoping that you make it through. But I can't see any other way around it. Maybe that's a poor example. I just, I listen to you.

I appreciate you breaking down liberal and conservative. Because to me, it feels like the upside down. When you start talking, And all I hear is the liberal party is just like it's taken on all these authoritarian views that I can't even fathom anymore. But if you go by the sense of the word and that's all you pay to pay attention to, what you're talking about is a whole chunk of us are liberals, right?

Yes. In Canada, that's taboo in my part of the country. Right. When you talk, I go, I'm a liberal. And if all I identify is with the word, I vote liberal. Correct. If you never pay attention to anything, you vote liberal. You start paying attention, you're going to learn that liberal doesn't mean that.

Liberal in our country is completely opposite of what you want for the most part. Exactly so. You ever think we can get, you talk about the liberal and the conservative in their truest sense. We're talking small, we're talking small C now, yes? Small C conservative and liberal? Yes. Not the partisan sense. Correct.

You ever think you can get them talking again? with the media doing what it's doing. And I mean just all forms of media right now. It's not even just the CBC and global and all these different things. I just mean the extremism that is bred into our media. Yeah. Well, just to clarify, though, when you talk about conservatives and liberals talking,

you're not referring now to the modern, illiberal liberals, progressive, woke authoritarian folks. Are you because? I'm trying to figure. out how the mainstay of the population, because I know it is there, this quiet majority in the middle. Yes.

It just wants to go on with life. Yeah, do they want things better for their kids and, you know, and safe streets and and all, and like all these great things that I think majority of us want. I think majority of us want that. How we engage those to override the extremists on both sides, you know, because those are the voices that are amplified over and over again. So when a regular person actually makes a valid point, nobody hears it anyways because that isn't what the media wants. That isn't what they want to hear.

How do we get there? I do not know exactly. I do know this, though, that in the past couple of federal elections, you know, I don't know what the exact percentage was, but something north of 90% of people who voted voted for what I would describe as a progressive party. that being all the mainstream parties, all of them, including the conservative party. Yeah. Conservative Party, the federal conservative party is a progressive party, at least right now. I mean, that might change now with a new leader. But for the past little while, the federal conservative party has been a progressive party.

In fact, I might even say that about the provincial conservative parties. I mean, what conservative party in the country do you know of who have come out and said, just for example, single-payer healthcare is a socialist scheme. We won't have it. None. None. But it is. So therefore, all the conservative parties in Canada that I know of that I've heard from

are socialist, progressive, authoritarian parties. They will not let you buy your own health care. That is not a free market party. And so if that brand of politics wants to be known for a different thing, they better articulate what that thing is. Because right now they're doing a lot of pretending. And in effect, what they are, it's simply another, maybe not quite as extreme progressive party.

So I don't know if there's a majority of people who think what you're describing. I hope you're right. But if there is such a majority, then the establishment political parties are doing a terrible job of selling themselves to that constituency. And maybe, maybe, because retail politics is the business that they're in,

maybe they know better than us that people won't vote for a party that's not progressive. I don't know. I hope that's wrong. but the way they behave suggests that they think you got to be progressive at least to some extent in order to have a shot. I don't know. Once again, I sit here and I go, I feel like you probably know better than me. I feel like the politicians at times probably know better because they're reading the polls

and everything else. But I go, Maxine Bernier, love them or hate them, doesn't matter, whatever side you're on. Last election, they had the leaders debate, right? And I watched it. For the first time of my life, I watched the English, you know, and I shake my head and I'm rubbing my eyes because I go, I sit there and I'm watching this. And they had the Green Party, him, who polled less than the PPC.

To me, already, that's media complicity in how they're framing it. Sure. The Quebec Cua were in there. And he literally says, I'm there, I'm not running to be a leader. So I sit there as a viewer of this and I go, okay, how the fuck, Bruce, can we know what the people actually want? When media, frame it as we have the NDP, we have the Green, we have the block of the conservatives and the liberals. And the one party on the outside looking in, and I'm not sitting here saying that Maxim should be our next leader. I'm just saying what the poll showed is he should have been in there over the Green Party.

and if you've got somebody who literally doesn't want to run to become the prime minister of Canada, why are they on the stage? That puts it down to three or four, and then maybe we get somewhere. And we find out what people actually want because they actually realize, holy crap, there's somebody speaking different. Right. Indifference can be good, or it can at least start to force the others to actually answer some bloody questions. Sure.

I actually don't, I actually have no idea. All I know is any time, anything happens that's too far to the extreme, which I think is kind of in the middle, i.e. the trucker convoy, which was, I mean, anything I saw of it. And believe me, I wrote him part of it, didn't look pretty extreme to me. It just looked like some frustrated people hugging and crying and everything else. I was, yeah, yep, I totally agree. I was there. I was there. I saw them. But if all you do is watch the CBC or global, and I pick on those two an awful lot, all you thought was it was racist and whatever word they wanted to put on it.

Right. But you're 100% correct. And the problem is that our expectations don't fit the reality now. You alluded to this at the very beginning, that there's an assumption. that governments and other institutions like the media are benevolent and will behave in a certain way that's consistent with democratic principles that are designed to seek the truth. You know, all of those things that we take is self-evidence.

Those things are no longer self-evidently true. And this is perhaps the hardest part. in a way, in a way, our biggest obstacle is our own disbelief in this place that we're now in. And of course, and there's lots, if you want to trace back, you know, how we got here and what the causes are and so on, there's lots of threads that intertwine and it's very difficult to pull them apart. But here's one of them. We talked about universities earlier. One of those threads is a thing called critical theory.

Critical theory is an academic theory that had its origins between the two world wars, a bunch of academics, scholars in Germany, decided to figure out why Marxism wasn't catching on in the West. They found out an institute. I called it Critical Theory. Critical Theory was the name that they brought to it. Now it's a neo-Marxist theory in the sense that it is an anti-Western,

anti-enlightenment theory, as Marx was. But they dropped Marx's emphasis on economics. You know, Marx's theory was, you know, the ruling class oppresses, the working class, yada, yada, yada, anti-capitalism. Okay. But they kept the essential elements of Marxism, but instead of the economic focus, it morphed into identity politics. But it is essentially an anti-Western, anti-enlightenment agenda. It's not a theory. Critical theory sounds like it's an academic theory, and there's some theorizing in it, of course. But it is essentially, has become an agenda.

And it is not to be confused with critical thinking. People think, hear critical theory, it's like, oh, critical thinking. No, no, no. Critical theory is an agenda. And that agenda is, the West is evil. And all those ideas that the West is based upon, like those ideas that grew up during the Enlightenment, like reason, like evidence, like, like, like, like, like individual autonomy, like skepticism, like debate,

along with all the other things that built the modern world, like the Industrial Revolution and fossil fuels that you alluded to earlier, those ideas are a group of ideas that should be banished. And this is very hard for us to get our head around because our mental furniture consists of those ideas. And so when somebody tries to proceed on the basis, that debate is to be avoided, we think, well, how can that be? But that's the way they're trying to do it. There's an idea called repressive tolerance. Repressive tolerance is an idea written by a critical

theory scholar Herbert Marcusi. Basically, he made the point that movements from the left, even if they are violence must be tolerated and movements from the right must not be tolerated even if you need violence to do it in other words this is the opposite of the idea

that everybody should be able to say what they think and we should debate the ideas and these ideas are so ingrained now in our institutions and in the people who run them that they're okay with the thought that because Max is wrong, he should not be allowed to speak.

That's a difficult problem, isn't it? It's huge. Huge. If you, so, I mean, critical theory and all of its offshoots, and they've got lots of aushoots, you know, critical race theory and social justice and so on. But if the premise is,

you can't, you can't object to our, theory using data and reason because data and reason are Western and therefore you're evil. Now, what are you supposed to do with that? That means basically you're not allowed to object because if you do object, that means by definition, you're in the wrong. Now, you can see this philosophy, the psychology at work in other regimes. and other places, right? I mean, so the idea, we don't use this term anymore very much,

political correctness. But political correctness reflects the same kind of idea. It's an idea that came out apparently out of the Soviet Union. And sometimes people miss the significance of this idea of political correctness. Political correctness is a version of reality that is the alternative to actual correctness. That is political correctness is not actually true. But it's the version of things you better adopt if you know what's good for you. You can have the actually true or you can have the politically true. And you better be better damn well pick the politically true. And that's what we're seeing here now.

I don't know why inception comes to mind. But it, you know, putting the, putting the idea, the simplest of ideas in the, you know, in the safe, deep in memory, blah, blah, blah, blah. I assume most people have seen inception, but, you know, it becomes almost the mind virus. Actually, it is the mind virus. It drives his wife to kill herself, right? And when I hear you talk, I just go, how do you undo something that people will use violence and believe they're in the right at all times? Who hold all, it feels like who hold all the influential positions. You know, you talk about yourself in a university, being the barbarian.

And Bruce, I don't know. I could be wrong on this. Do you ruffle feathers? I'm sure you are. I'm sure you do. But overall, I don't see you saying extremist ideas and things. I hear you as a guy trying to think out problems. And to me, I resonate with that because that's all I try and do.

That's all I've tried to do for the last year through all of COVID through everything. Do I say dumb things? Oh, I'm sure I do. Do I have dumb ideas at times? Oh, I'm sure I do. But to explore them, I can't think of a more human. thing than to do that, to just explore ideas and see what comes of it. And all I see right now with media's complicity is that being taken away. Like we cannot do this. And that is leading us,

you know, that is leading us in a whole bunch of different instances off the Buffalo drop, like right off the cliff. Like we are going, this is going to hurt. And I just can't figure out if, you know, if a five foot fall, we hit it and we go, oh, man, that hurt, you know. To all my hockey players out there, that awkward fall you have when you're not expecting to fall over onto your hip or something, you're like, ooh, that hurt. Or if it's like a 20 foot fall where now you've got a broken leg and you're like, oh, or if it's, you know, off the wily coyote cliff where you're just going down. And I can't figure this out because to me, to act like no debate is a good thing.

is terrible. But then, actually, one might even argue what's worse, and I've seen it on CNN. I've had some different guests who have been on debates on CNN, where it's framed a certain way. And if you watch that and listen to them, I see how one person can sound absolutely insane when they just need more time.

Jordan Peterson, I bring him up the third time, is a perfect example. Because when he goes on Joe Rogan and gets to expand on his ideas, no matter how crazy of an idea he has. And this is what podcasts do really, really well. Right. He has time to expand on his thought and you listen to it. You go, oh, that's okay.

That makes kind of sense. Or I understand. Or I disagree, but I understand where you're coming from. Right. Right. What our media source and hopefully we're moving away from this. I think we are. Who knows?

If you put Jordan Peterson on a two-minute talk show, a five-minute talk show, he is probably the worst guest in the world because he will create one headline and that's all people will read. And that's what's dictating culture right now. Sure. Sure. And is not that the institutions we're talking about,

whether it's the media or the universities, will outwardly say, we don't believe in debate. In fact, they'll say the opposites. At the universities, for example, you would never find a university saying, you know, we don't believe in debate. We don't believe in academic freedom.

We don't believe in exploration of ideas. is they will never say that. But what's happening is there's a narrowing of the range in which that kind of inquiry is seem to be acceptable. And as long as you're within that range, you're probably okay. And if you're outside the range, then you are, in fact, a barbarian. What do you mean by is range like what the person actually believes and says? Or is it certain topics?

What do you mean by debate range? It could be any of those. things. So let me see if I can get an example. If you were to want to debate the premises, for example, of critical race theory, so one of the premises of critical race theory, it gets expressed like this, that differentiation in the outcomes between racial groups is caused by systemic discrimination. That is, if the percentage of the members of a certain profession are more white than black, then that's because of white privilege and discrimination against black people.

If you were to go into a university and say, well, that's not what the data shows. and we can attribute differences in outcomes between groups to factors other than systemic discrimination, then you're now on very thin ice, because that's not the kind of inquiry that will be regarded as legitimate. There's a, there's a larger question here as well, which is that it's not just necessarily the the intellectual corruption over institutions. It may be the idea of institutions themselves. And as time has gone on, we have grown an ever larger managerial state.

And it might just be that the existence of this state, it's consisting as it does with institutions of all kinds of descriptions, that almost by definition, once you get a managerial estate of a certain size or proportion of your society, you can't function. Because there are some truisms about institutions in the abstract. People start to, and a very smart man named Ivan Illich, amongst others, who was a Catholic libertarian, I suppose, is the best way to describe him, made the point that, that people make the error of associating institutions with the purpose or service that the institutions are designed to provide.

Right? So they associate the healthcare system with health care. But those two things are completely different. And we've gotten to a point where the health care system is not very good at providing health care. Or we have a school system. And we think that, oh, well, if we have a school system, that means the kids are being educated. true. We have an enormous school system, but the education that it actually provides is looking to be not so good. And you can go through all the list, you know, the media, law enforcement,

government departments of all different kinds. There's a difference between the institution itself and the service or the purpose that the institution is supposed to be there for. And the fact the matter is that as soon as you create any institution, the first priority of that institution is self-preservation. And whatever else it was designed to do gets second billing. And the people inside those institutions have a self-interest in making the institution survive and become as powerful as it possibly can. And you have a multitude of institutions along with a multitude of laws that are basically strangling any idea that it is the individual in this society that should have basic ownership over his own life. There's a there is a um a name, a thinker named Nicholas Gomez

De Villa, who once said, dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies. And if it's one thing that we have an overabundance of, it is laws and institutions. We have a managerial state that is so big and regulates everything, everything at all different levels of government,

that the first idea, I think, that we have to push back on is the idea that that a managerial state is necessary and indeed tolerable. As long as you have a certain proportion of the population believing that a managerial state is essential, then you got no place to go. Could it be, you talk about organizations when they're not. they, you know, when they balloon, then, you know, their self-preservation, all these different things. Could it be that we, like, you get these, I don't know what the sizes, I have no idea. It could be 10 people for all I know, let alone 100. But we at some point have all worked, I think, in a big organization, I certainly have. And conformity is popularized.

That's what they want you to do. Don't speak out. Right. Is there a way or is there no way to popularize confrontation in a good way where people, no matter how big the size or, yeah, no matter how big the size of any organization gets or something along that lines, where you still want people, if you're upset about something, let's talk about it because not talking about it kind of leans back to your political correctness

where everybody knows something's wrong, but nobody's saying anything because I don't want to stir the boat. I don't want to rock the ship. I rock the ship, I'm out the door. I mean, that was probably in my life, one of the toughest things that I've dealt with over, you know, the last year is by going, this doesn't seem right.

I was not an anomaly, but I can think my audience can agree. that at times society made you feel like you were the only one saying, like, this is, this is weird. Now it's becoming more and more popular to be on that bandwagon. Hey, everybody get on the bandwagon. Let's all get on that bandwagon. But at a time, you know, to speak up about some things going on was not a popular belief. And yet, asking questions, not just going along to get along, is something as a society we should probably

pushed to the top so that we get the best possible outcomes, I think, across everything. Even if it's an uncomfortable argument, having people debate some things would be a damn good thing. Is that possible? I guess I come back all the way around, Bruce. Can we popularize that to where it becomes the norm instead of, you know, you being the barbarian? Or do we have to go through absolute pain to get back to that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I would like to think the answer might be yes. Because we do have a tradition in certain areas, whether it's, whether it's academics, whether it's science, whether it's law, of, of, of, of those enterprises being fueled by dissent.

I mean, the scientific method is fueled by skepticism and dissent. The whole idea is you can go out, you can do experiment, you can take observations, and you can come back and say, you guys are wrong. Here's what I've done. You can go and reproduce this. And I'll prove that you guys are wrong. That's the way it's supposed to work. But even in the institutions of science now,

like you've seen the way the colleges, the physicians and surgeons have behaved during COVID, saying to doctors, you may not, you may not express opinions, medical opinions, scientific opinions, that don't comport with official COVID policy. I mean, you could call that anti-scientific in the traditional sense of the word. So whether or not you can get this idea of debating back, I don't know.

I mean, you'd like to think so. You'd like to think that certain of these institutions can't function without it, science being one, universities being another one. I mean, what is the university without genuine debate? We'll see how long they carry on. but that's that's not doesn't seem to be primarily what they are for now they are for it looks to be to to promote a certain ideological point of view well if we're in a lifetime in a lifetime if we can change from one way to another certainly we can progress or whatever the where it is into an iteration that I'm thinking about because it can't be as impossible as we

like it's just I look at me at geez this is what we're doing here we're in today's definition this is media in today's definition I'm a journalist if you would and I look at it and I just go I'm just a I'm a schmuck some days you know I sit here and I just go like but this is what people this is what I want. I want to hear some things that I can't find anywhere else. And people, you know, we're seeing in the States vote with their feet. They move

to where they believe they're going to have the best possibility at life where laws seem to make sense where people stand up for their beliefs. That's what they do. No, they can move wherever they want. When it comes to media, that's exactly what it is. Except for when you're funded by the government. And it has a long track. Like, I don't think we can

all sit here and go, uh, CBC is horrendous. I grew up watching the CBC. I think I've heard so many great stories about it. So did I. So did I. And the only reason I'm so harsh on it is the trucker convoy because I literally went there and I looked around and I went, what are they talking about? But you see so, but that is evidence of what they've become, is it not? I mean, you can see that. Right? You can see that with your own eyes because you see the facts on the ground as you perceive them. And then you see what's coming out of the mouths of the reporters and you think, well, hold on, those two things don't match.

And so there's no reason to believe that's not also the case with the other stories they're reporting, which means that why would you listen to them? Right. So if a good thing is going to come out of this, the only thing that you can't control, you know, Pollyev is running on. He's going to defund the CBC. I'm curious about that because, you know, once you're in power and now you wield the power of changing the narrative.

Yeah. It's kind of like, and I've been bringing. bringing up pop culture all day with you, Bruce. I swear this isn't always the case, but I look at it kind of like the rings of the Rings. You're going to have a power rate there for four years to change everything. You can change, you know better than everyone else. Are you going to defund it? Because they're going to come, everybody's going to come, it's going to create a more, I don't know what comes in the wake of the CBC being defunded or, you know, Global's been the recent one to beg for more money.

Well, right, but it's so a conservative government, like a real conservative government that believed in free markets in everything, wouldn't be playing around with any of this. And you wouldn't have a CBC. It'd be gone. Or it'd be it'd be left to its own devices. Well, but but not even that. I mean, so if I recall correctly, Stephen Harper, when he was the prime minister, defunded the CBC in the sense that he decreased the budget. and what lasting effect did that have none. The CBC is a creation of the government.

Why do you have it? Because here's what it's doing. It's getting taxpayer money to compete against private entities. That doesn't make any sense. You're giving them a competitive advantage over your private sector. Now, a lot of the big players in that private sector are doing the same kinds of things you're describing. But nevertheless, as a matter of principle, you are skewing a marketplace. So on that basis alone, I would have thought that maintaining the CPC would be a non-starter,

at least in terms of the journalism and the programming that is currently doing. You turn on the TV, if you still have a TV, and you see CBC and CTV and Global. I mean, why would you have the CBC? It doesn't make any sense. And you certainly wouldn't pay taxpayer money to legacy media companies. That's doing the same thing. You're skewing a marketplace. Why don't you say, look, media like all other marketplaces is a competitive marketplace.

Go away all you people and do what you can. And those of you that go into business, that's the way markets work. That's, that's a free market, individualistic, capitalist way to go about things. And I don't see any conservative, so-called conservatives taking that tact. Not really. I mean, paying lip service to it.

But if you really meant it, you'd get rid of all of it tomorrow. So do you think Pierre will stand by and defund the CBC or do you think he'll do what you mentioned with Stephen Harper where he'll cut funding? I don't know. I don't know. But here's part of his problem. And this goes back to this divide inside this camp I was talking about earlier.

Some people in this camp, some conservative, so-called small-sea conservative people in this camp, believe in institutions. And the CBC is an institution. And they don't want the CBC to go because of the cultural institution. And as long as you go along with that, you're just feeding the beast. So you got to get rid of that. You got to get rid of the idea that there's something there to defend, something left to defend.

It's gone. Let it go. What worries, what keeps you up at night, Bruce? You know, I talk an awful lot about media, you know, and your background and law,

and we've kind of had the full gambit here in the first hour. What's something that you're staring at today that you think people should really be aware of? Or is it everything we've been. talk. It's everything we've been talking about, but but so much more too, right? So let's talk about the law for a minute. Sure. As we've, as we've referred to, people, some people have this idea that the law is going to save us. But in, in this country, in many ways, the law has led the way to the place where now, right? Over a period of time, and gradually, in small

little ways and not not consistently even necessarily but over a period of time the trend has been to clear the path for the managerial state to provide this state with ever more discretion and deference and to to interpret our charter in a way that's consistent with a collectivist progressive view and this is it's no one group of judges it's not one judge it's not one court it's a it's a it's a pattern over a period of time but in many ways the law has led the way to where we're at let me just give you a couple of very small example uh there is a section this is one of my favorite examples there's a section in the charter that uh section 15 which provides for equality and it says that every individual is is is essentially equal under the law and goes yada yada

other. And then that's the first section. And the second section says, oh, by the way, if a government has a program to alleviate systemic or historical disadvantage, then that'll be okay. That's essentially the affirmative action, as we used to call it, provision, exception to the equality provision. Now, people read, some people read that first section, part of section 15 that says, equal before the law. And they have an ID in their head, which I agree with. that equality before the law and equal treatments under the law is supposed to mean that the same rules and standards in the law should be applied to everybody. Notwithstanding your identity, notwithstanding who you are, notwithstanding your lineage,

you know, same rules for rich and poor and black and white and male and female and straight and gay. In other words, justice should be blind. The law is not supposed to care who you are. It's supposed to pay no attention to who you are and apply laws and rules in an objective, disinterested way. Okay. That's what that first part of Section 15 says to me, and I think that's the way it's worded.

that that is not the way the Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted the section almost from the beginning of when the charter was put in place. Supreme Court of Canada has said the equality that's required in section, for the first part of section 15 of the charter

is not equal treatment. It's equal outcome as between groups. That is, it is a substantive equality provision, not a formal equality provision. And let me give you a recent example of the expression of this idea.

So a number of years ago, the RCMP brought in a job sharing program. I think because before that, everybody had to be a full-time member of the RCMP. That's the only kind of jobs there were. So they brought in this job sharing program. And the purpose was if you wanted to be a part-timer, you could combine your part-time with somebody else who also wanted to be part-time and share the full-time job. And the program was open to anybody.

Now, over a period of time, it just so happened that more women than men signed on to the program voluntarily. One other aspect of this job-sharing program was that they provided a pension that was comparable in terms as the full-time pension in the sense that it provided a pension in proportion to the hours you actually worked. This program was challenged

for breaching the equality provision of the charter. Here's a program. Open to everybody. Applied the same rules to everybody. Applied the same pension under the same premises to everybody. And the argument brought to the court was, over a period of time, more women than men choose to undertake the program.

Therefore, more women than men are ending up, with lower pensions. Therefore, the program is producing unequal outcomes for women compared to men. Therefore, it breaches Section 15. And the court said, yeah, you're right. This program is unconstitutional. Because even though it applies exactly the same way

to everybody, it produces differentiated outcomes. And that is not allowed. And that's just one way in which the fundamental ideas of the way the law is supposed to work have been shifted underneath your feet. You know, I always bring things back to hockey. I had an old timer who played, you know, way back in the day,

talk about, you know, everybody wants to go back to the good old days. Fistikops, you know, Broad Street bullies, you get the point. But that hockey mirrors society. And as society progresses, hockey can, I mean, you can, want fighting in hockey all you want, it's never coming back, at least not in any near future, right? It's going to go towards more of the NBA protection of the stars and letting them, you know, even go around some of the rules, right? But for the betterment of the game, now you get to see the stars do whatever they can do, whatever you get the point. And people love or hate that.

At the end of the day, the hockey mirror society is one of the things on the podcast that I've heard that I just it's really stuck with me when I hear you talk I go law almost mirrors society that's what you're saying where we had then the law instead of this is what I find interesting both the United States obviously they they they got their independence by duking it out we were given our independence yep I mean geez we just lost the queen now we a king and anyways, but you kind of get the idea. And so they look at their founding fathers as almost Godlike. They wrote these laws. You don't fuck with the laws. Right. We, on the other hand, are smarter than our ancestors. And therefore, you know, you can interpret things just as you

pointed out and I go, do we, you know, like if you go back in our history, back to, you know, I've interviewed a ton of, of women in their,

you know, with the archives interviews from their 60s to 90s, I would say. And they all talk about, when they were growing up, you know, it was secretary, nurse,

teacher, relative. And, you know, and how our society's progressed. And we look at, we pick pocket certain things, I guess, is where I'm coming back to you with trying to make them have, and I'm picking on women, and I don't mean to pick on women.

Well, my example is women, so might as well get in front with it. It's just that we want, like, it's like people in the top want everything to be so damn equal, and life just isn't equal. Well, yes, that's correct. That is true. So if you apply the same rules and standards to everybody, you're going to have unequal outcomes because people are different. That's just the way it is.

So if you can't tolerate equal outcome, you can't have equal treatment under the law. Those two things are incompatible. You can't pretend to have both. Say that one more time for me? All right. So here are the two different versions of equality under the law. You've got equal treatment or equal outcome. and you can't have both because of the very basic fact that people are different.

They're different in aptitude, in background, in culture, in learning, and education, and skills, and in all kinds of ways. They're different. People are different. And therefore, if you apply the same rules to everybody, you're going to have different outcomes by definition. And if you can't tolerate different outcomes, if you must insist that everybody come out the same, then you can't have equal treatment. You must have equal outcome. And that means you have to apply a different rule to different people. And that's contrary to the whole idea,

as far as I'm concerned. But let's go back a little bit. Because there's one danger here in pretending that the culture that we want to defend was always perfect. And it wasn't. Definitely was not. Right? There have been, there have been, for most of the period of history, the law was not equal. And that was a real problem. So if you have laws, for example, that say, you know, women can't own property, that's not equal treatment under the law. And that's a problem.

And you've got to fix that. And a lot of the concerns, I think, that still exist today, come from maybe the cultural memory of that kind of people. period where things were not equal, where not everybody can vote and not everybody can marry who they want, and not everybody can own property. I mean, that's not good. You got to fix that. But here's the point.

Those things have been fixed. The laws now do apply without respect to your sex, your race, your background, and so on, at least in principle. And the principle is the thing that's important. You start with the principle. and then if you find particular instances where the principle hasn't been carried out properly, well, then you fix it.

But the real difference here is in ditching the principle. The principle of equal treatment under the law has been, is being ditched for the idea that different rules should be applied, should be applied to different groups of people so as to provide equal outcomes. comes. That's the problem. Isn't that it saying?

Yes. Yes. It is. Yep. Have you had any... I assume you have. You talk about being a barbarian at the university. Have you argued or discussed? I mean, like, just a nice coffee around the morning table, so to speak, with somebody who argues against you that you're an idiot? I assume yes. Sure, sure. I've had very interesting moments with colleagues at conferences and what do they say to that?

So, well, it has become very difficult to have in-depth conversations about these things because the more time goes on, the more extreme eye sound, given the range of acceptable thinking. But let me give you this. So I remember having a conversation with a colleague one time in the hallway during a conference. And he was expressing genuine disbelief at a contention that I had made that in certain respects, people should be able to decide for themselves, some kind of social policy question. And he wasn't putting it on. He really meant it. And as most, many of my colleagues do.

I don't want to say most or all because that's not true. But certainly many of my colleagues genuinely think to the core of their work that the role of scholarship, with the role of government, the role of policymaking is to guide people in how to behave. In other words, there is a class of people whose job it is to tell the rest of us what to do. Because they understand and we don't. And that is genuinely held. They really believe it. And so a barbarian like me comes along and says, no, no, no, no, no.

People decide for themselves. None of your business. They think, well, you know, what kind of crazy person are you? They can't do that. that's a tough honestly i sit here on this side i tell the audiences all the time they're smarter to me bruce they listen to us to go back and forth and they're making their own thoughts and everything else i'll hear about it you know got an open text line with all of them they want to text me fire away right you want to yell at me it's fine i got to hear it listen i can't i can't get in my little

my little uh echo chamber and not think that you know i know all the answers but to act like the one thought I will not say is that I can know what's better for a group of people. I think that's absolutely insane. Well, you see, for me, that's the first idea that has, that everything else has to flow from. I mean, as far as governance is concerned, the law and so on, you've got to start with the idea that the person who knows best what's good for that person is the person. And nobody else, nobody else is inside that person's head. nobody else knows what that person values.

I mean, the idea that somebody from the outside should be able to tell that person, to dictate to that person, what's in that person's own best interest, is, as far as I'm concerned, ridiculous. But that's what so many of our measures today are based upon. And until you get rid of that idea, very difficult to make any progress.

And to get rid of that idea is going to be very difficult because there's a whole population, of people out there in universities, in governments, in institutions of all descriptions, who are educated to do this kind of work, you know, to do policy work, do governance work, do scholarship about these kinds of questions. And that is what they are educated to do. So, if you got to the situation where we're going to say, you know what, no, we don't need all you people to do this, we're going to leave these decisions to people to decide for themselves. These vast number of people who populate the institutions of government will have nothing else to do.

This is what they think they're for, and therefore they are going to resist too thin nail any suggestion that their function in society is redundant and unnecessary. So the idea of decentralizing government to, you know, essentially bureaucracy is fat and you need to, you know, A, take all the power out of these centralized locations and start putting them back into, you know, different areas so they can focus on their problems and, you know, is going to be a beyond tough. Let's just do a thought experiment. Let's imagine. and I'm not saying this is the actual number, but let's just imagine for a moment that the number of people

employed in these kinds of functions by centralized government is really, really high. Let's say it's, let's say it's 80%. And along comes somebody and says, you know what, we don't need a centralized government like that anymore. We need a much, much smaller government.

We need to do away with all these functions. Well, your problem is that 80% of your working population gets their sustenance from being part of this of this of this of this juggernaut. And all those people are going to be of the opinion in their own self-interest

that we can't do that because we can't do that. Right. So. Yeah, but but then what you truly are running into is you're running off a cliff because eventually slowly as that number grows now you're at 80%, now you're at 84% now you're at 8%. Now you can't get anything

and off the cliff you go. And then you're at the bottom picking up all the pieces. And not us, but the future, you know, all of posterity is picking up the pieces, right? Whoever it is in the future picks up those pieces and has to stir it all over again. But in a slow motion kind of way, that looks to be what's happening.

What do you think of, you've been on her show before, Daniel Smith, talking the way she's talking. And, you know, geez, where we sit, we're getting close to election day. Her talking about the Alberta Sovereignty Act, you know, trying to pull away from Ottawa, trying to stand up for Ottawa,

for Alberta. Right. Kind of championing some of the things we're talking about, but maybe not to the quite extremes we're talking about them. Right. Right. Right. Sure.

What do you trust in all that? Well, from what I understand of it, the Alberta Sovereignty Act, the objection to it has been that it's unconstitutional. because it is trying to deny federal jurisdiction over certain things. And that may be literally legally true, but I don't think that's the point. The point is to be symbolic and to state that Albertaans don't approve and won't go along with this anymore. Because frankly, for a while, I agree with those people who have said that Alberta and other provinces

that have been given a raw deal in Confederation. and you know why why would they acquiesce and carry on with the state of affairs the way it is Canada has traditionally been governed by central Canada you know the the the the the Laurentians and the Laurentians don't want to give it up I mean why would they they they conceive of Canada in a certain way they think that's the true way that it is and it's served them just fine so you know sorry but you're not going to persuade them that they've been wrong this whole time So it's going to have to be some kind of moment of truth where Alberta and other places say,

uh-uh, we're not doing this anymore this way. And you come to some kind of alternative understanding or you go your own way. So when you talk symbolic, isn't that the way in which it probably has to happen, a symbolic idea that allows other provinces to see that, oh, people actually want that. And maybe if we start to adopt that, that'll put enough pressure back onto the people in control that maybe they have to go that way. Yeah, maybe. But it's going to be very difficult to persuade the people in control to give up the real

substance of the source of their power. So the danger is that things look to be changing in a way that's actually. actually really just window dressing as opposed to really fundamentally changing the way things are done. Window dressing how? What do you look at as window dressing? Oh, well, I mean, there's all kinds of different hypotheticals, I suppose you could create. But if, if you got concessions, for example, from the federal government about developing

the oil sands and them saying, well, we won't use our federal. environmental assessment, new impact assessment act to shut down oil sands, which are really within provincial jurisdiction anyway. Okay, well, that sounds like you're sort of maybe understanding each other again. No, not really. Um, you really, you really, some, the, the, the, the, the, the, the real version of this would be a shift in the way that hour is distributed, not necessarily between federal and provincial governments because that's going to be very hard because that's in the Constitution.

And opening that up is going to be tricky. But in the sense of what interests are being represented at the table that is actually making the decisions, I'm not saying it's going to be easy. It's going to be very difficult because of the way the population is distributed and the way the power base exists right now.

But if you don't get that kind of fundamental change and you don't really have very much in the in terms of it being viable into the future where was the last place on this planet you had fundamental change the change you're talking about no you I mean I haven't I haven't I haven't I haven't gone through a list but the first one that occurs to me is is in the US well that's the one that pops in my brain Bruce, that's why I'm, that's why I bring it, well, not why I bring it up, unless you could just be like, oh, actually, you know, Iraq the other week, you know, I look at it and I go, what you're talking about has happened in the last thousand years once. Right. And it took war and everything else.

Right. Sure. No, but, but yeah, I did take, it did take a kind of war, but, but, but. it may have also been a case has been made like I said I read that that that that a case been made that the American Revolution was as evolutionary as it was a revolutionary in the sense that it was a maybe not inevitable but but but not an illogical extension of their own history and relationship with the UK I don't know if you buy that or not I'm not sure that I do, but in other words, it wasn't so extraordinary as to run against the currents of history.

Whereas in the situation that we're in right now, the currents of history are all heading in the wrong direction. And so, you know, how you write this ship, again, I'm not sure. That's an interesting line. The currents of history are all running in the wrong direction. Yep. you know, you mentioned opening up the Constitution is tricky. We have another guy here in Alberta saying that's exactly what he's going to do. Brian Jean is going to open up the Constitution and get a better deal for Alberta. Right.

You mentioned the word tricky. Well, tricky in two respects. Number one is 52 to get it on the table in the sense that the amending formula for many of the important bits of the Constitution. is very onerous, you know, the 7 of 10 provinces with half or more the population, etc. And so you give you the the power to to reject change is very broadly held. And and then even if you thought you could get over that threshold, you, the danger is that once you open it up, it's opened up and you can't just open up and say, well, we just want to talk about A and B. We're not talking about C and D.

well other parties other ideological interests are going to want to talk about C and D and not about A and B. And so when you open it up, it's open. And the danger is that if you've miscalculated the support that you have and underestimated that the progressive forces that be, you could make things worse. Hearing you talk about that sounds like a very bad idea. after everything we've talked about for the last hour, opening up that document, which already kind of gets railroaded. Yep.

Just one small example. Right now, although, I mean, it's very much in flux, but right now most of our freedom, you know, the fundamental freedoms we have in the charter, the rights that you would call freedoms, are negative freedoms in the sense that they prevent the government from interfering with you, but they don't entitle you to stuff.

Section 7, though, has been argued in the past, and so far the court has rejected it, but they've been tempted, I think. But Section 7 is the life, liberty, and security of the person provision. And some litigants have argued in the past that Section 7 should include positive rights, as in rights to be provided with stuff, like housing, a right to housing. a right to housing should be found to exist in Section 7 of the Constitution. So far, the Supreme Court has said no, but they've also hinted that that might change. If you open up the document, those forces that wanted the Constitution to include positive rights,

as in the rights to housing, the rights to welfare, the right to this, the right to that, which simply write it in. And then you'd have a different constitution than you have now. And as bad as this one seems to be performing, you'd be in a much worse. state. Well, I mean, things can always get worse, right? I mean, things can get better, too. Things can get better. You know, on the positive side, glass half full, I look just my own life, okay? Yep. Pruising along, you know, you're doing this, you're doing that. And you hit certain things that just change the trajectory of where you're going. And you go a year ago, a year ago, I sat down with a series of doctors. then professors, then lawyers, and it just, and I mean, if people have been paying attention for the last hundred and some episodes, you get a good feel of which direction I've gone,

because I, uh, you know, did a quick 180 almost, you know, not going that way anymore. We're going this way. Right. And once again, at times it feels like I'm castaway trying to get off the island and those to see and I have no idea of I'm going to survive this storm. Um, but at the same time, uh, it's led me in paths to yourself and others. and these conversations have been really beneficial not only to myself, but I assume my audience as well,

which means the small little area of impact that I have is happening, which means society will feel that, whether it's smaller big, I'm not trying to act like I'm on some pedestal here. No. That is an impact. Sure. As the forces try and, you know, jam down your throat,

all these different things, you know, that we need the big government and with it comes, you know, security and everything is going to be great and everything else. Well, we're learning pretty freaking quick. Yeah. Yes. Yes. But you have to have to have the ability to articulate your thoughts in order to combat that because it's not as simple as saying that's not going to walk away. Right. Right. You got wrestle with these things. Oh, no question. But also this is part, what you're describing though, is part of the silver lining. to all of this. And there is one. And that is that people are seeing the actual situation.

And a lot of them are saying, well, hold on, wait a minute. This is not right. And they are turning to other non-traditional sources of thinking like your podcast and turning away from the CBC and so on. And in other words, this crisis is in part birthing another kind of ecosystem. And people are taking part in it. And that's kind of a real solution that's organic, spontaneous. People are just doing it because that's what makes sense to them. And it's what they need. They reach out for stuff that they need.

And enough, if enough people do this kind of thing, you know, listen to your podcast, listen to other alternative, non-traditional long legacy media outlets. They actually start to talk about the ideas that are at stake and they have

doubts about the benevolence of the powers that be. I mean, those three things are valuable beyond measure, and they're a start. And that's all you need, is you just need a start. Because, I mean, if you go the opposite way of how we got here, it all started with just a little start.

A little kindling and whatever else. And then we all know what happens, right? I mean, geez, we're living it. And at times, all I got to do is remind myself to walk outside and be around my kids and enjoy the sunshine and everything else. And things can seem okay. Yep. Yeah. But then you go through the two years we had and are continuing.

I mean, I think Bruce, if I'm not mistaken, and you're on the Western University, speaking on that law case, I can't remember if you're a part of that or just a commentator. Sure, no, no, I, I, I assisted them with that, with that case. The hearing was yesterday. Oh, it was yesterday.

Well, geez, I'm glad I brought it up because if, for most people, I think they understand, but Western University talking about students will need a booster in the fall. So I go, the reason I bring it up is, you know, we all think we're out of this. And I don't think everyone thinks that. I just say in general society's like, ah, we're moving on and life's going on. It's great.

But then you have Western Standard come out and say, listen, boosters in the fall. How did that go? Well, so we had the hearing, but we didn't have a decision. So we're waiting for the decision. And so because it's still in front of the court, I shouldn't talk about it in detail.

But the premise of the case was, which is all on the public record, that there's a section of an Ontario statute. a privacy statute that says that institutions that are listed in the regulations and the universities are among them are not permitted to collect personal information unless the personal information is necessary to the proper administration of a lawfully authorized activity. And that's the phrase in the statute. And that's the phrase that is in contention. So is the collection of proof of vaccination necessary in the legal sense to the proper administration of the activity that the university is undertaking?

And that that's essentially what the hearing was about. And so we're now waiting for a decision that that should be probably any day now. Well, by the time this is released, I wonder if it'll be out. We'll have to keep an eye on that, folks. I'm glad I stumbled into it. I had written it down because I'd seen your name associated with it, but I really haven't been falling that close. You know, I've had, you know, Julie Pinesse on here multiple times.

And obviously, I think the listeners know all about her story and everything else. But I'm glad I kind of stumbled into that one. You know, before I let you off here, Bruce, I do appreciate you giving me so much time this morning. It's been a really enjoyable conversation. and I always will enjoy for the listener, and I'm not sure you do this or not, but what I do sitting in this chair

is my brain functions one way in this chair. And then when it's finally released and I listen to it again, I go, oh, I missed that or I didn't catch that because my brain is trying to operate simultaneously on a lot of different functions. So it doesn't happen to every conversation. And certainly this one is a conversation

that I'm going to have to listen to again because there's been a lot of things that I've had to think about and I'm trying to think about it, but still hold a conversation. And that's a funny thing. As an audience member, you get to sit there and formulate, you know, you get the point. Either way, I truly do appreciate giving me some time. I want to end on on the final question brought to you by crude master transport.

Shout out to Heath and Tracy, supporters of the podcast since the very beginning. It's, if you're going to stand behind something, then stand behind it. What's one thing Bruce stands behind? Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to answer that in a philosophical or governance sense. I think we should all stand behind the right of the individual to decide themselves. What's important to them and what the right thing to do is. And if you get people standing behind that idea, then a lot of your trouble is going to go away because they're not going to support the idea that the individual needs to be managed.

And that's one way to put what is the primary struggle of our time. That is the primary struggle of our time. Yeah, that is putting it beautifully. Well, I appreciate you coming on and doing this. It's been great to finally meet you. And obviously, you know, hopefully in the future somewhere along the way. our paths will cross again. But either way, Bruce, having you on and doing this with me and being so open about different

ideas and that type of thing, I really do appreciate it. It makes for an enjoyable, I mean, the time's just flying by. And I want to let you get on with the rest of your day. But the next time, maybe somewhere down the road, we'll get it in person. That's always, as we know, if this is good, it'll be 10 times better when we sit across the table from one another. Either way, appreciate you hopping on with me. Oh, thank you, Sean.

It's been a pleasure. I've enjoyed our conversation and I really do appreciate the invitation. Thank you.