The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: The Canadian military's shocking plan to train civil servants and will new Epstein revelations affect Trump's hold over the Republican Party?

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

To find out how to purchase tickets to the Munk Debate on the Two-State Solution (or to access the livestream) go to www.munkdebates.com To access a 50% discount on tickets for those under 25 become a Munk Donor, Supporter, or Curator Rudyard and Janice begin the show with a Canadian news story that is almost too crazy to be believed: the Chief of the Defence Staff giving a directive to train civil servants on how to handle firearms, drive trucks and fly drones in a bid to ramp up military service. Is it a good idea to give firearms training to government workers? What does this say about how unprepared and unserious we are about protecting our borders? And is there a case to be made that now is the right time to introduce mandatory national service in Canada? In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to the Epstein files and a release of documents with new revelations about the close connection between Epstein and President Trump. The documents also surfaced other prominent names including Peter Mendalson and Larry Summers. Why do these powerful and influential people think the rules don't apply to them? Will the revelations about Trump's closeness to Epstein loosen his iron grip over the Republican Party? And finally, should the President's downward trajectory and weakened support influence how we in Canada engage in trade negotiations with the U.S.? To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $50 annually, or $1.00 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt.    Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 14th of November 2025. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, chair of the Monk Debates, joined by Janice Gross Stein, my co-host and the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, we find you in New York City, the epicenter of the latest eruption of the Epstein files. We've got to get to that on today's show. But just first, Janice, a friendly reminder to our monk donors that tickets are running out. There's a few left. But if you get in now, you can grab a ticket to our December 3rd debate on a two-state solution happening in downtown Toronto. Janice, you're going to be at the debate with me.

I hope not throwing bread rolls at my moderating from center stage. I would never do that. Oh, I'm counting on it. And just a reminder to our community that we have exclusively for mug donors at any level set up a promotional code, which will promotional link with the box office at the debate to bring a young person under the age of 25 for 50% off. This is something we've been doing for the last few debates, Janice, to try to get more young people out seeing live in-person debate. I know at the school global affairs. This is key to a lot of the education that you're doing day to day. How important do you think it is for young people to see live and in-person debate? Oh, it's really important. Radier, this is a time. I actually think it's more important than ever. This is a time. I think we all know we're having trouble listening to each other. We often don't have the patience to listen to what somebody who disagrees with us says.

And any good debate in the monk debate is always a good debate. Is it reinforces the value of listening hard to what the other person says. And then refuting the argument that in a structured civil way so that you really test each other's ideas. Boy, you can't learn if you can't do that. So if you are a monk donor at any level, go to the show notes for today's broadcast,

because if you're listening to this now, you're probably listening to the monk donor version. And if you're not a donor, sign up now, and you'll get a link similarly explaining how you can bring a young person 25 years of age or younger to the debates, for half the normal ticket cost. Janice, we want to jump into the show,

and we're going to start maybe for a change on a slightly lighthearted topic. It was a story that caught my eye in the Ottawa citizen. And I guess we're just going to try to figure out what the heck this means. The story reports that the Canadian military will rely on an army of public servants to boost its rank.

by 300,000 people. This was a directive issued by the chief of the defense staff earlier this year. It's basically saying that provincial and federal public servants would be encouraged to volunteer for a supplementary force where they would learn, quote, basic skills, shoot, shoot, move, and communicate, drive a truck, fly. a drone. Janice, you and I have many friends who are public servants in the provincial and federal government.

We love them dearly. I don't know if I would be giving them firearms training at this point. What do you make of this story? What does it say maybe just about how far behind the ape ball we are when it comes to national defense on the home front? I can't, you know, you have to chuckle. When you think about this, I do know where it comes from, Roger. And the story in the auto citizen actually talks about the Finns.

The Finns have a compulsory draft. And as tensions have heated up with Russia, everybody, everybody in the country, every able-bodied. And now, not public servants, let me tell you. That's the part that is really funny. But every 18-year-old assigned is drafted for two years, and you learn a lot more than shoot, move, drive a truck, and fire a drone that I can tell you. I don't know how valuable those skills are going to mean the public service.

I must say some of the frustrations that are going on there right now. maybe firing a drone isn't the worst thing that they could learn. But in the Finnish case, it is all about the Russian threat. And I think there must have been a decision. Oh, we're going to learn for the Finns what they do. We're going to have a citizen's army. Well, you know what, if you want a citizen's army, go out, like the 18-year-olds, sign up.

you don't sign up for a month a year or whatever and do this. It just strikes me as really bizarre that this is aimed at public service. I can't imagine what the chatter must be entirely governed in Ottawa. Part of the directive says, quote, the entry criteria for the supplementary or reserve force should be less than the regular forces as for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements. I guess that means that if one is on the Portly side of Portly, I guess you could drive a truck or fly a drone or shoot a firearm.

Yes, there's something serious here and there's something unsurious. The unsurious part is that, yes, you're right, countries like Finland, Poland, because the Russia threat also is doing massive massive citizen-based training. Israel, of course, has mandatory, no. military service, Austria, there are a number of European countries that either allow people to opt into military or civil service. This just strikes me as one of these examples in Canada where we kind of do things half-cocked. You know, maybe now is the time to have some form of mandatory service. We've debated this a long time in Canada. It's been an idea that's been

surfaced by governments for the last quarter century or more than I could remember. It's never amounted to anything because Canadians rather like their butter and not their guns. And the idea of any kind of mandatory service seems to be an anathema to voters. So I assume that's why our political class has never actually engaged in any kind of serious program to create, like our European or other allies, some form of mandatory civil. or military service, as you say, for young people. What do you make of that? Why are we, you know, frankly, batting around this nutty idea to take out of shape public servants, desk jockeys and assume that they're going to volunteer on large numbers to pick up a AR-17, you know, semi-automatic assault rifle and head out on the range, you know, to start improving their, shooting scores, why aren't we getting serious in saying, okay, maybe now is the time for

national service, involuntary, required of all people, let's say age 18 to 21 as a condition of citizenship. Look, Reddit, that is plenty that it's focused on public servants and it's really hard to understand. This is done to, first of all, to fill the ranks of the reserves. So look at this. The numbers are about 4,000 right now. They're going to go up to 300,000. They're going to be 295,000 public servants from a country.

And we're going to do this. Let's get together and talk about the number six months from now. We'll be lucky to have a few thousand. But beyond that, there's a lot of discussion of why national service would make sense in this country. We are into struggling economy. People are having trouble getting entry-level jobs as industry, restructors, users, AI, a whole set of challenges that we all know is coming.

You know, there is a time to do national public service, and this is it, and it doesn't even have to be fire a drone or shoot a gun. there's other kinds of public service that we could do and other governments have gotten this right. I've been saying for a while that the prime minister needs to come out with a call for national service. This is not business as usual. These are not normal times.

So let's do it in a serious way, frankly. When I read the story, which you showed me, I honestly could not believe it. You thought it was fake news. I did. I thought it was a spoof. I really did. I could not believe it.

Yeah, we'll include a copy to the Ottawa Citizen story in today's show notes because it is almost unbelievable. And I guess, look, I don't want to pile on here, but it, again, it's just so deeply unsurious. And it makes me worry a little bit, Janice, about the brain trust in Ottawa. These are, I mean, this was a directive issued by the chief of the defense staff and their deputy. I mean, this is not, you know, some leaked policy paper for some junior analyst who's had too much coffee in the morning. You know, I don't know. These are the people that are in charge of our national security, our national defense. And these are the ideas that they're coming up with.

I mean, come on. Like, you know, it just seems all, like, deeply unsurious. And it worries me a little bit about who. who's actually in charge, what they're actually thinking needs to be done to secure the country. And it's not, you know, trying to hustle up, as you say, 300,000 public service. That would be like three quarters of the entire federal service, public service, enrolled in this program. It is, these numbers are astronomical. And the program of course is preposterous.

Reggie, are you sure this only appeared? In one getting newspaper, Reggie and I did our best to check, but are you sure this is a genuine? Yeah, look, it's been, the international media has picked it up and people are laughing about it. Yeah, this has become a butt of, unfortunately, a lot of jokes that are surfacing in mainly right-wing media in the United States as they chortle at the idea of the Canadian Army consisting of a reserve force made up. of, you know, desk jockeys and pen pushers. How they came up, how they came up with public servants is just beyond it. You know, next weekend is the Halifax Security Forum, the annual together, where the people who chatter as well as the people who shoot get together in one hotel for a long weekend

and talk about the big issues. I sure hope that we don't hear a lot about this. Okay, well, we'll put a pin in this topic because it is so deeply unsurious. We just thought we'd have a little bit of fun with our monk members and share this story with them. And again, we'll include a link in the show notes to the Ottawa Citizen Report by David Paglazzi. He is a somewhat controversial writer in his own right, I believe. That's what makes me think that there might be a little. He may have sex.

He may have sexed the dossier, as the British would say, but we'll let our monk members salute this a bit more for us. And jump into the comments section. If you are a monk donor, you're able to register with our website. We do have a lively discussion that happens each week around the episodes where people get to comment on what they've heard. and it's, yeah, great to see all the feedback and discussion that's going on on the Monk Debates website associated with each Friday focus episode. Let's move on, JAS, to some more serious news.

Just before you do that, Roger, there was an announcement this week that my successor at the Monk School has been appointed. Oh, great. Tell us who it is. So it is Mark Duggan. It was on the front page of the globe. Mark is an economist at Stanford, really, really terrific scholar, who works on public policy issues. So works on the economics of homelessness, health, and has led a really big research. Institute at Stanford. And one of the nicest people.

So this is a wonderful addition to the Monk community. And he will come on the 1st of September. And I will have more time for Friday Focus than I usually do. Wow, you've done a fantastic job as the intern director. I know everyone. Thanks to you for stepping in during a critical period in the schools. evolution. So your legacy continues, Janice. Let me just tell you this was one more story.

There's always an interesting story about recruiting top Americans. There is just a phenomenal young astrophysicist, Sarah Seeger. Everybody knows her. She is a shooting star. And she's coming back. from the United States to join the University of Toronto, as well as Mark Duggan and his partner, Josh McCluss. So the traffic continues to move south to north, and Canada gets richer in really important ways as a result. So that's a good news story.

Absolutely. Well, let's take goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers, and we will engage in the serious news of the big Epstein file. dump that happened just in the last 24 hours, a whole series of names, not just Donald Trump, surfacing in over 20,000 pages of release correspondence and other material related to the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. So we'll have that exclusively for our monk donors right after this short break. Thanks for listening to this excerpt of the Friday Focus podcast to get full-length editions of each and every episode of this program.

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