The Paikin Podcast - (Best Of) World on Edge: Will Canada Survive the End of the American Empire?

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

In our “Best of The Paikin Podcast,” we look back at our most popular episode of all time. If American democracy ends, what happens to Canada? Stephen Marche joins Janice Stein on World on Edge to debate the threat America poses to Canadian sovereignty, whether we are prepared for Trump’s new world order, how we can learn from Ukraine and Finland, and how we can defend ourselves both economically and militarily. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everybody. Steve Paken here. Over the summer, we're having a chance to replay some of our more popular shows. And this one, this interview with Stephen Marsh, the Canadian writer, author, journalist, podcaster. This was our most listened to program, both on YouTube and as an audio download. It was really something. Stephen got into it with Janice Stein from the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and the two of them had a fairly significant disagreement on the issue of how big a threat the United States poses to us right now. So without further ado, Stephen Marsh and Janice Stein duking it out over America.

Coming right up on the Paken podcast. Let's start by introducing from the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Here's Janice Stein. Janice, good to have you back on our program again this week. And I want to start with a very simple question to set up the discussion to come. In your view, are the Americans still our allies? No is the answer to that, Steve, because what's an ally? An ally is someone that you can depend on.

That's reliable. And in a sense, whose behavior you can predict, that's why they're your ally, because if you need them in a crunch, you predict that they will turn up for you in one way or another. There's always some unknowns, but the known. are, and this is a really bad joke, the knowns, Trump, the unknowns. I don't think that's the case anymore with the United States. The United States is our neighbor. It's not our ally anymore.

That's rather disquieting, but I suspect there are, if not 40 million Canadians, then a lot of them anyway, that'll agree with you on that front. And let's introduce one of them right now. Stephen Marsh is going to join us. Stephen, you may remember from his book called The Next Civil War, and he's dropped a podcast in the last little while that has really been, I've listened to it. It is terrific and it is fascinating and it is extremely disquieting. It's called Gloves Off. And Stephen, welcome you to the Paken podcast.

How you doing today? Always a pleasure. I want to ask you, first of all, just give us the premise behind why you wanted to do this podcast to begin with. Well, I think Canada, basically since 1965, all of our elite institutions have been predicated on integration with the United States. And I think that's economically, it's also militarily, it's diplomatically, it's culturally. And we've had this very sudden turn. I mean, and it is a, you know, it is a life-changing turn for our country.

And we've basically had to ask ourselves questions that we've never had to ask ourselves before. Questions about diversification of trade, questions about what we would, you know, questions that are the basis of other countries, like how do you defend yourself from people who want to invade you, or who want to annex you? We've never really had to ask ourselves those questions, and now we do. So really the premise of the show was what would a Canadian rail politic look like? What does a politics of survival look like for Canada? I want to put what I put in the intro to you right now, which is the notion that obviously there was a time when Ukraine, when most Ukrainians could not imagine.

that Russia would be lobbing bombs into their apartment buildings and on their homes and cities. Are you telling us that is the kind of mindset we need to have right now vis-a-vis the United States? Well, I think, you know, we did an episode. Episode four is about talking to Ukrainians about what we can learn from them. You know, and what they told us is that the trains from Maripal were half empty the day before the Russians invaded. Right. I mean, even when you're living next to Russia, which is a country that's either expanding imperialistically or collapsing, you don't want to believe that the worst can happen, right? It's a very natural inertia, particularly in elite institutions and bureaucracies. It's just, it's the most natural thing in the world to not believe that's going to come.

Now, you know, in the American case, let's just be very clear, 2% of Americans want to annex Canada militarily. But countries that are in sliding into authoritarianism, like the United States, often use pretext of war, their neighbors, including fabricated things like fentanyl crises, and, you know, the line that's been existing for 200 years isn't really real. That is exactly out of the playbook of people who want to violate their own laws, right, and it gives them an excuse to violate their own institutions, right? So we just simply are not in a position where we can, we don't have the luxury anymore of hoping that this is all going to work out in the United States. That's just not a, that's just a reality that we can we can really take as as something that we can live with it's just not true

anymore chanis i've heard the podcast and it's quite dire in spots and i wonder whether you feel we are at a moment in our history our collective history where we ought to be regarding the united states in those kinds of dire terms well i'm not there uh steve and we'll probably get into it um about why i'm not there Let me agree with Stephen's larger comment that you just made, Stephen, is that it's very, very difficult for most of us, most of the time, to believe that the future is not going to look like the present. And how do we know what that looks like? Because we draw in the past.

So we tend to project forward into the future from where we are. That's the Ukrainian story, right up until Russian troops crossed the border. And so it is very important for our government and our institutions to think about alternative futures. You know, what would we have to do? What would we need should that 2% prevail in government thinking, for example? We have to think about that. That's a different question as to whether I think that's the most likely scenario to occur, and I actually don't for a whole variety of reasons.

Stephen? Well, I mean, the question of likelihood is really, that's kind of the problem here. We're dealing with, you know, as I've said in the past, like when you have a meth head living next door, a burning sofa is going to a rut, you know, is going to fall into your backyard at some point, right? When we're trying to predict here, I mean, the point of the next civil war is that America has become a complex cascading system. It's not predictable. That's the whole essence of the problem. And I mean, you know, just to be clear, like, we are on the side of Americans, right? We are, it is in our national interest, one million percent for America to remain a democracy.

And actually, that is the essence of the realpolitik we need to start imposing in our thinking. Like, how can we, how can we make America democratic? And the answers to that will probably not be very pretty, right? But, you know, just in terms of the predictability, like a year ago, no one would have predicted that the Marines would be on the streets of Los Angeles helping a masked secret police. I would say a year ago, every Canadian institution that I spoke to would have assumed that tax policy belongs to Congress and that therefore we should be trying to influence Congress people and trying to influence the legislative branch of the, you know, United States government. That's gone, right? That's, that's from, that's a history lesson about what civics used to be in the United States, right? So we have to prepare exactly for the totally unpredictable, right? And that is, that requires a completely different level of thinking about our

own strengths and weaknesses than we've ever had. That's why we did the podcast. So I think a sentence totally unpredictable is too strong. And why do I say that? So let me start with the way I think about Donald Trump, and I suspect we agree here, he's a revolutionary president. That's how I have to think about this. I disagree with that, but... Okay. So I think Trump wants to engineer a revolution inside the United States and a lot of the structures of the world that matters to Canadians. For example, the world trading system. He's already done that in unbelievably short time. But he has priorities, and they're pretty clear as to what they are. Sky does not like to use military force.

He's in America firster. He is turning his back on that kind of practice over the years, and he's all about tariffs and growing revenue inside the United States. So people that he likes can have tax cuts. Can I understand, Stephen, why you think America is not a revolutionary, Sorry, why Trump is not a revolutionary president? Because you said you disagreed on that. To me, Trump is very much a symptom rather than a cause of American breakdown.

When you look at the broader issues of the United States, like, for example, what's happening with gerrymandering in Texas right now and the fact that you have Texas legislatures seeking, you know, consolation in Illinois and having their rooms paid for by the billionaire governor of Illinois, this is the kind of larger-scale, of American institutional life that has been ongoing since, really since 2008. You see this in the decline of trust. You have levels of inequality that really have never been experienced in the United States. You have this debt bubble that is, you know, a ticking time bomb.

You have the destruction of their scientific institutions. You have the destruction of their, of a lot of their cultural institutions. And the thing I think you really have to understand is, like, you know, there's no chance that Donald Trump is going to lose the Senate in 2026. In a very significant way, the American people want what is happening right now. And what is about to happen with the tariffs is that a massive amount of poverty is going to be poured over this fire that is America right now. And it is only going to get worse. So what is so important to understand here is America is not an enemy.

Like these are our family members. These are people we are very close. So these are people we work with. This is like, but in its decline, it will be very, very volatile and very, very violent. That is a, that is a system that you see all over the world when, when countries slide out of democracy. And also when, you know, the preconditions of the United States. So in a sense, like what Trump is, is he is a reflection of a degradation that's already taken place and which is accelerating. And what we need to prepare for, like the, the most dangerous idea in Canada, right?

right now. The most dangerous idea in the military, in our economic elites, in our diplomatic elites, is that this is all going to be over when Trump's gone because it's not. Because all of the conditions that are set in America preceded Trump and they will continue after Trump. And we need to prepare for an America that is in decline. Let me get Janice on that. Do you think, America sliding into authoritarianism, Janice? Yeah. So let's grant that America is on a path toward authoritarianism. I certainly think so. But from that, all the rest does not follow.

Hungary, which has been on a path towards authoritarian, and to me is a fully authoritarian society, has not invaded any neighbor. It's not violent. It's actually, sadly, quite stable. We may not like it, but there's equation of a move toward authoritarianism and the destruction of domestic institutions and replacement with structures that I think all three of us would hate

does not translate into a violent annexationist neighbor. That's not what history shows us in many cases. That's what Priya would tell you. That's what the peace research that's Studev also would tell you. It's certainly what, it's certainly what, how this, you know, how civil wars start. I mean, the slaginocracy, the space between democracy and authoritarianism is the space where violence breeds. And you're already, I mean, Democratic people have been assassinated for their politics. Yeah. But Americans have had a long history of violence, frankly, in small. That doesn't encourage me.

No, but they do. They have the highest right, you know, you can call it the incarceration state, as many people do. They have more people in jail per capita than any other democratic society. But a higher rate of violence in their streets, they haven't, they have never used force against Canada. And so we have to be. be careful about drawing, which we're both opposed to, drawing any kind of direct line between the domestic politics of the United States and what it's going to do. And my point about Trump is not that he's the cause of this, and when he leaves, he goes away. But if you actually look at what's going on in the institutions, the central institutions of the United States, he's able to manipulate them so they reflect his priorities. That's what he's doing.

And his priority is not to use force. This guy hates that. I think the Iranians stunt that too, Janice, at some point, but he definitely used force on them. Should we go over the past 80 years of American history? No, look, actually that story with Iran, to me, is typical of Trump. You know, when you look at the record here, the Israelis cleared the path. He only said yes when he was assured that there were the chances of any risk to any U.S. pilot. Steve was very low.

They went in, they went out, they got home. That was it. There was no second run. He was just flying with a token strike against an American base in Iraq. There were no Americans. There were no American cows. Done. Finish.

Let's go to the negotiating table. That's the side of Trump. that most people are not paying attention to when we get to these predictions of violence and war. Listen, I think trying to psychologize Trump, I mean, this is what the media has become. Media has become trying to understand what the psychological mechanisms are that motivate Trump. There are none. Like, are you willing to bet the life of this country on Donald Trump's internal restraint? Like, that just seems like, like, it's beyond, it's just not, it's just not a sensible approach to maintaining.

Like, if that's, like, many, many people have made this bet. Oh, he won't go that line. He won't cross that line. It's not in his interest. Why would he cross that line when it's not in his interest? And then he goes right over that line. So let me back. And so I just don't think that sensible.

Let me back it up in a minute. I'm not psychologizing Trump. I'm just looking at what he does. I'm looking at his behavior. That's very different from trying to understand him. You can't. I think that's a crazy risk to take to base strategy on what you think he wants. But just we have to look at what he does.

This guy repeatedly condemns the use of force. He wants a withdrawal of Americans, virtually everybody in the world. If you look at, let me give you another example. or what's going on in Washington, right now, there is a fierce struggle inside his administration between the Peter Navarro's of the world who want the whole of the United States military force shifted to focus on China,

and those who say, no, no, no, no, no, we just want to withdraw. We just want to go back to the United States and not spend a single dime. Isolationist. Yes. And that's a deep, in the United States, too, by the way. And so look only at one.

We know there's a long history of isolationism. And you know who's written really interesting stuff about this is Walter Russell Mead, who identifies four competing tendencies in the United States, and one comes to the surface at one time, and then it's replaced by others. As you said, Steve, in the United States is a complex dynamic society. Cascading, I said. And cascading, but it's also dynamic. If you look at their economy, there's nobody else in the world who does what the United States still does.

And there are... No one else has the control over the international monetary order, which they let's hope they lose as soon as possible. Because it is the wedge that they use. Listen, I just think there is this tendency, and it is the most natural tendency in the world, to discuss the current iteration of the United States by these institutional principles. like where we're dealing with, oh, yes, well, there's this branch of the movement and there's this branch of the movement and they're in some kind of tension and we can think through it. We can't think through it because we are no longer dealing with rational actors. So all of these discussions about like isolationism versus the shift to China, like that's all, like that could that will literally be destroyed by a tweet in the middle of the night sometime in the next month, right?

Well, none of that, none of that matters. Like it's absolutely like he could decide that guy doesn't look good on. television, he's fired. Then we're then the shift to focus on China is gone. No. So we're not dealing. The institutional order is over. And we'll be back right after this. You mentioned tweet and I want to get Janice's take on this. As a result of a couple of tweets from a Russian former president.

And then the responding tweets from the president of the United States, there were two American nuclear submarines. moved into a position where things could get crazy. And I want to know what your reaction to all of that was, Janice. Okay. His nonviolent self. So first of all, that is a really interesting story. Because from everything we know and we don't know it very much here, Steve,

it's a kind of kabuki theater going on. That what the United States has said and what he said, nuclear submarines, what does that mean? Does it mean nuclear power? submarines? It might. It doesn't necessarily mean they've got missiles ready to go on them. It doesn't mean they have a single nuclear weapon on them. Let's just understand that. Okay? And we don't know. And they're in our water and all the usual groups that

contract this stuff don't know. Everybody's saying we don't know. Secondly, where were they moved to? No announcement. Well, if you're moving something in order to send a strong signal, hey, hey, guys, stop this, and it was to Medvedev, who is on the extreme fringe there and used, really, to heat up things. But you don't know where your deterrent is moved to. It's not a very effective strategy, is it? So you think it didn't happen? I think we're dealing with a lot of smoke and mirrors here on both sides, honestly. There's no evidence. There's no evidence. Right. We just don't. And there's a lot of people who are watching. I can't figure it out.

We don't know the truth of any of these instances. because none of it is trustworthy and we don't know. You want to bet your life that reasonable people are in control? Like, that is not a, that is not a, that is not a reasonable bet to take. Like, we have been demonstrated that the American people in, have entered a pathological state where they've chosen as their leader, someone who operates more or less randomly and with, and with, and with, and with no impulse control. Like, we're no, like, the idea that we can rely on certain kind of information, we can rely on, we can

rely on like the people's best instincts or even their their raw self-interest to operate, that's gone. And that's why we need to, we need to position Canada. You know, the thing about Canada is that we've always been an internationalist country, right? Like we've certainly, like since the end of the Second World War, we've been an eager participant in the World Trade Organization, Francophonie, you know, the NATO, et cetera. That's where we feel most comfortable.

Before then, we were part of the British Empire, which was also, in its own way, an internationalist institution with norms and institutions and so on. That's absolutely where we feel most comfortable. I wish, I promise you, I deeply wish that we were living, we were still living in that world. That world is over. Canada needs to figure out how to position itself in a world where these international institutions provide absolutely no guarantees of anything. Okay. And so that's a very, very hard question. It is a question we have not faced.

And that's why we really need a completely new way of thinking through our national interests. Janice, you respond, and then I want to do a little experiment with the two of you. Okay. So here's a point where Stephen and I agree. You know, I would make it a little more provocative than I otherwise. Might I believe Canadians have told themselves a story they left to hear about our interests? internationalism. And we've created mess, frankly, about the impact we had in the glory days right after World War II, when we happen to have, by the way, the fourth largest army in the

world because everybody was flat on their backs from the war. But as the world recovered, we told ourselves stories about how internationalists we are, what great peacekeepers we were, what vocations we had in the world. None of that, actually, very little of that. And that actually reflected the way other countries saw Canada. You know other countries see Canada? They don't. Hardly at all, frankly. Hardly at all.

And when they do, they tell me, you're so nice. You're just nice people. That's what I hear. Well, I think we suffer from a terminal illness of niceness. And so when you tell me international institutions are not going to have much impact at all, Stephen, frankly, for us, for Canada, the only international institution that actually had an impact

that really mattered was the WTO, the World Trading Organization, because we trade. None of the security institutions really mattered. The only things that mattered to us in the last 75 years were the bilateral ones we had with the United States. We just don't want to tell ourselves that story. Let me get in here, folks, because I want to do a bit of an experiment with you. And Stephen, I've got to say to set this up, your podcast, gloves off.

How many parts, incidentally, altogether? I'm trying to remember now. Eight parts all together. The last one's more pro-American. You guys will like it more. It's Ann Applebaum and Margaret Atwood. You'll like it. Okay.

Well, what is pro-American here on this one? She said, don't, she said, don't be anti-American. She said that was the number one lesson of the 1960s nationalism. Do not stumble into anti-American. Don't be anti-Trump, though. Well, understand that half of them are. on our side, but we have to fight for that. Which is a very good, interesting point.

Okay, here's the experiment. This is, what your podcast prompted in me was thinking about if push comes to shove, not Bush comes to shove, because he's gone, but if push comes to shove, what happens next? And we see two very

different divergent paths here. One, clearly is being played out before our eyes every day overseas, where Russia invades Ukraine and the Ukrainians take to arms and they try to fight back. And And they're taking that approach. The other approach that's also available to us, and we'll go back to World War II for this, is what Marshall Petin led in France, which is essentially a collaborationist approach.

It's an approach that says, we're just going to take it, and we're not going to fire a shot, and you guys can come in here, and we're just going to kind of collaborate. And I want to get some discussion between the two of you right now, Stephen, start us off, on which path seems most likely for Canada at the moment? Oh, independence. We're always being independent. The idea that there will be a collaborationist front in Canada's nonsense. Like, first of all, you know, the United States cannot, is incapable of winning insurgent conflicts, right?

Like, that's been demonstrated for 80 years. They're just terrible at them. And if they were to, I mean, episode six with Isha'amad, who's a very serious scholar of insurgencies, You know, the Taliban was 40,000 people at the outset of the Afghan war, and they were shepherds, and the Americans couldn't beat them. I mean, if you want to go up against 1% of the Canadian population, 400,000 people, petroleum engineers, machine learning experts. I mean, if we were to undertake serious insurgent conflict, of course, across this wide open border, so it wouldn't be happening in Canada. be happening in New York and Dallas and Houston and San Francisco. Like, you know, it would, first of all, that would be the end of America, right?

The United States cannot conquer Canada without dying. Like, that is true. That's a great argument. And also, these two things go together. This is the key point of gloves off. If America conquers Canada, the United States is over. If the U.S. becomes an autocracy, it becomes an autocracy, Canada is over. So this is the nature of this struggle, right? It is actually a joint struggle.

Like, that's the reality of the situation, right? So I just think the idea that there's going to be, there would of course be lots of people who would collaborate, but it only takes 40,000 people to break America. Like America's, America's not actually very good. It's, well, it's shown over and over and over again that it cannot win an insurgent conflict. So, I mean, but that's, you know, This is science fiction talk. Like even from someone like me, right? That's not really the threat that we face. The threat that we face is the economic manipulations that will weaken us to the point where,

and I mean, Trump has been very explicit that that's what it is. And so we need to build different alliances. We need to build other institutions. And we need to understand that national strength, which is not something that Canada is good at talking about, is required at this point. We need a whole society defense so that we are not a snack. We need to start imitating the fins. The Finns live next to Russia. They're 5 million people next to 143 million.

They can put a million people in the field in 72 hours. They have a complete system of self-defense that is throughout every national institution. That is what Canada actually needs. So that we're too painful to conquer. Well, Janice, that's the future I'm trying to get us to imagine right now, which is it's hard, I suspect, for most Canadians to imagine, even though Stephen interviewed one of them in his podcast series, that all of us are suddenly going to join the Canadian forces and take up arms and be ready for when the Americans cross the border and we're going to militarily face them down. That's not a

future. I suspect many Canadians can wrap their heads around. But the notion of... Better start soon. Well, okay, hang on. But the notion that they're strangling us to death economically and therefore we may have to accept the 51st state argument. That's the future I'm asking you to discuss. Can you imagine that? So just two comments on that point. Up till now, up till now, let's just cool the rhetoric on the strangulation story. The tariffs that are in effect now are 1%.

They are 1%. Why do I say that? Because 90 plus percent of the good. Canadian goods that are going across the border are covered by USMCA or COSMA or NAFTA to whatever. For another year. For only another year. Yeah. No, no, no, no. That is not too either. Until 1936, the review process starts next year. It will start before. But there's no end. There will be a tweet tonight that it's all over. So at any point. But there's no end date to that review process. I can drag on. It's a really badly designed process. And so there's no deadline that we're in front of. So just remember 1%. We are not going to be strangulated by a tariff of 1%. Now, some sectors are. Talk to Linda

Hassanfrass of Linemar products who sells auto parts into the United States. And yet, the auto parts sector. Aluminum is really struggling. There are really severe sectoral conflict. But this whole view that we cannot survive trumping tariffs is frankly just not accurate and speaks to a lack of Canadian confidence in our own economic capacity. That's a bigger point. Number two, let's say the economic pressure ratchets up. I think, again, we do not know as a people, we don't, know enough about the assets we really have. Let me give you just one example. What are we actually sending across the border? Leave out the services side, just on the goods. We're really lucky, frankly, because what do we send, mainly? We send what the economists call intermediate goods.

What does that mean? They need that stuff to manufacture something else. We're part of bigger supply change when if the cost of that it's too big it is going to make their own manufacturing uneconomic there is a person doesn't seem to care about that argument he wants the tariff money he wants the tariff money to pay off his debt he wants the revenue but he wants two things at the same time and you're absolutely right about this steve to me this is just one big revenue play by a guy who understands that he's got an exploding debt he wants to cut taxes because because there's a really regressive benefit to that tax-cutting agenda? Easy, easy.

Let's just pile up revenue in the federal treasury by collecting tariffs until you start to weaken American manufacturing. We saw its explosive reaction to the first tiny bits of data that are going to get much stronger on a poor jobs report. We're seeing a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing, and we're beginning to see inflation. Well, but let me ask Stephen this. It really matter to a guy who has staked his whole presidency on an economic strategy of tariffs.

But Stephen, where are the captains of industry in the United States who are fighting back and pushing back against this, which they know will harm their economy and their businesses? Go look at the carmakers. No, no, no, no. Listen, the institutions in the United States, including the universities, the law firms, the law firms, the corporate leaders, anything that you might call civil society has, well, I mean, I think the phrase forward is the great abdication. Like they have totally abdicated their responsibility to democracy. Like they clearly don't care. They're just trying to survive. I mean, you know, my grandfather, when he was 17, they strapped him to the back of a Hamilton bomber and made him fly over Germany bombing people. That's what he had to do for democracy. These people won't take a minor hit to

their paycheck. They really just don't care about it, right? And I think what, when I talk about Trump is a symptom, that's because it's so evident when you look at American life that they actually really are quite comfortable seeing their democracy erode to nothing. Right. And we, and, you know, I guess, Janice, the real difference with us is you seem to think that there are rational systems that will kick into place when people's self-interest and values kick in. I have seen no evidence of that whatsoever since 2008. Like what we are in the middle of here is a pathological decline that is ripping apart any capacity for that to happen. And so what we have to plan for, like, I think really planning for, like, you know,

what Trump is staking his presidency on. I mean, he doesn't have any, he wouldn't care if you kill his children. Like, he has no, he has no values of any kind. He has a narcissist who operates with absolute, like, he is a spur of the moment. what are my ratings today kind of person? And that means that we cannot operate on some kind of like, well, this mechanism will lead to this will lead to that. There is no mechanism.

We need to prepare for an America that has no mechanisms that we can leverage. Well, you know, again, I think that is an apocalyptic view of what happens to the institutions in the United States. Some of them are really under terrible stress. There's no doubt about it. Are there people, are there leaders in my own sector in the United States, in the universities, in the law firms who are making deals because they figure they can survive this and there will be tomorrow? Yes, there certainly are some of those. So there's no denying that.

But again, when we talk about an economic strategy, we're talking about the American manufacturers, not IT companies who are getting, and AI companies who are the biggest revenue generators, but not the biggest employers, let's be clear. But the core manufacturing sector that's left in the United States, which is only about 18% of their economy, these guys are going to take a terrific hit as this goes on, and they will speak up because they will not survive, Stephen, and they matter in every swing state.

They matter. That is the Rust Belt manufacturing process that Donald Trump has said, that's what he is. He said, I'm bringing back jobs to America. His strategy is going back to him. He also said he'd release the Epstein files and fund IVF. I mean, he doesn't, but like you're saying we should bet our national security on the common sense decency of Donald Trump.

Well, let me push back as what you're saying. Because if you buy in wholly and only to an apocalyptic strategy, which is what you're doing, This is what we have to prepare for. We devote all our resources to prepare for the worst. We can. We're a rich country in world standards. But boy, to get our defense spending up to 3.5%. We are going to have to shut down much of our spending.

Yes. It's going to be on social service. All the cultural institutions are going to take a really heavy hit. And that's to get to the point where we're just doing what our peers are doing, not to get to the point where the Finns are, frankly, where every teenager enrolls. There is a draft, a compulsory draft in Finland. The chances of that happening in Canada, I agree with Steve, are nil.

You're wrong. You're dead wrong. The Canadian people have, from time immemorial, understood, They may feel that they're part of the end. They're not important in these institutions and they're not part of history. But when the emergency arrives, when the emergency arrives, they actually have been up to the task every single time. And the truth is this, let's just agree on this, Janice. We are in an emergency. Is that correct?

What kind of emergency? The United States is declining and is threatening us. The United States, many states have declined and their neighbors have survived. Again, this is a misreaching. ones that are 10 times the size. I mean, Hungary can't attack Austria. If it were 10 times the size, it might well. Yeah, but no, but there's no indication that Victor Orban has any expansionist objectives.

Trump has given us every indication repeatedly of conquering countries like Greenland and Panama Canal and Canada. He has said it. No, he's not an imagination. Okay. If we're going by what he said, which is what you're doing just now, he said, he said, explicitly. I will we're not going to use military force against Canada. He said it explicitly.

So you said he wouldn't need to. Said he'd strangle us economically and that's how we would do it. Yeah. Okay, let me jump in, friends. Friends, I'm just, I'm keeping an eye on the clock here. This is lovely and I'd love it to continue. But. Oh, isn't it?

But it's nice because we love each other. I do, I do want to ask one last question of each of you. And that is, you know, during the course of the last, I guess six months since Donald Trump has been the president of the United States, the two of you have probably at one time or another tried to get into the United States. And I'd like to find out what that experience was like. Stephen, you're... I haven't.

I haven't crossed. You have? Since Donald Trump. You haven't tried? No, that was before. That was well before. But I just said that way. Yeah.

No, I've not tried. I mean, you know, I've been writing what I just said. to you about Donald Trump being a method. But this is not a, this is not a, this is not a, a country that I think I want to be in right now. No, I understand. But have you not, have you not been turned back at the border before? Yes, I have. But that was for, that was, that was long ago.

It was, I mean, it was actually during the first time when all of this exploded. During Trump, one point zero. Yeah, it was actually slightly before, technically. But it was, but it was. Are you Trump completely? even before Trump? Yeah, I mean, that was when, you know, I was crossing the border once or twice a month then. I mean, you know, in October before, just before Trump, I crossed it, I think, six times because I was doing pro-democracy stuff there. And you could already, you could, I mean, I don't know. Like, I think, um, that's the existence.

I think, you know, I probably would be fine. Let's be honest here, right? Like, I mean, I think, like, I think the 99% of the time that would be absolutely fine for me to. across the border. And 99% of the agents would be fine. It's just the 1% chance that you end up with an unsponsored tour of El Salvador that, you know, that is, that is, that is not, I mean, again, it's like it is just, you don't want to exaggerate these things, but there is, you know, it's not just, it's not just a travel boycott to the United States. They've made it very clear that they're going to use violence on foreigners and there's no legal recourse that they have total impunity over any foreigner in their borders. I don't know. That doesn't sound like a place that I want to be a foreigner. So let me tell you. And I, I am visible on these issues for several

of the things I've done and said. And I have been invited to speak in the United States. And actually, I had some trepidation for all the reasons that Stephen talked about, no difficulty. I'm just going to speak at a conference in Washington next week, which is called the unpopulist. I mean, if you want, you know, you want a banner that collects a whole bunch of people, and I am going to go. But again, let's just understand the risk for Canadians. The risk for Canadians, if you drive, it's one thing. If you fly from a Canadian airport, what is the risk?

I'll tell you, it's a Trontonian, the risk. is you're going to spend 90 minutes getting to Pearson Airport and some god-awful traffic jet, and then you're going to spend another 60 minutes waiting in line to get through customs, and they're going to turn me back. I am not going to be incarcerated and sent to El Salvador. So in comparison

to Americans or people with green cards in the United States, some of whom are running real risk, our risk is so tiny. Let's just not glorify ourselves. Well, also, we're both way. I tell you what my biggest worry is, we haven't talked about this. My biggest worry in this whole agenda is not the use of military force against Canada, although I think we have to consider that and plan for it within reason,

but not divert all our resources to it. My biggest worry is what you just brought up, Steve, it's ice. It is a force that that's the thing that I'm really paying most attention to. It's budget tripled or quadrupled, depending on what you count. It's recruiting at an incredible pace. Without the, I think, the checks that you normally do, it is putting untrained enforcers on the streets. When I look at that, that to me is the most concerning aspect right now

of U.S. domestic politics. Stephen, let me get you to give the last word here, which is, after people listen to gloves off, what is that you want them to come away from? Well, I think, you know, we're trying to really give shape to the national emergency that I think Canadians, I think ordinary Canadians absolutely understand that we're in a national crisis. And I think the questions, the political and economic and military and cultural questions that we've asked ourselves for our entire history, you know, those are not the questions that face us today. And then beginning to answer, beginning to ask these questions and beginning to figure out what a true Canadian response is to an American threat and to a threat to our sovereignty. That actually requires quite a big change in our mindset, and it requires a whole set of policy questions that we've never considered. Right. Like, we just have never had to consider them.

And so that's why, you know, I know I can sound a bit critical of the bureaucracies and the institutional life here, but we're asking them to turn on a dime, right? And it's very, very hard to do that, especially when you have this natural inertia that hopes it all goes away when Donald Trump goes away. And so what I would hope is that what we wanted the podcast to be is a place to begin to ask those questions and to look at what other options are for us. Because I'm telling you, having basically no military or only an elite force that is interoperable with American forces is not going to stand. Like that is not going to be true for us in 10 years. Like we are going to have to come to military understandings of ourselves that we have never had. And I think that's true. We're already seeing that happen economically.

And I think to a certain extent, we're also seeing it culturally. I mean, you know, if you're a scientist in Canada, you're not aspiring to move to the labs in Massachusetts anymore. Like, they're gone, right? Like, these changes are very sudden and incredibly profound. And what we hope to do was give a sort of a foundation for looking at what they might be. I've got to say, it's a very well done series. congratulations on getting it done.

And I want to... We're asking these questions, Stephen. It is, it is. It's really important to broaden the pictures that we think about. I mean, I hope you're right, Janice. Yeah. I mean, I really hope you're right. And I hope we look back at this in two years and be like,

who was that idiot talking to Janice Stein? He really didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Hopefully they wouldn't be referring to me when they say that. Anyway. Which Stephen were they talking about? Yeah. Stephen Marsh, Janice, Janice Stein. really great having you on the Paken podcast.

Thanks so much for doing it. Love energetic discussions, very civilly conducted. So well done. And with that, peace and love, everybody. We'll see you next time on the Paken podcast. Bye-bye. Ciao.