The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: How Canada Survives in the “Time of Monsters”

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Stephen Marche, author of “The Next Civil War,” joins Janice Stein to discuss why America is a bigger threat to our freedom and democracy than China or Russia, why the West is feeling its betrayal turn into rage, and how Stephen thinks “we’re all Canadian now.”They also discuss the American midterms, to what extent we can “return to normal” if the Democrats win back the White House, American officials meeting with members of the Alberta separatist movement, and if Janice has changed her mind on Stephen’s view of the prospect of an American invasion. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcastFollow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznC...X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.socialEmail us at: [e-mail]

Hi everybody, Steve Paken here. Several months ago, we invited one of Canada's most provocative authors and journalists to join us here for our World on Edge segment. And apparently, you liked what he had to say because that show remains our most watched episode of the Paken podcast ever. So we thought we'd have him back on. Particularly since he published a terrific column in the New York Times last week in which he says, Today, it's America that poses a threat to our freedom and democracy. not China, not Russia, America. That's all next.

Coming up on the Paken podcast. Glad to welcome back to our program, Janice Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. And once again, our special guest, Stephen Marsh, author, journalist, commentator, whose most recent column in the New York Times has headlined, The Globalization of Canadian Rage.

Janice, great to see you again, Stephen. for doing the show again. How you doing? Always a pleasure. Yeah, I'm doing great. I mean, other than the cold. Other than the cold. Janice, what are you doing in Washington? The state of the world. In the middle of a series of meetings. In the city, they meet, and then people leak the content of the meetings, unlike Ottawa, where they don't leak. Okay. Which system do you like better? Oh, I like to be in a city of leakers. No question. Much more. That's why you like Washington better than Ottawa. Okay. I Some days. Some days, right. Stephen, I want to read one of the lines in your column that would not have been written, I suspect, 15 months ago, but you wrote, today it's America that poses a threat to our freedom and democracy, not China, not Russia, America. Why did you write that?

Well, because we have, you know, the continued aggression from Trump. And the, I mean, it's not really the aggression from Trump because that and the rhetoric, because we've been dealing with that for a long time. It's the national security. documents, it's the attack on Greenland, it's the general movement towards aggression that I think it's not just him, it's also the institutions around him are gathering into this mission. And so, you know, it's in the early days of Trump two, I think you could sort of say, well, this is just madness. And when this guy's gone, we'll all get back to normal. But I think we're now at the point where like so many American institutions are invested in his mission that it is a threat to us and it's going to be a threat to us consistently for the foreseeable future. Janice, I have to ask whether you share that view.

Look, I certainly agree that the Trump administration is administration that threatens us. But we need to break that out a little bit, Steve. how exactly do they threaten us? Well, the use of economic coercion, they've done it over and over in the last year. And not only that pressing gets irritated, slaps, threatens to slap 100% tariff. And on close allies, of which were one.

That's the big threat. There's been a fair amount of hype in Canadian newspapers, General Wayne Air said, you know, we shouldn't rule out nuclear weapons. Some of the D&D modelers are modeling an invasion by U.S. forces. Frankly, none of that is real. None of that is real, meaning there's no chance of any of that happening? Neither the modelers nor general air take seriously the prospect.

Just spoke to him, as a matter of fact, I guess. take seriously the prospect of a U.S. invasion. So this is not a military threat that does not diminish Stephen's point that this is an aggressive regime that uses economic coercion to bend others to its will. And the most effective responses are economic instruments to coerce back. All right, Stephen, let me put to you the line that Mark Carney said at the leaders debate, which was less than a year ago during the federal election campaign then, when he was asked, what was the greatest security threat to our country?

And he said very quickly, without hesitation, China. Now, admittedly, Donald Trump wasn't in office yet, but do you think in the intervening time when you see what China is doing around the world, when you see what Russia is doing in Ukraine, you still want to say America is the biggest threat to us? Yeah, it's the most direct threat to us. I mean, China has no plans to annex us. Russia has no plans to annex us.

America has made America is the world's largest military. It's the largest military the world has ever known. And it has explicitly called for hemispheric dominance through through the military. I mean, that is it's in its budget. That is that is what that is what that is the plan. That is the American plan. So not to take that seriously, I think would be an extremely grave error. But I think that's not really the point. I mean, the point is we're dealing here with an authoritarian slide in the United States. It's, It's extremely rapid. I mean, like, certainly, you know, I wrote a book called The Next Civil War, but I never thought it would happen so quickly. Like, you know, if you look at the Democratic Index of the United States, in a one year, it's basically taken Donald Trump to do in one year what it took Putin to do in about six or seven, right? I mean, they're already at the point of arresting journalists. They're already, you know, you already have the gatekeepers of the legal and civil society institutions

basically caving on every point. The legislature is neither here nor there. are, you know, people are waiting around for the midterms. I mean, like, what will be the power of Congress in 27 is totally unclear. So the point is not necessarily are they planning to invade Canada tomorrow with their army. The question is really, are they, how unpredictable are they, and how rapidly is this decline coming? I mean, the term of sociologists that I interviewed for the book called was complex cascading system, right? And that means that, because, Because it's not one thing, it's not, it's not predictable.

Like it works, it works like a weather system in the sense that things can get out of control very, very quickly from totally unpredictable causes. So acting like we know what the United States is going to do and that therefore we can take strategic measures against it is not, is that's not the situation we're in, especially when you're dealing with a country that is not operating in its own self-interest. Right? You're not dealing with people who are operating logically. It's much more akin to dealing with, like, a meth head on the street with a gun.

Like, what that person is going to do is not what you would do because they've lost, because that person has lost their mind. So when we're preparing for these situations, thinking strategically and thinking in terms of, like, well, here's the mechanism of the United States. And if we do X, then there'll be Y result. is simply not credible. I mean, that's why, you know, we didn't even start out today with the bridge discussion, right? Because we all know that it's so random that it doesn't actually matter, right?

Like, like, something's going to have with something, it's not going to have with it. Who actually cares? Because it's just the ramblings of a lunatic. So I think when we're dealing with the strategy of this going forward, I mean, I think Janice is quite correct that, like, the question now becomes, how do we deal with this? Well, let me put that to Janus because we will. We, Janice, you let me set it up like this. Let me set it up like this because you, you have spent your entire career kind of thinking through, you know, if they do X, we do Y. Assuming that everything is going to be sort of logically or rationally approached.

Stephen's making the point that there is no rational approach to any of this. So where does that put us? So that's actually not correct. Okay. You don't make the assumption of the other person is rational when you're doing strategy. So where I agree with state is there is huge unpredictability right now. And that's your point. That's the complex cascading events where you, and it's foolish and delusional to claim that you can predict what the United States is going to do.

So what do you then do? You're not helpless. So there's a really interesting set of methodology that we use to deal precisely with this situation. Here's what it is. Tell the most three plausible stories. Don't say this one is more likely than that one, because you actually don't know and be honest and say, I don't know, but then devise strategies to deal with each of those three.

And sometimes one of those strategies works across virtually any of those three. So, for example, take the prime minister's call for greater economic resilience in Canada. If the United States behaves in a more rational way, that's still a good thing for this country. If they behave in a completely irrational way and shoot themselves in the foot and close the bridge, it is still better for Canada to be economically more resilient. So you make investment and you balance the risks in each of the three stories and you adjust as you get more and more information about which direction they're going in.

Where I don't agree with Stephen is that the institutions have wholly collapsed in the United States. We've seen Trump back down many times over this last 13 months and he backed down when there is corresponding pressure. Let's take that famous weekend novels that have Mark Carney's speech, and the crisis over Greenland. And lo and behold, five hours later, Trump backed off Greenland. It was transparent that he backed away.

Why did he do that acronym, right? Some people call him a taco. Trump always chickens out. But why did he do it then? Because Norway, which controls one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, sold U.S. treasuries. You think that's what it was all about. You didn't need a very event.

You don't mean the advanced degree in economics to design that strategy. He backed off. So I think it's really important that people not feel helpless, not feel overwhelmed, and not feel that this country has no options. We have lots. Okay, Stephen. I don't think that Canada is helpless. Not at whole.

Like, I think there's lots and lots we can do. And I feel very optimistic about Canada's position. And as you guys know, I'm not exactly Mr. Sunshine, right? It's not like I wrote a book called how everything is going to work out. Right? I wrote a book called The Next Civil War, right? Well, you think you're optimistic, that. But the clear thing, I mean, I think the Greenland situation is actually a very clear situation

of what needs to be done. And there were three things that happened in a row that caused Trump to back down. One is the direct threat of, like, troops were moved into Greenland. So it became clear. Like, if you go into Greenland, you're going to have. have to kill people and some of your people are going to be killed. The other was the anti-coercion instrument, which was we will try as hard as we can to destroy your economy. Like we will, we will do what harm we can. And the other was Carney's speech, which was a moment of just clarity.

It was a moment of like we are clearly expressing our values. This is what need, this is the way to respond to the authoritarianism rising in the United States. Now, the second part of what you said is that the American institutions are dealing with this, or they're responding and there's acts of resistance. I said they're not completely broken down. I think when you have to say they're not completely broken down, you've said what needs to be said, right? I mean, the constitutional order, as we have known it, is in breakdown, right? And the way that what that means for us is like during the first trade war with Trump in 2016,

we could target Congress people. We could target, we could target individual regions with, with particular threats, and that would be meaningful. That's, that's no longer, that's no longer on the table.

And I think when you talk about, like, Trump's retreats, at least in America, like, when you look at them carefully, what they're actually retrenchments. I mean, even in Minnesota, where he backed down and 700 troops, 700 people,

you know, 700 ice agents left, the police, you know, got, he got commitments from the police to break up protesters in Minnesota. So in a sense, like, he ended the resistance to ICE in Minnesota. Like, that's actually a part of the story. And, you know, the way this authoritarianism works.

I mean, you know this Janice. It's like little things, one thing after another, pushing things, one thing after another. Every week, you break down things. You break more and more and more. And the United States system is simply not in anywhere near of a coherent state enough to resist that for three years, right? And when we get to the, end of this, I don't think, I don't think the ruins of America that we'll be living with at the end of this

will be any more reliable. So then the question becomes, who are, who are we dealing with? Right. And, you know, I think it's not just like, because it's not just like who is our enemy in the United States, but also which part of America is our friend? Which part, which part do we need? Can we work with? Which part, how do we use that? How do we deal with that? Because this is the reality we're in. You know, the reality we're in is that this is now an adversarial relationship. Well, let me chime in on that. Janice, is that in fact the case if, let's say, how far away are we here, 10 months from now, the Americans in the midterm election decide to take the Republican majority in the Congress

away from that party. And who knows, three years down the road, if a Democrat were to win for president, do things, quote, unquote, go back to normal? So I think there's a big space speech. between, it is, they are our adversary permanently and we have to figure out how to deal with it and that story is over. The institutions are in collapse and you that can paint to tell us a story about going back to normal.

And that's the space in between. And I don't know where we're going to be, Steve. I'm dubious that we are going back to normal because even in that very, and you're telling that optimistic story and Stephen's telling a pretty pessimistic one, I'm probably somewhere in the middle, but I think about all three. But the reason I think you're, it's not likely is because even if all that happened, the MAGA movement is not going right. There was a next election after 28 in 2032.

And everybody is going to be living with the possibility that there is a return of some version of right-wing populism in the United States, which is what we've seen. So I think we're in this for a decade, for two decades, where the United States that we knew before and the relationship that we had with the United States that we knew is not coming back. And that's where I agree with the Prime Minister. There's a rupture.

And we're moving into a different set of worlds and we have to plan for it. I do think it will make a difference, by the way, in 2026 if Democrats take control even of the House. And why is that? because they have investigative power. And they have powers to subpoena, and they have powers to coercive and impeach,

even if they can't get a conviction, frankly, in this. And so part of the way that Trump is succeeding. So people will learn how bad Donald Trump is? No, I don't think that's the issue. I don't think that's the issue is that the way he succeeds is he clubs his own, right? and he commands attention

and it's virtually impossible for anybody else to keep up so that's why it's the bridge one day and it's Greenland the other day and it'll be the article third day once there's an alternative voice in Washington that can control some of the spectrum

and flood the zone with their own stuff and they will do that there will be a much more even playing and so that's what I haven't given up on institutions in the United States I really have no It is interesting who he's losing. You know, Marjorie Taylor Green is certainly not with him anymore.

Ross Southett from the New York Times wrote a pretty scathing column the other day. He's not with him anymore. Right. You know, you can imagine down the – sorry, go ahead. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you know when there's a width, by the way, of him backing down, when there's – you know, it's almost like a sense that he's lost that iron grip on the Republican Party.

people will come out from hiding. They will belay that they discover their courage. And boy, things can change very, very rapidly. This is still a story in the making and the end is not written. Here's a quote from Stephen's piece in the New York Times. Stephen, I'll put this comment to you. You wrote, the West is feeling its betrayal turn into rage. The world is waking up to both its vulnerability and its value,

but better late than never. We're all Canadian now. Yeah. Is this unprecedented in our lifetime? I mean, it is in mine. Like, I think it's, I think I, I've never, I've never experienced, you know, people from Italian magazines calling me up to ask about the Canadian spirit. Like, I've never experienced anything like that before. Like, you know, I mean, like, I think we were just because we're so close to the America, because we're, because we understand them better than any other country. Um, this new America, we just saw it first, right? Because it's happening to people we love. It's happening to our friends and colleagues and kin and neighbors, right? Like, and so, like, we, when we saw it happen before everyone else, the Danes learned it pretty fast, right? Like, it's like, yeah, they're spitting on the dead, on your dead children, right, who died because somebody drove a plane into your building, right? Like, and I think, I think it's every, you know, we are the most vulnerable and we're also the most aware.

And that puts us in a very unique position as we watch this, this order class. You know, that's amazing things. That comment was a really great line in your piece. We're all Canadian. Let me tell you the downside here, right? Because I think if Stephen, you're right that even in Europe, the other shoe was dropped. Now, have they done anything really serious yet about changing their institutions so they can buy military stuff together? So they can finance, defense spending together or not.

happen. But at least in their rhetoric, the other shoe has dropped. But they're not all Canadian. And here's the rub. When our prime minister gets up and I gives, you know, you and I've talked about this is one of the most stirring speeches a Canadian prime minister has ever given. You said it was the best one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, by prime minister. Absolutely by sitting prime Minister. Everybody applaud. It's really easy if you're sitting on plus seats in Davos to gap and applaud our Canadian Prime Minister. But what do they do? And that's why I don't think, and I think it's really important for Canadians to understand, don't mistake applause from the Davos crowd for help that will come from Europeans when we really need it. We have to work. They are not

We have to work really hard to build those. And here's the second part of the speech that people didn't pay enough attention to, which was the variable geometry, which you and I just talked about in a piece we did together. You want to go out and do the hard work of building coalitions. And you don't need everybody in them and you actually don't want. Europe is a nightmare. The European Union is a nightmare. It's paralyzed sporadic bureaucracy. They'll have huge difficulty responding to Trump. We have an advantage. because we're not. But we have to reach in and pick off partners on issues that really matter to us.

It's astounding to me that we have not yet moved at the speed of light to form a coalition with Norway and with Iceland to invest in our Arctic together. What are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? Exactly. So it's that nimbleness and flexibility and the prime minister was talking about that too. That part of the speech didn't get very much attention. Right. So Stephen, we're all Canadian now except.

Except what? Are we doing anything about it? I mean, I just wouldn't. People talk about the sclerotic EU, but you have to remember the government that you're opposing yourself to is the American government, which, you know, can, like literally could not, could barely keep the lights on. Right. Like they're, they're constantly in the middle. of shutting down, right? Like, and, and when they're going to shut down, they're constantly going, you know, and also, you know, I would just say, like, all this stuff about Trump's unpopular now,

like, he survived being unpopular about 12 times, right? Like, he knows how to manipulate the, I mean, he's a world wrestling figure. He becomes the heel, and then there's the heel turn, and he comes back into power. So, I mean, I would say, you know, there are people talk about, like, building things, but actually, there's something much more profound that happens right away. way that has an immediate impact, which is that everything American becomes disgusting, right? America itself becomes loathsome. And that means the integration that was already underway is stop, right? And, you know, the things that we can't do as Canadians, like get off the SWIP system on our own, Europe can do. The things that we can, the real vulnerabilities that we have,

which, let's be honest, it's economic and it's partly military, but the real one is the tech stock, right, which figuring out what to do with is actually just the massive, massive national security problem. Europe can deal with that. And they know how to deal with that. They've actually, they're the only ones who've ever really taken on a tech company and the only government in the world that's done that. So when people, like, I think the EU is actually not as hopeless as, as people think.

And, you know, in terms of building coalitions and so on, I mean, obviously that just takes massive amounts of time. And work. How long ago? And, you know, but Trump is moving so fast, right? Like, like, Greenland was how long ago? Was it a month ago? Like, Venezuela was, Venezuela was like on my Christmas holidays, right? Like, like, like, and I'm freezing today, right?

Like, and that seems like historical phenomenon, right? Like, it seems like you're talking about, like, the antebellum south or something. So, like, the speed with which history is moving is indeed hard to catch up with. But I just wouldn't discount not, like, letting America any more into things, right? Like, it being very clear that, like, you're never going to allow an American tech company to have any more say over anything that you ever do ever again. You know, in the future.

Are you all false social media? Because if you're not going to let you're letting an American tech company. Well, you're using an American tech platform. Well, as I said, the tech stack, like the tech stack that Canada uses, I mean, that is our primary vulnerability. Yeah, there's strategies to deal with that. Believe it or not, Stephen, their strategy. to deal with that too. Well, I'd love to hear them because everyone I talk to says there's

nothing we can do. Because there's some really interesting work coming out. But just to go back for a second, let me go to somebody at Margaret Atwood said, right? And she said this. And boy, I thought, I always knew she's smart, but this is so smart, she said. It is colossally stupid for Canadians to hate all Americans. She said that on my show. Yeah. On your show. That's why I knew you would know it. Exactly. But do we know, I mean, do you know any people who hate all Americans?

Yeah. When Stevens just said, all of America will become discussing. If that happens in this country, it's an own goal on us. Right now, 60% of Americans and so on, I think, to do with Trump, a few of them have buyers' remorse and the ones who don't. They are, if you know Americans well and all of us, compared to the, we feel. feel right now about the Trump administration. They're apoplectic. That's happening in, this is happening in their cities to them.

They, when I talk to them, I offer moral support to them and tell them that they have friends in this country. We, we can, if Stephen is right, we absolutely cannot go there. We cannot indulge in hatred of Americans. We can say this administration is disgusting to use. your words, Stephen, and beneath contempt. But that does not apply to all Americans. No, no, no. Look, look, I mean, I actually think this is a point that requires real clarity. Like, Americans are not or anything. Like, that's, that's correct. And I mean, I think one of the things that we know as Canadians

is like, this collapse has nothing to do with the souls of the people in America, because we're not fundamentally different. I mean, you know, I walk into a bar in Minnesota. No one can really tell me apart from it from an American, right? And so it's the system. And what has become loathsome is American systems. I mean, when I was in my 20s and early 30s, everything American was better. American government was the last word in democracy. American capitalism was the height.

I mean, it was just the height of American culture was, was, was, and all of those things. And American tech, these were all the ideals, right? These were all, these were all the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, of product of production in the world, right? And now the American system, who is going to listen to American legal advice about how to structure a legal system? It's like, yeah, that'll do. Like, I don't think, you know, are we going to listen to American conservatives when they tell us how to run a country? Like, no one is ever going to listen to take those people seriously ever again. I mean, do you really want to drive an American car?

Like, you know, there's like, there's really a lot better options available out there. And, you know, the same thing goes for American education, right? Like the people coming over to Harvard are not what they were. They are, they are now dumb rich kids, right? They are now, they are now people who got access to money at a young age. That's,

and they're, they're, they're, that's, I mean, these things are all happening. And you can see it actually in the numbers of American culture. Like in 2014,

American movies were 92% of the world's screens. Now it's down to the mid-60s. When I talk about America becoming loathsome, it's not the people I'm talking about. It's that this, what was the paragon of the world? What was, you know, the end of history. The system that worked is now, we all know, is just a totally dysfunctional system that we want nothing to do with.

And the Europeans know it and we know it. And that's it. That is actually the real change that's underway, right? That's the actual change. Let me ask Janice a question about, you know, when everybody's on their best behavior and minding their peas and cues, governments treat each other and and do for each other things that perhaps are not happening these days but something did happen over the past couple of weeks that is um let's just call it out of the

ordinary and janice i'd like your view and then stephen yours on this members of the alberta separatist movement had meetings apparently with administration officials janis what's the big deal about that it is a big deal and we're right to call it out um it's not a far for members of a friendly government, which the United States claims it is to us of a friendly government, to meet with members of a party that are quite explicit. They want to secede from the country, and they went to ask for a $500 million line of credit to start their activities. Contrast, you know, what happened when we had two referend in Quebec. even though presidents of the United States

are not supposed to intervene in Canadian politics and have no views about anything that happens domestically in Canada. They did. They did. Exactly. They went out of his way. It's not the intervention.

That's the issue. They do it. Of course they do it. And they went out of the way to say, well, we would not look with favor on an independence movement, some whatever language they used. So it's not the intervention.

It's the direction. It's the direct. of the intervention. This was a tacit signal to something that I think, you know, should legitimately be worried about. Referent that are unpredictable. To go back to Steven's earlier comment. Anybody who tries to predict the outcome, it ain't seen much before. Look at Brexit and look at that debt and look at the buyer's remorse in the United Kingdom today to Brexit. But people vote in referendum, often not on the question. They vote if they're mad as the government. that's how they did.

I had an email exchange with somebody who lives in Alberta just yesterday, I think, and he said to me, if it comes to a referendum, I'm going to vote yes to separation, just because I think it'll give the government of Alberta more leverage in its negotiations with Ottawa. Right. And I said, you know, if everybody takes that view in Alberta, where does that get you? And he said, ah, it's not going to happen, don't worry. They're not going to happen. But it's all the voters who think it's not going to happen.

Who vote yes, wake up the next one? You know, my God, it happened. Well, there you go. But this happens in a very different context, okay? This happens in the context of a president who is actually looking for some 51st state. Ooh, where it is, on a silver platter is very convenient. There's a 50 first state. He'd take Alberta.

Yeah, he'd take Alberta. It's a nice part of the country, beautiful mountains. Lots of oil. Lots of oil. And there are disinformation techniques now, digital disinformation techniques that were not available. in the 90s in Quebec that would be available if we have to go through two referend this country. It's a serious issue and our government is right to signal in the strongest possible terms how offensive we find that action by the United States.

Stephen, let me ask you about it in as much as I can recall with the 1980 referendum in Quebec and the 1995 referendum in Quebec, I don't believe there was any interaction between members of the Quebec government and American officials in Washington, D.C., along the lines of, if this works, you know, we would like to be your friends. I don't think anything like that happened. When you heard that administration officials were having meetings with independence movement members from the province of Alberta, what went through your head? They spelled it all out in their national security document, which was not written by Trump. It was written by, you know, elites in Pentagon that their plan is to destroy our country, right? And, and, and, and, and, you know, and it was

And part of that, which they've done their whole lives, is interfere in the domestic politics of other countries. Right. So I don't know why we think we should be an exception. I mean, I would, I think, I mean, as an Alberta, I think I have a couple of, I have very strong feelings about it, which probably shouldn't be shared here. But like, I also think like one of, you know, when I was dealing with the separatist movements in the United States, many of which are much stronger than the Alberta separatist movement, right? the you know which ones for example well Texas is way higher but like in California is is much much higher but also even in places like Alaska there they're they're really surprising pockets of this and Vermont and there are smaller ones around but um you know the the countries break up because they don't break up because of political differences they break up because of ethnic and linguistic differences right I mean that's just that's just that's just the pattern in history

Now, of course, none of that matters when it comes to referenda, which seemed to, but, you know, I think the point here is that they're using this information they're interfering with our country. Sending a strongly worded message will not do anymore. We need to actively understand that it is in our national security interest to interfere in American politics. If we started doing it, no one could do it any better than us. We should send Janus or somebody out down there with half a billion dollars to buy a bunch of elections. Their entire political class, I mean, I wrote a book with Andrew Yang. I talked to all the political operatives. I talked to people who work in it.

They are for sale. I asked Andrew Yang, what are the three most important days in a political campaign? He said first quarterly fundraising report, second quarterly fundraising report, third quarterly fundraising report. American politics is show business with monetizable attachments to it. It can absolutely be manipulated. It is being manipulated by malign forces. We need to understand that we are not, if we are not passive in this. We need to make active moves in the United States to protect ourselves because they're sure making them against us.

Well, one thing that I did learn in your column was that the export of U.S. spirits to Canada has dropped 85% last year, and the bourbon maker Jim Beam has apparently temporarily halted production at one of its Kentucky distilleries, I guess in part because, or in large measure because not only are people across the country declining to purchase as many American spirits, as they once did. But of course, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has insisted that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario refused to shelve, refuse to stock on the shelves of all the LCBO stores, any of these American products. Here's the question, though, is our, for lack of a better expression, pissed off ofness and is that having enough impact to potentially get this administration to change its mind? Stephen, you first. Look, I don't, we're small, right? We're a small,

country. We're obviously always, we're always going to be small. And, you know, like, I would just say this quote is being brought up a lot, this Gramsci quote, like, the old order is dying, the new order is yet to be born, the time of monsters is upon us. He wrote that in 1930, right? Like, the time of monsters went on for 15 years. Like, we're at the beginning of this. We're not, we're not anywhere near the end of it. So if we're going to survive this time of monsters, we need to understand that we are small and we need to be very clever and we need to be very clear. Now, as a put, like, can we, we're going to be punched in the face. Like, to def, I don't really think it's like a question of, are we weak or are we strong?

The question is, what are we going to do, right? They had to, you know, my grandfather, they had to, when he was 17, they strapped into the back of a Hamilton bomber as a rear gunner to defend democracy. We might have to go into recession. You know, I think that's not too much of a sacrifice for us to make. to preserve our sovereignty and to preserve democracy. And I think the Canadian people are absolutely up for it. Like they are absolutely up for the preserve.

I mean, Harper put it perfectly. Right. I was just going to bring him up. I was just going to say with his portrait unveil. Harper has been very, very clear about it. And like, and I, I think, I think it's, he put it very well. There's no amount of economic pain that isn't worth sovereign. None.

Right. So like we're, we're going to be in a fight. The question is not. Are we weak or are we strong? The question is just how do we get stronger? Janice, I should ask you, have you been surprised at how forcefully, probably the most pro-U.S. president we've, or excuse me, Prime Minister we've ever had, you know, arguably Stephen Harper or Brian Mulroney.

But Harper's certainly up there on the list. And he has been, you know, we will fight any, you know, bear any burden. You know, the whole quote. You know, Stephen Harper is a very serious person. He really is he's a very serious person. whether you agree with him on everything or not, it doesn't matter. And I think he's reading two things correct. Right.

I think the first thing he's reading is there is this fundamental change in the United States, that Mark Carney, and that's where he and Mark Carney agree. And they had a conversation, and they're agreed. Secondly, I think they're reading Canadians, right? So you asked me about bourbon, right? No. Yeah. Excluding bourbon is going to.

cause a lot of pain to the bourbon makers and they'll call the White House, that's for sure to complain. But it's about us, right? This is, and that's what we have to understand. Canadians want to do something. I speak across this country and at the end of every speech, I get the question, what can we do? How can we contribute? How can we contribute? Canadians want to do something. Actually, the government is beginning to think very seriously about what we can do. Well, one thing they're thinking about is voluntary service for young people. 400,000, you know, on age 18, you're going to do something. You can be on the military side.

It can be on the civilian side. They're trying to figure it all out. But they're actually working on it. You remember when you bought, you didn't die. And Stephen didn't buy it. I didn't buy it. But our parents did. They bought war bonds, right?

Yeah. They lent money to the government at a lower interest rate so governments could pay. Believe it or not, I think that's an idea that might come back. Canadians want to contribute to this country. that care about this country, just like most people care about their own countries. We're nice, we're polite, but boy, poke us in the eye, and as we're now being poked in the eye by the Trump people, and we're going to respond.

We're not going to simply passively roll over. And I think that's the side of Canada that Americans have not really seen. They're shocked. You know, I remember being confronted by America. during the World Series, which we almost won. Steve, we almost won. We came to the bottom of the 11th. Took a broken back double play.

Yeah, it's all it would have been. But that aside, when we booed an American team in one of the playoffs, I think by the World Series we'd stop. And this person would live it, live it, that we would boo an American team. It was American. I said, what world are you living in? Where have you been? Where have you been?

Your present is insulting us day after day after day after day. And so what we're doing is right now as much about it's about us. But we have to figure out. And here I agree with Stephen. We have to figure out how we can channel that energy that we're now spending. And it feels good to us into something that will benefit this country over the longer term. It is the time to ask Canadians to serve in one way or another, their country. Stephen, I wonder if it's your experience.

It's certainly been mine that whether Americans, and I have interaction with Americans still, but whether they like Trump or whether they don't like Trump, when they find out of them Canadian, one of the first things they say is, oh, I'm sorry, we really do love you. How much of that are you getting? A lot. Well, I get, oh, sure, I get it. Well, we're in, you know, high information individuals, media, like,

little, I mean, the people you're, you're not talking to people, you know, farmers from West Virginia, I assume. You're talking to like some journalists from, you know, New York or. No, not journalists, but, but, but, you know, not farmers from West Virginia either. Yeah, they're not farmers from West Virginia. I mean, I, I do think, um, there is a certain kind of insularity to American vision where it be, American exceptionalism is just such a powerful force, uh, you know, and I don't think, not just in America, I think in the world, but to see as it comes to an end and it it turns out that history affects America just like it affects everyone else. The collapse of it is comes in stages, right? And I mean, part of the piece that I wrote

in the New York Times is like the collapse came for Canada before it came for Denmark and Germany and everyone else, but it came for them just the same as it does. In America itself, I mean, you know, they're they're really good at compartmentalizing their worlds, right? Like that's like, it's It's pretty easy to be an American and be doing horrible things in your foreign policy and still go to Cape Cod and, you know, read romance novels on the beach and say, isn't it appalling that they boot us at the World Series, right? Like, like, that's, that's always kind of been, you know, the Daisy and Tom Buchanan from the Great Gatsby. Like, they have this great amount of money. They go and smash things up and then retreat into their great money. I mean, that's, that's been an American trait. I mean, since the founding of the country. But, you know, like, not, I think they're, also I think genuinely the one I talked to my, my American friends, like the trauma of what they're experiencing in their own country is overwhelming them. And I don't think that makes perfect sense to me, right? Like, they're, they're seeing their universities, you know, they're really invested in these universities and their universities are being ransacked. There are law firms that they, they thought were these great institutions get, get destroyed. Legacy media, making deals. But even like, you know, the Lincoln Center. Like the, like the Lincoln Center is suddenly blown, blown up.

Like the Lincoln Center was something pretty damn special, right? Like it was a pretty, it was a pretty amazing institution. Like, it's being ripped apart. It'll never be recognizable again. So for them, I get why they don't particularly pay attention to Canada when their own house is on fire. Right. Like it's, and this is part of the flood the zone strategy.

That's a part of the flood the zone strategy. It really is agonizing. I obviously have a ton of friends in American universities, you know, to double down on what Stephen was just saying. It's excruciating. I have friends in Minneapolis. It's a nightmare. It's excruciating. It's not only in Minneapolis.

I mean, people are afraid in the streets of their own cities. And so those are the conversations that I actually have over and over and over with Americans who are watching us in agony, in disbelief and struggling to mobilize themselves to get going. You know, and Timothy Snyder is really great on this stuff. To mobilize in a timely enough way, not to wait anymore, not to wait for it. And the next thing, the next thing has already happened, in other words. Janice, can I ask you the follow up here? The interesting follow up, I think interesting anyway, that I want to ask is when you two

were last together on this show six months ago or so. you were definitely more of the view that Stephen's views were somewhat more catastrophizing than you were prepared to go at that moment. And I wonder whether you have moved some distance towards him, given the events of the last six months. It's a very fair question. No, no, it's a very fair question. Thank you. Steve, it's a very fair question.

So look, where I disagree with the other Stephen was as, about the predictions of a civil war, right? And we're not there yet in the United States. Now, what we've seen in Minneapolis with ICE and the expansion of ICE, I think that's just, if all the things I've seen in the United States in the last 13 months, to me the biggest worry is ICE, which is a militia. That's what it is. Okay.

And it's functioning in some ways, and this is a really frightening thing to say. It functions as a private militia. It recruits in coded language to bring in people with political views that echo the precedents, frankly. And there's almost a sense of personal loyalty to the president, which you don't have in any other police or military organization. There's a white supremacy thing about it happening too. That's right. And it's coded with language about white supremacy. It's frankly racist in its approach.

It's attacking immigrants. It's people are math. There's almost no accountability. People are disappearing into the detention camps. So we think about that. You know, there's echoes of Germany to some degree here. So am I, do I think the United States is going to erupt into civil war in the next three and a half years? No.

Because I think the struggle is playing out in classic authoritarian forms, tragically. it's the classic authoritarian playbook we're seeing here and for Americans they're not going to take it on in the streets that's not how it's going to happen I don't think

they still believe their institutions even the most pessimistic Americans who are the most alarm still believe that their institutions are going to withstand this and that their elections and the elections will be held open question will they

that they'll be held and that the result, if in fact Trump loses control of at least one house and it's likely the lower house, that that result will prevail. Until and unless, if that doesn't happen, we're in a different world. That's why I think 2026 is an absolutely critical year in which direction this story goes. Stephen Marsh, let me give you the last word. Well, I mean, you know, I think we're very far from a civil war. Like, I think, you know, the definition of a civil war by pre-o is a thousand combatant deaths a year, right?

Like, so that's, that's a long way away. But I think America is in the, I mean, it's accelerating very quickly. And it is in this, it is in the state of cascading violence that can lead anywhere. But I think we're already in a place where the legitimacy of institutions has shrunk to the point where violence has become a legitimate form of political expression in the United States. And I think it is, it is, to me, you know, there's not really any definition of this, but I think it has entered a period like the troubles in Ireland, like the days of lead in Italy, where violence is a method of expression, right? And it has become validated as a method of expression. That, of course, is totally unsustainable

and toxic, right? Like, it's not doable. Steve, can we have Stephen back once every two months or so for a temperature check? It would be actually great to do it through all of this year. Whose temperature? Both of ours. Are we more, you know, is the agreement widening or nowering? Where do we think we are in this story? It's such a critical year. The thing to really think about strategically for Canada is like, how are they going to get, like, when this comes to an end, when this Trump episode comes to an end, what are the answers that they are going to have to get out of it?

Right. Are you going to have, like, what you have in complementary radicalization, which is one of the models in the book, is that, you know, it would predict that the next thing that happens in the United States is a left-wing government that's worse than the current right-wing government, right? I mean, because you've seen people, like, it's become normalized in the United States to deport people for op-eds, right? Like, you're rounding people up on the basis of signing on to docket, to things written in student newspapers, right? Children have seen people come, come and take the people working in the kitchen away, right? So, you when you have what is what is narrowing here is any good options for the united states right like

what are they supposed to do are they supposed to clean clean out everything or are they supposed to forget that it ever happened or like none of the none of these options are good and so this is where you get this building force um like is the next option basically 2020 and all of that but armed this time like is that even is that is that where we're going to i mean i think all of this is just incredibly unpredictable. But I would just say that we know that more chaos is coming and more monsters are coming. So act accordingly. That would be my final. That would be my final. Okay. Just before we sign off here, let me do a little housekeeping before we go. Those of you who have watched this show before, we'll know that we have set up a Patreon account.

It's called patreon.com slash the Paken podcast. We want to keep this show free, but for those of you who want to support it, help keep the lights on. You get the episodes early before anybody else. You get them without ads in them. We've got some web-exclusive video there. I did a session the other day at Oise, the Ontario Institute for Studies and Education, with Nobel Prize-winning Professor Jeffrey Hinton. And he had some absolutely fascinating things to say about the effect of AI on our education

system here in Canada. And that conversation and the panel discussion, which followed it, will be on the Patreon page. So you can get access to all that. And you know what? People are actually doing this. And I want to give some props before we go away here because I want to thank Febrian Boudymund and Holly Donne from Blacklocks in Ottawa and David Donovan and Tim Follis and Sam Lando, Liam Mitchell, Andrew Mugford, Anthony Osler, a guy named Larry Paken. Who would he be? Oh yeah, that might be my dad. Mike Schuster, Alessandro Sisti, and Barry Wandsborough, who's a big friend of Larry Pakins, also from Hamilton.

These folks have all decided to reach into their pockets and help support what we're doing here, and we are extremely grateful for that. I want to remind everybody that all of our shows are archived at the website, stevepaken.com. And with that, I thank Stephen Marsh, and we look forward to seeing you again. Janice has obviously extended an invitation for you to return sometime down the road. So I hope you will answer our call when that comes. For sure.

Let's open two months. I'm totally wrong. Let's hope in two months it's like, Steve, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, what were you thinking? That would be the dream situation. I agree.

I agree. We shall see. And Janice and we'll see you again in two weeks time. In the meantime, everybody, peace and love. And we'll see you next time. See you soon.