Full Comment

The COVID-19 crisis has presented a minefield of bioethical questions, which Canadian policy-makers have largely stomped all over. It’s not just the damage of lockdowns, the treatment of children, demonizing the unvaxxed, and the privacy invasions. It’s also the callous disregard for anything happening beyond Canada’s borders. Bioethicist Dr. Kerry Bowman joins Anthony this week to discuss the pro...

He served jail time in Mississippi for defying racial segregation laws. He was there at the founding the NDP. And he once believed that private property was a crime. But Michael Audain has come a long way since then, becoming one of the most successful players in B.C.’s torrid housing sector. And he’s made a massive fortune — his foundation recently gave $100 million to the Vancouver Art Gallery —...

We’re the safest we’ve ever been from COVID: The vast majority of us are vaccinated and the highest-risk people have boosters. The virus has mutated into its mildest version ever. Yet, in Canada, governments are once again closing schools, locking down businesses and deploying the same fearful, knee-jerk responses they’ve always used. Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, a frontline infectious diseases speciali...

McGill University scientist Patanjali Kambhampati is on the cutting edge of laser research, but government funders refuse to support him — simply because he doesn’t believe in “diversity, equity and inclusion.” As a minority who has experienced racism himself, Kambhampati joins Anthony to discuss why he believes science is a true meritocracy, and why critical scientific advancements rely on people...

Canada’s reaction to the new COVID-19 variant suggests we haven’t yet learned from our past mistakes, Dr. Neil Rau tells Anthony in this episode of Full Comment. The flight bans to stop Omicron will prove pointless, explains Rau, an infectious-diseases expert and medical microbiologist in Toronto. Meanwhile, officials’ outdated attitudes about case counts, PCR tests, vaccinations and restrictions...

Desperate to get out of the pandemic, Canadians have rushed to give up their privacy. We offer our sensitive digital health information to go out in public. Contact tracing, COVID-19 apps and QR codes trace our movements. Meanwhile, we’re building an information network that can give governments vast surveillance powers that remain long after the pandemic, says privacy expert Ann Cavoukian. The fo...

There’s something funny about the attempts by woke warriors to cancel “problematic” comedians like Louis C.K. and Dave Chapelle — because it never works. Legendary comedy-club impresario Mark Breslin joins Anthony this week to tell stories about the comic wars he’s been through since he opened his first Yuk Yuk’s in 1976. And he explains why the scolds who try to take the laughs out stand-up shows...

North American elites wish we were all a bit more European. From work-life balance to climate progressivism, Europeans seem to embody the paragon of sophistication that liberals dream of. In real life, however, Europe is a mess. Outside its fashionable capitals lie sprawling impoverished suburbs. Unemployment haunts millions of unassimilated immigrants. Europe’s business innovation is lagging, its...

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post in 1972. Since then, Woodward has written books about presidents Nixon, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and both president Bushes. His latest book, Peril, is about the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, and the tumultuous transition from Trump to President Joe Biden. Woodward is the speaker this year at the Audi Innovation Serie...

Canada might never fully solve the pandemic problem until we understand why some people are so resistant to getting the vaccine. That means actually sitting down and talking to people who aren’t typical anti-vaxxers but are suddenly opting to lose their jobs rather than roll up their sleeves for a COVID shot. Anita Davis is one of those people. After 30 years as a nurse, she was just terminated fr...

The concept of the “citizen” is found rarely throughout human history, and those lucky enough to have it must guard it jealously. It is one of the most cherished ideals of our liberal, democratic societies. But the forces of globalization and progressivism, and the elites who benefit from them, are working to erode it. Victor Davis Hanson is a prominent American intellectual, a scholar of ancient...

Beijing’s threats to invade Taiwan are getting serious. Military tensions are ramping up. And a war — perhaps even a Third World War — is not out of the question. It could even be inevitable. Scott Simon, co-chair of Taiwan studies at the University of Ottawa, joins Anthony to explain why he thinks Xi Jinping’s China today looks a lot like Hitler’s Germany in 1938, bullying the world to appease it...

He became famous for refusing to back down to animal-rights protestors picketing his meat-focused Toronto restaurant, defiantly butchering and eating a leg of deer in front of them in 2018. But the climate for Michael Hunter's Antler restaurant, and for wild-game enthusiasts, remains hostile. He joins Anthony this week to discuss the devastation to restaurants caused by government pandemic policie...

After their latest election loss, Canada’s Conservatives are discovering that they simply don’t have what Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney once relied on to win federal elections. And Erin O’Toole’s shape-shifting, from a hard-right leadership candidate to a Liberal-lite campaigner, clearly didn’t prove to be the path to victory. Tasha Kheiriddin, national politics columnist for Postmedia, joins...

Housing prices keep soaring. Inflation is hot again. Even the upper middle class is struggling to keep up. Today, life in Canada is becoming harder than living elsewhere. Meanwhile, governments keep making matters worse by pumping out money, raising taxes and creating energy crises, while pushing elaborate economic transitions. Martin Pelletier, portfolio manager at Wellington-Altus Private Counse...

The People’s Party of Canada didn’t elect any MPs in Canada’s recent federal vote, but its platform opposing vaccine passports and promoting free markets and reduced immigration got nearly a million votes, roughly tripling the PPC’s support over its 2019 debut at the polls. Bernier was excluded from the leaders’ TV debates and his party was hammered with negative coverage during the campaign for i...

Peter Bergen was the first journalist to produce a TV interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, where the terrorist leader first declared war on America. In his reporting from Afghanistan since the ’90s, Bergen witnessed how the Taliban-controlled country became a safe haven for bin Laden’s al-Qaida and for global terrorism. Now, 20 years after 9/11, the Biden administration has surrendered Afghanis...

With his journey to a majority government hitting the rocks, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is ditching his sunny ways and doing all he can to spook swing voters away from the Conservatives and frighten NDP voters into saving his Liberals from a split vote. He’s warning that Tory Leader Erin O’Toole will ban abortion, empower anti-vaxxers, and open the floodgates to more assault weapons, climate ch...

The majority of Canadians have been clamouring for vaccine passports as a way to make them feel safer about COVID-19. But while feeling safe isn’t the same as actually being safe, politicians are rushing ahead with these polarizing policies anyway. Christine Van Geyn, litigation director at The Canadian Constitution Foundation, talks to Anthony about why passport policies probably won’t work, but...

In 2017, Mark Norman was in line to be Canada’s next chief of defence staff — until he was accused of and criminally charged with leaking government secrets. It was an accusation that was widely seen as a political witch-hunt by the Liberal government, and the House of Commons eventually offered an all-party apology for it when the charges were dropped. Had that not happened, the retired vice-admi...

Federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole takes a break from the campaign trail for an exclusive one-on-one conversation with Anthony to discuss Ottawa abandoning Canada’s allies to the Taliban, and how Conservatives, if elected, will offer a more serious foreign policy, particularly when it comes to China. O’Toole also explains why he believes the Liberals under Justin Trudeau are fumbling the eco...

Description: Separatism is rising in the West. Federal leaders wield fear to win power. Division and dirty politics are only getting worse. And all indications are that this election could intensify distress and disunity. Preston Manning, founder of the populist Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, joins Anthony to discuss the threat to Canada if politicians continue to perpetuate the problems th...

Hollywood’s box-office formula is infected with COVID. The pandemic got audiences more used to streaming at home, instead of heading out for a pricey night at the theatre. And it doesn’t look like they’ll be racing back to the cineplex soon just for more played-out superhero sequels, pretentious dramas or preachy woke films. Mark Daniell. Entertainment editor at Postmedia, joins Anthony to talk ab...

Negativity seems to be the only thing we hear from media and public officials about the virus: An endless narrative of more fear, more warnings and more waves. Throughout the pandemic, Canada has acted entirely out of proportion to the problem. And now we’re being warned that, with the Delta variant, the worst may still be to come, while rare “breakthrough” infections are played up for scary headl...

It’s obvious: the Trudeau Liberals are prepping to call an election, apparently confident they can cruise to another victory. But Jenni Byrne knows polls and pundits have been wrong before — very wrong. Byrne was a key manager in national campaigns for Stephen Harper during his years leading the Conservatives to power from 2006 to 2015. She joins Anthony to explain why Erin O’Toole’s Conservative...