Listen to “2020 Division: Foreign Policy Fails and a Fractured Political Year Ahead” on Spreaker.

On the first episode of 2020, host Andre Goulet greets a new decade with SFU/UBC polisci academic and politics pundit Stewart Prest to investigate the Liberal government’s frustrating foreign policy record, including an update on Huawei scion Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case and Canada/China relations and exploring why ex-foreign minister Chrystia Freeland’s support for the South American far-right has been a moral failure.
Plus: a look at where party politics stand in early 2020 and what to expect for the year ahead.

Twenty years ago, workers at the Calgary Herald went on what would become an eight-month strike, citing editorial overreach, a torqued political slant, and unfair treatment in the newsroom. Herald striker Terry Inigo-Jones joins Team Advantage to discuss his experience taking on the Herald and its then-owner, Conrad Black. This story has it all, folks— Canadian media concentration, scabs who you’ll now recognize as right-wing hacks, a literal press baron, police intimidation and brutality, private security goons, and much much more.

It’s a few weeks away from the democratic primary actually beginning and things are starting to get extremely stupid, so Katie Halper from Rolling Stone‘s Useful Idiots podcast joins host Rob Rousseau to break down last week’s Bernie/Warren feud. Plus: the (beyond parody) New York Times editorial board endorsement, the Nazi gun nut rally in Virginia and some info on how to support the Wet’suwet’en Coastal GasLink blockade.

According to the CBC, Peter McKay will be running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. This is no surprise, given that there have been people wanted MacKay to run since Andrew Scheer lost the 2019 Federal election.
On a new episode of Left Politics, History and Culture, Kingston-based Academic Christo Aivalis explains why, if MacKay runs as a moderate and convinces CPC members that his centrist position will make it possible to defeat Justin Trudeau in key swing ridings, he may well become Prime Minister.