Vote with a Brick
A podcast about Canadian politics hosted by two thirty-something white men from Ontario (yeah -- we know).
Episodes
This week we're taking another look at Canada's foreign policy, through the framing of Ed Burmila's "Naught by NATO" -- an article we've referenced before.
Since the last time we tried to talk about this was frankly a bit embarrassing, we brought in a ringer to help us stumble through. Kaliene Jackson has studied the rhetoric and impacts (and the gap between them) of Canada's Feminist Foreign Aid program...
We've been taking a little summer break and this week we're bringing you an episode we recorded in the midst of the Ontario election. As a bulwark against the ongoing trudge into barbarism and cynicism, we've dreamt up some grounded, realistic "demands" to immediately make worker's lives materially better.
Steve takes a quick look at improvements that could immediately improve housing affordability, desirabi...
This week, Tim and a very congested Steve are joined by indigenous activist and labour organizer Carissa Taylor. A recent transplant to the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations -- also known as Vancouver -- Carissa shares how she's navigated her work with indigenous peoples on the Western Coast and how she understands Canada Day through the lens of her own identity as a settler-pa...
Well, it's a month late and an (Australian) dollar short, but we are finally releasing a fascinating conversation with labour organizer (and Shadowfist player) Cameron Watson. From ranked ballot voting to whacky independents and democracray sausages, there's a lot to envy about Australia's political landscape. At the very least, you can't say it's boring (which is a lot more than we can say about Ontario's n...
This week, Tim (all by himself) brings you a fascinating conversation about populism with political scientist Simon Black. Tim and Simon discuss how the rhetoric and "thin" political strategy of appealing to working people as a class has been so effective on the political right and what the left can do in response.
Find Simon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_SimonBlack
What's The Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank
https:/...
Thank god it's over. The election has come and gone and 33% of Ontarians have spoken: we apparently forgot what the last two years have been like and decided we want more of the same -- plus a new highway, I guess.
Steve and Tim do their best to recap the final day of the election and talk about what the left can do now.
This week we tried to come up with things to say about this dismal, boring election, which seems like it's heading directly into the PC's pockets. In brighter news, the NDP is set to elect more landlords than unionists and the Liberals are accusing them of hating women. It's been a great week.
This week we took a little listen to the leaders' debates. Steve tries to highlight some better moments and, in typical academic tradition, Tim discusses the futility of debates in general. We discuss some late campaign promises from the NDP and Liberals and lament the fact that we are stuck with the leaders (and parties) we have, not the ones we wish we had.
We're back at it with another campaign update. This week we discuss the northern Ontario leader's debate, some new campaign promises, including the various ways that the platforms overlap (especially the NDP and Liberals). We try our best to make sense of so-called strategic voters and Tim confonts Steve with the polls -- lest we get too excited about the future of our province, god forbid.
The race to the premier's office has begun and we're here to pretend we understand what is going on. This is the first of our four-part weekly election coverage. In this episode, we talk about the major party platforms; the lack of ambition and enthusiasm from the supposedly left-leaning NDP; and the Liberals' half-measures that seem to only help suburban homeowners. We also fret about the popularity of Doug Ford and th...
It's a long one this week! Tim brought in one of his longtime colleagues and friends, political scientist Blayne Haggart, to explain how Canadian federal budgets work and how this one, specifically, helps (or tries to help) Canadians with housing, affordability, the enviornment and healthcare. He also spends a surprising amount of time extolling the virtues of heat pumps.
The 2022 Federal Budget - https://budget.gc.ca/2022/home...
After a technical snafu, we were forced to improvise this week and thought: what better way to gear up for election season than to detail the many times Doug Ford let Ontarians down?
CBC: 'I regret going': Protester says he spent life savings to support Freedom Convoy
CBC: Ontario's 6th wave of COVID-19: How bad will it get?
CTV: Ontario likely seeing 100K to 120K new COVID-19 cases each day, head of science table says
CB...
This episode we talk with Ayeza, one of the founders of LiberAsian London, about organizing against hate, organizing on the left in general, and what we can learn from revolutionary optimism.
LiberAsian London on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liberasianldn/
Assata Shakur's Autobiography: https://www.akpress.org/assata.html
"The Barricade" by Lowest of the Low, © Beer, Graffiti Songs, used with permission
If you're like us, you woke up on Tuesday morning to the breaking news that the NDP and Liberals have entered into a "Supply and Confidence Agreement" that will (hopefully) prevent another election until 2025. In this special bonus episode of the podcast, Tim and Steve will do their darndest to help you understand what that means.
Spoiler alert: it's not bad -- in fact, it's quite good -- but not nearly enough.
...
This was a tough one.
Tim and Steve try their best to summarize several decades of Ukrainian struggles for independence and autonomy. We grapple with the reality that there are no easy answers, no good outcomes and very little we can do to help.
Donate to the Ukrainian Red Cross
CTV: CRA to send out new round of letters checking eligibility from CERB recipients
CBC: Private ski club runs big surplus, buys new snow-making gear, large...
We'll be back March 11th
Donate to the Red Cross:
https://redcross.org.ua/en/
In this episode, Tim takes us through a short history of the NDP, from it's beginnings as the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation), through it's various dalliances with centrism and arriving where we are today. Steve tries desperately to contextualize this within the frame of US politics amidst his limited knowledge of history.
Regina Manifesto: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-regina-manifesto-1933-co...
"The difficult second episode" kicks off with our new theme song and a discussion of the new name of the show, based on said theme song. Special thanks to Ron Hawkins and the Lowest of the Low for the inspiration.
This week we spent far too much time trying to convince each other that the so-called "Freedom" Convoy of mostly-not-truckers that descended on Ottawa was anything but a complete clusterfuck. A fascist cou...
After nearly two years of constant arm-twisting, Steve was able to convince Tim to record a podcast. In this first episode, we discuss the current state of COVID-19 in Canada -- namely, that we all need to "get used to it" now, apparently. We skirt around talking about the "freedom" convoy and Tim educates Steve on the late NDP leader, Alexa McDonough.
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