Full disclosure: I have a kid who, at 14, declared herself to be trans. I absolutely have skin in this game. And like many parents caught in this bizarre circumstance, I feel abandoned by doctors, schools, and the media.
Your take on gender ideology, once you finally gave in and started talking about it, has been the most measured, reasonable and respectful that I have heard in all of Canadian media.
A few points in response to your discussion:
Thank you for stating that the parents’ demonstrations were not hateful. Yes, there are always hateful fringe elements that show up. But as you said, this was not a skinhead rally.
I agree that 99.9% teachers are not groomers. But. I would argue that it’s worse than that. They are simply trying to be nice. In our complacent Canadian way, nobody will question or push back on anything. So you have some girls or boys (seems to be the quirky, awkward, brainy types) that feel socially inept or uncomfortable at puberty. They declare they are trans and need opposite sex pronouns. At school. Now. Or they will die.
What’s a teacher to do with this? They go along with it. Throw in a few “studies” that show they’re saving a kids’ life. That feels rewarding, doesn’t it?
Are some kids going to go on to transition and benefit from it? Yes. But this is not right for every kid. And yet, we as a society are acting as though it is. As you said, Jen, where’s the solid evidence on that?
And yet, this idea that children and teens “just know” if they are trans and they’re never wrong has “buy in from gatekeepers”. Jen, that was your phrase for knowing when we’re in a moral panic. And that’s exactly what’s happening with trans ID.
In fact, the evidence that this is actually helpful in every case is extremely flimsy. It’s so flimsy that England, Finland, Demark and other more sensible counties have stopped providing wholesale transition treatments to minors.
But not here. That’s why some parents are scared to death. That’s why some parents are protesting. Some kids are getting on this trans ID train in the classroom and some will mistakenly end up riding it all the way to surgery and hormones - and some will come to regret it later. We know that because they’re telling us that happened. (Chloe Cole is one example.)
Jen, I will be first in line to buy your book on the satanic panic when it comes out. There are definitely similarities. I would argue the harm from this era of of trans ID will ultimately be much deeper and widespread. But that may just be because my kid and I are unfortunate, unwitting soldiers in it.
I’ve been waiting patiently so as not to be the first to make an embarrassing reply that can’t possibly add to your masterpiece; but I want to support you because you are obviously an excellent, loving, caring and patient parent in it for the long haul. You guys will be fine. You aren’t abandoned. Keep searching until you find what you need.
Please know you are not alone and there are many parents in your position. Support groups are available. Probably the most well known website is PITT: Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans who publish a parent's heartbreaking essay every single day.
Alberta is serious. There is already a survey that is phrased very positively and isn’t actually collecting data on how people feel about the idea but rather how people would want the extra savings and benefits handled. There are some questions about diversification etc but it’s not a serious survey meant to illuminate issues - it’s a survey meant to say people support the idea of an APP.
As a side note, I subscribed to the line because I appreciate your nuanced views and you make me think about a wide variety of topics. Sometimes I change my mind after reading an article or listening to a podcast. If nothing else I’m always more informed and it’s what I appreciate about the Line. So thank you for being mostly non-partisan and for shining a light on those things which really do need to be called out.
A rare feat, but Jen's comments actually succeeded in annoying the the hell out of me.
Yes, she's correct that very few schools/teachers are pushing kids to be trans. There's not a "conspiracy". But her take is also how real issues get marginalized, by piling on a straw man.
The argument isn't that there's some conspiracy of teachers to make kids trans. It's that there's some strong, vocal subset that is driving many regions and schools to (a) encourage kids that it's positive to be trans and (b) hide information from parents. The massive and vocal support of teacher's unions against the marches contradicts Jen's very point. If there wasn't SOME sort of agenda, then why have all teacher's unions been the most vociferous in opposing the marches?
We've lived it ourselves. I get how in Alberta where Jen lives this may not be the case, but in West End Vancouver I can assure it is. I can tell you numerous stories of teachers pushing and encouraging kids to be trans, to a point where a friend's child's friends were all trans. The local elementary school where I lived had a VP who was very vocal about his goals in this (he had previously been an activist in the gay book ban court case).
This isn't a common experience across Canada or among our friends. But there is a significant minority where it very much is. We have another friend looking for schools in Burnaby for his child, and the closes school has taken a very vocal and pro-trans policy that has resulted in a very high percentage of trans students. Not a conspiracy, but a very clear ideology that is being pushed by a small but powerful minority.
I'll also say - there's a clear generational gap between older and younger teachers. We see it in our friend/family group as well, where there is much more of an activist mindset among younger teachers we know vs. older (often retired) ones.
Wow, Sad_Mom , not only do you have “skin in the game” you seem to have your brain in the game. Such a rarity. You raise some very important points, nuanced, yet relying on facts not emotion. One key point you raise is that most Canadians are keen to be supportive of children of all stripes. When confronted by an impassioned, ideological believer, few people have the time or the inclination to step into a fight where they have no dog. Out of an abundance of tolerance the activist position goes unopposed and triumphs. Small advances are entrenched until one morning a person wakes up and either realizes they do, in fact, have a dog in the fight( their child starts school) and they face a tough uphill battle or they realize the official position has become so truly bizarre it is unbelievable. For me it was the pictures of a male Ontario teacher wearing enormous prosthetic breasts operating a saw in shop class with no visible protective gear of any kind. How could this happen in nanny state Canada? What starts as a simple request to accommodate trans students morphs into a situation where obvious standards of safety, decorum and common sense cannot be enforced…. In a school! Suggesting maybe there is something a bit off in this situation is now a hate crime.
Matt you said yourself, 5-10% of teachers have the fanatic's gleam in their eye. No it isn't a grand conspiracy to trans all the kids, but in schoolboards the percentage of fanatics is much higher. This minority of ideologues are allowed/encouraged to run roughshod, and they are in fact teaching and doing highly questionable things. Not sure if you got my email with the photos of the assless fishnets drag queen for my kindergartener's class, but that event didn't just happen by accident, it's indicative of the school letting the nutters call the shots. I have all kinds of tangible evidence that what actual teachers in my actual kids school are doing is not appropriate, many (the majority of?) parents agree but are cowed into silence. Add "kids just know they are trans" to "we *need* to talk incessantly to primary kids about whacky sex and gender ideas" to "parents can't be trusted and won't be told", and you have a problem. It's not a "culture war" to want a say in what your kid is taught, especially when esoteric notions are taught as unquestionable facts.
Teachers are the meat compressed between the buns of the “Bürger”. The pressure is supplied by many players. The school boards are the purveyors of the government’s grease for the squeaky grill and of the cooking gas. We light the match. Poof. Extinguish. Clean up. Repeat in cycles.
My native tongue is German. “Bürger” is the German translation of citizen. That is how I arrived at the facetious analogy. Enjoy.
My wife is a long serving highschool teacher. It is impossible for her to do everything that everyone wants on six hours per night of sleep. This model is not sustainable.
Haha, now I get it. I think teacher fatigue is yet another reason for a "back to basics" approach. I know thats a tired cliché, but I think the focus has to be on academic achievement, and schools like ours which spend inordinate amounts of time on sex and gender (Pride Week was 10 days long, with kids being out of the class for much of it) are wasting precious resources. On top of the time wasted, we can't expect teachers to be competent in academic pedagogy, and also become fluent in a new, convoluted, and constantly changing language of social justice identitarianism.
Bingo Reg. Even though the “blue pages” theoretically can’t persecute me, I still cautiously speak in parables on this subject. You can’t cleanse an East Berliner’s paranoia or dry humour.
The grade 12s: Ms. T, do we have to go to Monday’s assembly? We’ve had this one every year. We’ve got it memorized. Can’t we use this great weather, that is going to turn soon, to gather more data for the extremely interesting biology project you gave us?
Being a teacher you know the answer. And you know the kids are ok. They get it. The supposed adults in the tower … ?
I thought this week’s ep was good—clearly coming from a normie perspective though with a somewhat more informed than the usual normie knowledge level. I see & understand M&J’s hesitancy to dive headlong in, but at the same time I remember all the excellent articles they’ve published by Allan Stratton so studiously avoid mentioning that it is not just LGBTQ vs ‘phobes but in fact often LG leading the resistance to TQ gets annoying.
Are there ‘phobes in the parents’ rights team? Yeah, definitely, and they suck, and they need to be challenged, publicly and loudly... which is quite likely not being done enough at the moment. Are there some literal paedos in the TQ movement? Well, duh. They’d be stupid not to be out stumping for an ideology that says vulnerable kids can consent to practically anything, should have access to sexually explicit material, and should have their mental & physical development arrested—particularly when they can pass off their activism by wrapping it in the sheep’s clothing of selfless concern for distressed kids. Are they the majority? No, of course not, they are a tiny, tiny percent of the population, and accusing well-meaning people of being groomers when, for the most part, they’ve just latched on to what they see is a fashionably righteous cause, is at the very least counterproductive.
But at the same time, just like the parent’s rights side needs to call out & refute the actual ‘phobes among them, it’s not a “culture war” to point out some of the dark elements in the trans rights side and note that they often seem to be protected, instead of exposed, by their allies.
and like M&J say in the podcast, they (the media) are to blame for the current mess: their fear/refusal to touch this topic has made it the juggernaut it is today
Excellent session! As one of the 10% I'm always looking to increase my understanding of the issues I very much appreciate what you guys are doing.
I think Matt totally nails what Doug Ford is about. What people haven't been saying out loud is that he and his buddies were likely to receive a lot of back-end compensation off the Greenbelt deal. It was more than just incompetence but I guess you have to be careful how you say that.
When Trudeau announced the India allegations I figured they must have a real, perhaps literal, smoking gun. After listening to the podcast I have a bad feeling about this.
I'm currently in Alberta and talk around the table at a dinner party last night was the pension plan idea is ludicrous. I warned people that Danielle Smith has a history of very poor judgment. That's just who she is. Even if this magical thinking was to come true and they get 50% of the CPP she would use Albertan's pension money to prop up the failing oil industry. As soon as the price drops below a certain point the foreigners (who own , what, 90% of the industry?) will vacate the oil sands leaving their mess and good luck getting any cleanup money from them. That's when building alternate Industries would really pay off. Didn't Danielle just stifle the competition? Yeehaw!
On the Alberta pension plan: anyone who does not recognize how chauvinism, grievance-mongering, and wishful thinking can undermine a rational disussion and assessment of economic self-interest, has forgotten the lessons of Brexit.
On Indian mischief: there is a huge chasm between the highly qualified assertion that there are “credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen", on the one hand, and a bald allegation that “India carried out an assassination”, on the other.
We have yet to see enough actual evidence to clarify the situation and it remains to be seen whether we ever will.
However, given the way that CSIS and the RCMP totally botched the Air India bombing and later investigation and trials, I am not surprised that India might not trust Canadian politicians, trolling for ethnic votes, to contain these threats and want to keep an eye on things.
Indeed, it appears that the CSIS leakers don’t trust the government either.
Always love Jen and Matt’s discussions, but this one was particularly great. Great insight on all of these topics. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Jen’s book for a long time and will be first in line to buy when it comes out!
Oh yeah, Diane Ehrensaft. I actually read her paper on ritual abuse and it is crazy that she hasn’t had to answer for her involvement in the whole SRA debacle and has moved on to a new obsession. Highly recommend the book “Making Monsters” by Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, if you’re interested in the topic!
is that the same Diane Ehrensaft who says a toddler that pulls out her barrettes is non-vocally telling her parents she is actually a boy? that a toddler who pulls open the bottom snaps of his onesie (making it looks like a dress?!?) is non-vocally telling his parents he is actually a girl?
Diane, I also am hearing impaired - felicitous phrase, no? - so I do understand your problem! Apologies but I just discovered your post asking about CC. Actually, The Line videos are (of course) available but no CC if you simply use The Line video feed but those videos are also on YouTube and THAT is close captioned. Best of all, the YouTube video comes out pretty much when the podcast comes out whereas The Line video usually comes out on Sundays.
Ok. I’m an Albertan (57 year old rural veterinarian).
First of all the Alberta Government did NOT crunch the numbers on our CPP “value”. Morgan Shepell ( or whatever their new name is ) did that math. Apparently there is a fairly well prescribed process and formula for a province to withdraw from the CPP. They followed this formula. These are the numbers they arrived at. Is that final? Probably not. Accountants can agree or disagree with some allocations of what goes where. It’s a formula.
So is the equalization formula. And no matter how unfair to Alberta that formula is the federal government defends it to the death.
The CPP withdrawal is also a formula. Will the federal government defend it to the death if it shows to benefit Alberta?
Or will the federal government only defend formulas that screw Alberta ?
Re Alberta being 50% of the GTA. Back in the '60's, a group of Windsor cops called The Brothers In Law sang of a great comparison of Canada vs the US. With respect to Canada's (or, perhaps Alberta's) position in the US flag" they sang:
"We'd be just before Connecticut in the third row from the right"
India won't care, doesn't care because it has leverage over the US and the rest of NATO and the "west". The US is far too invested into the India ecosystem (apple ect) and won't speak too far. Also India is also the main pillar to bat against China in the Indo Pacific for the French, and the Quad (India, Japan, Australia and India aka the Asian NATO)
Canada is a lower end Middle power. That's the reality
“But Canada — meaning Trudeau and his top people — is now in a global fight with an emerging superpower.”
Which is likely; India’s govt wants to push good ole Canada around to score some easy points on the home front.
I must say that the quoted sentence sounds kind of silly by itself. It seems to imply that Canada thinks itself as unprovokable and above such challenges.
Trudeau would have publically "outed" India only with the prior knowledge of the USA and other FVEY members. No doubt, the goal is to get India to find the "rogue" element(s) in their security services and deal with it publically, much like how the Saudi's dealt with the supposed instigators after the Khashoggi killing. Our allies are keeping quiet in order not to further escalate the situation and to give India time to deal with this appropriately and "save face".
The fatal flaw in all if this is that India does not share our "western values" and does not consider the US as an ally. Their goal is a multi-polar world that will see India become a great power. Although concerned with China's increasing belligerence, India has taken a different approach. A weakened USA with less global power is very much the goal of China and India. Although India has no interest in doing this militarily.
Full disclosure: I have a kid who, at 14, declared herself to be trans. I absolutely have skin in this game. And like many parents caught in this bizarre circumstance, I feel abandoned by doctors, schools, and the media.
Your take on gender ideology, once you finally gave in and started talking about it, has been the most measured, reasonable and respectful that I have heard in all of Canadian media.
A few points in response to your discussion:
Thank you for stating that the parents’ demonstrations were not hateful. Yes, there are always hateful fringe elements that show up. But as you said, this was not a skinhead rally.
I agree that 99.9% teachers are not groomers. But. I would argue that it’s worse than that. They are simply trying to be nice. In our complacent Canadian way, nobody will question or push back on anything. So you have some girls or boys (seems to be the quirky, awkward, brainy types) that feel socially inept or uncomfortable at puberty. They declare they are trans and need opposite sex pronouns. At school. Now. Or they will die.
What’s a teacher to do with this? They go along with it. Throw in a few “studies” that show they’re saving a kids’ life. That feels rewarding, doesn’t it?
Are some kids going to go on to transition and benefit from it? Yes. But this is not right for every kid. And yet, we as a society are acting as though it is. As you said, Jen, where’s the solid evidence on that?
And yet, this idea that children and teens “just know” if they are trans and they’re never wrong has “buy in from gatekeepers”. Jen, that was your phrase for knowing when we’re in a moral panic. And that’s exactly what’s happening with trans ID.
In fact, the evidence that this is actually helpful in every case is extremely flimsy. It’s so flimsy that England, Finland, Demark and other more sensible counties have stopped providing wholesale transition treatments to minors.
But not here. That’s why some parents are scared to death. That’s why some parents are protesting. Some kids are getting on this trans ID train in the classroom and some will mistakenly end up riding it all the way to surgery and hormones - and some will come to regret it later. We know that because they’re telling us that happened. (Chloe Cole is one example.)
Jen, I will be first in line to buy your book on the satanic panic when it comes out. There are definitely similarities. I would argue the harm from this era of of trans ID will ultimately be much deeper and widespread. But that may just be because my kid and I are unfortunate, unwitting soldiers in it.
I’ve been waiting patiently so as not to be the first to make an embarrassing reply that can’t possibly add to your masterpiece; but I want to support you because you are obviously an excellent, loving, caring and patient parent in it for the long haul. You guys will be fine. You aren’t abandoned. Keep searching until you find what you need.
Please know you are not alone and there are many parents in your position. Support groups are available. Probably the most well known website is PITT: Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans who publish a parent's heartbreaking essay every single day.
Alberta is serious. There is already a survey that is phrased very positively and isn’t actually collecting data on how people feel about the idea but rather how people would want the extra savings and benefits handled. There are some questions about diversification etc but it’s not a serious survey meant to illuminate issues - it’s a survey meant to say people support the idea of an APP.
As a side note, I subscribed to the line because I appreciate your nuanced views and you make me think about a wide variety of topics. Sometimes I change my mind after reading an article or listening to a podcast. If nothing else I’m always more informed and it’s what I appreciate about the Line. So thank you for being mostly non-partisan and for shining a light on those things which really do need to be called out.
A rare feat, but Jen's comments actually succeeded in annoying the the hell out of me.
Yes, she's correct that very few schools/teachers are pushing kids to be trans. There's not a "conspiracy". But her take is also how real issues get marginalized, by piling on a straw man.
The argument isn't that there's some conspiracy of teachers to make kids trans. It's that there's some strong, vocal subset that is driving many regions and schools to (a) encourage kids that it's positive to be trans and (b) hide information from parents. The massive and vocal support of teacher's unions against the marches contradicts Jen's very point. If there wasn't SOME sort of agenda, then why have all teacher's unions been the most vociferous in opposing the marches?
We've lived it ourselves. I get how in Alberta where Jen lives this may not be the case, but in West End Vancouver I can assure it is. I can tell you numerous stories of teachers pushing and encouraging kids to be trans, to a point where a friend's child's friends were all trans. The local elementary school where I lived had a VP who was very vocal about his goals in this (he had previously been an activist in the gay book ban court case).
This isn't a common experience across Canada or among our friends. But there is a significant minority where it very much is. We have another friend looking for schools in Burnaby for his child, and the closes school has taken a very vocal and pro-trans policy that has resulted in a very high percentage of trans students. Not a conspiracy, but a very clear ideology that is being pushed by a small but powerful minority.
I'll also say - there's a clear generational gap between older and younger teachers. We see it in our friend/family group as well, where there is much more of an activist mindset among younger teachers we know vs. older (often retired) ones.
Wow, Sad_Mom , not only do you have “skin in the game” you seem to have your brain in the game. Such a rarity. You raise some very important points, nuanced, yet relying on facts not emotion. One key point you raise is that most Canadians are keen to be supportive of children of all stripes. When confronted by an impassioned, ideological believer, few people have the time or the inclination to step into a fight where they have no dog. Out of an abundance of tolerance the activist position goes unopposed and triumphs. Small advances are entrenched until one morning a person wakes up and either realizes they do, in fact, have a dog in the fight( their child starts school) and they face a tough uphill battle or they realize the official position has become so truly bizarre it is unbelievable. For me it was the pictures of a male Ontario teacher wearing enormous prosthetic breasts operating a saw in shop class with no visible protective gear of any kind. How could this happen in nanny state Canada? What starts as a simple request to accommodate trans students morphs into a situation where obvious standards of safety, decorum and common sense cannot be enforced…. In a school! Suggesting maybe there is something a bit off in this situation is now a hate crime.
If you don’t change The Line logo to have the subtitle “An Opulent Massage for the Mind”, you’re missing an opportunity. Just sayin’.
.... hmmmm ....
Matt you said yourself, 5-10% of teachers have the fanatic's gleam in their eye. No it isn't a grand conspiracy to trans all the kids, but in schoolboards the percentage of fanatics is much higher. This minority of ideologues are allowed/encouraged to run roughshod, and they are in fact teaching and doing highly questionable things. Not sure if you got my email with the photos of the assless fishnets drag queen for my kindergartener's class, but that event didn't just happen by accident, it's indicative of the school letting the nutters call the shots. I have all kinds of tangible evidence that what actual teachers in my actual kids school are doing is not appropriate, many (the majority of?) parents agree but are cowed into silence. Add "kids just know they are trans" to "we *need* to talk incessantly to primary kids about whacky sex and gender ideas" to "parents can't be trusted and won't be told", and you have a problem. It's not a "culture war" to want a say in what your kid is taught, especially when esoteric notions are taught as unquestionable facts.
Teachers are the meat between the bun of the compressed burger and the school boards are the purveyors of the grease for the squeaky grill.
Allow me a refinement please.
Teachers are the meat compressed between the buns of the “Bürger”. The pressure is supplied by many players. The school boards are the purveyors of the government’s grease for the squeaky grill and of the cooking gas. We light the match. Poof. Extinguish. Clean up. Repeat in cycles.
My native tongue is German. “Bürger” is the German translation of citizen. That is how I arrived at the facetious analogy. Enjoy.
My wife is a long serving highschool teacher. It is impossible for her to do everything that everyone wants on six hours per night of sleep. This model is not sustainable.
Haha, now I get it. I think teacher fatigue is yet another reason for a "back to basics" approach. I know thats a tired cliché, but I think the focus has to be on academic achievement, and schools like ours which spend inordinate amounts of time on sex and gender (Pride Week was 10 days long, with kids being out of the class for much of it) are wasting precious resources. On top of the time wasted, we can't expect teachers to be competent in academic pedagogy, and also become fluent in a new, convoluted, and constantly changing language of social justice identitarianism.
Bingo Reg. Even though the “blue pages” theoretically can’t persecute me, I still cautiously speak in parables on this subject. You can’t cleanse an East Berliner’s paranoia or dry humour.
The grade 12s: Ms. T, do we have to go to Monday’s assembly? We’ve had this one every year. We’ve got it memorized. Can’t we use this great weather, that is going to turn soon, to gather more data for the extremely interesting biology project you gave us?
Being a teacher you know the answer. And you know the kids are ok. They get it. The supposed adults in the tower … ?
I thought this week’s ep was good—clearly coming from a normie perspective though with a somewhat more informed than the usual normie knowledge level. I see & understand M&J’s hesitancy to dive headlong in, but at the same time I remember all the excellent articles they’ve published by Allan Stratton so studiously avoid mentioning that it is not just LGBTQ vs ‘phobes but in fact often LG leading the resistance to TQ gets annoying.
Are there ‘phobes in the parents’ rights team? Yeah, definitely, and they suck, and they need to be challenged, publicly and loudly... which is quite likely not being done enough at the moment. Are there some literal paedos in the TQ movement? Well, duh. They’d be stupid not to be out stumping for an ideology that says vulnerable kids can consent to practically anything, should have access to sexually explicit material, and should have their mental & physical development arrested—particularly when they can pass off their activism by wrapping it in the sheep’s clothing of selfless concern for distressed kids. Are they the majority? No, of course not, they are a tiny, tiny percent of the population, and accusing well-meaning people of being groomers when, for the most part, they’ve just latched on to what they see is a fashionably righteous cause, is at the very least counterproductive.
But at the same time, just like the parent’s rights side needs to call out & refute the actual ‘phobes among them, it’s not a “culture war” to point out some of the dark elements in the trans rights side and note that they often seem to be protected, instead of exposed, by their allies.
and like M&J say in the podcast, they (the media) are to blame for the current mess: their fear/refusal to touch this topic has made it the juggernaut it is today
Excellent session! As one of the 10% I'm always looking to increase my understanding of the issues I very much appreciate what you guys are doing.
I think Matt totally nails what Doug Ford is about. What people haven't been saying out loud is that he and his buddies were likely to receive a lot of back-end compensation off the Greenbelt deal. It was more than just incompetence but I guess you have to be careful how you say that.
When Trudeau announced the India allegations I figured they must have a real, perhaps literal, smoking gun. After listening to the podcast I have a bad feeling about this.
I'm currently in Alberta and talk around the table at a dinner party last night was the pension plan idea is ludicrous. I warned people that Danielle Smith has a history of very poor judgment. That's just who she is. Even if this magical thinking was to come true and they get 50% of the CPP she would use Albertan's pension money to prop up the failing oil industry. As soon as the price drops below a certain point the foreigners (who own , what, 90% of the industry?) will vacate the oil sands leaving their mess and good luck getting any cleanup money from them. That's when building alternate Industries would really pay off. Didn't Danielle just stifle the competition? Yeehaw!
On the Alberta pension plan: anyone who does not recognize how chauvinism, grievance-mongering, and wishful thinking can undermine a rational disussion and assessment of economic self-interest, has forgotten the lessons of Brexit.
On Indian mischief: there is a huge chasm between the highly qualified assertion that there are “credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen", on the one hand, and a bald allegation that “India carried out an assassination”, on the other.
We have yet to see enough actual evidence to clarify the situation and it remains to be seen whether we ever will.
However, given the way that CSIS and the RCMP totally botched the Air India bombing and later investigation and trials, I am not surprised that India might not trust Canadian politicians, trolling for ethnic votes, to contain these threats and want to keep an eye on things.
Indeed, it appears that the CSIS leakers don’t trust the government either.
Always love Jen and Matt’s discussions, but this one was particularly great. Great insight on all of these topics. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Jen’s book for a long time and will be first in line to buy when it comes out!
Me too… and I’m dying to see Jen’s take on the infamous Barbara Ehrensaft and her newest incarnation.
Oh yeah, Diane Ehrensaft. I actually read her paper on ritual abuse and it is crazy that she hasn’t had to answer for her involvement in the whole SRA debacle and has moved on to a new obsession. Highly recommend the book “Making Monsters” by Ethan Watters and Richard Ofshe, if you’re interested in the topic!
is that the same Diane Ehrensaft who says a toddler that pulls out her barrettes is non-vocally telling her parents she is actually a boy? that a toddler who pulls open the bottom snaps of his onesie (making it looks like a dress?!?) is non-vocally telling his parents he is actually a girl?
-this is where the eyeroll emoji would go-
Yes, the very same. She published a paper on ritual abuse in 1992.
What was the nature of her 1992 paper?
It was a credulous validation of the Presidio abuse case where she basically affirmed the allegations of event that were later shown to be a hoax.
I am hearing impaired. Any chance these podcasts could be captioned? 😊
Yes! A transcript is automatically generated. Takes a while but it will
appear once ready.
Diane, I also am hearing impaired - felicitous phrase, no? - so I do understand your problem! Apologies but I just discovered your post asking about CC. Actually, The Line videos are (of course) available but no CC if you simply use The Line video feed but those videos are also on YouTube and THAT is close captioned. Best of all, the YouTube video comes out pretty much when the podcast comes out whereas The Line video usually comes out on Sundays.
Ok. I’m an Albertan (57 year old rural veterinarian).
First of all the Alberta Government did NOT crunch the numbers on our CPP “value”. Morgan Shepell ( or whatever their new name is ) did that math. Apparently there is a fairly well prescribed process and formula for a province to withdraw from the CPP. They followed this formula. These are the numbers they arrived at. Is that final? Probably not. Accountants can agree or disagree with some allocations of what goes where. It’s a formula.
So is the equalization formula. And no matter how unfair to Alberta that formula is the federal government defends it to the death.
The CPP withdrawal is also a formula. Will the federal government defend it to the death if it shows to benefit Alberta?
Or will the federal government only defend formulas that screw Alberta ?
Albertans want to know.
Re Alberta being 50% of the GTA. Back in the '60's, a group of Windsor cops called The Brothers In Law sang of a great comparison of Canada vs the US. With respect to Canada's (or, perhaps Alberta's) position in the US flag" they sang:
"We'd be just before Connecticut in the third row from the right"
India won't care, doesn't care because it has leverage over the US and the rest of NATO and the "west". The US is far too invested into the India ecosystem (apple ect) and won't speak too far. Also India is also the main pillar to bat against China in the Indo Pacific for the French, and the Quad (India, Japan, Australia and India aka the Asian NATO)
Canada is a lower end Middle power. That's the reality
“But Canada — meaning Trudeau and his top people — is now in a global fight with an emerging superpower.”
Which is likely; India’s govt wants to push good ole Canada around to score some easy points on the home front.
I must say that the quoted sentence sounds kind of silly by itself. It seems to imply that Canada thinks itself as unprovokable and above such challenges.
Trudeau would have publically "outed" India only with the prior knowledge of the USA and other FVEY members. No doubt, the goal is to get India to find the "rogue" element(s) in their security services and deal with it publically, much like how the Saudi's dealt with the supposed instigators after the Khashoggi killing. Our allies are keeping quiet in order not to further escalate the situation and to give India time to deal with this appropriately and "save face".
The fatal flaw in all if this is that India does not share our "western values" and does not consider the US as an ally. Their goal is a multi-polar world that will see India become a great power. Although concerned with China's increasing belligerence, India has taken a different approach. A weakened USA with less global power is very much the goal of China and India. Although India has no interest in doing this militarily.
Theme music??? WTF?? Enjoying your content, keep it up!