A Love Letter to Canada
What’s the easiest way for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to invade Canada?
Simple: Have voters sit out the upcoming election and let Pierre Poilievre become Prime Minister. If you’re Canadian—especially if you live abroad—now’s the time to get organized. Make sure you and at least five of your family and friends have a plan to vote. Not sure if you’re registered? Check here! Voting from abroad? Double-check your registration and make sure you’ve got everything you need by visiting this link.
In this week’s Gaslit Nation Canada Super Special, we’re joined by the amazing Leigh McGowan from Politics Girl, plus Marcus Kolga, a Canadian writer, filmmaker, and human rights advocate. Marcus is an expert on Russian and Central/Eastern European issues and Kremlin disinformation. He regularly shares his insights in top publications like The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Maclean's, and The Atlantic Council. Marcus also played a crucial role in the Canadian campaign for the Magnitsky human rights sanctions and has helped drive similar efforts in Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, and Australia. His expertise has taken him to testify before parliaments in the UK, Australia, and Canada, covering everything from Russian disinformation to Interpol reform. Currently, he’s a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad.
This week’s bonus show will be our live discussion with Dr. Lisa Corrigan, author of Prison Power: How Prison Politics Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation and Black Feelings: Race and Affect in the Long Sixties. Dr. Corrigan is the Director of the Gender Studies Program at the University of Arkansas and also teaches in both African & African American Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies.
Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!
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EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:
March 17 4pm ET – Dr. Lisa Corrigan joins our Gaslit Nation Salon to discuss America’s private prison crisis in an age of fascist scapegoating
March 31 4pm ET – Gaslit Nation Book Club: From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, which informed revolts in Ukraine, the Arab Spring, Hong Kong, and beyond
NEW! April 7 4pm ET – Security Committee Presents at the Gaslit Nation Salon. Don’t miss it!
Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, available on Patreon.
Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, available on Patreon.
Have you taken Gaslit Nation’s HyperNormalization Survey Yet?
Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community
Show Notes:
Ways to Vote in Canada https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=vote&document=index&lang=e
How Canadians Can Vote Abroad https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/living-abroad/elections-faq
Meet Politics Girl https://www.politicsgirl.com/
Meet Marcus Kolga https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/cm-expert/marcus-kolga/
Nadia Guerrera for Parkdale–High Park https://nadiaguerrera.ca/
Clip: Dropkick Murphys call out a Nazi at their Boston show https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com/post/3lkhxscnvws2x
Clip: Stephen Marche on why the US can’t occupy Canada https://bsky.app/profile/jimmyalto.bsky.social/post/3lkgixldo6s2t
Want to topple a dictator? Gaslit Nation Book Club: From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/480x270/p08qz3w0.jpg.webp
Transcript
Stephen Marche (00:00:02):
America can't invade Canada. Trump can't conquer Canada. America is not in a position to conquer anyone. When I was working on the next civil war, I spoke with a lot of counterinsurgency experts from the United States and they made it pretty clear that the American military has learned painfully over the course of 70 years that you cannot really hold a population against its will, even if only a tiny fragment of that population considers you holding them against their will. So if they can't hold Baghdad, I'm not sure why they think they can hold Montreal, but the truth is that what this is really is the ramblings of lunacy and imminent breakdown, and that's what it's really a symptom of. I mean, I think you can see Los Angeles is burning and they can't stop it. They can't even stop blaming each other for it. Ordinary citizens, some with Ivy League degrees are starting to kill their business elites and to widespread approval.
(00:00:58):
They don't have even a shred of solidarity. And to make war, you need solidarity, and that is the one thing they absolutely don't have. America's also not used to fighting wars that aren't divided from them by an ocean. They would suddenly have an enemy that was along this huge border and also they're extremely vulnerable to attacks on their homeland. They're not a people used to suffering for war, which inevitably they would in this fantasy situation. That doesn't mean that Canada's out of the woods or that suddenly we're not under threat. We're actually under very deep threat and we need to prepare for economic, political, social, and cultural chaos. It's just actual conquest is not really in the cards.
Andrea Chalupa (00:01:38):
Our opening clip featured Canadian journalist and novelist Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War, Dispatches from the American Future warning that the US could become a far right dictatorship within the next decade. Looks like we're ahead of schedule. I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine, a film that would not exist if it weren't for Canada. Welcome to this very special episode of Gaslit Nation, where we've teamed up with Leigh McGowan, a Canadian known as politics girl. We wanted to sound the alarm so that Canadians don't make the same mistake Americans did and stay home because there's no such thing as a protest vote, and it's extremely alarming that so many virtue signalers on the left have normalized quote, protest voting when it's not really a thing. Refusing to vote strategically, even if it's for the lesser evil, ensures the rise of fascism.
(00:02:56):
Black Americans vote in large numbers for the Democratic party election after election because they are the most vulnerable to fascism and they understand the pragmatism of voting more on this later in the episode. For now, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the people of Canada who have personally given me so much. I'm not just saying this because I want to be in your good graces. Should I need to escape across the border before Trump declares martial law. My work as a journalist, filmmaker, author, an artist has been greatly shaped by Canada, a beautiful mosaic of a country full of good, fearless people that you don't want to mess with. For instance, when I was struggling for years to get Mr. Jones made, I finally put my research into a book that I self-published called Orwell, the Refugees, the Untold Story of Animal Farm. A group of Ukrainian Canadian and college students in Toronto found it and sent me on a two week college speaking tour across Canada.
(00:04:06):
I got to see much of your country, including Alberta, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Hamilton, and so many towns and cities in between, I became close friends with a global studies high school teacher in Toronto who would let me crash at her place. We shared a bed like sisters every time I got flown to town and the organization flying me didn't have enough money to put me up in a hotel. I was her guest. I became a sister to this local high school teacher who's now running for office. I'll link to her campaign in the show notes. She also developed and launched a high school curriculum to teach my book Orwell and the Refugees where students create works of art about human rights crises like George Orwell did and display them in art shows. It was such a popular program when it launched that one football player missed a game.
(00:04:57):
I was told to attend the art show reception. Then another Canadian I met invited me out to brunch and over brunch. She surprised me with a $5,000 donation toward my work. I burst into tears because I was so broke at the time and really needed the money to continue producing my film. I also got hired to direct write and produce a short documentary on the Halor Stalin's Genocide famine Ukraine funded by the Canadian government as part of their genocide studies program. It premiered in the US at the United Nations and was used in genocide studies in Canada. When my film Mr. Jones was falling apart, a Canadian foundation swooped in and saved the day, giving us the funding we needed to go into production and they gave us the creative freedom to make the film we needed to make. They were a joy to work with.
(00:05:53):
So much of my success I owe to Canada. Why? Because they're good. People who believed in me when so many, especially here in the brutality of America, did not America's like cannibal island, it's sink or swim. Canadians literally gave me a home and healed me with their generosity of spirit. I kept going, I kept fighting and it launched so many more projects like Gaslit Nation. So thank you Canada. I am here because of you and you'll forever have my heart. I know many of you are scared right now, including in Canada and of course here at home, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are destructive narcissists and the institutions that were supposed to protect us failed. The Democratic Party establishment is not putting up a fight. The American people are, we're protesting. There are so many protests and we're speaking out even under the threat of being silenced. Here's an example of that. Ken Casey of Dropkick Murphy's at a recent concert in Boston called out a fan in the audience who was wearing a Trump hat. Here is this masterpiece.
Ken Casey (00:07:05):
You got the Black on black Elon Musk, true Nazi edition, and then my man had, he's getting ready for summer with a nice fucking light and white one. All right? No, bro, listen, I admire your dedication, but I will ask everyone if you're in a room full of people and you want to know who's in the cult, how do you know who's in a cult? They've been holding up a fucking hat the whole night to represent a president. This is America. There's no kings here. Anyway, anyway, Do you mind, sir, we're going to play a song about our grandparents and people who fought Nazis in the war and shit. So if you could just shut the fuck up for five minutes.
Andrea Chalupa (00:08:02):
The Nazis are cowards. They're cowards ultimately, but still we rise. Here's a clip from a protester at a Tesla dealership calling on you, herever you are in the world, especially here in the US, join a Tesla protest.
Protester (00:08:18):
Hey everybody, if you're watching this, I know that you know that we're sliding into dictatorship. I know that that Elon Musk is killing people. I know that you know that Elon Musk is trying to kill our government, kill our democracy. I'm preaching to the choir and I know that, but I'm asking you to sing before a month ago. I never had protested in my entire life, but now is the time we've got to get out in the streets. If one person sees this and decides to come join a protest, it'll be worth it. They're trying to make us scared. They don't want us out here. We heard it straight from the Attorney General. Get out here anyway because is coming to save us and we need your voice out here. It may not be sunny in Maryland today, but any day is a beautiful day to fight Nazis.
Andrea Chalupa (00:09:08):
You can find a Tesla protest near you at teslatakedown.com. Also, make sure you read the Short Guide to Overthrowing a Dictator. It's called From Dictatorship to Democracy, from Dictatorship to Democracy by Jean Sharp. It's available online for free, a link to it in the show notes. We're reading it for the Gaslit Nation Book Club this month, and we'll have a discussion on Monday, March 31st at 4:00 PM at our Gaslit Nation salon. Sign up at patreon.com/ That's patreon.com/gaslit. You are not alone. People are waking up. Yes, Trump and Elon Musk are moving fast, but so are we. The people are sand in their gears. They are scared of us. Never forget that. Show up to protest because protesting in the streets, not on your phone, not on social media, physically in the streets, in the fresh air of the grid outdoors. That is how the Vietnam War came to an end and two presidents Johnson and Nixon were finally brought down. So get off your smartphone, especially you young people out there get into the streets. Do not fear losers because that is what they are. They don't have a mandate. Our democracy, while young and imperfect has the mandate, okay? The US does have some moral leadership like a OC and Tim Walls. Tim Walls is now doing town halls because Republicans are hiding from their constituents. Here is a clip of Tim Waltz breaking down Trump's really stupid self-destructive trade war with Canada.
Tim Waltz (00:10:57):
He negotiated the damn trade deal with them. If trade is so bad with Canada, he was the guy who signed the deal. It defies logic. But look, I think this is how he ran business. He stiffed contractors. He stiffed workers. He doesn't pay his bills. He declares bankruptcy. The one thing is his claim that he's the business president. He's the worst possible business executive that I have ever witnessed, and I hope this is what we need. I need the business community to speak up the Wall Street Journal. Thank you. Thank you for saying this is the stupidest trade war because I've been saying it. And so now I can go back to my constituents, Republican constituents, and say, this is the reality of what you're facing. So again, there is going to be pain. The richness of a setting senator like Tommy Tuberville or Elon Musk telling is going to have to endure pain. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
Andrea Chalupa (00:11:52):
And now let's to it in celebration of Canada and as a reminder that our resistance to Russian backed fascism is global. Leigh McGowan of the Politics Girl podcast and I teamed up to remind Canadians to check on your voter registration. This is so important, especially if you live abroad. I'll provide a link in the show notes on how to do that. The election could be called as early as April and as late as October. So be ready now by checking your registration. Pick five friends and family members and check in with them and make sure that they have confirmed that they are registered to vote and that they have a plan to vote. Do not wait till last minute. Do not become complacent. Do not be demoralized and thinking your vote doesn't matter. You don't like the options.
(00:12:43):
You need to be strategic now and vote like your life, the whole world, depends on it because it does. If you're a Canadian thinking of throwing away your vote on a candidate who doesn't stand a chance or not bothering to vote at all, you are voting for Elon Musk and Trump. A protest vote is gaslighting not voting or not voting strategically to ensure Mark Carney wins is a vote for Trump and Musk. The French had to vote strategically to keep lap pen out of power. Now it's your turn. Canada don't make the same mistake so many Americans made when they fell for the gaslighting. A base so-called protest vote. There's no such thing. It's more like a self-owned vote. Here's Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent of the nation, explaining why "protest" votes hurt you.
Elie Mystal (00:13:40):
Part of being an adult is being able to distinguish between two evils. Part of being an adult is being able to distinguish between, I don't want to do this, but I don't want to do that more. I don't want to wash the dishes, but I really don't like mice, so I'm going to wash the dishes even though I don't want to. Even though it's gross, I'm going to take out the trash even though that's icky because the alternative in my binary choice of taking the trash out or not is worse. It's worse for me overall if I don't take the fricking trash out. So I'm going to take the trash out, I'm going to wash the dishes. I'm going to be a grown ass adult, and that is always the choice before us. Are we going to be adults or are we going to be children? Yeah, dang my bone and go home. And that's not a legitimate option. You fight like hell in the primaries. You fight like hell in the off season to promote your candidates, to promote people with more moral courage than the binary choices that you're getting. And when you elect the other, but here's the other part. When you elect some of these lesser evils, you stay on their ass.
Andrea Chalupa (00:15:00):
Now here's Dr. Lisa Corrigan, author of Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation on how quote unquote protest votes hurt you.
Interviewer (00:15:14):
I'd be really curious to see an academic peer reviewed deep dive paper on whether protest voting works. I don't think it does.
Lisa M. Corrigan (00:15:26):
Not at all. There's no study that suggests that it does whatsoever. It's completely self-indulgent. It does not work. It is not a strategy.
Andrea Chalupa (00:15:34):
Remember Canada, our resistance to Trump and Musk is global vote like the world depends on it because it does. And now here's my conversation with great Canadian Leigh McGowan of the Politics Girl podcast and my old friend Marcus Kolga, a Canadian specialized in combating Russian disinformation, whom I met during all my wonderful years of visiting beautiful Canada. But first, here's a bunch of Canadians at Montreal being hilarious. ...
Leigh McGowan (00:16:25):
As you may or may not know, I'm Canadian by birth. I moved to America for school in 2000, met and married an American and have been a dual citizen since 2008. So this rising tension between the two countries that I call home is not only shocking and unnecessary, it's extremely personal to me, along with the ridiculous tariffs meant to cripple the Canadian economy for no discernible reason. One of the newest changes to our country's relationship is the Trump administration proposing Canadians be fingerprinted and registered if they stay in the US over 30 days. This is something that has never happened before. As Canadians are a huge part of the American tourism industry and millions of Canadians own property in the US with a fair amount spending their entire winters in states like Arizona and Florida. This drastic decision along with the trade war and talks of annexing the entire country are uprooting a centuries long allied relationship.
(00:17:17):
The American president really appears to be switching loyalties from lifelong allies like Canada and the nations of NATO to unite himself with the autocratic nations of the world like Russia and North Korea. It's a distressing change to the world order, which is why we are going to spend today's episode on the importance of Canada and Canada choosing the right leader in their next election. As Andrea Chalupa said, one of the best things we can do to protect American democracy against rising autocracy is to be actively supporting international democracies to make sure they remain stable as America flounders to strengthen the alternative so it can act as a beacon in the dark, which is why we need to be paying attention to what's going on with our neighbors in the north. Not only because there is a real threat implied in Donald Trump's 51st state bullshit, but because Canadians could have an election as soon as his spring and one of the leading candidates is a musk backed Russian supported candidate, much like Trump himself, if that man Peter Pra, the leader of the conservative party is allowed to be elected, I think we can consider Canada lost and another world democracy down.
(00:18:20):
So this absolutely cannot be allowed to happen. To discuss this, I have asked my dear friend Andrea Chalupa and her friend Marcus Kolga to join us today. This will be a crossover episode with Andrea's brilliant podcast, gaslit Nation. Because Andrea and I are both adamant that people understand how important the Canadian election is to the world order, Andrea, Marcus and I will essentially have a round table, two Canadians two Americans, and three people who care about protecting the rule of law democracy as an alternative to corrupt world autocracy. For those of you who don't know, Andrea, she's a Brooklyn-based journalist, author and filmmaker, a student of Soviet history at UC Davis and Ukrainian history at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Andrea's work includes the graphic novel In the Shadow of Stalin: Dictatorship, It's Easier Than You Think and is a sought after speaker on global affairs, US politics and democracy.
(00:19:11):
Marcus Kolga is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, and human rights activist, renowned for his expertise on Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, a regular commentator on Canadian international media. Marcus has played a pivotal role in leading the Canadian campaign for the Magnitsky human rights sanction legislation and has supported similar initiatives in Europe. His expertise and analysis on these topics as well as the power of modern disinformation have found him testifying before the parliaments of the uk, Australia, and Canada. He currently serves as a senior fellow at the McDonald Laureate Institute Center for Advancing Canada's interests abroad. So without further ado, please welcome my guests, Andrea Chalupa and Marcus Kolga. Welcome my friends. Let's talk about the great white North. Yeah,
Marcus Kolga (00:19:55):
Lots to talk about.
Leigh McGowan (00:19:57):
I know. Well, let me begin, Marcus, since you're the only one that actually lives in Canada, what's the current mood? I mean, people cannot possibly be happy with what they are seeing and hearing and obviously economically feeling from their southern neighbors. I mean, I'm Canadian living in the states and I'm genuinely furious.
Marcus Kolga (00:20:13):
Yeah, I think that we started off in November after the election hearing Donald Trump sort of what we assumed to be jokes about the 51st state back in November, December. We sort of tried to just shrug it off. We were sort of giggling about it, and after the inauguration things became quite serious. These threats of economic warfare, which have really translated into psychological warfare. All of this is putting tremendous stress on not just the Canadian government but the people of Canada. We spent the past basically century believing that the United States was our closest friend, our closest ally, that the United States always had our back, and there was nothing to worry about. All of that changed literally overnight, and you can feel it. It's palpable. Every single conversation that I've had over the past couple of weeks, I was just in McGill yesterday at the University of McGill in Montreal talking about Russian information operations. The conversations there were all about Donald Trump, his tariff war and what may yet be coming. So everyone's talking about it. Yeah, we're very much feeling it here in Canada.
Leigh McGowan (00:21:28):
And if the people who are listening don't understand, Trump is laying out a lot of stuff about Canada, a lot of lies about Canada. Obviously he's got imperialist tendencies, but he's claiming that fentanyl is pouring into the US from Canada, which is why he had to do the tariffs originally. That is not happening. He's escalating this giant trade war. The stock market is falling because of his trade war. His economic agenda is clearly reckless just right across the board, but his geopolitical agenda is quite clearly compromised. America is weaker, poorer, and quite frankly, no one should trust us at this point. Andrea, what are your thoughts?
Andrea Chalupa (00:22:04):
Well, Markus, I know you and I go way back in fighting against Kremlin disinformation and aggression, and obviously there's been all this documentation out by great investigative journalists like Craig Unger, the bipartisan senate intelligence report into Trump and Russia, showing that Trump very much is a disinformation weapon of the Kremlin and the fact that you have Justin Trudeau coming out and saying that Trump wants to annex Canada. He's not mincing words. And then of course, Trump is going after Greenland. And right now in the United States, we have this big budget showdown, which is pumping billions, billions of more dollars into the Pentagon and ice and immigration at a time when Trump is denying due process of green card holders as well as making these threats to invade our neighbors. So given your long view on the global war between democracy and fascism driven largely by the terror state, the mafia state of Russia, how serious do you see these threats and what are your thoughts on Canada growing closer to the EU and NATO and strengthening its alliance there?
Marcus Kolga (00:23:23):
There's a clear objective here. This is on the part of Donald Trump. This is not about fentanyl. I looked at the statistics this morning last year alone in terms of the amount of fentanyl that was coming into the United States. 21,000 pounds were imported and crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. It's a lot, compare that. So 21,000 pounds versus 43 pounds coming from Canada. So we're not talking about fentanyl here. If we're talking about trade deficits, there is a small trade deficit that the US has. It's about 35 billion. It's not the 200 billion or more that Donald Trump continues to go on about, and quite frankly, that's basically based on oil. If you take oil and energy out of the equation, then the US has a trade surplus with Canada. So let's be clear, this is not about trade. What this is about, I believe is Donald Trump's own legacy.
(00:24:20):
I think that when he looks into the mirror, just as Vladimir Putin does, he wants to see himself among the great presidents, just as Vladimir Putin. When he looks into the mirror, he wants to see himself standing beside Joseph Stalin, Peter the great, this is one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, and I think it's that same motivation that is driving Donald Trump's geopolitical agenda at the moment. This is a serious threat to the sovereignty of our nation. I don't think that Canada is quite prepared for this. As I said earlier, we've spent the past century just being friends with the United States, believing that you are our closest ally. All of that has changed overnight, and I think we're still trying to sort of process what all of this means for Canada. We've never thought that we would have to prepare this economic war that is on again, off again, sort of happening, sort of not happening.
(00:25:13):
That's one thing. But some of the conversations that I'm hearing here in Canada is preparing for a physical invasion of Canada. As I mentioned, I was in Montreal yesterday at McGill at a conference about Russian disinformation. There were questions from the audience there to the US panelists that were present about questioning whether Canada should be thinking about developing its own nuclear arsenal to deter a potential invasion. That's how far we've come and these are serious people asking those serious questions. So are we looking elsewhere? Yeah, I think that there's a real panic on right now. We saw there was a recent G seven foreign ministers meeting that was held in Quebec where these conversations were being held. One of the primary topics was Canadian sovereignty. We asked for declarations and we received declarations from other foreign ministers stating their support for Canada's sovereignty. Canada is certainly now looking to our allies in Europe, maybe moving closer to them, diversifying our trade towards them away from the United States. In terms of defense, I think there are conversations that are being held with our European allies about intensifying our cooperation with them, and certainly I think Canada is going to be ramping up its own defense spending to address these potential threats that are happening right now, and that will continue to happen over the next four years. So our understanding of the world around us, of our neighbors is transforming very, very quickly. It's unfortunate we're being forced to do that by the president of the United States.
Leigh McGowan (00:26:42):
Marcus, can I ask you a question? Do you think the people of Canada, like you're having these conversations at McGill, my alma mater I might add. Do you think Canadians understand the stakes? I mean, Canada is facing a significant election probably this fall. They have to decide on who their new leader is. Justin Trudeau has just stepped down. Mark Carney has stepped up as the head of the liberal party, but he doesn't actually have a seat in their parliament right now, so that has to be sorted out as well. Do you think Canadians are understanding the stakes? Because my own father was recently visiting me in Los Angeles, and he's sort of a dedicated conservative party member. He's been one his whole life. He's always worked for the party. I have been all over him for years because I think he should be making decisions that don't necessarily serve his wallet, but serve his grandson and the future and this kind of thing. So I've been all over him for years, but he didn't even really understand the polar air Russia, Musk, Trump connection. Right. And he's a smart guy. Most people in Canada, when I was home at Christmas, when I was home in the summer, they just didn't like Trudeau and they were kind of like, well, Trudeau has to go, but this is a much bigger problem now. Do you think the Canadians are getting it in a different way now that they're watching what Trump is doing to them?
Marcus Kolga (00:27:49):
I think so. I think this is one of the silver linings in all of this is that Donald Trump's threats are bringing us closer together. I've never seen this sort of unity amongst Canadians probably in my lifetime. I mean, I have people on my street putting out Canadian flags. I mean, this is not something that Canadians generally do. We do it on Canada Day, but we're not like Americans who need to wear our patriotism on our sleeve. And so it is actually quite nice to see that Canadians, it's bringing Canadians together like I've never seen before, and I think that Donald Trump should realize that as well. I think the latest polling show that 86% of Canadians do not support joining the United States. So Canadians are,
Andrea Chalupa (00:28:35):
You can't say we blame you, don't do it.
Marcus Kolga (00:28:40):
So we're not particularly interested in that concept. Canadians are also realizing that we are a distinct society, that we have our own traditions, our own history, our own values, especially now, they don't really align with what's happening in the United States. So I think generally we have rejected this notion of becoming the 51st state. Now, that's not true all across the country. Back in 2015, you may recall we had an election and there was a fringe movement that emerged in the province of Alberta. This is one of our western nations. They have a lot of oil natural resources, and they rely largely on the United States for their exports of that. There was a fringe movement that emerged there called Wet named after Brexit, and it was truly fringe, and it would've remained fringe had it not been for Sputnik News, one of Russia's state media outlets who gave this fringe movement an international platform, which not only helped spread their word across Canada and internationally, but also legitimize them and sort of helped motivate them to keep going.
(00:29:48):
So this movement has remained pretty quiet over the past decade, but we're seeing signs of this emerging again. That same movement has come out and said, if Canada doesn't become the 51st state, perhaps Alberta should be. Now. There are no signs that this is really gaining too much traction in the province of Alberta, but it's another vector through which Russia and our other authoritarian adversaries can attack us and try to destabilize Canada's democracy and the unity that has been growing. And I suspect that this will become yet another target of Russian information operations and perhaps others. I would argue now the US Presidential Administration as we head into election use. You mentioned it's coming in, it may be in the fall, but it could be as early as this spring.
Andrea Chalupa (00:30:34):
I want to ask you about Russia's attacks against Canada. You mentioned this disinformation operation. I remember being in Canada about 10 years ago in Toronto, and Ukrainian Canadians were concerned that a Russian oligarch was whining and dining Canadian business leaders trying to spread that Russian corruption, get Canadians on Kremlin golden handcuffs where they buy you, and next thing you know you're furthering their agenda. We had, of course recently the DOJ investigation revealed that the Shell company that was funneling money from the Kremlin buying off MAGA influencers, paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars a month like Tim Pool and others to Benny Johnson to spread Kremlin disinformation against Ukraines and Ukraine as the enemy and so on and so on. So that shell company was based in Canada. What have you been seeing over the last 10 years in terms of operations like this?
Marcus Kolga (00:31:37):
Well, I mean, we can go back nearly 80 years. I mean, Canada has been a significant target of Russian information operations going back to the 1930s and 1940s for several reasons. I mean, one is our proximity to the United States, so that makes us a really attractive entry point for Russian intelligence to plant those illegal agents so that they can move later down into the us. We've also, back in 1945, there was a GCO affair, a Russian GRU cipher clerk stationed at the Russian Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, who defected with a trove of documents, which uncovered a rather large operation at a couple of dozen assets in Canada, whose primary objective was to influence public opinion, to influence elected officials and push them towards policies that were favorable to the Soviet Union. This has been going on since then through the Cold War until now. And you mentioned Russian oligarchs that have been trying to get involved in Canada and Canadian businesses.
(00:32:36):
I mean, Roman Abramovich, one of the wealthiest Russian oligarchs, the former owner of Chelsea Football Club, has billions of dollars in assets right here in Canada of raw steel, which is one of our largest steel producers, is owned by Brokovich. And when you have that much money invested in the country, obviously there's some political influence comes with that. So we also have, it's not the UK and the US alone that have Russian oligarch problems. Canada also has a Russian oligarch problem here, and you bring up tenant media, and thank you for doing that because this is a clear smoking gun that Russia right now is very much interested in Canada and influencing our information space. You mentioned that two employees from RT were alleged to have used $10 million to set up this media corporation. A lot of that money came through Canada.
(00:33:24):
Two Canadians are alleged to have been basically deployed to set this up, there were, I think about a dozen influencers who were employed at, I think the rate was something like a hundred thousand dollars per podcast episode basically to broadcast information that aligned with the Kremlin, the Kremlin's objectives, which are to of course undermine democracy to erode the cohesion of our society. And if you watch any of these episodes that were created by this group, I mean they were vicious. I mean, in terms of language, political, the language that was used, I would say it was violent, politically violent. And so a lot of those episodes that were created by this group also targeted Canada specifically. I think there were over two dozen episodes that were specifically speaking about Canadian issues, but even those that weren't speaking specifically about Canadian issues, the episodes that were broadcast by Tim Pool and others, they target issues that transcend borders.
(00:34:23):
The problem that we have here in Canada is that we often narrowly focus in on Canada. If the content isn't specifically targeting Canada, then we tend to dismiss it or ignore it, which is dangerous and it's left us quite vulnerable. But I would say that the vast majority of the tenant media content that was produced was targeting Canada as well as the United States. And so it's clear evidence that we are being targeted 10 million. I think in the large scheme of things, when you understand that Russia is spending about 1.6 billion a year on disinformation and propaganda operations, $10 million isn't a lot. But when you put that up against the kind of resources we have to fight against it, it's a ton of money. And so we need to, at least in this country and Canada need to react very quickly. We need to quickly put defenses in place to build that resilience, especially as we have this election coming up. And unfortunately we haven't done that yet.
Leigh McGowan (00:35:15):
Yeah, I think you guys really need to learn from us in many ways. I think that if anything, we should be a shining example of what not to do. I mean, you could say that the 2024 election was lost by the Democrats for numerous reasons. It was a hard year for incumbents globally. We dealt with a ridiculous amount of straight up lies and disinformation spread by both the right wing media and this right wing sort of ecosphere that we're talking about, the Benny Johnsons and the Tim Pools and all these guys that were actually getting money directly from Russia, but also on what we used to call mainstream media and we now call legacy media. They had this sick need to do both sides of everything just to kind of keep the dollars rolling in, and it didn't serve the American people at all. But Republicans in the States are also engaged in outright voter suppression, right? We had the Gaza net Israel protest, which I think most people can now see are all part of the same plan of Netanyahu and Trump and Russia to divide the American electorate. So Marcus, are you seeing the same kind of dynamics around the election in Canada that will need to be overcome to make sure that the anti-democratic candidate doesn't win there too? And I would call Pulver the anti-democratic candidate.
Andrea Chalupa (00:36:25):
I want to just add to that question. One of the other forces were up against was this complacency where people, Americans felt they had the luxury to stay home and cast a protest, vote, vote third party. They just figured, oh, look at those huge sold out rallies of Kamala Harris. She's going to likely win. So that's also a major danger here where Mark Carney is coming out as the new prime minister, the front contender. So the worry is that Canadians on the left might be like, I'm not voting for the establishment figure. I'm already seeing that on social media.
Marcus Kolga (00:36:58):
Yeah, there's a bit of that. But again, the silver lining with all these threats coming from Donald Trump is that it actually has energized voters. I think that we're going to see large voter turnout because of that. But before the inauguration, we did see elements on the right of Canada's political spectrum, exploiting existing divisions in society, exploiting rage, anger, fear, all of that.
Leigh McGowan (00:37:26):
Also, if I may, Marcus misogyny is a big thing in Canada too. I'm watching the same this Trump phenomenon in people like Jordan Peterson and these Canadian figures that are also pulling the same behavior. Let's get back to the way it used to be behavior. It's happening in Canada as well.
Marcus Kolga (00:37:46):
And you're seeing Russian information operations tap into that
(00:37:51):
As well. And so yeah, this was a growing problem here in Canada, and I think the polls reflected this, the effectiveness of all of that around December Pierre Poilievre. And the conservatives were polling at around 25% ahead of the liberals. I think it was a historical lead that they had after the inauguration. That lead has completely evaporated. I mean, right now, according to the most recent polls, basically the liberals and conservatives are in a statistical tie. And I don't think that the conservatives have sort of figured out a strategy to respond to what they're seeing. I mean, they've been, as far as their own communications are concerned, they've been really ineffective addressing this threat from Trump back in January, even December, they were avoiding criticizing Trump directly. They were going around talking about putting Canada first, but it just didn't have very much impact. And now we're seeing the result of this in the poll. So I think going into the election, I think there's this expectations that with Mark Carney as the new leader, that the liberals will do much better. But again, I don't think this is the result of anything that the liberals have really done other than electing a new leader. It's really largely due to Donald Trump, and that is the silver lining, ironically, in all of it.
Leigh McGowan (00:39:02):
If I may though, I don't think Americans understand Canadian politics that well. I mean sometimes Canadians don't understand Canadian politics that well, but just to give them a sense of what they're listening to. If you're an American audience right now, the liberal party is akin to the Democratic Party. The conservative party is akin to the Republican party as far as conservative values, liberal values, that kind of thing. Mark Carney, who is the new liberal party, prime Minister, has a very successful background. He steered Canada through the 2008 economic crash. He was the first non Brit in centuries to run the Bank of England. He helped them weather the storm of Brexit. He's seen as this stable force. He's a banker, he's a rich dude in this sort of chaotic times. And I feel like he's a different candidate than sort of a progressive Trudeau type character who really had kind of fallen out of favor with the Canadians. To me, it gives people who would want to protect their wallet, traditional conservative voters who often vote for the conservative party in Canada, sort of a safe hands in which to put their country in a different way than they might've found. Do you find that looking at Canadian politics down there to an American audience that might be listening to this as well?
Marcus Kolga (00:40:14):
Yeah, I think that the traditional sort of center right conservative voter was sitting on the fence. They were pretty much undecided over the past couple of years ever since Pierre Pra came to power. I mean, Pierre Palera really focused on trying to galvanize and hold on to the extreme right of the conservative party. And his messaging was really unfortunately targeting them. You might even call them sort of MAGA North that group within the conservative party here in Canada. And my sense is, and I don't have the polling data to support this, but I suspect that this turned off a lot of traditional conservatives here in Canada. All of that has changed now with Harney's leadership. I think that those traditional conservatives, I think they see him as representing those values. The traditional conservatives here in Canada used to hold, and again, I think that Pierre Pra has been very slow to react to this change.
(00:41:08):
I mean, he spent the past two years basically treating Justin Trudeau as a human pinata. I mean, that's all he did. There was never any sort of communications about policies, any significant policy proposals. It was just a constant rabid attack against Justin Trudeau justified or not. So now to have a liberal leader come along who clearly does have the credentials in terms of his banking background, his background in business, I think this is having a truly calming effect. It's reassuring. He's not a loud figure like Pierre Pra, he's calm, rational. And I think that, again, in the face of these threats from the us, it's truly appealing for most Canadians to have someone like that, someone who has that calming effect, reassuring effect to lead our country in the future. So I suspect he, in the coming election, he'll probably do quite well.
Leigh McGowan (00:42:01):
He also made a solid hockey joke about taking the gloves off, and I thought that was pretty great. He was like, you start fighting, we're going to do it. And I thought, yo, that's pretty Canadian. Pull Trump's shirt over his head and give him a couple on the side. That felt very Canadian to me. I liked it. He can be a banker all he wants, but I kind of like that gloves off mentality.
Marcus Kolga (00:42:22):
Yeah, no, for sure. And that's the sort of language that will, I think, unite Canadians and that's why they're lining up behind Carney. Well, they may not be lining up behind Carney, but they're giving him a very, very good look right now. And it's because of that sort of messaging, taking the gloves off and certainly the hockey analogies.
Andrea Chalupa (00:42:39):
I was in London the week before and the week after the Brexit vote, and I watched all these Tory MPs completely meltdown on live television backstabbing each other like house of cards. And the one stable force throughout all that Brexit chaos was Mark Carney coming on live television, reassuring everyone that they're going to get through it. They're going to weather the storm. And he did weather the storm, certainly for Canada in the 2008 economic crash as Lee mentioned earlier. So my concern is that Russia's going to throw everything it has at your election to try to tilt the scales. They were calling in dozens of bomb threats to voting places across the US in those battleground states. You're someone that testifies, pushes officials to move in this direction. What would you advise the Canadian government now to secure your elections now? And my second follow-up question is what would you advise officials across Canada to do to secure your democracy against Kremlin infiltration like corruption, like what they did with Trump and MAGA buying people off through shell companies and so on?
Marcus Kolga (00:43:52):
We already know that Russia is targeting the elections. We actually saw China targeting the liberal leadership campaign. Chrystia Freeland was targeted specifically about three weeks ago. There was alert that was put out by our government's rapid response mechanism that this organization within global affairs that monitors the information space. So we know that Chrystia Freeland was already attacked, but just earlier this week, actually on Monday at my organization, Disininfo Watch identified an effort by Russian State Media, Sputnik specifically targeting Mark Carney. So that work has already begun. And that article basically tried to discredit him claiming that he was a member of the deep state elite, that he can't be trusted. It also regurgitated the classic Kremlin disinformation targeting Ukraine because of Mark Carney's support for Ukraine, suggesting that he was a neo-Nazi, pro Ukrainian sympathizer. So these sorts of narratives have already started being introduced on Russian state media platforms, which should be an indicator that they will use the influencers.
(00:44:56):
We mentioned tenant media before. We don't know how many other groups like that are currently operating. How many influencers are being paid by the Russian government to amplify those sorts of narratives. So I think that we need to anticipate that far right and far left influencers who are aligned with the Kremlin will certainly target Mark Carney, the liberals, and I would also argue the conservatives for that matter, because the conservatives in Canada have not been immune from these attacks in the past, back in 2015, they were a significant target because of the conservative party's leadership in supporting Ukraine. So I suspect that Russia will be active in targeting all parties, mostly the liberals at this point. But the question is then what can the Canadian government do? So we do have some institutions in place to try to protect the integrity of our elections. So there's a task force that is set up in Ottawa that includes the heads of all of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
(00:45:52):
So during an election period, any sort of information or influence operations that are detected are brought to this group. They are supposed to analyze that information, and if they do believe that there is a threat to the integrity of the elections, they are then supposed to make this information public. And that's how we knew about this effort against Christopher Freeland a few weeks ago that came through that same group. And it so far has proven to be pretty effective in raising public awareness and exposing those sorts of campaigns. But clearly there's a lot more that we need to be doing. The role of influencers, again, going back to tenant media, that is one of the most significant threats I think, to our information environment and the elections. So exposing those influencers who are aligned with foreign adversaries, whether it's Russia, and I hate to say it, the Trump administration and the US as well, people like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, those are just two individuals who will probably bring up Canada, have brought up Canada before.
(00:46:49):
We need to make sure that Canadians aware of who these people are and what they're trying to achieve. And the government needs to be working with the civil society actors, people like myself, media as well, to make sure that Canadians then are aware if we were detecting these sorts of operations, it's up to civil society and journalists to make Canadians aware. So there's a lot more that needs to be done. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet, as you know, if we want to build long-term resilience in our democracies, it's going to be a long-term effort and looking to south of the border, you guys are screwed for the next four years because I don't think there's much hope of that. I mean, the damage that will be done over the next four years in the United States is states. I don't think we even understand the kind of damage that will be done to your democracy in society.
Andrea Chalupa (00:47:35):
Oh, we know. That's why we're having this Canadian super specialist in. You guys don't make the same mistake we did.
Leigh McGowan (00:47:41):
Yeah, that's exactly it. Because we're like, look, we know that we blew it down here. We want to make sure that Canada doesn't blow it because it's very important that we keep working democracies around the world. If we're going to be sort of a flawed democracy down here for a while, we need to have places that it's actually still working. And I think one of the other people that we didn't mention when you're talking about tenant media and these people that are involved is of course Elon, right? Elon is doing a lot of tweeting about how RA needs to win. As soon as the American election happened, he tweeted Canada, you're next, right? He is deeply involved and he has his thumb deeply on the scale for one of those two candidates. And I just want people to understand how much he's in bed with this and how much he wants this one party to win and this one candidate to win.
(00:48:29):
But I also think we need to talk a little bit about, for people that don't know, and I don't even know enough about PO and how much he's connected to other connections, like one of his closest friend, as I understand it, is JD Vance's roommate from college. There's all these weird connections, and then you've got Elon being like, this guy has to win. And I think once we know now looking around the states that if Elon wants one guy to win, we should all not want him to win. That is, I think, quite clear now, watching what he's doing to the states.
Marcus Kolga (00:49:00):
Yeah, our big problem with Elon is that he's a Canadian citizen.
Andrea Chalupa (00:49:06):
He's broken some laws in America. Can't that get him in trouble in Canada too?
Marcus Kolga (00:49:11):
I don't know. I mean, look, he can legitimately claim to have a legitimate voice in our elections and having a say in the outcome, because he is a citizen, this is a huge problem. So we can't just simply dismiss him. I mean, he is allowed as a Canadian citizen to have a voice, to have an opinion, and he is allowed to express it. This is a problem because what he's doing is basically exporting the toxic views and language that we've seen in the United States. All of this is leading to a normalization of this, again, this violent political language. And one of my greatest fears, and I think a lot of Canadians are concerned about this, is that normalization in the normalization of it and it being exported to Canada from that platform. And he will use that platform to try and tip the scales in this coming election.
(00:50:07):
But I'm just afraid that there's not much that we can do about it. I mean, we were looking to the United States, to Europe in terms of regulating some of these platforms. We know that Twitter has resisted all of that. In fact, in Europe where there have been concerns about the lack of moderation and charges of being brought against Twitter, I mean, they've just ignored them essentially. And so I think Canada has influence in many geopolitical issues in terms of regulating a platform like Twitter or any of these other giants. We're just not going to be able to do that. And so it's going to be, in terms of social media and the narratives that are being advanced there and amplified there, I mean, it's going to be the Wild West when it comes to our elections, and there's nothing that we can really do about it here except for potentially censoring or eliminating some of these platforms. But that we can't do that either because that's a violation of Canadians to express themselves freely and it just wouldn't be helpful. So I'm deeply concerned about what we'll be seeing on those platforms, specifically on Twitter X.
Leigh McGowan (00:51:16):
Well, if anything, we need people to be aware that disinformation is going to be spread there. And I think the best thing we can do down here in the States to help you guys with that is to continue to tank the Tesla stock. Because Twitter, it was purchased on the stock price. So technically, if we keep tanking the Tesla stock, perhaps we could have the Twitter loan called in and he could lose his ex. I would love that. I think the Americans should be working on very hard so that the Canadians don't have to get inundated and they know to vote for someone that will have their best interest at heart.
Andrea Chalupa (00:51:47):
I wanted to open everyone's mind for a moment and dream big. So one of the concerns I've had for a while now and watching the Republican MAGA war against democracy with the voter suppression, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, Mitch McConnell and Trump packing these ideologue judges handpicked by the Federalist Society, it's been a decades long war chipping away at our democracy and Donald Trump in the hands of these far Republicans was just the final battering Ram and Russia as well. And now here we are in this constitutional crisis, and you're talking about a hard four years. We're just 30 days in. I don't even know where we're going to be a year from now having these conversations. Lee and I are going to be in some exiled American government reporting from your basement, Marcus in Canada. You're
Marcus Kolga (00:52:40):
Always welcome.
Andrea Chalupa (00:52:41):
Thank you. Thank you. So I want to just, one thing I've been watching is not succession necessarily like a Cal exit, but we saw with Brexit that it was possible, right? Historically, in recent years, the Kremlin has always fueled through disinformation and paying off useful idiots in America to fuel these referendums ideas for Texas voters to vote their way out of the union. They focused on Cal Exit California. But now what we're seeing is Americans themselves saying, why do I want to be subjected as a Californian, as a New Yorker to the rules regulations of Mississippi, Louisiana states and the union with some of the lowest standards of quality of life? Why do I want to be bullied by Mike Johnson of Louisiana when I am a rich state with the higher quality of life? And so I feel that as this goes on, you're going to see a lot of reasonable folks more open to ideas of referendums. But the issue with that is if California were to go independent or a New York were to go to independent, they would need a military. They would need an intelligence operation. If you can't be your own country without a security force of some kind, and you need taxes and training and expertise to provide all that. So a workaround might be what if New Yorkers, new Englanders, the whole West coast, were like, we vote to join Canada, so let's reverse this Trump instead of Canada becoming the 51st state. We'll go there.
Marcus Kolga (00:54:21):
You're all welcome.
Andrea Chalupa (00:54:23):
Let's normalize this, folks.
Marcus Kolga (00:54:25):
Yeah, no, but I would also ask,
Andrea Chalupa (00:54:28):
But kind of not.
Marcus Kolga (00:54:29):
No, and we've talked about that. We've heard those sort of suggestions up here, and I think Canadians are completely open to that. But I would ask you, what about the farmer in Montana or in Iowa who relies on Canada for the import of instance? Potash, so much of their livelihoods is contingent on those imports coming in from Canada to support that and also export.
Leigh McGowan (00:54:58):
And people dunno what potash is. It is the fertilizer that most American farmers use on their farms that comes from Canada,
Marcus Kolga (00:55:07):
And they rely on Canada to buy much of what they're producing. I mean, I just looked at a map earlier today. I think it's 36 states. In 36 states. Canada is the largest trading partner. So I would suspect that there are regular people, small businesses, large business and owners and farmers in much of those northern states who are also probably wondering what the hell is going on here. Their livelihoods are going to be impacted by everything that's going on. So my guess would be that you have California, New York, the eastern northeastern seaboard. I suspect that you'll have other states, and especially those in the north of the United States who are going to be thinking the same way. What are we doing with this? Why are we staying here? And if there were a referendum, they might join California in New York in the long term. But my question to you is, what's going on there? Where are the Republican representatives, the governors, the senators, why are we not hearing from them about this? Because this is impacting their own people?
Leigh McGowan (00:56:11):
I think for the most part, people in the states are still trying to pretend things are going to somehow right themselves. They haven't quite figured out that we are sitting in a new world order. And it is ranging itself as we sit still. I don't think people conceptually understand that it is very possible that the Putin and the Qi and the Trumps of the world are kind of just saying like, Hey, we're going to unite. We're going to divide up the world. If Trump wants Canada, let him have it. Right? That's in his territory. If Putin wants Ukraine, let him have it. That's in his territory. I think these autocrats of the world are really thinking that they're going to be able to be the new world order, divide up the world for spoils the way they want it. If China wants Taiwan, take it. If China wants Japan, take it.
(00:56:56):
This is how they're going to divide it up. And I think to Andrea's point, this idea of having more of an imagination that this is what the autocrats of the world are thinking, they are thinking that they can take the spoils of the world, divide it up amongst themselves. They can all be billionaires. They can have their oligarchs around them, and they can give their countries to their families when they're done with it. And the rest of us can kind of fight for the spoils. I think some of us need to start being more imaginative. Maybe the world is changing, maybe the world order is changing, maybe the borders will be changing. Do we want these people to make that decision or do we want to start making that decision? And then the question becomes, how fast can we think? How much can we gather?
(00:57:35):
Where can the opposition come from that actually has leadership? You're watching the states right now. The opposition to the Donald Trump party has no strong leadership right now. We're all still sort of waiting. We have the leaders in the Democratic party acting like from a 1990s playbook. It's still going to be across the aisle working. And it's like, that's not happening. So what's going to emerge from that? You were talking about Carney as a leader. No one would've thought he would be coming out of the woodwork a year ago. I think the thing is we're waiting and we're going to have to watch and see who emerges as leader, but we are going to have, as Andrea said, a need for a massive re-imagination of how the world order looks. Because like you said at the beginning of this episode, there is no part of a Canadian's mental state that said, America is going to be our enemy three months from now, and yet here's where we are. He's talking about invading Canada. That seems bananas. So I think we have to have a far greater imagination of what might happen and start thinking of what we might want to happen rather than just allowing it to happen to us. That is what I would say, Andrea.
Andrea Chalupa (00:58:39):
A hundred percent.
Marcus Kolga (00:58:40):
I will just say that we need Americans to move very quickly and start imagining very quickly, it's not just us. It is the rest of the democratic world. We need you to come back and snap out of this, and we need you to do it very, very quickly. It's not just you. It's all of us that are being impacted by it.
Andrea Chalupa (00:59:00):
Well, unfortunately, Americans are, as Leigh pointed out, without mainstream leadership right now, the Democrats are operating from a very different playbook. I would even say some of them are what we call controlled opposition. Americans deserve better than this because so many of us fought very hard for a very different country, not just for ourselves and our families here at home, but for the world because we know what happens in the US affects all of us, the whole planet. I do want to say that from what I've seen so far, the Americans are fighting like the Ukrainians. They're not like the Russians yet. They're not just rushing abroad and saying, it's game over. I'm going to cash in my chips and leave and be apolitical. No, we're fighting for our country and we're doing it in a lot of creative ways given our lack of political power in Congress.
(00:59:46):
Again, the mainstream democratic leadership is completely checked out or they're bought off or they're too scared to meet the moment. But it's really the grassroots engine that's rising up. We have a group here called Run for Something, which helps young people run for office since Trump won, run for something, has seen something like 10,000 people from across the country sign up to run for office. That's amazing. That's a huge groundswell of support. So we want to reassure you that we are fighting, despite everything working against us. We're trying to get our country back, not just for our sake, but for yours. And we see this resistance as global. So we need all Canadians to wake up. However you feel about Mark Carney, maybe he's not your first choice, but don't make the same mistake we did. And if you want a different leader to vote for on the ballot next time, plant those seeds now in your community where you live, help get those leaders elected in office, large and small. Fight now with the grassroots power that you have. And I think all of us have to be reminded. We're all far more powerful than we realize. And that's why these dictators want to be dictators work so hard to try to turn us against each other, flood us with disinformation because they're scared of us ultimately. And that's a wonderful thing.
Marcus Kolga (01:01:02):
I mean, it's reassuring as a Canadian to know that there are people like you working on this and with both of you with your podcast pushing back on all this and bringing attention to the fact that Canada is feeling threatened. Your ally, your friend is feeling threatened. It's truly reassuring. So thank you for all of that.
Andrea Chalupa (01:01:20):
We're not going to let you be invaded. That's for damn sure Leigh and I will be like jumping in front of those tanks.
Leigh McGowan (01:01:25):
No, we sure as hell aren't going to let you be invaded. And here's the thing. I am both Canadian and American, and I am furious because I am both an American patriot. I really do believe in this nation. I don't believe in what we're doing now, but I believe in the good of this nation, and I believe there are a lot more people than you would think who believe the same thing I do. And I am a Canadian patriot as well, and I'm like, you get the hell out of my country. Don't come near it. Get away from it. But I think the thing is, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us today about this, Marcus and Andrea, for you to care so much about this too. Because you understand this Russian disinformation machine. You understand how it attacks countries.
(01:02:03):
You understand from the Ukrainian perspective, which you and I always talk about all the time, that Americans need to embrace their inner Ukrainian and just get really bitchy about everything and just deliberately in everybody's way. But just move into our insufferable bitch era and say no to everything. We need to do that right now. But we also need to do that on behalf of our neighbors because we need that democracy to remain intact, to be a reminder to us of what we could be. So I want to thank you both for taking this time. This little Canadian girl is very worried for her home nation. I want my friends and my family who live in Canada who listened to this show to know that this election is your chance to stop what happened to us from happening to you. And you do not want this. So I really believe this was an incredibly great conversation. I really hope people understand the importance of this election, the importance of stopping this continued destruction of Western values and liberal democracies and truth. Canadians can't sit this out. They can't think someone else is going to fix this. They have a chance to stop what we couldn't. Once they do that, then we can all work together to roll it back.
Marcus Kolga (01:03:06):
Thank you. And thank you for this solidarity.
Andrea Chalupa (01:03:09):
We're going to win. Ultimately we're going to win. And to the Canadians listening, if you want to get revenge on Elon Musk and Trump, vote for Mark Carney because your life depends on it. Because it does.
Lisa M. Corrigan (01:03:19):
Because it does.
Andrea Chalupa (01:03:29):
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(01:04:36):
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