EP 204: Full Press: Why is the Trans Debate the Third Rail of Canadian Journalism?

We are in the final week of the Canadian federal election. And while Trump’s trade policy has received much coverage this election season, our housing crisis has been less of a priority for the legacy press. We at Lean Out happen to think this is the most important issue in the country — and so, on today’s program, our guest is here to answer every question you’ve ever had on the crisis, and how we got here. Mike Moffatt is a Canadian economist, the founding director of the Missing Middle Ini...

22 Apr 202542min

For some time now, writers and thinkers outside this country have been asking me: What happened to Canada? Our guest on the program today has asked this question himself, in a new book that takes a deep dive into our decline — and arrives just in time for the federal election. Tristin Hopper is a columnist and reporter for The National Post, based in Victoria, B.C. His new book is Don’t Be Canada: How One Country Did Everything Wrong All At Once. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @T...

17 Apr 202533min

As we all navigate a period rife with political tensions on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, we wanted to bring you an incredible story that celebrates the human spirit and affirms our common humanity. Our guest on the program today was an eight-month-old baby when her parents smuggled her out of communist Vietnam, crossing the South China Sea to begin a new life. Decades later, she reports for the Today show. Vicky Nguyen is an NBC News Daily anchor and Chief Consumer Investigative corr...

16 Apr 202540min

Throughout the Canadian federal election, we’re taking weekly breaks to think and talk about other things. On today’s program, in light of ongoing debates in American pop culture, we’ll be discussing the phenomenon of heteropessimism with a Toronto culture critic who is quite literally writing the book on it. Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto-based journalist, author, and podcaster. She’s co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast, opinion editor at The Canadian Jewish News, and a contributing c...

9 Apr 202529min

Women’s fertility is a third rail in Canadian politics. We all learned this again last week, when Pierre Poilievre made a comment about biological clocks that sparked outrage. If you followed the controversy in the mainstream media only, you might not know that a number of women were glad to see Poilievre raise the issue of fertility — including my guest on today’s show. Melanie Paradis the president of Texture Communications and a veteran Conservative campaigner. Her recent piece for The Lin...

7 Apr 202525min

During the 2025 Canadian election season, we’ll be pausing from time to time to take a breather and to think about other issues — often interesting new books. My guest on today’s program is a blues musician, a scholar, and a heterodox thinker. He joins us for a conversation about his deeply personal new book on interracial family life in the south. Adam Gussow is a professional harmonica player and a professor of English at the University of Mississippi. His new book is My Family & I: A M...

2 Apr 202547min

One of the big stories in the Canadian federal election so far has been the collapse of support for the NDP. New polling from Ipsos shows support for the party continuing to decline. Our guest on today’s program is a former labour representative — and he has some thoughts on where the traditional party of working people has gone wrong. Brian Dijkema is the president of Cardus Canada, a public policy think tank, and senior editor of Comment Magazine. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @Tar...

31 Mars 202532min

As election season builds steam, here at Lean Out we are focused on the question of why daily life in Canada has become so expensive and so dysfunctional. My guest on today’s program has some insights to share. He recently wrote a well-researched book on the federal government’s corporate subsidies — which, he says, “exploded in magnitude” under Justin Trudeau. Laurent Carbonneau works in public policy in Ottawa, on innovation, science, and technology issues. He’s a former NDP staffer and the...

29 Mars 202517min