This special episode of Friday Focus was recorded in front of a live audience at the Hot Docs Curious Minds Festival and the full length edition being made available to all paying and non-paying subscribers

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Rudyard and Janice start today's show unpacking Zohran Mamdani's mayoral victory in New York City. How did this young and inexperienced politician build such a broad coalition? What is the message we should take away from his big win? Janice argues that this race is not the only one that matters; Democratic wins in Virginia and New Jersey with more moderate candidates offer an important lesson that in order to win you need a big tent with a wide variety of voices. What role did technology play in these elections, and should we be worried about how it is affecting the democratic process? Rudyard and Janice then turn to the US government shutdown which is being weaponized by both parties. Unfortunately neither side will negotiate without concessions and the public is being held hostage. In the remaining moments Rudyard and Janice offer their analysis of Mark Carney's first federal budget as Prime Minister. Both agree that the budget did not live up to expectations; the government needed to make some big cuts and ask Canadians to sacrifice to get our economy back on track. As Janice puts it, the biggest problem we have in this country is we think being nice is the most important value. It's not.

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