Full Comment

Olympic medallist and world champion figure skater Elvis Stojko joins Anthony this week to talk about what the last two years have been like for elite athletes as they’ve been restricted from their normal training routines, missed out on competitions, and had to struggle with the possible impacts on their performance from either getting COVID or getting vaccinated. All of this has happened, meanwhile, on top of the problems and uncertainty surrounding the 2022 Games in Beijing and calls for boycotts over China’s crimes against humanity. Stojko discusses the serious toll it’s all taking on athletes, how he tries to help them through it, and why it won’t be an easy recovery. (Recorded January 20, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The COVID-19 crisis has presented a minefield of bioethical questions, which Canadian policy-makers have largely stomped all over. It’s not just the damage of lockdowns, the treatment of children, demonizing the unvaxxed, and the privacy invasions. It’s also the callous disregard for anything happening beyond Canada’s borders. Bioethicist Dr. Kerry Bowman joins Anthony this week to discuss the problems created by neglecting bioethical considerations during the pandemic. And why he’s worried that doing so may have changed the very fabric of Canadian society for the worse. (Recorded January 20, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He served jail time in Mississippi for defying racial segregation laws. He was there at the founding the NDP. And he once believed that private property was a crime. But Michael Audain has come a long way since then, becoming one of the most successful players in B.C.’s torrid housing sector. And he’s made a massive fortune — his foundation recently gave $100 million to the Vancouver Art Gallery — from a market he used to denounce. The founder of Polygon Homes joins Anthony to discuss his eventful life, his (mostly) changed beliefs, and his new memoir One Man In His Time. (Recorded January 6, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re the safest we’ve ever been from COVID: The vast majority of us are vaccinated and the highest-risk people have boosters. The virus has mutated into its mildest version ever. Yet, in Canada, governments are once again closing schools, locking down businesses and deploying the same fearful, knee-jerk responses they’ve always used. Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, a frontline infectious diseases specialist at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ont., joins Anthony this week to explain why it’s time to declare an end to these needless lockdowns — and to start moving towards a post-pandemic mindset, where COVID stops being the primary focus of everything we do. (Recorded January 6, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

McGill University scientist Patanjali Kambhampati is on the cutting edge of laser research, but government funders refuse to support him — simply because he doesn’t believe in “diversity, equity and inclusion.” As a minority who has experienced racism himself, Kambhampati joins Anthony to discuss why he believes science is a true meritocracy, and why critical scientific advancements rely on people demonstrating their abilities, not their race, religion or gender identity. Kambhampati also explains why so many scientists who agree with him are afraid to speak out — and what’s at stake if science doesn’t take a stand against social-justice engineering. (Recorded December 9, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada’s reaction to the new COVID-19 variant suggests we haven’t yet learned from our past mistakes, Dr. Neil Rau tells Anthony in this episode of Full Comment. The flight bans to stop Omicron will prove pointless, explains Rau, an infectious-diseases expert and medical microbiologist in Toronto. Meanwhile, officials’ outdated attitudes about case counts, PCR tests, vaccinations and restrictions threaten a “tsunami of quarantine.” Eventually, Canadians will have to get a more realistic perspective on a virus that will simply keep mutating, Rau says — and it’ll be better for us all if we get there sooner, rather than later. (Recorded December 9, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Desperate to get out of the pandemic, Canadians have rushed to give up their privacy. We offer our sensitive digital health information to go out in public. Contact tracing, COVID-19 apps and QR codes trace our movements. Meanwhile, we’re building an information network that can give governments vast surveillance powers that remain long after the pandemic, says privacy expert Ann Cavoukian. The former Ontario privacy commissioner, and author of Privacy by Design, joins Anthony this week to explain why she’s alarmed by this zero-sum arrangement that trades privacy for health security. And she explains how we can keep public health without creating a permanent digital surveillance state — but only if we demand it. (Recorded November 25, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s something funny about the attempts by woke warriors to cancel “problematic” comedians like Louis C.K. and Dave Chapelle — because it never works. Legendary comedy-club impresario Mark Breslin joins Anthony this week to tell stories about the comic wars he’s been through since he opened his first Yuk Yuk’s in 1976. And he explains why the scolds who try to take the laughs out stand-up shows always end up bombing, and why today’s woke, wet blankets are just as likely to end up laughed off the stage. (Recorded November 25, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

North American elites wish we were all a bit more European. From work-life balance to climate progressivism, Europeans seem to embody the paragon of sophistication that liberals dream of. In real life, however, Europe is a mess. Outside its fashionable capitals lie sprawling impoverished suburbs. Unemployment haunts millions of unassimilated immigrants. Europe’s business innovation is lagging, its workers are less productive, and its energy costs are punitive. David Harsanyi, author of a new book, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent, joins Anthony to explain why we should stop trying to emulate Europe, and instead celebrate the freedom, work ethic and assimilationist ideas that have worked so well on this side of the Atlantic. (Recorded November 10, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post in 1972. Since then, Woodward has written books about presidents Nixon, Clinton, Obama, Trump, and both president Bushes. His latest book, Peril, is about the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, and the tumultuous transition from Trump to President Joe Biden. Woodward is the speaker this year at the Audi Innovation Series in Canada (that talk will be released Nov. 17 by Audi via Twitter and Facebook). But first, Woodward sat down with Anthony to discuss the serious troubles facing the Biden presidency, Trump’s plans to run again in 2024, the Steele Dossier fiasco, and what it means for the state of American journalism today. (Recorded Nov. 10, 2021.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices