27. The Proto-Fascism of “Trust me” Carney w/ Leftie Jane

27. The Proto-Fascism of "Trust Me" Carney w/ Leftie Jane --- Matthew Remski: Hello everyone, this is Matthew Remski with episode 27 of Antifascist Dad Podcast, the Proto-Fascism of Trust Me Carney with Leftie Jane. Leftie Jane: I always say that I think Carney is kind of the master of the trust us principle because he, and this has come up numerous times where the opposition or concerned groups will say to various ministers about various bills, they'll say, okay, well you know, you could, if you wanted to, you could use the clause that you've put through. You could use the clause in a way that's extremely, gives you tons of power and is extremely detrimental and literally, again, flies in the face of humanitarian law. And ministers including Carney will say, well, we don't plan on using it that way. And it's like, well, that's all well and good, that's great. But then why are you giving yourself these powers, number one? And number two, even if we want to live in a world where this government wouldn't use the powers that they've given themselves, well, by passing this legislation, we're giving the power to any government to come to use these laws in the way that they want to. Matthew Remski: So it's a great, wide-ranging, incisive conversation with Jane Yearwood. Coming up for housekeeping, you can find me on Bluesky and Instagram under my name and I'm at YouTube and on TikTok as AntifascistDad. The Patreon for this show is antifascistdadpodcast and subscribers to that account get early access to every part two of the main feature episodes, including this one, but this time it's a little bit different. I'm shifting the format a little bit. I'll tell you about that in a second. And I want to point you once again to the pre-order link for my book which is coming out on April 26, which is extremely soon. The book is called Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times. And if you pre-order it, it helps a lot with visibility. Now, last week I was super happy to talk with a new social media comrade in Ciarra Jones. And I'm on a bit of a tear with this theme because my guest today is Jane Yearwood, also known as Leftie Jane to the algorithms. She lives here in Toronto. She does amazing political commentary from a leftist and disability justice point of view. And today we'll be looking at why so many Canadians seem to believe that MAGA-style fascism couldn't possibly take root here, even though it actually is. And so we talk about Canadian exceptionalism, including how settler colonial history and US foreign policy alignments have always really been hidden from public education and are now almost invisible behind the halo of Mark Carney and his charm offensive. Now, the heart of our focus is on five bills currently reshaping Canadian law: Bill C12, C9, C15, C8 and C22. We give them good names, actually, for clarity, to get around this sort of technobabble. Bill C12 Jane has dubbed the scapegoat a migrant save a billionaire bill. Bill C9 is the no more protesting against genocide bill. Bill C15 is make Carney and his friends kings again. C8 is the we're going to spy on all of your shit bill. And C22 is the unlawful access to your information bill. Now, one thing that Jane wanted me to communicate up top here, because we weren't quite explicit about this in our conversation, is just the sheer volume and rush of reality-changing legislation and how it is strategic. It has a very flooding-the-zone vibe to it. This is the Steve Bannon innovation of deliberate saturation of media channels with so much information and noise that critical thinking becomes impossible. And that wave is mirrored by Carney's, as I said, extended charm offensive, which reached a peak on March 29 when he was glazed by the entire Canadian celebrity class at the Juno Awards, which is Canada's version of the Grammys. Now, there's a longish interview today that I'm not breaking up. There wasn't a good breakpoint. But also in the Patreon part two segment, which is up now for subscribers, I wanted to give a reflection on this online space that I share with Jane and Ciarra and so many of you. And as I ping in my conversation with Jane, I am getting into Jodi Dean's concept of communicative capitalism as a critical framework. Now, Dean says that communicative capitalism is a political and economic formation in which the ideals of democratic communication, participation, inclusion, dialogue and access have been captured and monetized by networks and media platforms. We know this. But what she says is that this produces a system that appears democratic while it potentially undermines collective political agency. Now, Dean's framework rings true for a lot of activist discourse online today and how so many people feel like they're spinning their wheels. But I have also, and this is really, it speaks to these last two interviews, I've also experienced moments and connections in which something different happens, where mutual intention and values push back against the alienation. And so I have some things to say about how and why that happens. So that's up right now on Patreon for subscribers. Within a couple of weeks it'll be released to the wild, because this is an educational project and I don't want things to be paywalled indefinitely. And so here's my conversation with Jane Yearwood, also known as Leftie Jane. You can find her using the handle leftyjane on all platforms: IG, TikTok, YouTube and Substack. And if you'd like to support her work, it's only five dollars a month at Substack to get access to Jane's exclusive long-form articles as well as podcast episodes. So here's my conversation with Leftie Jane. Matthew Remski: Leftie Jane, welcome to Antifascist Dad. Thanks so much for being here. Leftie Jane: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Matthew Remski: I am a big admirer of all of your reporting and commentary, your enthusiasm, how much you put out. I think you're pretty much active every day, if not more than once a day. And you have a very consistent leftist message that is pushing back against a number of very prominent and accelerating tendencies in our political culture. And I wanted to start with this. What is it, do you think, about Canadians that so many of us believe that we're somehow immune from MAGA-style fascism? Leftie Jane: I love that question because it's one that I think about pretty much daily. Every time I put out content, and especially content where I make some kind of comparison between Canada and the United States, I get at least some comments saying to me, Canada could never be like the United States. We're so much better. We could never have the exact same type of politics here. So I see this pushback constantly, and I definitely have some hypotheses about it. The first one is I think it really relates to this superiority complex that we have as Canadians that seems to be baked into our Canadian national identity, that I know you've spoken at length about on this podcast. But it's, I think, because it's an aspect that really impacts the way that Canadians see ourselves and see our political landscape. And I think that our national identity seems to be as much defined by who we are as who we aren't. And who we aren't is the United States. That's what it seems to me is really how we in many ways define ourselves. And I think that that aspect of who we are as a nation has just been ramped up even more with Mark Carney, with the kind of elbows up rhetoric and narrative. So I think that in many ways we see ourselves as being superior to the United States. And part of that is thinking, oh well, we could never possibly have the same MAGA-style fascism that is taking place there. And I think a part of this as well is the way that Canadian politics, for a long time and particularly now with Carney, the way that we are similar to the United States is more covert, it's not as visible. I was talking to a comrade of mine and he was saying to me, you know, maybe the one good thing about Trump is the fact that what he's doing is so clearly horrific. We see these outrageous messages, we see people being murdered in the streets, we see people being put into vans separated from their children. And I think Canadians, we look at that and we say, well, we're not doing that. We're not that, so how could we possibly be as bad? And in some ways, yes, we're not doing that. But our politicians, and particularly I think Mark Carney, are masters of this. I know you've spoken about this before, the way that he's such a smooth talker and he kind of positions himself as trustworthy and as empathetic and he has this pedigree and this education, et cetera. I think in our Canadian politics we have this tendency to kind of hide behind supposed lawfulness, to hide behind a veneer. And in reality, when we look at our politics, it's not all that different in many cases from what's going on in the United States, or at least it's heading in a direction of fascism. And I think it's hard for many Canadians to kind of see behind that veneer when there's so much effort to have us not see behind it. Matthew Remski: Well, we'll get into the sort of legislative proof for what we're describing in a bit, but I think so much of it has to do with affect and mood and marketing. I did a segment on the power of that Mike Myers PSA that he did with Carney, where Carney's like the hockey coach dad on Saturday morning and Mike Myers is like the kid who comes to him and says, is there always going to be a Canada, dad? And Carney says, yeah, of course there's always going to be a Canada. And it's an elbows up moment. And you can kind of feel this warm, fuzzy, wholesome feeling that really sort of distinguishes. We're not watching Kid Rock come out on stage with fireworks going off, yelling about how he wants to kill woke people. It's a completely different presentation of a national identity. And I think people are very, very sort of entranced by that. It's very meaningful, very important to them. Did you grow up with that? I mean, I know that I'm a lot older than you. This is a deep part of my heritage, this feeling of Canada being deeply sort of wholesome and moral and smitten with its own wilderness. Did you have that as well? Leftie Jane: Yes, for sure. And I think that's the part that's so interesting to me, is I definitely do see this pushback, and I guess pushback but also shock, when we look at the actual policies of what's going on, in folks who are older than me. Like I say to my parents, I actually had a discussion with them yesterday about the way that my dad said he's always been told that Canada is this multicultural haven, that we're polite, that we have this beautiful expansive wilderness, the kind of vista imagery. And he said that's in part why, when you tell me about these bills that are going on, I feel so shocked. But I said to him, you know, perhaps the messaging wasn't quite as intense for me, but I still had that growing up. I think especially, and this is a huge part of this, as a white settler, I was someone who grew up in Toronto, and I grew up in an area that was predominantly white. And I think that was still the messaging that was told to me, particularly around Canada as a peacekeeper. Growing up, I'm 28, and there was the Iraq war in the US and I still remember kind of vaguely this messaging that, oh, look at Canada, we're not doing that. So I think I'm perhaps more able to see beyond the messaging because it wasn't quite as stark for me or quite as intense, but I still had that for sure. And I think that's actually a point as well around this question of why do we think that we're immune to this MAGA-style fascism? I think, thinking about which Canadians believe that we're more immune, in my experience based on honestly just what I see in my comments, the conversations I have with folks, I will say that certainly white settlers are the most shocked to hear that we're heading down a potentially fascist path, if not arguably fascist now. And I think that's because if you are indigenous, if you are BIPOC, my comrades have told me this, they've said to me, we're more primed to believe that this is very much possible because of the fact that we have been experiencing the violence of the settler colonial state for years. So for us, we look at this question of could Canada be fully fascist, and we're like, well, of course, because look at what we've been doing. But I think for folks who are less directly impacted by it, for folks who are white settlers, there's more shock when we see what's going on in our politics. Matthew Remski: There was a real cultural nation-building project that emerged out of the 1960s and the World Expo in Montreal that I think really influenced a lot of my childhood growing up in the 70s and 80s, where there were these two things that were going on. First of all, there was almost zero information on our colonial history in my own high school experience. My own kids at this point are introduced to at least the notion of acknowledging the land from the time that they're in second or third grade or something like that. We have a 13-year-old who is fully aware of our colonial history. That was completely absent from my education. But then at the same time, there was this sort of overwhelming support for the creation of Canadian content through the CBC. And there was a lot of funding for the National Film Board that did these little documentaries on cute little birds out in nature and stuff like that. And there was this general feeling that we were stewards of creation or something like that. And it was very depoliticized. There was no sense of, oh well, actually our militaries are integrated through NORAD with the States, and we might not actually be fighting in Vietnam but we're providing a kind of logistical support in certain ways. And you mentioned the Iraq war, and our militaries are integrated there as well in terms of certain strategic vectors. So yeah, it's a very thick kind of cultural history of we're not really like that, we really don't want to be like that, and here are all of the nice cultural products that we have that prove that we aren't. Leftie Jane: Yeah. And I think the narrative has almost switched. I think maybe for my parents there was no acknowledgement of colonialism whatsoever. Whereas I think when I was younger, the government was like, well, we have to acknowledge it somehow because people are cottoning on. But how do we actually acknowledge that? Matthew Remski: Yeah, how are we going to control that? Leftie Jane: Exactly. And so I remember when I was a child, in school we learned about indigenous culture, but it was only positioned in the past. There was no discussion of what are relations happening now, what is reconciliation. It was all in the past. And so for me, I was taught that it began and ended with beaver pelts, and that was about the extent of it. And so for me, it wasn't until university, when I did a minor in indigenous worldviews, that I actually learned about settler colonialism and the systems that are in action on this land. And I think now, it's really interesting what you're saying about your children, because my kind of main gig is I work as a tutor and I work with children of various ages. And it's so interesting to me because on the one hand, they are so much more aware. They're having conversations that I never had at their age around, for example, race. Like just yesterday I had two students and they were talking about an issue that had come up in their class and how they felt that their teacher had been racist. So they were having this conversation, a conversation I never would have had. But at the same time, even though they're having the conversations, I still really question how deep they're actually getting, which is in part their age, but also just how are children today and youth today being influenced by things like social media? I especially see that in their conversation. Even though they were having this conversation, I could see the influences of, you know, literally brain rot and online culture in the conversation. Matthew Remski: Oh, in what sense? In the sense that it was repetitive or that it was somehow detached? Leftie Jane: It was kind of detached, but it's also just the language that they use. For several of the boys in particular, which is interesting, it's very Joe Rogan-esque, where they know that there's something wrong with what Joe Rogan is saying, but then they still kind of repeat it in these interesting ways. So they'll say things like, oh, haha, Charlie, because they're all very aware of political figures, only American ones I might add. So they'll say, oh, like, my teacher was racist, haha, maybe she's like Trump. And then they'll go, oh, Jane, look at this meme. And they'll show me a Trump meme. And it's interesting because on the one hand they're having a conversation about race, but on the other hand, they don't really seem to go any further beyond, I notice race. And that's about the extent of it. And when you actually ask, okay well, what is racism, why do you think Trump is a negative figure, there isn't really any depth of conversation there. And they kind of know these sort of beats of things that have happened. They're aware of when Trump, you know, posted about the Obamas. They're aware of that, but they haven't really problematized it. So anyway, I'm going down a road here, but all to say, I think it's interesting of course to think about how, and actually sorry, one more thing I was going to say as well, based on the polls, we know that our younger generation in Canada right now is more conservative. They're becoming more conservative. This is something that I find so fascinating and disturbing, the way that the younger generation is voting more and more conservative. And they seem to be more entranced by figures like Pierre Poilievre and the fact that Pierre was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, which a lot of my students were talking about and were deeply interested in, when they have no idea who Mark Carney is. Which again, in some ways I wouldn't expect of them because they're youth, but obviously it is impacting the way that they think about the world. And so it's concerning to me and interesting to me that on the one hand they seem to be more aware of the inner workings of Canadian narrative, they seem to be able to identify what colonialism is to an extent or at least talk about it. But is that actually impacting their personal politics? Matthew Remski: This is fascinating because I did not expect, but it makes sense, that we're actually talking about three generations in this conversation. So I'm my age, you're your age, and then you have your students and I have my kids here. And I think what you're identifying is that a certain amount of discourse around settler colonialism or land acknowledgements or racism or sexism or homophobia can become its own sort of cultural commodity that's detached from its activist meaning or its political importance. And it just enters into sort of this social media mill that is much more about entertainment and engagement than it is about forming your opinions or your morality. And I find that super fascinating. But I think our now 13-year-old, last year, came home and said, you know, we do the land acknowledgement, and then, okay, so what now? And I don't know if you saw, but there's a recent Baroness von Sketch spot just about that, where Carolyn Taylor stands up in the middle of a theater as they're getting ready to do a play and the host has just done a land acknowledgement, and Carolyn says, oh, okay, well should we go? Should we leave? Like if this land belongs to somebody else should we just step out? Or like does some of the money go to the people who used to live here? And the whole point was, no, we've actually done the thing because we said the thing. And that's all we have to do. And I think that really suits a lot of people really well, including Mark Carney. Leftie Jane: Yes. No, I find that. And it's so interesting you should say that because I sometimes find that with my own students. The way that we'll have conversations about sexism, they'll bring up sexism, and then a second later, I'll say something to them, I'll teach them something, and particularly this only ever happens with the boys, they'll push back against me and be like, no, you're wrong. And I'll say to them, well, obviously I'm in a position of power here because I am your teacher. But, okay, like, why do you think I'm wrong? And they have no real explanation for why I'm wrong. And I see this pattern consistently with so many of my male students, and it does not happen with male teachers. And the students with whom that happens are ones where they've explicitly told me that they are online a lot. They watch YouTube a lot. And so it's interesting to me that they can identify sexism when it has nothing to do with them, but then they turn around and they act in ways that are in keeping with sexism. Online life really separates us out into these different types of actors in the world. Matthew Remski: Okay, so we just covered a lot. Let's get to some of the nuts and bolts of how things are actually swinging towards the right here. We've got a number of bills that are in process or they've reached the signatory stage. And the bills have very abstract names. We're going to look at C12, C9, C15 and C8. And there's something very, I don't know, technocratic and almost dissociative about these names. So let's try to name what these bills are actually doing. Bill C12 is about new immigration restrictions. What kind of name do we want to give this bill as we describe it? Leftie Jane: So I've been calling it the scapegoat a migrant save a billionaire bill. Matthew Remski: Oh boy, that's awesome. What's the acronym? Leftie Jane: Oh yeah, SMSB. Matthew Remski: The SMSB bill. That's awesome. All right. Leftie Jane: Yes. And that one, I felt very validated because recently Avi Lewis gave an interview, I believe with the Walrus, and he said the prime minister has created a deportation system. And he didn't explicitly say Bill C12, but it's largely through Bill C12 that rivals the United States. And so I can't stress enough just how significant this bill is in terms of shifting our immigration system. It does multiple things, but I would say the two that we can highlight here which are the most egregious. First off, it makes significant changes to refugee claims, basically. So folks who are, in the Canadian language, we refer to them as asylum seekers. So folks who are leaving their own country because they're no longer safe in their own country. And I will add, I think generally speaking, there's this perspective that refugees are all fleeing war. That's not the case. There are many reasons why someone might have to flee their country. And disproportionately this category of migrant is represented by women and folks who are part of the LGBTQS+ community. So these are the most marginalized category of migrants. And through Bill C12, essentially the process to apply to become a refugee is going to become much less ethical and much more unfair. And Amnesty International, and as well the UN, have said that this aspect of the bill literally contravenes Canada's obligations under humanitarian law to provide safety for asylum seekers. Matthew Remski: Wow. Leftie Jane: So this aspect of the bill. The other thing too about this aspect I will say is that the clause is retroactive. So this is going to apply to any refugees who have tried to come to Canada since 2020, or at least made their first entry into Canada since 2020. And the fact that this is retroactive, it actually abandons international humanitarian law. So the treatment of refugees is abysmal. That's in combination with the fact that Mark Carney is putting in place more cuts to refugee health care, et cetera. And the second aspect of this bill that I really want to highlight is the fact that this bill gives new sweeping powers to the immigration minister. It gives the immigration minister the power to cancel or suspend any immigration documents and applications. Matthew Remski: What, like unilaterally? Leftie Jane: Like unilaterally, en masse. And the only thing that the minister has to prove is that it be in the public interest to do so. Matthew Remski: Oh, that sounds like a very narrow test, right? Leftie Jane: Indeed, indeed. And that's something that comes up throughout all of these bills that we're going to discuss. All of them have this extremely vague language which allows for the government to act effectively unilaterally and provides this incredible power. And so this aspect of the bill, the Migrant Rights Network has said that this quite literally would provide the government the ability to create a mass deportation system like what we're seeing in the United States. Matthew Remski: So when Avi is referring to that, I think the specter, the imagination that is conjured, is of 50,000 ICE agents hired over a couple of years by the Trump administration. There's no budgetary provision for that yet, is there? But I mean, I don't know how else these sorts of things get enforced. Leftie Jane: So as of now, and I love that you bring that up because I think that's something that I have come up against a lot, is folks saying to me, oh well, how could this possibly rival the United States? Because there is nothing currently in our budget. There is nothing that says that we're going to have ICE agents, ICE agent-esque figures doing similar things to what we're seeing in the United States. But I think this goes back to what we said at the outset, which is the way that in Canada we kind of hide behind this veneer of lawfulness, even though we are literally changing the law to be able to deport people en masse. So even though it's not happening in the kind of very viscerally violent ways that we're seeing in the United States, that doesn't mean that we're not deporting people at the same scale. And if not, in this case at a larger scale than the level of deportation that's happening in the United States. It doesn't mean that we're not separating families. It doesn't mean that we're not deporting people who have worked here on migrant visas for years. So I think that's what Avi Lewis was getting at. And I think the aspect of this bill, which relates to all the other bills as well, is I always say that I think Carney is kind of the master of the trust us principle, because this has come up numerous times where the opposition or concerned groups will say to various ministers about various bills, they'll say, okay, well you know, you could, if you wanted to, you could use the clause that you've put through in a way that's extremely detrimental, gives you tons of power, and literally flies in the face of humanitarian law. And ministers including Carney will say, well, we don't plan on using it that way. And it's like, well, that's all well and good, that's great. But then why are you giving yourself these powers, number one? And number two, even if we want to live in a world where this government wouldn't use the powers that they've given themselves, well, by passing this legislation, we're giving the power to any government to come to use these laws in the way that they want to. And this is exactly the conversation that's happening about Bill C12, because this bill has now passed. And very quickly after it passed, the government put out a page on how they plan on using it. And they've said, oh, we're not going to apply the sweeping cancellation powers to asylum seekers, even though they're conveniently ignoring that they have this other clause around refugee claims. But they're saying, we're not going to apply the sweeping powers also to anybody who currently has some kind of status. If you already have permanent residency, for example, we're not going to cancel it, et cetera. And again, they're leaning into this idea of, well, look at us, we've put through this bill, but now we're saying we're not going to use it in the most egregious fashion. Matthew Remski: So they get to do two things at the same time. They give themselves the power and they say, hey, you know what, if we were assholes, we would use it to the fullest extent of what we've actually permitted ourselves to do. But we're not. And so look at how nice. I really like the trust me principle because I think it really gets to something about social capital and how that wouldn't fly in the States. There is no trust me principle that either major party can actually stand on at this point. But maybe that's a key source of sort of Canadian national illusory self-perception, that if somebody can use the trust me sort of posture and as long as that works, somehow we're still okay. Leftie Jane: Yes, absolutely. And I think this, as you said, goes perfectly back to what we discussed earlier. The way that Canada, and Carney is a master of this, presents politicians who present themselves and parties who present themselves as trustworthy and empathetic. And it's actually so funny because I get comments all the time from folks, and I even get DMs from folks who are really fired up who message me and say, how dare you speak badly about Carney, he's so empathetic, he's so nice. And I'm like, are you friends with him? Matthew Remski: That's exactly it, right. I can feel it. I can get the sense from the Mike Myers commercial. I can get the sense from him talking to the astronauts. I get this feeling that he'd be great to hang out with and share a beaver tail on the canal with. Leftie Jane: Exactly. And I think the references that you're making to the Mike Myers commercial make sense for your generation, they speak to your generation, but there are also examples for my generation. Like Carney is really trying to run the gamut of ages. Because I don't know if you saw, he recently at the Juno Awards, with the Scarney, this horrific, the sexy Carney mocktail cocktail drink that he drank with I think it was the Beaches, the band. They're at All Things Go in Toronto, which is a music festival that's very legible to younger people. So he's really staging all of these moments where it's no wonder to me that I see people my age who are like, haha, Scarney, he seems so nice, he seems like someone you'd want to grab a beer with. Matthew Remski: It's so incredibly effective because he goes through that entire Juno appearance without a single heckle. And nobody stands up and says, hey, why are you trading arms to the US? Like nobody. It's incredible. And there are so many people who would actually be primed to do it. I don't know whether they weren't given tickets or they were sort of barred beforehand. Very, very interesting. Leftie Jane: Exactly. And I have this image in my head of the Scarney moment where one of the band members identifies as queer, and I think it was them who actually made the kind of Scarney speech before they did the toast. And the part that's so fascinating to me is just the other day I had that image in my head and then we saw Marilyn Gladu cross the floor and become a part of the Liberal Party, and she quite literally opposes delegalizing conversion therapy. So we're seeing all of these sorts of what feel like cognitive dissonances going on. I feel like it's so effective. It's so frustratingly effective. Matthew Remski: Yeah. It's like we need an army of Eve Anglers to show up at the Junos and just do their thing, to stand up and be as rude as possible. And maybe that's why the NDP convention gets smeared and pilloried in that particular way, is that I think somewhere mainstream Canadian consciousness realizes that there's a bunch of people who actually will say what they think when it's important. You know what, we have three more bills to get through. Leftie Jane: Here we go. Yeah, I'll drink my water. Matthew Remski: So C9, this is ostensibly about combating hate. But what are we going to call it? Leftie Jane: Okay, so I have two names for it. One is child appropriate, one isn't. So the first one is the no more protesting against genocide bill. Matthew Remski: Okay. Leftie Jane: And then the second one that came up is the we're cucks for Israel bill. Matthew Remski: Uh oh. Okay. That's not child friendly. Okay. Leftie Jane: No. So feel free to cut that one. Matthew Remski: But your Joe Rogan-listening students, they would jive with that. Leftie Jane: They would. Exactly. Matthew Remski: So is it child friendly or not child friendly? It's hard to tell. Leftie Jane: So Bill C9, I sometimes say that one of the ways to figure out what's going on with these bills is if you look at the title, it's usually the opposite of what's actually happening. And that's the case with this one. This bill is called the Combating Hate Bill. It's ostensibly about preventing hate crimes, but instead it quite literally threatens our charter rights. Essentially, Bill C9 gives police massive discretionary powers to determine what symbols are hateful and also to determine what the intentions of protesters are. Matthew Remski: Oh god. Leftie Jane: Yes. And there are these very vague terms here where they say that if a protester's intention is to invoke fear in another individual, then that could potentially be grounds for a hate crime. Now, already we know that police have massive power and there's massive police overreach, particularly around pro-Palestine organizing and pro-Palestine solidarity. Just taking the Toronto police, TPS, as an example, if we look at who police have violently targeted massively and disproportionately, this is folks who are pro-Palestine and in pro-Palestine solidarity. And so already we have police with this massive overreach. The last thing we need is to be giving police broader and even more discretionary powers. And in addition to that, this bill also increases jail sentences for anybody who is convicted of some kind of hate crime. And so this is quite literally an attack on our right to protest, our right to assemble. And we know that already there are a lot of folks who are feeling more and more uncomfortable going to protests if they have unstable citizenship, if they are BIPOC. And this bill is going to just send even more of a chill down everyone's spines. And it works, and we can get into this more later, but the bills really all kind of work together to create our police state. And Bill C9 works in tandem with bills like Bill C8 and also now Bill C22 that just came up that we're going to talk about in a minute, which increase surveillance. So we have the increase of surveillance and simultaneously we have the increase of police power, which is going to cause more and more crackdowns on the voices of the most marginalized. Matthew Remski: So just to ground this in an example. If I go to the Israeli consulate after the IDF has bombed a hospital in Gaza and I join in a chant at a protest where I say, globalize the intifada, or from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, then it's up to the discretion of the arresting officer as to whether or not I have scared somebody who might be a counter-protester or somebody who's walking by. Is that how that works? Leftie Jane: Yes, exactly. Matthew Remski: Unbelievable. Leftie Jane: It's unbelievable. And you know, my MP is Leslie Church and she's one of the main figures who is putting forward Bill C9 and is fighting for Bill C9 to go forward. And I've now basically been banned from talking to her office because they find me irritating. But at one point I had a conversation with one of her staffers and I brought this up to them and they said to me, well, after someone is arrested, there's always lawful due process in the court. And I said, well, first off, I'm of the opinion that there's a lot of unlawful things that go on in the court, but that's besides the point. The point is that this bill essentially says we will arrest you and then ask questions later. And we know that is literally an attack on our freedom of expression. And I think anybody, no matter what your personal politics, should be concerned by this because this is literally an attack on our rights and on what it means to have a democracy. Matthew Remski: Okay. Bill C15 is a huge budget bill, but the primary issue with it, as I understand it, is that it gives incredibly broad powers to individual cabinet ministers. Is that the main issue? What are we going to call it? Leftie Jane: Yes, exactly. So I'm calling it make Carney and his friends kings again. And that was inspired by Sandra Kabina, she's a Conservative MP, and she was in parliament asking about this bill and she said essentially this bill gives ministers the powers of a king, which effectively it does. And so this bill, it's a massive omnibus bill. Many of these are massive omnibus bills. And buried on page 300 is this extremely disturbing clause which allows all cabinet ministers to exempt any individual or corporation from any federal Canadian law, with the only exception being the criminal code. And the only justification necessary for these exemptions is once again the phrase of it being in the public interest. Matthew Remski: Incredible. Leftie Jane: So incredible. So that is again massively broad. How this would affect our daily lives is this provision means that corporations could avoid all kinds of regulations. They could avoid environmental regulations, conflict of interest laws, health-related regulations, indigenous rights-related laws. And this bill works in tandem with Bill C5, which has already been put through, which gives permissions effectively for nation-building projects or projects that are in the national interest. And Bill C5 works in tandem with Bill C15 to give ministers these absolutely sweeping powers. And we know that this is going to allow for backroom deals. This is going to allow for corporations to lobby individual ministers in order to get through whatever they want to. And this is in keeping with Carney. His policies have consistently benefited big business. And Bill C15 is just yet another example of that. Matthew Remski: I mean, honestly, tax law, environmental protections, conflict of interest issues, employment regulations, labor issues, all of those can just be sort of canceled out by the particular cabinet minister in relation to a particular project that a corporation wants to do. And that's because it's going to be in the public interest, of course, not the public interest in terms of who's actually working for that corporation or who's being affected by whatever they're doing to the land. But I'm getting that right. That's true. Leftie Jane: That is true. Exactly. And I think that's why it's interesting that this particular bill is really bringing people together across party lines. That's why I find it interesting that I'm even quoting a Conservative MP, because this bill gets at the very core of so-called Canadian democracy. No matter what your personal politics are, if you care about Canada having a democracy and being a state where we honor the protections and laws that we have put in place, then you should be concerned about this bill. Because this bill quite literally allows for this very vague reasoning to be invoked against virtually any law. Matthew Remski: Okay. Now Bill C8 is ostensibly about cybersecurity, but according to your calculus, I'm imagining that it's actually really about increasing surveillance capacity. Leftie Jane: Exactly. And literally since we booked this podcast, there's been another one, Bill C22, which frankly does very similar things. They can kind of be spoken about in the same way. Bill C8, I liked your name, was the we're going to spy on all your shit bill. And Bill C22 is called the Lawful Access to Information Bill, and I'm calling it the Unlawful Access to Information Bill. And both of these bills are essentially about surveillance. They grant police and intelligence agencies easier access to private information about people in Canada. And actually the national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said that both of these pieces of legislation present one of the greatest threats to privacy in Canada of the past two decades. And so these bills are going to affect any kind of action that you have on the internet. It goes beyond just Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, which would be bad enough, but they're also going to be able to track online retailers. Where are you buying from, what appointments are you booking, what is your communication online, what mental health professionals do you visit? All of this information is going to be available to the government as data. Matthew Remski: Incredible. Okay, I think we have a really good picture. Your research is impeccable. I really really appreciate how much effort you put into allowing this material to be legible to your growing TikTok and Instagram audience. I think it's really really important work. I want to talk about some happier things now. Which is starting with, you do all of this stuff, you are aware of all of these issues, and you also bring people together to do things like writing postcards in Kensington Market. Tell me about that. Leftie Jane: Yeah. So writing postcards was an amazing experience. I loved it. And I think, in addition, I don't talk as much about this aspect, but I'm also a disability advocate. I have a non-visible disability. And so I'm always really interested in looking at ways that we can do activist work that are more accessible, because sometimes going to a protest is not the most accessible experience. And so doing things like writing postcards, that was a collaboration with the PSSAR, which is the Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk organization. And we were signing postcards and there are now actually 8,000 postcards that have been signed by the PSSAR because tons of organizations have been working with them. And we signed 50 of those 8,000. And those cards are going directly to Mark Carney and also to Lena Diab, who is the minister of immigration, demanding that they allow Palestinian students who are currently in Egypt and Palestine to come to Canada to start their education. So those types of actions are always really meaningful because I was able to talk to folks who follow me online and know me from the online sphere. But to really bring that and ground it in real-life action, I always try to do that. I think there can sometimes be a little bit of a disconnect between online and in-person, and I think that online activism is needed, but I think it's most meaningful when it happens in combination with in-person action as well. Matthew Remski: Yeah, I can totally see that. And what you're saying about accessibility of political activism from a disabilities perspective really resonates with me and with the interview that I did early on in this podcast with Ben Casease, who is a scholar of protest specifically, and also a retired Muay Thai fighter. And I asked him this question about, is what you are talking about with regard to physically putting yourself out there to defend your neighbors against an ICE raid or to take an antagonistic stance towards the police during a protest, is that accessible to everybody? Doesn't this involve a certain amount of ability? And he said, well, yeah, that's the most important thing to recognize, is that we use our bodies to do everything. And putting your body on the line for a particular issue might exactly look like writing an email. It might exactly look like sending a postcard. And I just thought it was a really beautiful sort of encapsulation of how diverse courage is. Leftie Jane: Exactly. And I think for the revolution, we're all going to be needed and we all have different capacities. And honoring that, while also at times taking risks, especially as white settlers, is important. Matthew Remski: This other happy thing that I want to ask you about is you are really into public libraries, and you have a series on TikTok where you visit various public libraries. I think you've done a bunch in Toronto. You visited a number in Montreal as well. Leftie Jane: Yes. Yes. I was just in Montreal with my wife and we visited a couple of them. And I love La Grande Bibliothèque. It's gorgeous, it's so beautiful. And I love that they also had a lot of accessible seating, which was amazing. You don't always see that in libraries. And they also have over 50,000 documents in Braille, which I also loved. So that was amazing. And then in Toronto, I mean, I have a soft spot for the North Toronto Library, they changed the name at one point, or North District Library, because that was my childhood library. So I really love that one. And I also really like the reference library. I love that elevator that goes up. That one makes me happy. Matthew Remski: Well, there's something cinematic about it, right? Leftie Jane: Yes. Matthew Remski: I feel like I'm in a European film. And just for listeners at home, the Metro Reference Library is very large. It's probably a 60s-designed modernist structure, but it is organized around a central well where there's a very expansive ground floor with study tables where people are bringing books from the stacks. But then there's probably four or five ring-like floors surrounding it. And then the elevator goes up on one end. I don't know, it's almost a little bit Star Wars-y as well. What's the fancy planet that Amidala is from? Leftie Jane: Oh, I don't know. I'm more of a Star Trek girly. Matthew Remski: Oh, okay. Well, you probably have a planet in mind then. Yeah, but okay, so the reference library is beautiful. Did you study at U of T at all and did you get into Robarts? Leftie Jane: Yes. So I did my undergrad and my master's both at U of T and Robarts. I have horrible memories of the library. It's just so brutalist, it's not a very happy place, and I just have all these memories of pulling all-nighters in misery writing my essays. So I actually really like EJ Pratt Library, which is on Victoria campus. They have beautiful artwork. Victoria has a lot of really nice artwork. So I do like university libraries, but I am particularly partial to public libraries because I think there's just so much of a need for them. And you know, it's interesting, I did a video recently and I end all of my videos in the library series by saying, going to a library is an antifascist act. Matthew Remski: Yeah. Leftie Jane: And it's interesting because I always get comments of folks saying to me, oh, like, why is it an antifascist act? I'm not clear on that. And then just recently I got someone who was really angry that I had said that. They were like, this was a great video until you said that libraries were antifascist. Matthew Remski: They really got stuck on that. Leftie Jane: They really got stuck on that. And I think it's because folks think of libraries as these kind of nice, potentially depoliticized spaces when they're really not. Libraries have the power and the potential to bring folks material that is revolutionary, to bring folks material that teaches us about topics that are so necessary for bringing us into an antifascist, anti-capitalist worldview. But they also have the power to do the opposite, whatever their collection is. But I think even more than that, what I love about libraries is how they normalize the welfare state in a way. They provide spaces for community. And right now, as we're seeing the mass closure of shelters, as we're seeing our TTC, which is our subway system, becoming more and more unsafe for people, places like libraries are some of the last remaining fully public spaces where you have in some ways class solidarity. They're so much more important. And the fact that we even can enter a library without paying a fee in this time of late-stage capitalism is in itself radical. Matthew Remski: It's incredible. And I think too that the capacity for the library to deliver consciousness-raising content probably goes up to the extent that people are using public libraries as points of safety or gathering. And I can imagine that the Carney class is going to come for that because it's very obvious that these public spaces are, as you say, some of the last remaining spaces of potential solidarity. Leftie Jane: Exactly. And I think Carney has shown himself to be coming for anything that he sees as a threat to capitalism, because he is running this country like we're a business and he's the CEO. And so I think that's why these spaces are even more important for us to protect because of the important role that they play in normalizing social participation and bringing folks together in these meaningful ways. Matthew Remski: I have a really good library memory, but it's not public, so I'm a little bit ambivalent about it. It's the Hart House Library. Leftie Jane: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. That one's beautiful. Matthew Remski: But I think it's mainly because of the incredibly deep red leather couches that are very, very old and right up against probably hundred-year-old steam radiators. And so these were places of learning and comfort, but also places of deep napping. Leftie Jane: Which we need a space for, frankly. We totally need a space for that in the public sphere. Matthew Remski: Okay. Last thing is, it's odd because we both live in Toronto and we haven't met each other in person, but I think we'd hit it off if we did, and I hope I do end up coming to the postcard thing next time. Leftie Jane: Yes. Matthew Remski: But we meet online. I am really appreciative of your political commentary. You're doing such great work on these platforms. I am currently reading the Marxist theorist Jodi Dean on the kind of economy that we are in. She calls it communicative capitalism, and she describes it as a system in which digital participation captures these democratic ideals like participation and being able to contribute to a conversation, and in doing so it generates the feeling of political engagement, but it can also convert that engagement into platform profit and a kind of passivity within the consumer population. And this has been haunting me a little bit because of course I'm producing all kinds of content as well. I'm wondering how you think about that and how you know that your material is breaking through and not just becoming part of the discourse that's almost floating above everything. Leftie Jane: Yeah. And just to preface by saying I am a big fan of your content. I love your content. There have been many times I've been watching your videos and I'm just nodding, being like, yes, I totally agree. And this is absolutely something that I think about a lot. And this is actually a conversation that I've had a number of times with my comrades who are activists who do a lot of on-the-ground in-person work. And they've pointed out that there can be kind of a disconnect between folks who are doing online work and who are content creators, and folks who are very much rooted in person and in community. And this does haunt me, this aspect of communicative capitalism, to think, are folks liking my videos and that's the extent of it? And I think there are two things here. I think the first is that I saw a meme the other day where someone said, we need action that we can't talk about on the internet. And I think that we do. But in order to get folks to that place, we need communicators. I did my master's thesis on the capitalist worldview and how community gardens can be spaces for questioning the capitalist worldview. So I'm very much someone who thinks about how we operate in the space of the mind, and I think about how capitalism shapes the way that we view the world so intensely. And I think that this kind of communication that not only talks about the nitty-gritty of politics, but also just encourages folks to question the systems, that is what's going to encourage us to actually get out and do the work. So I think that this kind of online communication is so important. But then I also, in a lot of the work that I do, I really make an effort with every video to give an action item at the end and to say, if this has resonated with you, here's something you can sign or here's a protest that you can attend. And I think that's something that might be lacking. I do see a lot of videos, and I would say some of the biggest Canadian political commentators are white men who have hundreds of thousands of followers who give great analysis but don't really tell folks what we can do about it. And so I always try to provide an action item. And I am always really excited to learn from folks that it's working, because I'll have folks say to me, they'll either DM me or comment and say, I've never been to a library before and I went to a library because I saw your video, or I've never actually been involved in politics and now I'm understanding it and I've gone to a protest. And I think it's in those moments where I'm like, okay, the work that we're all doing is working. Matthew Remski: That's amazing to get that feedback. And also, you're showing me that I've got to think more about action item stuff in my own content. And I also want to say too, about the division between content creators and people who are doing on-the-ground activism, you've mentioned that you have an invisible disability. And this is not something that I have to manage for myself, but there is disability in our home that requires a lot of home care and that restricts the amount of outside work that I can do. And so we're kind of sharing a little bit of that reality, that challenge. And I would hope that there would be in the future a more open conversation about why those conditions are guiding the way in which we do our political work. I think it would be great if we understood each other and our strengths and our limitations or our challenges a little bit better. Leftie Jane: Yeah, exactly. And as someone who is disabled, I have a lot of followers who, at my Kensington Market postcard writing session, I had several folks who have disabilities and we had a really great discussion about what it means to be an activist and have a disability and what that looks like. And I totally agree. I think it can often be kind of this balance of there are so many things that I want to do, but I can't necessarily do. And so I try to really focus on, okay, what can I do? And I have a lot of folks in my comments who say, I have a disability, I feel guilty that I can't go to all these protests. But I feel like I'm learning through your content that there are ways to engage that work better for my body. And I think this goes into a conversation as well about being understanding of that, helping folks to get to a place where we don't feel guilty and we feel like this is just what our body can do and this is how we can use our strengths. And also making some of these in-person actions a bit more accessible. I've been to protests where the organizers have done their absolute best to make things accessible and then police have undermined that, which you can't necessarily anticipate. But looking at civilian action and civilian dissent in a broader way is really something that we definitely need to be doing. Matthew Remski: Jane, thank you so much for visiting today. It's so great to talk to you. I'm so happy for all of the work that you're doing. Leftie Jane: Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you're doing. It's incredible. Matthew Remski: Thank you for listening, everybody. That is the show for this week. Remember that up on Patreon now is my audio essay on communicative capitalism through the framework of Jodi Dean, what it is, how it impacts our online life, how to think about it, how to work and act around it. So that's there for you. Until next week. Take care of each other.