Antifascist Dad Podcast

32. Smith and Carney May Destroy Socialized Medicine w/ Nikolas Barry-Shaw

1 h 13 min · 20. maj 2026
episode 32. Smith and Carney May Destroy Socialized Medicine w/ Nikolas Barry-Shaw cover

Description

I sit down with Nikolas Barry-Shaw, researcher and trade and privatization campaigner for the Council of Canadians, to break down how Alberta's Bill 11 is dismantling Canada's public healthcare system, with the help of an insurgent private insurance campaign. Manulife, Canada Life, and Sun Life control two thirds of Canada's $66 billion private health benefits market. These behemoths helped draft Danielle Smith's signature legislation through covert government working groups. Meanwhile, doctors, unions, and the public were excluded. Bill 11 creates a two-tier fast lane for the privately insured and opens the door to privatizing any part of the system by administrative fiat. So far, the Carney government is refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act, and Saskatchewan and Ontario watching that closely, ready to pounce. Barry-Shaw argues this moment poses an existential threat to Medicare, from coast to coast. As Tommy Douglas warned forty years ago: the system must move forward or it will be crushed by capital. SOURCES Pandora's Box: Danielle Smith and Insurance Giants Unleash Attack on Healthcare [https://breachmedia.ca/pandoras-box-danielle-smith-and-insurance-giants-unleash-attack-on-healthcare/] Danielle Smith Admitted She Wants to Throw Out Canada's Public Health Care Law [https://breachmedia.ca/danielle-smith-admitted-she-wants-to-throw-out-canadas-public-health-care-law/] Alberta's Bill 11 Breaks Federal Law — Canadian Health Coalition [https://www.healthcoalition.ca/albertas-bill-11-breaks-federal-law/] Bill 11 Analysis — Parkland Institute [https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/] Bill 11 Report — Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [https://www.policyalternatives.ca/] Council of Canadians — Trade and Privatization [https://canadians.org/] Friends of Medicare Alberta [https://www.friendsofmedicare.org/] Ontario Health Coalition [https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/] Socials * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

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72 episodes

episode 38. Radicalized at 15 by Climate and Corporate Greed w/ Emily Lowan artwork

38. Radicalized at 15 by Climate and Corporate Greed w/ Emily Lowan

Today I'm sitting down with Emily Lowan, leader of the BC Green Party and the first GenZ leader of a major political party in Canada. Emily was radicalized at 15 during the 2016 US election while on a cross-country school trip. She built a decade of movement work through climate organizing, Wet'suwet'en solidarity, and pipeline fights, then won an insurgent party leadership campaign in two weeks at age 25. We talk about heat domes, Kristi Noem advising a BC mining company and American oligarchs buying up 1.2M acres in the interior. Emily also shares a visualization practice for doing this work without burning out that she learned from an ecosocialist movement elder.  SOURCES Emily Lowan on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emilylowan/] BC Green Party [https://bcgreens.ca/] Harsha Walia, Border and Rule [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1553-border-and-rule] National Farmers Union BC [https://www.nfu.ca/] Corporate Mapping Project, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [https://www.corporatemapping.ca/] Climate Action Network Canada [https://climateactionnetwork.ca/] Stan Kroenke landholdings — investigative background [https://thetyee.ca] Wet'suwet'en land defenders and Coastal GasLink resistance [https://unistoten.camp/] Jewish Faculty Network report on CIJA [https://jewishfacultynetwork.ca/] Rifflandia Festival [https://rifflandia.com/] Michelle Remembers — background [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Remembers] matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] [@antifascistdad on TikTok] antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

Yesterday1 h 4 min
episode UNLOCK 36.1 Asking Liberals: “Do You Condemn Imperialism?” artwork

UNLOCK 36.1 Asking Liberals: “Do You Condemn Imperialism?”

Following up on my conversation with Toronto comedian Nour Hadidi: I'm haunted by one detail from the harassment campaign against her. It's about how she posted the clip of Al Jazeera bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh refusing Christiane Amanpour's question, "Do you wish Hamas had never committed October 7th?" by dismantling its premise entirely. I look at Adam Johnson's research on the "Do you condemn Hamas" formula as a media disciplining strategy, Frantz Fanon's analysis of the colonized intellectual required to perform Western values before being heard, Charles Cobb's history of the nonviolence demand inside the civil rights movement, and communications scholar Zohar Kampf's empirical study of adversarial ethnopolitical interviews. Kampf identifies six options for interviewees facing the condemnation ritual, and only one of them doesn't feel like caving.  SOURCES Al Jazeera Journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh Slammed CNN — YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0UmkvOYMco] Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi — Citations Needed podcast [https://citationsneeded.com/] Noura Erakat — Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine — Stanford University Press [https://www.sup.org/books/law/justice-some] Frantz Fanon — The Wretched of the Earth — Grove Press [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/118753/the-wretched-of-the-earth-by-frantz-fanon/] Charles Cobb — This Nonviolence Stuff'll Get You Killed — Duke University Press [https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolence-stuff-ll-get-you-killed] Zohar Kampf — "Do You Condemn?" chapter in The Discourse of Indirectness — John Benjamins [https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.331] Edward Said — Covering Islam — Penguin Random House [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159777/covering-islam-by-edward-w-said/] Ramzy Baroud — My Father Was a Freedom Fighter — Pluto Press [https://www.plutobooks.com/9781783714124/my-father-was-a-freedom-fighter/] The Onion — Dying Gazans Criticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas [https://www.theonion.com/] Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/] * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

28. juni 202622 min
episode 37. Enough is Enough w/ Dean and Matt of The Magnificast, pt 1 artwork

37. Enough is Enough w/ Dean and Matt of The Magnificast, pt 1

I'm joined today by Dean Dettloff and Matt Bernico, co-hosts of The Magnificast podcast and the authors of a brilliant new book, Enough is Enough: Degrowth, Capitalism, and Liberation Theology, out now from Fortress Press. We start with some basics: what the Magnificat is and why secular leftists should care about it, what "enough is enough" actually means across its political, economic, and spiritual dimensions, and why working within a contradictory religious tradition might be a lot like keeping one's faith in leftism. Also: was St. Francis of Assisi a proto-socialist? Was he neurodivergent? And how about the Global South rise and Global North suppression of liberation theology? In this era of Pope Leo: does the church still metabolize radical ideas into liberal poetry?  Cool stuff for anyone trying to understand the antifascist religious left that JD Vance doesn't want you to know exists. * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/] SOURCES Enough is Enough: Degrowth, Capitalism, and Liberation Theology — Bernico and Dettloff, Fortress Press [https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9798889830795/Enough-Is-Enough] The Magnificast podcast [https://themagnificast.com/] Christianity on the Spectrum podcast [https://christianityonthespectrum.podbean.com/] A Theology of Failure — Marika Rose, Fordham University Press [https://fordhampress.com/a-theology-of-failure-hb-9780823284078.html] Vampyroteuthis Infernalis — Vilém Flusser, University of Minnesota Press [https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816678228/vampyroteuthis-infernalis/] The Silencing of Leonardo Boff — Harvey Cox [https://www.amazon.com/Silencing-Leonardo-Boff-Vatican-Christianity/dp/0940989352] People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism — Penny Lernoux [https://www.amazon.com/People-God-Struggle-World-Catholicism/dp/014009816X] A Theology of Liberation — Gustavo Gutierrez [https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Liberation-History-Politics-Salvation/dp/0883441632] Laudato Si — Pope Francis [https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html]

24. juni 202656 min
episode UNLOCK 35.1 “AI for All” of Carney’s Friends artwork

UNLOCK 35.1 “AI for All” of Carney’s Friends

Update episode on the Carney government's national AI strategy, "AI for All," released June 4, 2026. The document's most-used word is "sovereignty" — appearing 51 times — while "emissions," "climate," "consent," "Palantir," and "Amazon" appear nada. I trace the political etymology of "sovereignty" from First Nations liberation discourse through working-class populism to its current deployment by the Davos class as branding for capital accumulation. I also examine AI Minister Evan Solomon's performance on CBC Front Burner, where he dodged nine accountability questions in thirty minutes using the word "trust" as a revolving door. Finally, a look at Dr. Jason Edward Lewis's Indigenous AI epistemology framework and the concept of "data colonization." Because the familiar crime now reanimated against Indigenous communities through AI infrastructure is a template for what is coming for us all. SOURCES Canada's National Artificial Intelligence Strategy: AI for All [https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/canadas-national-artificial-intelligence-strategy-ai-all] CBC Front Burner: Minister Defends Canada's New AI Strategy — Transcript [https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/minister-defends-canadas-new-ai-strategy-transcript-9.7224834] DeSmog: Carney Allowed Gas-powered AI Data Centres After Lobbying From Alberta Energy Company [https://www.desmog.com/2026/02/25/carney-allowed-gas-powered-ai-centres-after-lobbying-from-alberta-energy-company/] Project Ploughshares: Setting the Record Straight on Canada's Arms Exports to Israel [https://www.ploughshares.ca/publications/ploughshares-statement-setting-the-record-straight-on-canadas-arms-exports-to-israel] CJPME: Canada's Record-Breaking 2023 Military Exports to Israel [https://www.cjpme.org/pr_2024_06_04_military_exports_data] APTN News: What's Behind Canada's Sovereign AI Plan? [https://www.aptnnews.ca/infocus/infocus-whats-behind-canadas-sovereign-ai-plan/] Intercontinental Cry: Ancestral Intelligence — How Indigenous Knowledge Informs AI and Data Ethics [https://icmagazine.org/ancestral-intelligence-how-indigenous-knowledge-informs-ai-and-data-ethics/] Policy Options: AI Threatens Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Digital Self-Determination [https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2025/05/ai-indigenous-data/] Assembly of First Nations: Brief to Parliamentary Committee on Bill C-27 [https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/INDU/Brief/BR12885140/br-external/AssemblyOfFirstNations-e.pdf] Canada's National Observer: Three Quarters of Data Centre Sites Planned in Alberta Are in High Water Stress Areas [https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/03/23/investigations/alberta-data-centres-water-supply] The Intercept: Philly Cops Admit They're Tracking First Amendment Activity Critical of AI [https://theintercept.com/2026/06/01/ai-data-center-protest-police-surveillance/] Abacus Data: Canadians Split on AI Data Centres [https://abacusdata.ca/canadians-split-on-ai-data-centres-as-cost-concerns-and-local-opposition-emerge/] Abundant Intelligences Project — Dr. Jason Edward Lewis, Concordia University [https://www.concordia.ca/research/indigenous-futures.html] * matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * @antifascistdad [https://www.tiktok.com/@antifascistdad] * antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

21. juni 202622 min
episode 36. Stand-up for Gaza w/ Nour Hadidi artwork

36. Stand-up for Gaza w/ Nour Hadidi

I sit down with Jordanian-Canadian comedian, writer, and podcaster Nour Hadidi to talk about standup as survival, solidarity with Gaza, and what it means to do political comedy in a liberal industry that wants your watermelon emoji but not your actual politics. We discuss her journey from a finance 9-5 to standup, to standup in a radical register that helped her discover who she was and what her values are. She also tells few jokes. SOURCES Nour Hadidi — The Noursletter on Substack [https://nourhadidi.substack.com] Nour Hadidi Podcast on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/nourhadidi] Comedians for Palestine on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/comediansforpalestine] Al Jazeera Journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh Slammed CNN — YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0UmkvOYMco] Vivian Silver Impact Award — New Israel Fund Canada [https://www.newisraelfund.ca] Palestinian Youth Movement Toronto — Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/pymtoronto] Global March to Gaza — Coalition Against Israeli Occupation [https://www.globalmarchtogaza.org] Anera — Gaza humanitarian aid [https://www.anera.org] UNRWA — United Nations Relief and Works Agency [https://www.unrwa.org] Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/] * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

17. juni 20261 h 11 min