The Important Stuff Podcast

Ep. 9 - Assassination of Charlie Kirk, Sanctioning of a Canadian ICC Judge

In this episode we discuss the US sanctioning of the Canadian ICC judge, Kimberly Prost, due the "audacity" of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in approving the resumption of investigations of war crimes in Afghanistan. We also discuss the implications surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk this past week, as well as the broader Israeli conflict with their recent bombing of Qatar, where a meeting of Hamas and other officials was taking place. Yours hosts: Robert MacGillivary and Fareed Khan

Data Sovereignty, Facebook and the Risks of AI

In this episode we discuss data sovereignty, data privacy and Facebook, and the planned new social media platform to be based in Canada, Gander, which is associated with Arlene Dickison, formerly of Dragon's Den.  Also discussed, a new massive data centre, Wonder Land, proposed by O'Leary Ventures to be built in the district of Greenview, Alberta, the increase in tariffs by Trump on Canada to 35%, and finishing this episode with the risks and possible benefits of AI.    00:50 - Sovereignty 09:40 - Data Privacy and Facebook 24:21 - Gander - new social media platform 31:08 - Proposed Mega Data Centre in Alberta 42:00 - Trump's Tariffs 49:55 - Risks of AI

Ep. 7 - Israel-Palestine, Poilievre’s 2nd Chance, Israeli Lobbying and US Sanctions

A discussion on the Israel-Palestine situation including the sanctions and lobbying against those who call out the genocidal actions in Gaza. The by-election that will give Pierre Poilievre a second chance to become a member of parliament. The status of “charities” that lobby on behalf of other countries. The UK government proscribes Palestine Action as a terrorist group.

Ep. 6 - Federal Party Platforms, One Day to the Election

In this episode we talk about the federal party platforms that were released in the past week or so.  Today we are one day before the election, and the race between the the Liberals and the Conservatives is still quite tight. The NDP are down in the polls and face the risk of losing official party status.  This is part 4 in the series covering the 2025 Federal Election.

Ep. 5 - Gaza, Federal Election Debate and Climate Change

In this episode we talk about a very serious situation. That is, the one taking place in Gaza right now - a situation labelled by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as a genocide, and being investigated by the the International Court of Justice as a “plausible" genocide. We talk about Canada's lack of effort in regard to condemning this level of atrocities. Mark Carney has shown that he is no different than Justin Trudeau, in that he says the right things but there seems to be little substance behind the words, with him saying at one point that he does not want to "politicize" the situation by using the word genocide.  We also discuss the federal election debate who said what. Will the debate move the needle?  Who performed well, who did not?  Listen to find out.   Human Rights Watch - A Threshold Crossed [https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution] (Apartheid, 2021) Anesty International - Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza [https://amnesty.ca/gazagenocide/?gad_source=1] Independent Jewish Voices [https://www.ijvcanada.org/zionism-is-mitzrayim/] (2025, Canada)   You can find our podcasts on Y Insights at: Yinsights.org/podcasts [http://yinsights.org/podcasts] You can find Fareed's blog on Rabble at: Rabble.ca/author/fareed-khan/ [https://rabble.ca/author/fareed-khan/]