Zooming out from Tuesday’s interview with Chair Jeff Knoll of the Halton Police Services Board, Joel and Roland reflect on the growing importance of podcasts in providing a place for long-form interviews with public figures.

They also discuss the wider implications of the spate of resignations following on from Rod Phillips’ resignation. Public frustration, anger and a desire for punishment for those found contravening the expectations placed on us all is understandable, but does it risk acting as a distraction from far more crucial issues to the life and death of Ontarians during COVID?

Correction and Clarifications:

Careful listeners will notice that Roland mispronounces Chair Jeff Knoll’s surname several times. This is the kind of brain cramp Roland specializes in, and he apologizes to Chair Knoll. For those running a sweepstake on how many weeks it would be before Roland had to apologize to somebody for saying something dumb, the answer is 26. Congratulations to all the winners.

Thanks to those who help us put this together:

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The Quadrafonics: fantastic opening and closing tunes!

2 Comments

  1. I would hope there would be room to be rightly outraged by both the big and small issues and I would argue that the outcomes and results from watching public figures ignore the safety rules is a very large and dangerous one actually and directly causes spread of the virus and deaths.

    1. Author

      Hi Lynn. We’re definitely not excusing or defending the actions of the people who chose to travel over Christmas. Not in the least. It’s almost more a question for media … is it doing the public a service if media focuses on the actions of individuals to such an extent that the ‘big picture’ of calamitous government incompetence and failure gets drowned out. I think it’s a reasonable question to put … whose resignation would have the most beneficial effect for Ontarians right now? Merrilee Fullerton or Rod Phillips? That does not deny the the possibility that the perfect answer would be ‘both’.

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