Brian Lilley waded into the Hamilton Centre by-election with an accusation of antisemitism against the NDP. The Liberals jumped on his bandwagon with candidate Deirdre Pike demanding an apology from NDP candidate Sarah Jama to the Jewish community. Jama fought back by accusing Pike of racism. Jama and Pike have both dedicated their lives to activism on behalf of disadvantaged and persecuted groups. So it makes perfect sense to have an election that paints career community activists as antisemites and racists.

And thus a man who, days later, would post a tweet ridiculing Jagmeet Singh’s turban, and then furiously denied the tweet was racist asking why on earth would anybody think it was offensive, made the Hamilton Centre by-election worse for everybody, above all the people who live in Hamilton Centre.

Later in the episode we ask what happened to the climate emergencies declared in every 905 city in 2018/19? Can you guess?

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Nicholas Paul: sound editing.

The Quadrafonics: fantastic opening and closing tunes!