OUR PLANS FOR 2026
Happy New Year?
If you say so, I guess.
Now that the first quarter of the 21st century is over, it seems a reasonable time to take stock of how we’re doing as a country in Canada, as a group of democracies in the West, and as a world in general. And on all three counts, it feels increasingly difficult to say our world is headed in the right direction.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. popularized an expression: “The arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice.” Maybe so in the long run, but can there be any doubt that is NOT the case as we embark on the next quarter of the 21st century?
Let’s start at home. Our best friend launched a tariff war against us, causing existential threats to some of our most important domestic industries such as auto and steel manufacturing. Even worse, the Oval Office occupant mused about annexing us as his 51st state. We have at least three more years of this misery to look forward to. Or who knows? Maybe this is our new normal for the foreseeable future, regardless of who’s president?
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and then the end of the Soviet Union ensued two years later, it seemed an unprecedentedly wonderful time for the world’s democracies. Four-and-a-half decades of post-World War II attempts to deal with Soviet totalitarianism and aggression seemed to have paid off. The world would become increasingly democratic, less bellicose, and better off economically.
That sure doesn’t seem to be happening anymore. The current president has opted to go in a different direction. His national security strategy is plucked straight out of the pages of George Orwell’s 1984, in which the world’s three major powers — the US, China, and Russia — cast away decades-long alliances and essentially divvy up the world’s spheres of influence among themselves. This was NOT the peace dividend we were hoping for at the end of the Cold War.
Even worse, the world’s self-proclaimed greatest democracy doesn’t seem all that interested in either exporting democracy or getting along with its democratic allies, and instead has become increasingly authoritarian, while snuggling up to other authoritarian leaders around the world. How disappointing.
And what about the rest of the world? Russia’s immoral war against Ukraine is about to mark its fourth anniversary. A little over two years ago, we saw the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, and then Israel promptly became a pariah state, as the world watched what many have described as a genocidal response against Hamas and the Palestinians. And through it all, the world’s longest-lasting hate, antisemitism, returned with a vengeance, causing many Jews to ask the question that is never far from their minds: is it time to pack up and leave?
If the Middle East gets a disproportionate amount of attention, then surely Sudan’s civil war suffers from a massive lack of international interest. Almost nine million people have been internally displaced, 3.5 million more have fled the country as refugees, and famine is rampant. Much of the world yawns.
And on top of a mountain of appalling statements he’s already made during the five years he’s been president, Donald Trump said the worst thing I’ve ever heard any politician ever say, when he essentially told Rob and Michele Reiner that they were stabbed to death by their own son because of…their hatred for him. Even MAGA Republicans were disgusted.
Having said all this, we Canadians, despite all our problems, do live in what’s demonstrably one of the most successful countries in the history of the world. While most of us complain about the things in the country that drive us batty, many of us combine that with an innate hope that things will improve.
In my own case, for the past six months, I’ve been attempting to do something unimaginable when I started in journalism more than four decades ago, and that is, doing my own thing. Happily, I’m still attached to my legacy media home of the past 33 years, TVO, where I still co-host the weekly #onpoli podcast, write a weekly column for tvo.org, and host the monthly TVO Today Live town hall show.
But I’ve also started up The Paikin Podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, etc., and been surprised to watch it flourish. Journalism has undergone cataclysmic changes since I got into the business. But in spite of it all, I still believe that there’s a place for civil discourse, based on empirically provable facts, that is reasonable and doesn’t indulge in extremist bloviating.
I’m still trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t and the audience doesn’t hesitate to share its views on that, which I appreciate. So far, our content has reached more than a million viewers, with more than 20,000 subscribers. That’s not too bad.
We essentially have three elements on the go: two regular bi-weekly conversations, plus an eclectic range of 1×1 interviews. Many of you have told me you like the civilized rapport former parliamentarians Tony Clement and Martha Hall Findlay have with each other on our “Everything Political” segment. Good. We don’t need more toxic food fights on YouTube. Author Tony Keller recently joined them and more than 70,000 people checked out that civil conversation on YouTube about Canadian immigration.
I’m delighted to still be working with the Munk School’s Janice Stein as well. Every other week, she joins me with a special guest as we explore our “World on Edge.” Author Stephen Marche joined us a few months ago for a discussion about whether Canada can resist Trump’s annexationist threats, and 185,000 people have watched that one.
And a lot of you enjoyed my 1×1 interviews with: my fellow Hamiltonian Martin Short, the Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, federal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, and our former United Nations Ambassador Bob Rae.
Through it all, your comments about what you liked and what you didn’t, and what subjects you’d like to see us do in the future, have been extremely helpful.
Which leads me to our plans for 2026.
Now that The Paikin Podcast is up and walking, we’re going to try to start jogging, maybe even do a little running this year. We’d like to add more elements to the three I’ve already mentioned, for example, something that more systematically deals with viewer/listener feedback, because if nothing else, I very much want to contribute to more civil dialogue, not just among our guests, but among our audience as well.
We’ve also shared some special episodes from live events I’ve hosted (former Supreme Court justice Rosalie Abella at Harvard University, and actor Hugh Laurie and House showrunner David Shore in London, Ontario). We want to do more of that. And we have some other neat ideas we hope to drop during the course of 2026. Stay tuned.
One of the things I like best about all the content we’re creating is that it’s free, and for that, I want to express my gratitude to the national sponsors who’ve helped underwrite the costs associated with doing this work. So, thank you to the Canadian Bankers Association, Beer Canada, and Bruce Power. We hope more of you will decide to support this kind of journalism in 2026 and beyond.
We’re happy to hint at one new element right now. We’ll soon be starting a Patreon account, which offers a bunch of extra elements we think some of you might be interested in. We’re going to hold virtual town halls on Zoom, offer some swag, and other bonus content. Please watch for that, coming soon.
And now, let’s get to it. Happy New Year, everyone. Let’s do what we can to make the next quarter century start a lot better than the last quarter century ended.