Leaders on the Frontier Podcast

David Leis' guest today, Randal O'Toole has dedicated decades of research and analysis to policies that help citizens live and thrive rather than be held hostage to the demands of green belts and bureaucratic restrictions. In this conversation he debunks myths about how North American cities ought to structure development to serve human behaviour rather than utopian urban plans that don't add up.

Climates do change, as they always have. So, what's the truth behind human-influence on climate?  David Leis learns this, and other fascinating perspectives into the high science academic community with Dr. William Happer; who has decades of experience in atomic physics, and adaptive optics; consulting several presidential science committees and teaching at Princeton University.

What exactly happened during 2020 to deliberately hide the truth about the Wuhan Lab, therapeutic treatments for patients, age-stratified risk and the collateral damages of lockdowns? Two authors of the Great Barrington Declaration join David Leis for a well-rounded discussion on what truths have been revealed recently and why public health abandoned over 100 years of data and practices.

What exactly happened during 2020 to deliberately hide the truth about the Wuhan Lab, therapeutic treatments for patients, age-stratified risk and the collateral damages of lockdowns? Two authors of the Great Barrington Declaration join David Leis for a well-rounded discussion on what truths have been revealed recently and why public health abandoned over 100 years of data and practices.

Many Canadians are noticing that life has gotten progressively harder over the past 5 years; much of this is due to public policies that follow the prescription that big government is the solution to everything. As David Leis and his guest Spencer Fernando discuss; the last few years have only proven that reasoning to be false, over and over again.

Are to many politicians in power for the wrong reasons? Sir Roger Douglas, former Minister of Finance of New Zealand, joins David Leis on the podcast this week. What can Canada learn from New Zealand’s economic history?

Deanna McLeod, Principal & Lead Strategist at Kaleidoscope Strategic Inc. walks David Leis through a fascinating timeline of how the pandemic measures and vax trials got it wrong and how the normal parameters of a medical study were not properly followed; and the data misrepresented.

Former CEO of Encana, Gwyn Morgan joins David Leis for a honest discussion about the state of energy in Canada and how that impacts our place on the global stage. Affordable energy is essential to raise countries out of poverty and to improve quality of life, so why are environmentalists so hell-bent on killing Canada's most powerful industry: the oil and gas sector? Will there ever be a balance?

There is a raging debate among scientists about climate change. This is in contrast with public statements made by politicians who claim that climate change is an existential threat and the science is certain. In this Leaders on the Frontier, the discussion is with renowned physicist Dr. William Happer. Dr. Happer explains how science really works and that the debate regarding climate change is far from certain. Dr. Happer also explains a possible way to resolve elements of this scientific debate using so call Red-Blue exercises.

In this in depth discussion, host David Leis welcome Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute to comb through ten principles of Classical Liberalism and the current state of affairs in the western world.

Leaders on the Frontier will be streaming live on November 17th at 4:00pm CT. Watch live and submit your questions.

NOTE: Due to an oversight, we misspelled one of our guests' names in today's video. It should be noted that the correct spelling is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

With guests Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert) and Dr. Martin Kulldorff (professor of Medicine at Harvard University on leave, Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute, and Founding Fellow at the Academy for Science and Freedom), David Leis discusses how lockdown policies produced devastating effects on short and long-term public health in the form of lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.

Climate change policies designed to reduce and eliminate carbon dioxide emissions are causing chaos and falling living standards around the world. Moves to ban fertilizers, for example, recently caused a famine in Sri Lanka that collapsed that country’s government. Those same policies have ignited massive and growing farmer protests in the the Netherlands. Two such climate policies include Net Zero 50 – which aims to eliminate co2 emissions by 2050 - and a green social credit scheme which scores corporations highly for moving away from fossil fuels referred to as ESG (Environmental Social Governance). The Trudeau government has made climate change its highest priority and is now proceeding to impose fertilizer bans on Canada’s farmers. ESG and Net Zero policies are ultimately an attack on cheap, effective energy sources that will degrade everybody’s living standards by profoundly raising costs across Canadian industry including energy, manufacturing, agriculture, mining and financial services to name a few. What are the essentials you need to understand about these policies and their far-reaching impacts? What is the history behind them and their relationships to other nations? Who are the key actors so intent on pursuing them and why are they promoting them despite their disastrous impacts on working people? We will explore why Canadians need to be more concerned about these harmful anti-energy policies. More importantly we will discuss how elected officials and decision-makers can stop and reverse them.

Canada faces a myriad of serious economic challenges. On May 18th, the Canadian consumer price inflation hit a three-decade high, adding pressure on the Bank of Canada to continue with major interest rate increases. This at a time of record level government deficits and historically high debt levels. At the same time, Canada’s dismal track records on productivity, regulations and energy policy appear to be setting the stage for economic recession and decline. Witness a recent OECD document shows Canada dead last in per capita GDP growth for the coming decades. In this complex and dynamic state of affairs, how do we make sense of the state of our economy? Do we indeed face a recession and even a decline in our standard of living? What are Canada’s economic opportunities and decisions to build a bright economic future? From bitcoin to ESG to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, our country faces many strategic decisions. Be sure to join Policy on the Frontier for this engaging session with well-known economist and editor of the Financial Post comment page, William Watson. Dr. Watson will share his take on current economic topics and the choices Canada faces.

No region of North America has had more experience – much of it positive – with populist movements, populist parties, and populist governments than western Canada. It was the populist Progressive and Farmers parties that elected the first woman to Parliament, the first women to provincial legislatures, and which secured recognition of women as “persons” in Canadian law. It was populist legislators in the prairie provinces and in the House of Commons that secured the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement which granted ownership and control of natural resources to the people of those provinces. And the first healthcare system offering universal coverage regardless of the patients ability to pay was established by a populist government in Saskatchewan. Preston Manning, former Leader of the populist Reform Party and the Official Opposition in parliament, is a long time student and practitioner of populist politics. He was also his party’s science critic and is a long time student of the application of science to public policy. Mr. Manning believes that the bottom up political energy exhibited by the recent Freedom Convoy and those supporting it has the potential: • To force the creation of an independent, non-governmental investigation of governmental mismanagement of the COVID pandemic, including its misuse of science to support its positions. • To facilitate a change in government at the federal level depending on the extent to which Canadians demand a better balance between health protection and the protection of their rights, freedoms, and economic wellbeing, and whether the Official Opposition in parliament under a new Leader can respond positively and vigorously to that demand. Mr. Manning thoroughly explores both these possibilities in a futuristic fictional work entitled The COVID COMMISSION which the Frontier Centre will be publishing, posting on its website, and exploring as part of its Leaders on the Frontier series.

Affordable, dependable, reliable and secure energy has always, been foundational to Canada’s economic competitiveness and high standard of living. Yet the broader political and media consensus today, based on the unproven theory of human caused climate change, is all about suppressing and ending the benefits of Canada’s immense energy resource wealth. As the largest source of tax revenue and high paying jobs this anti-energy policy is highly irrational and, if achieved, will greatly degrade the way of life of every Canadian. Indeed, the current public discussion regarding energy ignore the fact that world demand for fossil fuels has never been higher. What are those undeniable facts and what really is the policy path forward for Canada? Speaker info: Terry Etam is a twenty-five year veteran of Canada’s energy business. He has worked at a senior level across the industry including finance, communications and trading. He has written for years for the industry publication the BOE report and is an influential voice in the oil patch. He is the author of numerous articles and including his best-selling book “The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity.” In our session he will explore how the current energy and environmental policy debate in Canada has become so unhinged from reality. Ultimately we all know that fossil fuels are a finite resource will not last forever. Yet, our world has never been more dependent on fossil fuels. While headlines and political pronouncements promise a “green” future just around the corner, Mr. Etam argues that Canadians more than ever, need to be grounded in the realities of our situation so we can create positive solutions not harmful policy dead-ends. In this revealing discussion, industry insider Mr. Etam will spare no sacred cows cutting through the rhetoric and nonsense of current energy policy that stands to do extraordinary damage to the lives of all Canadians. He will address the real energy transition that needs to happen.

The media plays a vital role in the health and well-being of our democracy. And yet, the trust and confidence in legacy media has never been lower. At the same time, so called independent and smaller media outlets are on the rise. What is the role of the fourth estate? What are key issues it faces today in a challenging environment?. Why is it that certain big stories tend to be only found in smaller media? Guest: Ms. Holly Doan, is the co-founder and publisher of the legendary Blacklock’s Reporter, an on-line media outlet based in Ottawa. Ms. Doan is an award-winning journalist and producer of many political history documentaries for television. As a TV journalist, her career has spanned Parliament Hill and four provinces with both the CTV and CBC networks. She was the former Bureau Chief in Beijing. Ms. Doan brings a one of a kind insider’s perspective on the state of the media today. Don’t miss this eye opening discussion.

Sometimes health care hurts the very people it is supposed to heal. This is now the situation in Canada, where waitlists, rationed services and a fragmented system have resulted in tragic and unnecessary consequences to far too many patients. Susan Martinuk’s newly published book, Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health-care Crisis shares the heart-breaking stories of those who sought healing and instead found themselves trapped in a system that prioritizes an intangible ideology over patient care. How did Canada’s beloved health-care system lose sight of its original purpose to heal and devolve into a system that routinely denies care to those who need it? Patients at Risk has become a Number One Bestseller on Amazon! Click here to order a copy. (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1777657741/)