Empty Elections
With the recent federal election in Canada and local election in Edmonton, we continue the thriving era of neoliberal politics that leaves harmful institutions unchecked, despite everything that has come to prominence in public discourse since we started the show. We had a chance to interview Edmonton's new mayor Amarjeet Sohi to dig a bit deeper into the emptiness of performative politics and why politicians can't save us.
Black Lives Still Don’t Matter
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Welcome to another season of Is This For Real? I just want to start off by touching on some of the things that we are going to do differently in Season 2 than we did in Season 1. When we started Season 1 of the podcast, we chose the name Is This For Real? because it was coming at a moment where Black Lives Matter and a lot of the issues around racism were coming into light with George Floyd being murdered.
What that also meant was a lot of mainstream attention, which was very, very strange when it came to addressing some of the problems around Black Lives Matter and race. A couple of months before George Floyd was murdered, people were ignoring Black issues in Edmonton. Bashir was campaigning to get justice for Emmell, a student who was racially profiled in a Catholic school for wearing a do-rag. There was still a lot of ambiguity around carding, a racist practice by police in Alberta and Edmonton. And it didn’t seem like people really cared about these issues. I felt like there was relative silence — it was hard to get people to show up to protests.
And then when George Floyd was killed, thousands of people showed up in the streets to protest! There was incredible performance from corporations talking about how they supported Black lives and how this is a central part of their company. There were other news media that came out and either questioned the existence of systemic racism, or tried to cover up their own guilt and made all these statements. It felt like a very surreal moment, and we kind of used that to name the show.
Since then, I feel like things have changed and kind of settled. But this kind of surreal reality has been difficult to contend with and I think a lot of people in positions of power haven’t really contended with this reality that we’re facing. So I think the show now is really going to try to take an authentic perspective and a real look at what’s going on and the different crises that are affecting everyone in a significant way.
Federal Liberals Don’t Deserve Another Chance
This episode is going to focus mostly on the emptiness of elections, talking a little bit about the federal election to begin with and specifically how meaningless it was to have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announce an election only to have the same results.
But also to really have a lot of examples of how electing these people to represent us, go into these positions of power, and really do almost nothing but perform action while still coming back to us year after year, demanding us to vote, demanding us to still participate in the system meaningfully like it's actually going to affect our lives or like it's actually going to change anything meaningfully in our lives. It really strikes to the emptiness of everything and I think that's something that was really, really on display in this last federal election.
We talked a lot about bad news coverage and different things like that in the media. But I think a good example of a good news article or at least like a good piece of media that came out of this election was written by a former host of this show, Hannan, and it was written in Passage, which is a left wing Canadian media publication. The headline is “Trudeau cannot claim to care about Muslims until he fights Bill 21.”
So Bill 21 is a bill in Quebec that essentially is trying to prevent anyone from wearing any religious symbols if they work in public office. So if they work for any level of government or any other public service in Quebec, so clearly targeting people who choose to wear the hijab, which is a core part of practicing the faith if you're Muslim. Some Muslims choose not to wear it, but some do, obviously
After four people were killed in Ontario due to Islamophobia and hate based violence, every federal leader came out and basically said we stand with Muslims, we understand the hate that they receive. Really strong words from every leader standing in solidarity. But then when it came to actually questioning their support for Bill 21, it's been silence from basically everyone.
So circling back, it’s the same thing when I talk about meaninglessness. Hannan put it perfectly in this article where we're getting the performance, we're getting the rhetoric, we're getting all the words that sound really nice. We're getting the system asking us to vote and participate. But we're not getting the action, we're not getting what people need to actually make their lives livable in the system that we have right now.
So I think it's important to understand these situations that reveal what's going on underneath the system and show how we can actually push things to maybe be different. And I think one of the ways that this can happen is understanding that politicians shouldn't be given a blank slate. Every time there's an election, or every time some new cycle or some new issue happens, it seems like you're almost being reintroduced to the same people that were in positions where they could have actually done something but chose for whatever reason, oftentimes because it's inconvenient for their own power or for their own interests, to not do anything.
So we have this past federal election Randy Boissonnault, who's a Liberal member of Parliament elected into office after he lost his seat. But when he was in power, he was part of the questioning of Jody Wilson-Raybould, an Indigenous MP who questioned Justin Trudeau and criticized his government for abuse of power.
So it's interesting to see how the narrative is changed and how, like I said, these politicians get a blank slate and we conveniently forget about their roles in suppressing, in this case, Indigenous issues or suppressing an Indigenous person who is challenging the status quo and how things are just kind of kept rolling the same way.
The Liberal government that's in power right now, I think, is a really good example of what we talk about when we say performative politics. They came in with promises that I think co-opted a lot of the things that people really want to see change. For example, electoral reform, I think things that were significant Indigenous rights issues like missing and murdered Indigenous women, among other things.
So the government comes in promising all these different things. And of course, because it was all a performance to begin with, when someone like Jody Wilson-Raybould for example challenges the status quo and asks them to live up to their promises and what they actually stand for, Jody got shut down! She got removed from her position in cabinet, got essentially ostracized and kicked out of her party, and is no longer in a position where she's actually taking advantage of being able to challenge the status quo in a meaningful way.
So I think this is kind of encapsulated perfectly, at least the positions of different groups in Canada in this chapter in this book. Indigenous Writes by an Edmonton author, I guess a local Alberta author Chelsea Vowel. Indigenous Writes is a guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit issues in Canada. Chelsea Vowel is a professor at the University of Alberta, as well as a public speaker, intellectual and writer. I'm just going to read this chapter like I said it encapsulates some of the ideas that I've been talking about earlier.
For thousands of generations before contact, diversity of culture was a fact in what is now known as Canada. Despite today's official policy of multiculturalism, Canada has nonetheless collapsed cultural diversity into essentially four categories: white Anglophone settlers, white Francophone settlers, Aboriginal people, and newcomers — which basically is everyone else and is, in my opinion, the most honest term.
None of these categories is neat or even particularly coherent when examined at all closely. For example, Black families who have lived in Canada as long as any of their white counterparts are still often categorized as newcomers, and the existence of slavery as a reason for Black presence in Canada is thoroughly denied. The incredible diversity of Aboriginal peoples is ignored in favour of a one size fits all federal policy. The meaning of white has shifted and changed over time as European settlers expanded the category through official immigration policies, and so has meant very different things at different times in Canadian history.
Despite the flaws inherent in these categories, there is still a strong sense that Aboriginal culture was supplanted by white settler culture. And newcomers, everyone else's cultures are welcomed only to the extent that they enrich the Canadian experience. In other words, as long as they are expressed via costumes, food and music.
Obviously I'm simplifying what are very complex series of relationships and social phenomena, all to state what is fairly obvious. Canada has a set of relatively new cultural norms that are settler based, and these cultural norms constitute the mainstream. In Canada, there are strong ideas about how to act which do not always mirror Indigenous expectations. Cultural expression that can be commodified as a part of that mainstream, providing a very narrow outlet for Indigenous and everyone else, particularly Black and non-Black POC cultural expression. Cultural expressions that can be purchased in the form of goods and services or entertainment are acceptable. Cultural expressions that cannot be so easily commodified can be seen as threatening, transgressive or simply not Canadian.
If you could get the kind of message through my reading, I think this chapter by Chelsea Vowel really goes to this kind of difference where there's the acceptable in these, there's the unacceptable in Canada. There's the acceptable Liberal performance of saying that you stand with Black lives and Indigenous people, and for electoral reform, and for balancing things in favour of workers. And then there's the unacceptable, which is challenging the status quo like Jody Wilson-Raybould, making sure that people are held accountable for their promises. This is kind of seen in the cultural view with what Chelsea Vowel is writing, andI think it applies to a lot of the political action that's taking place in Canada today.
The Problem with Edmonton’s New Mayor Amarjeet Sohi
The Trudeau government is a really good segue for what we're going to talk about next, which is Edmonton's new mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who coincidentally was around when all of this was happening as a fairly powerful cabinet minister in Justin Trudeau's Liberal government when he had a majority in parliament.
So a majority in Parliament, a powerful cabinet position, really a seat at the table. This metaphor that's always being thrown around — everyone sitting at the table and figuring out our differences. Well, Mr. Sohi was at the table for a very long time at the highest level of government with influence and power to seemingly do what's right, and not perform, and meet expectations for people who need it most. We're in the current state that we are now with our country, the Liberal Party and its failures are well documented. It seems like Sohi has been able to fly above all that criticism, at least when it comes to his performance in the recent election.
And I think one thing that really strikes me, or at least that I think is worth thinking about, is this idea of”BIPOC” — Black, Indigenous people of colour — and how significant or insignificant that is with Amarjeet Sohi winning as a South Asian man, and how Alberta has two South Asian mayors as their representatives in the major cities, and how that's somehow a really meaningful thing.
I think the term BIPOC especially flattens a lot of identities into this nice, neat category that I think is often used to make white people feel better about the fact that opportunities haven't been provided for these communities. That there are still many systemic barriers that are in place that really prevent Indigenous people, prevent Black people and anyone who doesn’t again fit within this performance or doesn't fit within this status quo.
With that being said, I still understand the urge and the need to feel very sentimental about these people who are kind of put on a pedestal as representatives of the community and of larger change. I still remember pretty vividly when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, and personally my family was overjoyed. I remember this excitement. Almost like a cathartic release of joy and happiness, that the possibilities are endless for any Black person to achieve the highest office seemingly in the world.
But when you really look back at what this president's legacy was and what was actually accomplished for people in a meaningful way — whether it comes to health care, whether it comes to systemic barriers for racialized people — all of those things (fall) short, because I think ultimately it came down to a performance. And as long as things are put in these kinds of categories of just because you serve this identity you're somehow going to bring about change, or you're not going to be questioned or pushed as hard on how you're actually going to implement things, we're going to see the same results and we're going to see the same disappointment.
We’re not going to see change within the status quo.
When it comes down to it, representation, whether it's under the banner or umbrella of BIPOC, whatever that means, really isn't enough. Because when it comes down to it, what we don’t need is another person who is in a position to not do anything but this time that person somehow represents an unrepresented group. Fundamentally, it doesn't even matter who takes up these positions as long as they actually do something that's meaningful to actually change the status quo.
If you have someone that's a different race or that comes from a different background or that represents a group that has been historically excluded. Like I said, that is good for a lot of different reasons. But when it comes down to the reasons that should matter, it really does not matter. And fundamentally, it should matter if that person is pushing the status quo and bringing about systemic change, not necessarily what their background is and how that is used in an often sentimental way to obscure from the actual issues.
So going back to Sohi and his platform, I think one thing that really strikes me that really shows some of how his platform can be seen as performative or in lockstep with what we've seen before from the Liberal government, is some of the rhetoric and some of the policies around community safety, policing and this new wave of hate crimes in Edmonton. When I talked about this rhetoric of “bringing people around the table” and having these deep, meaningful conversations that somehow change big, serious problems that are often systemic and often tied to funding, money, and power, it doesn't seem like these things are being meaningfully addressed. It seems like we're kind of continuing the same cycle performance. And I think if you look at a platform here that's publicly available, I think you can kind of see where I'm kind of coming from.
So under Amarjeet Sohi’s “Safe Communities for All” and under “Applying the Right Resources to Keep Communities Safe,” I think you really get to see that, while Amarjeet Sohi is invested in being there for Black lives, talking about his own personal experience with racism in an attempt to connect with people, fundamentally I think it's still a lot more of the same. And I don't think people should necessarily be surprised when we see things like an increased police budget, or a similar police budget, or support for things that aren't necessarily beneficial, because this is the rhetoric in the platform.
Police are a fundamental part of community safety, but we cannot keep diverting them away from their core mandate. Sometimes they are not the right service to be attending to an issue in the community.
And then there's more about Edmonton and how it has come to create this innovative community safety tool, HELP, this new community policing pilot. But I think that initial sentence really, really struck me as a real deep commitment to the status quo.
I think when you hear stories, for example, like this Indigenous teenager that had his head kicked in by a police officer and that caused serious brain damage, which he can't get a surgery for now because of COVID, so he has to wear a helmet. Learning that that police officer was a school resource officer, a program that's been vigorously defended by various city administrators, various Catholic school board and public school board administrators, defended using racist language and insinuation that refugees are somehow more dangerous than other people.
To hear all that and to understand the history and the current context of policing in our city, and how all of that can kind of be crumpled and crushed down into one sentence that “police are fundamental part of community safety.” It feels it feels very strange, feels very strange to have that be the real rhetoric. It only feels strange, I think, because I know that mayor Sohi is still trying to appeal to both sides and still trying to perform that these issues are serious and that fundamental change can somehow happen, while still being deeply invested and supportive of this system that is often incredibly violent and destructive to Indigenous and Black people's lives.
So performance while still upholding the status quo, I think, is the kind of name of the game. And yeah, I think I've definitely got to see a lot of that when I had the chance to interview Amarjeet Sohi. It was one of those things where I think that I could have done a better job at asking more challenging questions or questions that probed and pushed him to answer more honestly or to show more of what he actually believed.
I think in the interview, I gave him more space than was necessary to say what he said in his platform, which is a lot of what I think is performance and trying to appeal to both sides of the issue when, quite honestly, the reality is that there's mostly just an appeal to the status quo and to making sure that things stay the way they are and that if they do change, they can still stay relatively in control and in a way that doesn't shake things up too much.
So in the interview, I do wish and I do regret not being able to have pushed him a little bit further. But if anything, I think his answers really do speak for themselves and I think really do show a side of him that people should be wary of.
When Joe Biden was running for president in America — a very different situation than what we're dealing with in Edmonton — there was a very big rhetoric of “let's push this person to the left, we can somehow influence their politics once they get elected.” Because it seems that when politicians get elected they always say “okay, now we can get to work.”
Oftentimes, it's really the opposite that happens. Once they're elected, they've centred politics on their lives and the journey of getting elected. But oftentimes when they get into those positions, very little actually happens that isn't outside of this like procedural script of continuing the city administration, continuing the same policies, continuing the same bylaws, of course making tweaks, of course making changes, but only insofar as they continue this original plan that's always been running underneath there.
So going back to the Joe Biden situation, I don't think that's going very well right now. I think things are still incredibly dysfunctional, and things are still incredibly difficult. Because like I said, once you actually get into power, it's not about making right on all the promises that you made before or getting right to work like being said. It's usually about continuing the status quo. And pushing these people to the left, or claiming that what we need to do is get them elected and then we have some influence or power, I think is a very misguided thing.
Interview with Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi
With that being said, I'm happy to share my conversation with Amarjeet Sohi now. I think you can hear for yourself what kind of answers were given to these questions.
Oumar
To start off our conversation. If you want to first give your first and last name, but also for any listeners who may not be familiar with your background in your political career, maybe going into what inspired you to get into politics, and what are some of the highlights of your time working federally, and then also working within the city of Edmonton?
Amarjeet Sohi
Well, first of all, Oumar, thank you so much for having me. To your listeners, my name is Amarjeet Sohi. I am the candidate running for mayor of Edmonton. And prior to this, I served on city council from 2007 – 2015, and then from 2015 – 2019, I was a member of Parliament. During that time, I also served in two major economic portfolios as Minister of Infrastructure, as well as the Minister for Natural Resources.
So that's my brief introduction to your listeners, and I'm speaking to all of you from Treaty 6 territory here in Edmonton. It is very important for me to acknowledge the land of Indigenous peoples on which I have been able to come and live, on which I have been able to build my life and my family's life, and to give back to make this community even a better place for all of us to live in.
Oumar
So I guess building off of that point of giving back and building your community through your time. Through your time as a federal minister and also on city council, did you feel like you were able to enact policies that directly impacted your constituents in your actual riding? Do you have any examples, and are there things that you're really proud of that really made a difference in the community?
Amarjeet
Yeah, you know I came to Canada as a young man. When I got here at the age of 18, I couldn't speak English. I had no understanding of the Canadian way of life. So I struggled a lot in my early days. I faced a lot of racism and discrimination and bullying. I was lucky to have the support of my brother and my sister-in-law, so I had that family support so I was able to deal with those issues. But still, I struggled a lot.
This is a city that lifted me up because it provides quality public services. I was able to rely on public transit to go to school and go to work. I was able to access public libraries and rec centres and Greenfield sports where I made friends where I could grab a book and read and learn a new language.
So this is a city that has given me so much. That’s one of the reasons that I ran in 2004, was to use my experience, my lived experience, to talk about issues that cities need to tackle and how critical public services are for the building a stronger economy and building a stronger society, but also the ability of individuals to be successful.
So that's the reason that I ran and those are the areas that I worked on as a city councillor, from building the LRT systems to leading the city’s multiculturalism and immigration portfolios, helping to add amenities into communities like in Mill Woods here, building new rec centre and libraries. I'm pretty proud of the work we were able to do together.
Oumar
So Edmonton is now seeing a continuous rise in steady news of hate crimes against Black Muslim women, and in some cases these attacks were very violent and very brazen. In this moment, I think one thing that has been clear, at least for some community members, is how, I guess inept — and “inept: is a strong word, but inept in this case might be useful for how inept politicians have been in actually being able to treat this problem and address it in a manner that not only protects the community, but also makes it so that it's clear to the public that this isn't acceptable.
So from your position, what do you think of these developments and how they've been handled by the current city administration? And from your perspective, what would you do if you became mayor?
Amarjeet Sohi
So racism is a very painful experience, I have experienced it. It is painful for the individual, but it's also painful for the community because there are ramifications. When a person of colour of a particular nationality is attacked, then the community feels scared. Community feels attacked because the person is part of that community. And the reason that a person is being attacked is because they look different from the rest of the society. So I am deeply concerned about the rise in hate violence against Indigenous communities, against Black Edmontonians, against Muslim women who wear the hijab, and other racialized communities.
That was one of the reasons that I ran for city council, and as a matter of fact ran for federal office as well. Because I wanted to share my stories and my experience, and bring in policies that will help us deal with the racism and discrimination in other communities. So I hear those voices because I have been on the receiving end of racism. And we also need to recognize that certain communities are affected more by racism than the other communities.
Indigenous communities have been impacted by racism more. Black communities have been impacted by racism more. We have seen an increase in Islamophobia. We have seen an increase in anti-Semitism. So we need to acknowledge those things and try to craft policies to respond to those things.
What we have announced as part of my campaign commitment is that I will work with communities to implement an action plan within the first 100 days of taking office. I am committed to that on the first council day, I will ask our city council to direct the city administration to develop that action plan. That action plan would include strengthening other bylaws, making our public places like our LRT stations and centres and public parks more safe and more accessible for everyone, that they can use without fear of being attacked. That action plan includes empowering communities to lead anti-racism work, because who would understand this better than those who experience it and the communities who experience it?
So how do we empower communities to take on that action and implement that action? It also includes working better with the provincial and federal government to strengthen some of the legislation that has been weakened over the last number of years, particularly online hate, that has been a huge concern.
So those are the things that I will do if I get elected because I'll be deeply committed to inclusion and ensuring that everyone, all of us feel that Edmonton is our place, that we are building Edmonton for all of us.
Oumar
Mhm. So part of your plan, I think, is slightly similar to the previous mayor of Edmonton, Don Iveson, who took into action after the George Floyd murder and protests to get city administration to consider recommendations from a council, the Community Safety and Well-Being Task Force. So far, these recommendations, as far as I know, have been kind of put on hold. Not many of them have been able to be implemented after the task force has actually been recommending these things.
So in a situation where some of your plans maybe don't get implemented or things go through city administration and as these things do, the system sometimes loses, I guess the core value that you're trying to put into place in a situation like that. What do you plan on doing, and do you think that there are ways to make sure that these things, these plans, these actions don't get lost in the system over time?
Amarjeet
You know, I commend the work of this wellness task force. They came up with practical ways to improve the relationship between communities and authorities and put together some tangible, practical solutions that city could implement from training to reform, the police commission and to have better representation on the police commission and the hiring of people from diverse backgrounds, and a number of other recommendations that they came up with.
I was disappointed when the last report came to council from the administration on the implementation of those recommendations, that the administration's plan fell short on living up to the expectations of the communities. What I would do if I get elected — I understand the frustration that is being shown and demonstrated and heard from the racialized communities, because that frustration is real.
I have a very strong relationship with Indigenous and racialized communities, and I want to leverage that relationship to bring them together to talk about those issues. What I would like to do is find a way to work better with communities to ensure their voices are heard and that we are working together and implementing policies that will allow us to continue to hear their voices and have their voices inform our policy.
Oumar
When it comes to the issue of homelessness in Edmonton, the previous city council and city administration, I think, have taken a housing-first approach, at least in their attempts to get people to get into different programs and services.
But we've obviously seen that hasn't necessarily worked, and there's been a lot of pitfalls in their approach. For example, last summer with Camp Pekiwewin and their organizers trying to negotiate with the city and ultimately ending with police clearing off the camp, and encampments like that still being illegal and people still necessarily not having the supports and the resources that they need.
One of your main competitors in this race, Mike Nickel, is looking to hire 18 police officers in Chinatown to essentially help police and control the homeless population. So from your perspective, what is your approach to helping homeless people in Edmonton and making sure that the community feels like they're also safe?
Amarjeet
I firmly believe that an ambitious city like ours can end homelessness. And we have done good work on housing — thousands of Edmontonians who were homeless are no longer homeless because of the housing-first approach and the work that is being done in the community.
What we need is a stronger partnership with the federal government and the provincial government. Edmonton cannot tackle this issue and this challenge alone, and the homelessness is directly connected to trauma, is directly connected to mental health, is directly connected to addiction. So we need to have a holistic approach of having the support of appropriate housing and then wraparound services for people to heal. So the model works, what we need is a stronger partnership with the federal government and the provincial government.
What I would like to do if I get elected is actually build a broader coalition of partners to engage with the provincial government, engage as a community, not just as City Hall engaging with the provincial government and the federal government, but community faith leaders, business leaders, community leagues, cultural organizations, Indigenous Edmontonians and leadership from Indigenous Edmontonians coming together, facilitated by mayor’s office, and developing a coordinated approach to engage with the province and making a strong case why investing in people should matter to them.
If this provincial government is serious about growing the economy and creating opportunities for all of us, then we need to work with them and they need to work with us. So I would like to build a stronger advocacy, a coalition of partners to convince this province that investing in Edmonton should matter to them. Because if Edmonton is able to thrive, then Alberta can thrive.
Oumar
So certain people who engage in city politics, or even provincial or federal politics have tried to push these institutions and systems to adapt and change and take on a different form than they currently have. I think especially when it comes to progressive politics, people are certainly tired because I don't think that they see change that they want to see, at least not happening fast enough.
So for people who are tired and haven't seen results and still want systemic change, do you think that it's even possible to see our systems, at least our political systems, radically change within our lifetimes? Do you think that's even necessary to create the kind of world that we want to create?
Amarjeet
My vision for Edmonton is that this is a place where everyone should be able to survive. I was able to thrive here and I came with nothing, and this community supported me. And that's exactly what we need to do for everyone. so we can build a city of opportunities. We can build a city that we all feel that this is a place that we belong here, that Edmonton is for all of us. In order to do that, we need to build people's capacity to do that.
I believe that I have the right skill set to pull people together. That collaborative approach to governance, that bridge building approach to governance, where we look at our problems in a collective way and in a way that we find solutions and work by working together.
I believe in people and I believe in people's capacity to do that, to live up to their fullest potential. But what we need to do is create conditions to unlock that. And I believe that we can do that together. If we are able to find ways to work better with Aboriginal partners, work better with the provincial and federal governments, and think about focusing on people and not on which orders of government and which you're responsible is absolutely necessary to understand.
But at the end of the day, people want results and they want results from all of their governments. And the more we can work together, I believe that that will help us transform some of the institutions that are so necessary for us to be transforming in order to deliver on the expectations of all Edmontonians.
Oumar
So yeah, I think one of my biggest takeaways from that interview was how difficult it was to contend with some of the proposed policies to actually combat hate crimes, to ensure community safety, especially from the perspective that a lot of the policies were very uncritical of the fact that a lot of violence and lack of community safety is being perpetuated by police in our city. There's no real plan or real acknowledgment of that problem.
I think a lot of it is also passing the burden off to other groups to solve this problem. Whether it's the federal government or the provincial government to legislate on hate crimes and quite honestly, do things that they have clearly shown aren't necessarily priorities or might again fit within this whole performance-first and do-nothing second kind of attitude.
But also other things like making public spaces and places more accessible and safe, which honestly is something that the city has already invested so much in. So I don't necessarily see how that can be another place to do more work to actually combat racism and discrimination in the community.
And a lot of the rhetoric, I think, was also around this idea of empowering communities to give people a voice or put people at the table and that that will somehow bring about clear change. But like I said before, if the goal and if the intention deep down is simply to perform or — if I can use very charged language — to pander, then ultimately we're not really going to see the results that we want.
Ultimately, institutions and groups, like the police for example, will be protected by either not even being mentioned. Or if they are mentioned, like I said in the platform, they are mentioned in a very positive, very light way that completely ignores the role that they play in perpetuating a lot of these problems.
That being said, I'm really excited and really happy to be back for another season of the podcast! You can expect a few changes on our Patreon when it comes to how we divide the tiers. We're going to have a very low entry level tier. We're excited about also having different content there. We are often critical of the media so we're kind of putting together what we call the “Cringe Corner” for the Patreon supporters, where we record an episode kind of criticizing an article or a piece of content in mainstream Canadian media. So our first article is actually directly related to Amarjeet Sohi, and it's an article in the Globe and Mail that touches on this so-called good use of racial politics in these South Asian mayors winning in Alberta. If you want to hear a little bit more about that, you can head over to the Patreon.
Very, very excited to be back, like I said, and hope you can stick around for the rest of this season for a little bit more conversational style podcasting and touching on some topics that we touched on last season. A little bit more on performative politics, we’re going to touch on the Catholic school board, obviously talk about policing again, talk about politics as well, and many other things that impact people in our community in Edmonton.
With that being said, thanks for listening to today's episode, and I hope to talk to you soon and be on a really good journey together for this second season of the podcast.