In Bed with the Elephant

Originally broadcast on April 13th 2025: Andrew Johnston, a professor of late 19th and 20th Century US History at Carleton University in Ottawa. He’s a specialist in imperialism and foreign relations, liberalism and pluralism in American social thought, and the history of international thought. 
Donald Trump’s second presidency has already been a game changer. His brazen public statements about his desire to annex Canada and slap tariffs on imports entering the US from Canada seems to have fundamentally altered the nature of the Canada – US relationship. Transforming perhaps for all time, the way Canadians see their American neighbors and possibly transforming the way Canadians understand themselves.
For most of the last century Canadians have imagined the United States as a friendly neighbour, a vital trading partner, a trusted ally. And yet in mere months the ground has shifted under Canadians’ feet. Join us for this episode of In Bed with the Elephant hosted by Adrian Harewood.
 

Québecers go to the polls on October 5th in one of the most wide open and unpredictable provincial elections in recent memory. The vote in Québec could result in something the province hasn’t seen in over 20 years – a Parti Québécois majority government.
The last time the sovereigntist party was in power was in 2014. A PQ government, whether a minority or majority, could pose a real challenge to the Canadian federation and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “Canada Strong” agenda. 
Daniel Béland is the James McGill Professor and Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC) and a keen observer of Quebec. He joins us to discuss the upcoming election.

Yafa Jarrar is a Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Ottawa, Canada. She and her family have lived most of their lives under Israeli occupation. Her parents Khalida and Ghassan are prominent activists from the West Bank- who have been detained on numerous occasions by Israeli authorities over the last 50 years. Yafa Jarrar recently returned from the West Bank.
“A catastrophe is unfolding across the West Bank. Checkpoints, expulsions, killings and land takeovers are not separate events or isolated human rights violations. They are part of the same system. It is time to connect the dots.”  Those are words   from “The Elimination Project,” a new report by B’Tselem one of Israel’s most prominent Human Rights organizations.
 
B’Tselem’s report documents the dramatic rise in attacks by armed Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers against Palestinians in the West Bank. It suggests Israel is pursuing a political project bent on destroying   Palestinian collective life while “expanding Israeli control and Jewish presence in an irreversible manner.”
 
The report collected more than 2000 testimonies from Palestinians and comes at a time when countries like France, the UK, Norway and Canada have condemned Israeli settler violence in the West Bank in unusually strong terms.

A decade after Muhammad Ali’s death and Colin Kaepernick taking a stand by taking a knee - we reflect on the legacies of two iconic freedom fighters and their impact on the modern athlete.
Morgan Campbell joins us on this journey. Morgan is an award-winning journalist and contributor to CBC & The New York Times. He was an acclaimed  sports writer at the Toronto Star for 20 years. Morgan’s compelling  memoir  My Fighting Family; Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles that Made Us was recently released in paperback. 

Todd Dufresne is a professor of Philosophy at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay Ontario. He’s the author of thirteen books including The Democracy of Suffering: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, Philosophy in the Anthropocene. Dufresne is an expert on Sigmund Freud and the history of psychoanalysis. His latest book is entitled The Future Belongs to Those Who Fight: Climate Revolution for Beginners.
 
Todd thinks there must be a reckoning with climate disaster. He says we have to come to terms with the democracy of suffering enveloping the globe - the collective experience of suffering caused by climate change.  We need a bold new vision of a just future beyond capitalism.  Far from reform, he thinks we need a revolution. A climate revolution.

‘Tre'vell Anderson is an American journalist, critic and podcaster. They previously worked for the Los Angeles Times, Xtra, and Out. They’re  the recipient of  an NAACP Image Award and two GLAAD Media Award nominations for their writing. They co-host SEATED a podcast about Black cinema. 
They are also the author of We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film and  co -author of Historically Black Phrases. They are currently the Executive Director of the Trans Journalists Association an organization that promotes accurate and nuanced journalism trans people and communities.  

The Halifax-born Shireen Ahmed is a multi-platform journalist, TEDx speaker, mentor, and an award-winning sports activist. She’s a co-creator and co-host of the feminist podcast “Burn It All Down.” She teaches Journalism and Sports Media at Toronto Metropolitan University, in Toronto, Canada. She covered the World Cup for the CBC as a senior contributor.  I spoke with her just before the quarter finals of the tournament began.  

Brett Popplewell travelled to Greenland in February to see how locals were responding to the US President’s threats to annex their country. He wrote a cover story about his experience for the June 2026 edition of the Walrus magazine.  It’s called “I Went to Greenland and Saw a Warning for Canada: How the resource rich Arctic territory braced for invasion.”
Popplewell is a multiple National Magazine award winning writer and Associate Professor of Journalism at Carleton University. He’s also the author of the best-selling book “Outsider: An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden path.  Full disclosure Brett and I are colleagues at the Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Ottawa.

After winning a decisive victory in the federal NDP leadership race in March 2026, Avi Lewis is now the head of a party that’s been experiencing hard times. The NDP hit rock bottom in the last federal election and were reduced to just 7 seats in the House of Commons, losing official party status – the worst result in its history.
As the new leader, Avi Lewis’ challenge is to reorient and revive the NDP by organizing new and old supporters… and lapsed ones too. A former CBC, Al Jazeera and City TV journalist, filmmaker and activist, Avi Lewis comes from a gilded pedigree. He’s NDP royalty. His grandfather David Lewis was leader of the federal New Democratic Party in the early 1970s. His father, Stephen Lewis, lead the Ontario NDP for nearly 8 years, was Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, and was one of the country’s most renowned orators and respected statesmen. His mother Michelle Landsberg was an influential journalist and pioneering feminist social activist, and his wife Naomi Klein is an internationally acclaimed journalist, public intellectual and best-selling author. Avi Lewis’ leadership of the federal NDP signals an unapologetic shift to the left for a social democratic party that veered to the political centre in the last decade, particularly during the tenure of former leader Tom Mulcair.
Under the leadership of Lewis’s predecessor, Jagmeet Singh, the NDP propped up a minority Liberal government in exchange for the passing of progressive legislation including a landmark national dental care plan and an anti-scab law in federally regulated industries. Yet, despite these legislative successes, the NDP saw its seat count collapse in the April 2025 federal election. The beleaguered party has been floundering ever since. Joining me now to talk about his plan to revitalize, reorganize and rebuild the federal NDP, and transform Canadian politics is NDP leader Avi Lewis.

JDM Stewart is an acclaimed educator and historian. His first book is called Being Prime Minister. His most recent effort is a sweeping account of Canada’s 24 prime ministers, from John A. Macdonald, a Scottish born immigrant, to Mark Carney, a native of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories.  The book is entitled The Prime Ministers: Canada’s Leaders and the Nation they Shaped.