In Bed with the Elephant

Telling the truth about Ronald Reagan w/ Andrew Johnston

Ronald Reagan hasn’t been President of the United States since the late 1980s, years before the internet was a thing.
But in recent weeks the Republican and Conservative icon has become a major talking point in North American politics…at the center of an increasingly bitter trade dispute between two formerly close allies, Canada and the United States.
It’s become the ultimate narrative cage fight to wrest control over Ronald Reagan’s economic legacy- Reaganomics- pitting two of the continent’s most successful and pugilistic conservative populists against each other, in a no-holds-barred public relations battle royale.
US president Donald Trump and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Trump suspended trade talks with Canada due to the Reagan imbroglio and threatened to slap an additional 15% tariff on all Canadian goods entering the US.
So why all the fuss about Ronald Reagan? What was Reaganomics?  And why does Ronald Wilson Reagan still matter 20 plus years after his death nearly 40 years after he left the political stage?
The cross-border controversy that erupted over former US President Ronald Reagan’s legacy stemmed from an anti-tariff ad paid for by  the Doug Ford-led Ontario government,  that ran on US tv networks during prime time.
 The minute-long ad featured   Reagan speaking into a microphone and stating his opposition to the use of tariffs as part of trade policy.
The clips of Reagan were taken from a national presidential radio address he delivered in 1987 at the height of a trade dispute with Japan.
In it, Reagan argues against protectionist policies and champions free and fair trade.
The ad drew the ire of Trump who claimed it was a big lie designed to mischaracterize Reagan’s true beliefs about tariffs and trade.  Trump insisted Reagan “loved tariffs for our country and its national security.” He said that the ad fraudulent… a dirty Canadian trick intended  to bamboozle American voters and influence US Supreme Court Justices about to judge a major federal tariff case.
Since becoming president in January 2025, Donald Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of US trade policy and sparked a trade war with Canada by levying them on Canadian goods. Evidently Trump wants  the US public to believe his views are aligned with  one of the most popular and transformative presidents, Democrat or Republican, in US history, Ronald Reagan. 
So, who was the real Ronald Reagan, the B movie actor who became Great Communicator?  
What did one of the most successful politicians of his generation, the man who never lost an election, the one-time New Deal Democrat who became the standard bearer of the Conservative movement, the hard-line Cold Warrior turned peacemaker who supported brutal proxy wars in Central America. The president who called Apartheid in South Africa morally wrong and yet vetoed the comprehensive Anti- Apartheid Act of 1986 which Congress had passed with bipartisan support. The self-proclaimed tax cutter who as president raised taxes nearly a dozen times to balance the books, the free-market champion who bailed out and subsidized corporations, what did this man so full of contradictions actually think?  How should we understand Ronald Reagan? And why does he continue to play such an outsized role in contemporary politics?
To help us answer some of these questions about Ronald Reagan, I’m joined by Carleton University Professor of History Andrew Johnston an expert on US politics at Carleton University.
 

On book banning: the new censorship consensus w/ Ira Wells

Ira Wells, wants to live in a world without book bans.
A world bathed in literature… with more conversation, more civic engagement, and lesscensorship.
Ira Wells is a critic, essayist and professor of English literature at the University of Toronto.
He is also the President of PEN Canada. His latest book is called On Book Banning: or How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy

(Re)considering Ed Broadbent in the age of fascism, AI & genocide w/ Luke Savage

What’s the responsibility of living in the Age of AI, Fascism and Genocide?
 
That was the question on the table at our first live “In Bed with the Elephant event held at a beloved downtown Ottawa restaurant as part of the Press Forward Future of Independent Media Summit in early October 2025.  
 
The session, recorded in front of an engaged audience of loyal listeners, featured a conversation with one of the bright lights of his generation, the razor sharp and dynamic Newfoundland-born writer/ journalist and podcaster Luke Savage.
 
The evening was an attempt to come to grips with the challenges of living in a dystopian historical moment, while seizing upon the possibilities in our midst to transform it and create a world anew.
 
We hope you enjoy listening to it!  

A physician on genocide & medical violence in Gaza w/ Dr. Yipeng Ge

Since October 2023, the Southwestern Ontario-raised, Ottawa based primary care doctor and public health practitioner has been outspoken in his defense of the human rights of Palestinians and has condemnedIsraels’ actions. For this stance he himself has come attack by those who accuse of him of antisemitism. Dr. Ge has been undeterred. He has volunteered as a physician in Gaza and even joined a small fleet of ships meant to bring vital supplies to Palestinians to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. He is a member of the Canadian Medical Coalition Against Genocide. Here’s our conversation.

Sudan’s war against its people w/ Nisrin Elamin

Nisrin Elamin is a professor in the department of Anthropology and the African Studies Program at the University of Toronto. Her work investigates the connections between land, race, belonging and empire-making in Sudan and the broader Sahel region and is currently working on a book project based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork in central Sudan.
Sudan is the site of one of the world’s great humanitarian disasters. Since war broke out in April 2023 between The Sudanese Armed Forces and The Rapid Support Forces or RSF, catastrophe has overwhelmed it. Tens of thousands of people have died. Out of Sudan’s population of 48 million, over 13 million have been displaced, making Sudan the largest internal displacement crisis on Earth. Some 30 million Sudanese are in dire need of food aid in a country that could easily feed itself and the entire region.

The crisis of Canadian democracy w/ Andrew Coyne

Andrew Coyne has been one of Canada’s most formidable and free-thinking political commentators since the early 1990s. He currently writes for the Globe and Mail and is a charter member of CBC’s At Issue Panel -Canada’s most watched weekly politics panel. He has just published a new book called The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. 

Mark Carney’s first 100 Days: ran as a Liberal, governing like a Conservative w/ Linda McQuaig

Linda McQuaig is an award-winning journalist, novelist, best-selling author and contributing columnist to the Toronto Star. Her most recent book is called “The Sport & Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth.
It’s been over 100 days since Mark Carney and his Liberal Party won what many pundits  are calling the most consequential federal election in Canada in decades, falling just a few seats short of an outright majority. During the 36-day campaign the former central banker and Wall Street titan, presented himself as an ardent   defender of Canadian political and economic independence. Is Mark Carney living up to the expectations of the millions of Canadians who voted for his party?  Is the Oxford and Harvard trained  “Man of Destiny” meeting the moment? Is he delivering the goods? I’m Adrian Harewood and this is In Bed with the Elephant.
In the days and weeks before election day, Mark Carney insisted he was a nation builder, committed to strengthening Canada’s democratic institutions, tearing down provincial trade barriers, standing up for progressive Canadian values and warding off attacks from hostile foreign actors.
Since coming to office, the newly elected Carney led Liberal government has promised a multi-billion-dollar boost in military spending, tax cuts, and the fast tracking of resource and infrastructure projects. Liberal cabinet ministers have been ordered to find up to 15% in savings in their departments in advance of this fall’s budget. The idea is to reinvest the savings in housing, defence and infrastructure. But critics argue that   Carney’s proposal is nothing more than a radical austerity plan, and that the Liberal cuts   will lead to the elimination of a raft of government programs and services, the loss of tens of thousands of public sector jobs, and a rise in social inequality. They say that all this amounts to the defunding of the state and is a betrayal of the voters who supported Carney and the Liberals on April 28th.

Turbulence & transformation in the Middle East w/ Rex Brynen

Rex Brynen - a renowned scholar over three decades and one of the most astute and informed  observers of the Middle East.
The Summer of 2025 will be remembered as a time of transformation in the Middle East. 
On June 13, 2025, Israel launched a surprise attack on military and nuclear facilities in Iran. Israel claimed the so-called pre-emptive strikes were meant to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. In the ensuing 12-day war. Israeli strikes  killed over 900 Iranians. Iran’s retaliatory attacks killed 28 Israelis.
On June 22, the US joined Israel’s campaign and bombed Iranian nuclear plants. The next day US President Trump announced that Israel and Iran had come to an agreement on a ceasefire which took effect on June 24th. 
In addition to the 12 Day War the chaotic  political situation in Syria, and the ongoing genocide in the Gaza  are altering  the political landscape in the region. 
 Since mid-July in the Southern Syrian city  of Suweyda  clashes between  Druze groups and  Bedouin tribes have displaced 175,000 people and caused over 1000 deaths. On July 16 Israel bombed the Syrian Defences ministry in central Damascus along with other military sites in the capital and targets in Southern Syria claiming to protect minority  Druze communities and sending a warning message to Syrian President Ahmed Al Sharaa. 
In the occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza every day seems to bring more stories of horror and devastation. Since October 7  2023 when an Hamas led attack   killed 1200 Israelis  including over 600 civilians and 39 children, Israel has killed 60,000 Palestinians   including over 18,000 children according to the UN, displaced millions and leveled much of Gaza. The UN reports that Israeli forces have killed 1000 desperate Palestinians seeking aid since May 2025. 
For the first time two Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel have officially declared that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. This follows an earlier determination in December 2024 by the respected international human rights organizations like Amnesty International  that Israel was committing genocide in real time. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (or IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, states in a new report that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza. The IPC has confirmed that   at least 122 Palestinians including 83 children have died of starvation.  Even US president Donald Trump whose government, continues to provide Israel with  both moral  and material support in the form of billions of dollars worth of weapons, is acknowledging that starvation is occurring in Gaza.  

Inside the Civil Rights Movement & SNCC w/ Fred Anderson

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Fred Anderson was born in Mississippi in the late 1940s. He was among the youngest full-time SNCC workers in an organization defined by its youth. He was a courageous young rebel, a teenage wunderkind, who at 15 was working as an organizer alongside such civil rights luminaries as Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, Hollis Watkins, Stokely Carmichael and his mentor and future Montreal roommate Bob Moses.
Anderson is a Forest Gumpian type figure, who was present for many of the seminal moments in the history of the civil rights movement. He participated in Freedom Summer, was in the room when it was announced that the three civil rights workers- Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman- were missing, and attended the historic 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
On Jan 6, 1966, SNCC became the first major civil rights organization to come out against the Vietnam War. The statement the group issued was bold and categorical. It did not equivocate.
“We believe the United States Government has been deceptive in its claim of concern for the freedom of the Vietnamese people, just as the Government has been deceptive in claiming concern for the freedom of colored people. The United States Government has never guaranteed the freedom of oppressed citizens and is not yet truly determined to end the rule of terror and oppression within its own borders…We ask where the draft for the freedom fight in the United States is?”
Towards the end of 1966 Fred Anderson left the United States to avoid being sent to fight in Vietnam. He moved  to Montreal with his friends Herman Carter and Bob Moses,  and for the next 10 years lived underground not revealing his true identity out of fear  that given his role in SNCC he’d be targeted by the FBI, apprehended and sent to prison in the US,  as he had heard had happened to other Black civil rights activists and war resisters who’d escaped to Canada.
Anderson became engaged in political organizing and community life in Montreal.
He attended the historic Congress of Black Writers Conference at McGill University in 1968- one of the major Black Power gatherings of the decade.
During the 1969 Sir George Williams Affair, still the biggest student occupation in Canadian history in which Black, Brown and White students protested against racial discrimination in the classroom at the then Sir George Williams University now Concordia, Anderson played “a critical organizing role” behind the scenes trying to mobilize the community to support the students. He drafted petitions and wrote editorials in community newspapers. 
He had close relationships with the prominent Black student leaders Anne Cools, a future Canadian Senator, and Rosie Douglas, future Prime Minister of Dominica, both of whom were jailed for their involvement in the Sir George Williams events.
He was close friends with a Who’s Who of the English Canadian literary scene. Novelists Margaret Laurence  , Timothy Findlay, W.O. Mitchell and Mordecai Richler. He considered Austin Clarke, Giller Prize winning author of The Polished Hoe, his best friend.
But he also counted many members of Quebec’s literati and radical political community as close confidants. He knew the Quebec independendiste firebrand Pierre Bourgault and had close relationships with Quebec poets Roland Giguere and Victor Levy- Beaulieu. He was very close with physician and Governor General Award-winning novelist Jacques Ferron, Roch Carrier-beloved author of The Hockey Sweater, acclaimed writer Dany Laferrière, and the Quebec historian and author of A People’s History of Quebec, Jacques Lacoursière.
He was involved with the NBCC (the National Black Coalition of Canada)- arguably the most significant pan-Canadian Black organization in history - and later helped found the Concordia Summer Institute for community organizers. 
Fred Anderson has been a lifelong change agent. His journey has taken him from the Deep South of the United States to the Far North of Canada where he has worked in Cree and Inuit communities.  Fred Anderson is a formidable builder of relationships and institutions, and a bridge between solitudes. He’s just written a memoir that documents his extraordinary life. It’s called Eyes Have Seen: From Mississippi to Montreal.
 

Amnesty International’s Secretary General on human rights, freedom & justice w/ Agnès Callamard

Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, has been a defender of human rights for most of her life. Her maternal grandfather fought for the French Resistance during the Second World War.
Callamard was born in 1963 into a lower middle-class family in a small village in Southeastern France about 60 kilometres north of Avignon. She attended Sciences Po Grenoble for her undergraduate degree.
Earned a master’s in international and African Studies at the renowned Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington DC where she was one of a handful of White Students – an experience she describes as transformative.
And she received her PhD at the New School in New York City.
Prior to becoming Amnesty’s Secretary General, Callamard was the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
Adrian Harewood sat down with Agnès Callamard in May 2025 at the head office of Amnesty International Canada in downtown Ottawa. We spoke about, growing courage, fighting impunity investigating the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the current state of human rights in the world and the ability of Amnesty International to affect change.