This week, we crack open a UK import—Hawkstone Lager from Jeremy Clarkson’s farm—and break down Canada’s biggest defence spending announcement in decades.

PM Mark Carney has committed to meeting NATO’s 2% target this year, nearly a decade ahead of Trudeau’s original pledge. That’s over $9 billion in new spending—including raises for CAF members, $2B in military aid to Ukraine, and major procurement commitments. But can it all be spent wisely?

In this episode:

• 🇨🇦 Why this announcement matters—and why it hits close to home for Joseph

• 💸 The risks of rushing defence procurement (and why it’s rarely done well)

• 🇬🇧 What the UK’s new Strategic Defence Review signals for joint defence priorities

• 🤝 Why now might be the right time for a Canada–UK security compact

Plus:

• 🧨 Labour’s massive U-turn on winter fuel benefits: smart politics or panic move?

• 🎯 Is there still room in politics for a sensible, fiscally responsible conservative party?

• 🇺🇸 Trump sends the Marines to California—why it may be a turning point. Or not.

• 📉 Canada’s jobless rate rises—are we seeing the limits of the Carney honeymoon?

And don’t miss:

• 🍺 Beer of the week: Hawkstone Lager

   • Andrew tastes a biscuit-forward Italian Pilsner with a crisp finish

   • Joseph declares it “a Helles lager met an Italian Pilsner and the two had a baby”

With Chris Spoke, developer and host of the Hogtown podcast

Every party says they want to fix the housing crisis. But on the ground, very little changes. Why?

This week on Craft Politics, we go deep with Chris Spoke—Toronto-based developer, housing policy advocate, and host of the ⁠Hogtown ⁠podcast. Chris isn’t just talking about the housing crisis. He’s trying to build through it.

In this episode:

• 🏘 Why zoning—not greed or foreign buyers—is the real problem

• 📉 Why the incentives in municipal politics make it nearly impossible to build

• 🗳 Why “local democracy” might be the biggest obstacle to affordability

• 📊 What a well-designed federal housing policy should look like—and why Trudeau’s version was better (in theory) than Poilievre’s

• 🧠 How to bring communities onside (hint: it’s not by yelling “YIMBY”)

Plus:

• 🌇 Why Canada’s post-WWII housing model doesn’t apply in 2025

• 🏗 The case for radical deregulation—and how Japan and New Zealand did it

• 📉 The wild stat about how few people it actually takes to block development

• 💥 The rise of “BANANAs” (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)

And don’t miss:

• 🚫 Chris’s worst NIMBY moment

• 🧠 Rapid fire round: worst myth, best policy idea, and his favourite urbanist thinker

• 🧱 Why landlords aren’t to blame for high rents (but policy might be)

We wrap with:

• 🍺 This week’s tasting notes: Percy drinks a Christmas tree in a can, and Joseph finds his go-to BBQ lager.

🔊 Listen now if you want to understand why the system isn’t working—and what a serious housing fix actually looks like.

With Karen Stintz, former Toronto city councillor and 2025 federal candidate

What happens when Conservatives run a strong urban campaign, knock on thousands of doors, and still fall short by 1.4%?

This week on Craft Politics, we sit down with Karen Stintz, a political veteran who nearly flipped Eglinton–Lawrence, one of the toughest ridings in the country for Conservatives to crack. She brings the hard-earned lessons from the 2025 campaign trail—and they’re ones the entire movement needs to hear.

In this episode:

• 🗳 What Karen’s close race reveals about urban voters’ shifting priorities

• 📉 Why the collapse of the NDP didn’t lead to a Conservative win

• 🏙 The myth that urban voters “just don’t get” conservatism—and how to break it

• 📺 The power of legacy media in big cities (and why it still shapes the ballot question)

• 🤝 Why it’s time for Conservatives to stop fighting and start making friends and allies

Plus:

• 🚨 We debate the missed opportunity for compassionate conservatism on homelessness and addiction

• 🇨🇦 Karen delivers a stinging critique: “How did we let patriotism slip away from us?”

• 🧱 Should the rebuilding of urban conservatism start at the municipal level?

And don’t miss:

• 🎤 A surprise drop-in from Andrew Percy, live from being eaten alive by Ottawa’s mosquitoes after attending the King’s Speech

• 🦝 Joseph’s failed political dreams of running a raccoon-free campaign for Mayor of Toronto

• 📰 An issue scan covering:

   • Charles III’s parliamentary visit

   • Carney’s single mandate letter

   • Reform UK’s lurch leftward to challenge Labour

   • And why CEO turnover is the sleeper political story of the year

🔊 Listen now if you want to understand why urban ridings are still so hard to win—and what it’s going to take to change that.