The Paul Wells Show

Pulitzer-winning historian Anne Applebaum is releasing a paperback edition of her book Autocracy Inc., on the autocrats who are eroding democratic freedoms around the world. Her timing is impeccable: she says Donald Trump is moving the United States closer to autocracy. In this week's episode she discusses all the ways Trump is undermining democratic norms, and explains why his attempts to stop the Ukraine war are coming up short.

The year since Wayne Eyre retired as Chief of Defence Staff has seen unprecedented change in Canada's national-security environment. Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced plans to boost Canada's defence-related spending from less than 2% of GDP to 5%. The United States has become an unsteady ally. What do those big changes mean for the future of Canada's military? An in-depth conversation.

When John Tory resigned as mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow decided to take another shot at the job. Despite much of the establishment lining up against her, she won. She talks to Paul about that campaign, and about trying to implement her vision for the city on a shorter-than-usual term, while dealing with a $1.5 billion deficit from COVID. This episode was recorded live at the University of Toronto’s Munk School. It episode originally aired on November 22nd, 2023, a few months after Chow...

The book Rogers v Rogers takes us into the messy succession drama inside one of Canada’s biggest companies, Rogers Communications. It features family members fighting in public, two competing boards, and even actor Brian Cox from HBO's Succession. The book’s author, Alexandra Posadzki, takes us behind the scenes of a company trying to find its footing after the death of their founder, all while navigating a high-stakes business deal. This episode originally aired on March 20th, 2024

New York Times writer Max Fisher talks about his book, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds And Our World. Relying on international reporting, leaked corporate documents and social science, he lays out the case that the problem with social media is not just about amplifying the wrong messages; it’s that social networks are designed to bring out the worst in everyone. This episode originally aired on November 2nd, 2022.

Timothy Garton Ash has chronicled some of the biggest moments in European history for over 40 years. In his new book, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe, he offers a history of postwar Europe, told through personal memoir. He talks to Paul about the future of Europe, the war in Ukraine, advising George W. Bush on how to think about the European Union, having Victor Orbán as a student, and why these days, his main concern is about the United States. This episode was recorded at the Unive...

How do people like Stephen Sondheim, Sofia Coppola or David Simon create something from nothing? And what are the threads that tie their work together with making a cookbook or a cartoon? Former New York Magazine and New York Times Magazine editor Adam Moss talked to dozens of creative people to find out how they do it. In his new book, The Work of Art, artists from a wide range of mediums break down the process behind a single piece, sharing sketches, outlines and rejected attempts they wor...

Ben Woodfinden was Pierre Poilievre's communications director from 2022 until the end of April. He's no longer working for the Conservative party, but he defends the election campaign. He has a lot of thoughts about what just happened to Canadian conservatism, and what needs to happen next.

k.d. lang reflects on her four decade-long musical career, which may have reached its end. “All music tends towards silence and I have to honour the silence,” she tells Paul in an open and wide-ranging conversation in Calgary. We originally released this episode in March, 2023.

Two top Liberal advisors and one Conservative MP look back at the election. Andrew Bevan was the national campaign director for the Liberal Party. Gerald Butts was a senior advisor to the Carney campaign and formally acted as Justin Trudeau's principal secretary. Scott Aitchison is the MP for Parry Sound-Muskoka.

Someday we should probably sit down and have a talk about election platforms. Count this week’s instalment of The Panel as a down payment on that conversation. Platforms are weird: if you release yours on Easter Saturday, after the television debates are already over, and a month after the election campaign started, your body language doesn’t say “Key piece of voter information.” But nobody dares not release one. Anyway, we’ve got Allison Gifford, Marci Surkes and Jason Lietaer...

This week is mostly about Quebec. Sorry, people who get bugged by that. The Conservative and Liberal leaders were on Tout le monde en parle, the only talk show in either official language that’s a must-attend for the Carneys and Poilievres of this world. On Wednesday they’ll be at the French-language leaders’ debate, followed by the Thursday English-language debate, both in Montreal. (The leaders of the emergency back-up parties will join them.) Mark Carney, at least, decided to stay in the M...

Surely by now you've learned to mistrust an empty schedule. Time for my weekly campaign meeting with The Panel — Marci Surkes, Allison Gifford, Jason Lietaer — to discuss the strangest federal election in many years. On paper, it’s a quiet week. Donald Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement was last week, the leaders’ debates are more than a week in the future. But while we’re still lousy at predicting surprises, I think we’re better than we used to be at realizing surprises are bound to ...