Join Aaron Pete and Evan Solomon as they delve into the transformative role of media, exploring the evolution from the printing press to digital platforms, the power of narrative control, and the dynamics of Canadian political discourse, highlighting Solomon's transition from digital media pioneer to influential geopolitical analyst and the critical role of curiosity and debate in molding society.
Evan Solomon, a seasoned journalist and author with a career spanning digital media, political reporting, and television hosting, including CTV's Power Play and Question Period, now leads GZERO Media and contributes to Eurasia Group's management. His work, from hosting national political programs to writing award-nominated books on energy and food crises, reflects a deep engagement with global politics and societal issues, balanced by personal interests in music, sports, and family life as a McGill University alumnus and parent.
Join Aaron Pete and Evan Solomon as they delve into the transformative role of media, exploring the evolution from the printing press to digital platforms, the power of narrative control, and the dynamics of Canadian political discourse, highlighting Solomon's transition from digital media pioneer to influential geopolitical analyst and the critical role of curiosity and debate in molding society.
Evan Solomon, a seasoned journalist and author with a career spanning digital media, political reporting, and television hosting, including CTV's Power Play and Question Period, now leads GZERO Media and contributes to Eurasia Group's management. His work, from hosting national political programs to writing award-nominated books on energy and food crises, reflects a deep engagement with global politics and societal issues, balanced by personal interests in music, sports, and family life as a McGill University alumnus and parent.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger than Me podcast. Here is your host, aaron. You are in for a real treat today, so please consider showing your support by liking, commenting and subscribing. I am a huge fan of today's guest. He was the host of CTV Powerplay and did an interview with Ellis Ross that inspired me to consider running for council for my First Nation community and made me passionate about the interview and process. I am speaking with the publisher of GZero Media, a special correspondent with CTV and a member of the Eurasia Groups Management Committee. My guest today is Evan Solomon. Evan, I have been looking forward to this interview I kid you not for two years now and I am so excited to sit down with you. Would you mind introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted with your work?
Evan Solomon:Well, first of all, aaron, awesome to be here, really great to chat and it's a real pleasure. I'm Evan Solomon. I am now the publisher of GZero Media, so I run a media company in New York City that's based on politics and we have television shows on PBS, we have podcasts, we run eight international newsletters and I oversee all that. I'm also on the senior management team of a company called Eurasia Group, which is run by Ian Bremmer, a very famous sort of geopolitical scientist, and we have a couple of offices around the world and we really focus on geopolitical analysis, and I'm the former host of CTV's Power Play and Question Period and a radio show. So I'm just in my first year of living in New York City after moving from Ottawa. In my post-CTV days, Brilliant.
Aaron Pete:Well, I'm going to ask you to take us all the way back to somewhat of the beginning. You have a background in English literature and religious studies. Would you mind talking about how that might connect with your life today and what you took away from that?
Evan Solomon:Yeah, it's an interesting story. When my dad was alive he'd say those degrees won't buy you a cup of tea, what are you doing? But he was very supportive, you know. The truth is that I was always interested in how we are defined by the stories we tell ourselves and countries, and culture plays a major role in defining who we are. And what is culture really? As the great Canadian political theorist and scientist, cad Homer Dixon likes to say, culture is really just a set of instructions that one generation passes on to the next generation as to how to be, how to act, what to do, and sometimes we get that through religion. That was really the vehicle of the instruction manual for centuries and I really wanted to understand that.
Evan Solomon:And it was through writing and the stories that societies told each other, whether organized in a religious form or in a political form, and the battle has always been the battle over who gets to write the code, who is in control of the pen. That's why you know, when Gutenberg invents the printing press, it's such a massive issue because all of a sudden other people outside of the big power authorities have control over the pen and who can start writing lines of code. And then you get the Martin Luther, the revolution, the Protestant revolution. Hey, he nails the 99 theses at Wittenberg and it's like boom. The control of the Catholic church changes dramatically and the story of colonialism changes. Who gets to write people's story? What matters? Who's defined as a person? Who's defined as by law? Who writes the laws? We're still fighting these every single day. Who has the rights to land? Who's got the right to use what bathroom? Who has? Does the government have the right to impose a tax or not? Does the government have the right to build a pipeline or not? Do you have to have the rights to be able to throw your garbage here or here? So the lines of code are codified in our laws and I really wanted to understand that at the root and I was taking politics and sociology and English and religious studies and when I veered into religion people thought I was nuts. This was really in the years after this great sociologist Like I don't want to get all nerdy here, aaron, but there's a guy who's still around. Yeah, let's go the name Francis Fukuyama, who, by the way, we just I say this because we just had him on our GZERO television show on PBS but even as a kid, like young and studying.
Evan Solomon:He wrote a book called the End of History, or like a thesis called the End of History, and it became huge in political circles, like history is coming an end, liberal democracies are the final iteration of all our evolution and kind of everyone just wants the same stuff. Now it turned out to be wrong. Lots of people clearly want different things and we're still fighting those battles all the time. But there was a moment where everyone was like that's it. You know, there's theories like two countries with a McDonald's and it would never go to war with each other because they all want the same stuff. Turns out that was kind of naive. Globalization is going to be great for everyone. Turns out that was kind of naive. It has good things and bad things and I thought I know what? And religion was like no one wants you know religions, as people are just going to outgrow all these irrational beliefs. And I just thought that was a little naive.
Evan Solomon:And so I started to study religion to see how societies were formed around, what people believe, and that eventually led me to politics. And here we are. I'll just say one last thing about politics, trying to understand the age of disinformation, conspiracy theories, people having different views of what they believe, no one trusting anything. What's the dominant narrative? We're still fighting these battles about. What is the story that we believe that is shaping our actions, who we are, our identities, the political tribes that we join and the world that we want to live in and how we act towards one another. And the battle for the pen has exploded now with AI and disinformation and who controls it and who trusts the authorship. And we are still in that fight, maybe more than ever today. So I really feel like the things that I studied are more relevant than ever Now. Of course, over the last many decades, filtering that through politics has been really the story of my life.
Aaron Pete:I suspect that through this process you developed a way of understanding the world and a logical system for kind of taking in information as you start to become skeptical of what you're being told. What do you think some of your big takeaways on kind of ingesting information and trying to absorb it and then understand your own worldview how do you think that came about?
Evan Solomon:So it's a great question, aaron. There's no answer in the sense that it's a process. You know, I think it's important to have a framework. I always describe myself as a skeptical optimist. As a journalist, I'm not cynical, but I'm skeptical. Right, that's my job. I shouldn't be saying, oh, the government says this or someone in power says that.
Evan Solomon:Skepticism does not mean you believe anything. It means you probe and ask for proof. It means you do believe in facts, you do want some proofs, you do want something verifiable. You should be skeptical. We should be naive enough to know we've seen too many things and we're all too experienced enough to just take things on face value. So a healthy skepticism.
Evan Solomon:But my big takeaway is, skepticism should not give way to cynicism. In other words, you know you're always going to get the short end of the stick. Nothing is good, you're going to get ripped off, don't trust anyone, don't trust your doctor, your pilot, don't trust anything, don't trust an expertise, and that turns into this culture war against everything and your opponents become your enemies. That's the inevitable tragedy of cynicism. Whereas a skeptical optimist is a healthy skeptic, a critical thinker, ask questions. But you're optimistic that if you do ask questions and if you do have a healthy debate and if dialogue and debate happens, the best things will emerge. Real solutions will come from healthy debate.
Evan Solomon:And I'm optimistic. You know I've been doing this for a long time and I am optimistic that the species can solve our problems and we can do better, despite a lot of evidence to the country. There's lots of evidence and I'm not being naive that in the last, you know, 75 years post war, things have been better than ever for most people. Again, I'm not suggesting everyone's life is better in individually or they haven't been horrible conflicts, but on the whole, the statistical people living in poverty, child mortality rates, curing of disease, all those things have gotten better. And so I'm optimistic that working together this species is good, and that's my healthy lesson.
Evan Solomon:And through democracies, healthy democracies and healthy debate and some. But I'm still a skeptic about things. I don't like to be, you know, taken for granted and that's why I spent my life hammering people in power, asking questions. I'm not fundamentally a partisan guy by nature and that's why I'm in this job, but I am an optimistic person that if we keep asking questions, we take no BS, we get our facts right, we hold the powerful to account, we make sure that everyone's got an opportunity To ask questions and access to power. That's a pretty good check and balance against abuse, fear, and we can move forward a bit. So that I think would be my, my healthiest lesson skeptical optimism.
Aaron Pete:The other piece that you mentioned that I just want to follow up on is you mentioned the Gutenberg revolution, the printing press, all of those processes. Jordan Peterson has described podcasting in YouTube as the next Gutenberg revolution, in that we can now have long form conversations. Politicians are now getting more comfortable with our long interviews, rather than eight minute clips of Of what they're saying or really quick scrums. They're starting to understand that the landscape is somewhat changing. How do you feel about this big change where any goober with a podcast is able to now get on the airwaves and start to share their perspectives?
Evan Solomon:I think it's great and it's democratic, and the barriers to entry into the national dialogue should be low. So let's be clear the democratization of access to the pan and I talked about, which is what Gutenberg started in, and we're seeing what some people would call like the hyper speciation of it, like it's going crazy. Now everyone's doing it. That's fantastic, but it doesn't mean everyone's doing it well. Right, let's be clear the fact that everyone can do something doesn't mean everyone is doing it well, and that doesn't mean that we should give up standards. Democracy is not about the giving up of standards and in the giving away of the mob. Democracy is about everyone having an opportunity to set standards and to make sure that those standards lead to an outcome that's best for as many people as possible. That's the goal and we should be very careful. One of the challenges that we live today is standards have completely fallen.
Evan Solomon:We used to talk in Canada a lot about the two solitudes. Probably should have talked about the three solitudes French, english, indigenous Communities. People didn't talk to each other, they didn't have shared stories, share languages and they just lived in these sort of three mega silos, and then you had all sorts of other immigrant communities that were coming in and they had their own mini silos. The two solitudes pointed to a lot of problems, but despite the fact that we've got this you know revolution, where everybody has a podcast and a Twitter space I think that's great. We're also more alone than ever, in the sense that we live in echo chambers. We don't have two solitudes or three solitudes. We have multiple realities. People on people on the left are only wanting to listen to things on the left, and echo People on the right only want to listen to the right. So it's not like you and I are reading the same couple of newspapers and debating and you say, evan, I don't agree with that. And I said, aaron, well, why not? And we have this kind of debate within this kind of realm of facts and you want more of this and I want less of that, and you want less of that and I want. That's what politics and the democracy used to be.
Evan Solomon:Now people say I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't believe your basic facts. The sky to you is blue. My truth is the sky to you is blue. My truth is the sky has polka dots. You're like what I don't as like, well, sorry, buddy, and then you don't even, and I only go to. Sky is polka dot dot com. That's my world, that's my YouTube channel and my Twitter feed and my tick doc channel.
Evan Solomon:So I think there's real problems with disinformation, real problem with a lack of consensus, real problem with the war on reason, real problem with the quote war on the person that disagrees with you. So I don't necessarily want to openly celebrate the fact that, yes, it's great that everyone's got access, wonderful, but OK, that's the perfect democratic right, everyone's got an opportunity. But everyone's not doesn't have the same abilities. Right, and this is the funny thing about often on the right they say well, this is great, there's no more. Don't trust the elites and the left to empower and the. But these are the very same people who have always argued that there shouldn't just be a everyone has the same. Remember there's.
Evan Solomon:We need to give everyone the same opportunity. We should guarantee people the same opportunity. You and I might have the same opportunities, but we don't necessarily want to guarantee the same outcomes. Right, because outcomes should depend on how smart you are, how talented you are, how hard you work. That's also part of it. Right, there's a baseline of outcome. Right, like we have societies all about. Let's have a baseline.
Evan Solomon:Like I don't know if I'm going to live or die. This is like natural law stuff. If I'm born very poor, in very unfortunate circumstances, I should have the right to an education. I should have the right to health care. Right, there's certain bases that you and I would agree on. Right, we want the most disadvantaged person to have a base level, but we don't want to punish someone who's say, well, you should also have the same outcome as, like the most brilliant musician in the world. No, like talent deserves it's only words as well. So that's the same. In media, all voices ain't equal. Some are prevent crap and Some countries like China and Russia are. They know this. They're poisoning up river and they're feeding disinformation To try to destroy democracy. So we gotta be careful and not naive and say it's great because it ain't I.
Aaron Pete:Agree with you that resumes aren't all created equal, and one piece that I actually want to ask about is in the 1990s you co-founded shift magazine, wrote a novel called crossing the distance, hosted shows on CBC called change makers, future world and hot type. I'm wondering the work that goes into developing your skill sets. You were willing to go in so many different directions and try things. What can you reflect on that period of your life and what you took away from it?
Evan Solomon:I'm also reflecting on the depth of your research. You're really this these are deep cuts. Yeah, first of all, thanks for that. That's, it's, it's. It is a pleasure to kind of think about that time and and, and I really appreciate you asking about that and I also sort of feel bad for you that you had to dig through all that stuff.
Aaron Pete:No, it's fantastic. I admire people who are willing to do all of those different directions, because we live in a world right now where people are not, as I feel like, eager to set the standard and to go above what other people are willing to do, and like going from a book to TV to writing magazine, like those are so many different Directions and I really admire your willingness to be multifaceted.
Evan Solomon:You know it's interesting, when I was in my 20s I was restless Right and I decided not to go to law school. My dad was a lawyer and I, and you know I always called that the car wash. They don't like if you do it right, you know you don't screw up, you enter the car wash, you know you don't sort of try to drive the car. There's a path that you can come out the other side and things gonna work out. But I I was like, okay, I have to do a different path and you know I wanted to make sure it succeeded. I didn't wasn't quite sure what the path was, my path. But I had a best friend from university, andrew Heinzman, and we sat down and we had three ideas. One, we want to start a magazine because we want to tell stories, you want, we want to be writers. And. And Two, we wanted to start, we want to get into politics. So we thought we should maybe start our own political party because we didn't trust the politicians sound familiar. And Three, we wanted to start a business because we were very interested in politics, business and media. Those were our three passions and we we had a business idea of Finding products that were efficiently made and labeling them that and this was like a long time ago. So were they made efficiently? So, analyzing the most efficiently made and and whether it was environmentally or work or whatever, the best companies, in finding a way and people would really be attracted to companies that were really good. And we ended up starting a company called shift and we got lucky, because you know well, it started about literature, because we're interested in this memory.
Evan Solomon:I was saying at the beginning of this, the story of who we are. That was that this was like the 90s and the internet was just Starting and I had worked as a journalist in Hong Kong for a year and when I was there writing for the South China Morning Post, I had done a story on the very first Internet thing and I think it was. It was before aOL. They said, evan, can you figure this out? And I didn't really understand it. It was like a bulletin board, it was called. It was really like this was really before the graphic user interface. This was really early and it was fascinating.
Evan Solomon:And then, when we started this magazine, another guy who was working with us, mark Highland, said you know, we should, this is a revolution. We should. We should change our magazine and and start Chronically the birth of a new technology, because it's going to transform everything. And we did and shift became kind of the first magazine. We were the first magazine to sell internet ads, the first magazine online with the bulletin board. We became kind of the Canadian wired and I remember when we got our first investors, which were McLean Hunter.
Evan Solomon:We, I mean remember we started with six hundred dollars, just so you know, yeah, we used to play concerts and bars every quarter and hold big concerts. My partner was a great musician. I loved music, play very bad guitar and so joined the band as a pity for them, but they were actually very good musicians and To raise money. So like we were young but it caught fire because there was a revolution and when we finally got some investors, like I remember there's a company called McLean Hunter which is now Rogers, and they were buying 20% of us and we were in the big boardroom. I mean I remember the guys who had cuff links. Their cuff links were worth more than like our entire company. Like we were so nervous and and we were gonna sell it and we really love business and Andy and I were at this big corporate boardroom, one of the guys with those cuff links, and we were saying you know, this internet thing is gonna change the world and our magazines at the forefront and it's gonna make TV and radio and Search and magazines and you guys have to get involved in this. And the CEO of the company thought we were on to something and he said, well, why don't we buy 20% of this company to see if these kids know what they're talking about? And the other guys were like they're all guys. And One of them said he was British. And he said to us Boys, if we understand you correctly, this internet thing is going to be something of a religion, which was perfect for me, right? And I remember Andy and I looked at each other and we said, yeah, it's gonna be kind of like that, it's gonna be that big. And they chuckled, but they bought it and we ended up buying them out.
Evan Solomon:But that's how we started shift magazine and that turned into a TV show and then, because we were the first people to really cover it, cbc then approached me to do a program, a weekly show called Future World, to talk about this crazy new technology, and they the producer, andrew Johnson Cast me. I was about 25 years old and and we had done a television show on Rogers Community cable that called shift television, and then I I auditioned for this show it was 12 episodes they were gonna do and I got the job. I looked at like I was about eight and I did get this job to do this weekly interview show on technology and ideas and it ended up doing 42 shows the first year. It was a big hit and then I did it for almost eight or nine years and then we shifted to hot type. So so in my 20s our magazine kind of exploded. We went from you sort of two of us and then three of us to, I think, 45 or more. And you know our company was growing rapidly. We got investors, I was doing a weekend show on CBC, I was writing a novel that I published Eventually with McCollum and Stewart, and so, yeah, I'm the lesson. There Aaron was.
Evan Solomon:I was so young and so dumb and so naive that I didn't know what I had to lose. And Andy was the same and you know we weren't married, we didn't have kids, we had nothing to lose. So if we went broke and we almost went broke a lot it didn't matter. It's not like, if I went broke, how am I gonna feed my kids? I always say this to people in Canada young people in your 20s, when you've got no experience and no money, it's the best time to be an entrepreneur. You're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna be the CEO and the janitor, but it's and the stakes are low.
Evan Solomon:And we were told something from the founder of wired magazine and we eventually were modeled like they started after us. So we used to meet them because we were doing the same thing in Canada and Lewis Rosetto said to us something that we put in our Magazine has been a mantra Guys, make sure when you try something, it's so ambitious that if you fail, you fail upwards. In other words, you're gonna, you're gonna learn so much that's gonna leave you ahead. So don't try something small, because if you fail and you're scared, it's just gonna be meaningless. Fail up, and Fail up was a great mantra for a young person who was an entrepreneur.
Evan Solomon:You know, and I could just tell you one last thing, aaron, when we had some great young writers Clive Thompson, who writes for the New York Times, and you know, sheila Hetty, one of the great writers in the world right now.
Evan Solomon:Daniel Richley, who just did the book with Getty Lee, a great writer, ian Brown, like everybody wrote for us. It was fantastic and they inspired us. There was a young generation and they inspired us and, and you know, all of these people were taking a risk and we just found our community and that was really, really, that was really inspiring for us, because and that first moment I remember after I don't know how many years, when we got Healthcare and medical care for our employees, like you know, I remember where one of the guys got glasses, who's in his 20s and he's like I can't, but like we gave a healthcare system, like I, like you know, employee benefits, like can you imagine? We were like playing in bars one year and then we're giving benefits. Yeah, though, that meant something and that helped us understand the practicality of starting a business, and now I'm back in business now and and those lessons really paid off.
Aaron Pete:What was the transition into journalism?
Evan Solomon:I mean it was right at. You know, I was the editor of my school newspaper in high school. I mean I was into sports but I was also into journalism and writing, really into writing. In university I was really into writing and different things. And then, right after I graduated from my master's, I went to Hong Kong. Well, we started this magazine. And then I went to Hong Kong to work as a freelance journalist for a year, with the deal that after a year I would come back and we'd go full time on the magazine. So my transition into journalism and business was immediate.
Aaron Pete:And what do you think during all of this time? What do you think makes a good journalist?
Evan Solomon:It's a great question. When I was, my first job as a journalist was as a professional journalist was the South China Morning Post. And here's how my first and I didn't go to journalism school and I land in Hong Kong and I'm working at a freight forwarding company for a month. A Chinese freight forwarding company and I was. They wouldn't pay me till the end of the month. So I had to try to and I knew I was going to quit because I wanted to be a journalist, but I didn't know how.
Evan Solomon:I was wandering around the street and this American woman, thea Clapp well, I remember it. I mean the Wan Chai market, I'm 21. And I'm wandering around the Wan Chai market in Hong Kong. I don't know anybody, not one single person in Hong Kong. And this woman comes up to me. She's probably a couple of 25. And she said are you lost? And I said kind of. And she said what do you do? And I said I'm a journalist, complete BS. Because I'd only written stuff Like I'd started this magazine. We got like two issues. And she says oh, I work at the South China Morning Post. Here's my card, call me. And she walked away. She was that kind of. So I called her and she said call my editor.
Evan Solomon:So I called this editor and I said, hi, I'm Evan Solomon, I'm a freelancer. And he said what do you know about Hong Kong pension fund situation? And I said everything. And he said, great, I need 800 words by tomorrow morning. I said, great, do you have any leads? I've just arrived. He goes, yeah, call this bank. So now, remember, this was the internet, wasn't? This is the 90s, before you get us to Google it. So I am and I'll be honest with you, I didn't even know what a pension fund was. So my first professional question as a journalist was to this bank that these guys gave me the lead and they said hi. I said hello, my name is Evan Solomon, I'm calling from the South China Post, south China Morning Post. What is a pension fund? That was my first question as a professional journalist and the person didn't. They were so nervous like, well, of course you know a pension fund is. And I was like slow it down, I'm taking notes. And I said do you have any contacts? And I delivered my first 700 word piece the next morning, which they couldn't believe it, because in Hong Kong at the time they used to call people who were there. This was before it went back to the Chinese. Filth failed in London, try Hong Kong. So there was a bunch of Brits partying there, and that's what they were called at the time. The filth failed in London, try Hong Kong. So funny. And so I got another story about the diamond trade, and I was so, and then I just so.
Evan Solomon:The first thing is courage to ask questions. And then later that year I interviewed Larry King, who was a big television journalist in the United States, and I said, mr King, what is the secret to journalism? And he said just be curious. And I legitimately remember thinking at the time that's so stupid. Like, isn't it preparation, and don't you have to be really smart? And I really thought this guy's just one of these dumb television journalists. And then I realized he's exactly right Curiosity, asking questions, active listening and then telling a good story, avoiding cliches, trying to tell an honest story that people will listen to because it's fresh, it's new, it's connected, it's authentic.
Evan Solomon:And that's the thing about being a journalist Don't be afraid to ask a question. There's no dumb questions. There's no dumb questions there. But you have to have the courage to ask the hard question and you have to be prepared enough to know, like in politics in the job that I was doing at Power and Politics, or Powerplay or Question Period, you have to really know your stuff because you have to know when they're BSing and spinning and you have to call out their stuff. So that's where curiosity meets preparation in political journalism.
Aaron Pete:That's a really good answer and very thoughtful. I'm wondering if there's a standout interview. When you look back on all of the work you've done, a conversation you had that stands out above the rest.
Evan Solomon:Oh gosh, Aaron, I mean not really one. There's a lot. Sometimes there's an encounter that changes you. It's not just the most famous person I've been very fortunate to interview prime ministers and presidents and celebrities and all that but sometimes I'm just interviewing people. You're in the tsunami and Banda Aceh and 50,000 people are dead and you go into a hospital and you see someone whose family's gone and you have a tiny encounter that will stay with you longer than any sort of wisdom that the prime minister said in your end of your interview on Powerplay. So I really think that you have to be careful. Privilege Every conversation has something in it. Every encounter is really important. Every person that your, every story you tell, is great.
Evan Solomon:I've done national news and local radio and I love them all. I mean, I like what I do because I like people, I like telling stories, I like telling their story and sometimes you have long relationships. Yusuf Fakiri, the brother of Sali Fakiri, whose brother was arrested in December of 2016 and sent to the Eastern Ontario Correctional Facility in Lindsay, Ontario, and was dead 11 days later with 50 contusions. I've been covering that story since 2016. I'm still very close to Yusuf Fakiri, His the inquiry in the last month just found out that it was homicide. They've been fighting for seven years for that and I still know that family very well, so that matters Talking to a writer like Richard Ford. He was a great American writer and I was really young and he was a very powerful man, deep voice, like great voice.
Evan Solomon:I sound like a choked chicken and he sounds like the Lion King and he's a big guy and he had piercing blue eyes, he was a southerner and he had won lots of literary prizes and he'd written famous novels. And I guess I'd said something that he didn't like. And he's the kind of guy just so you know that when he didn't like a review of someone, he would hammer it on the side of a tree and then shoot it with a shotgun and mail it to the critic. So he's literally that guy. So I said something that he didn't like and I said this seems like a very Richard Fordian thing. And he looked at me on camera and he, right into the lens, he said that's the dumbest question I've ever heard. So I thought I was so clever and I said well, richard, you seem to be getting very defensive, which is a real strategy, as you know. As an interviewer, you know to turn the question back on someone. And I, for a split second, I felt very clever, like this is great, it's good TV. And I quickly, you know, whip the ball back to you and now you're going to look like you're a defensive. And he looked at me and said something that did change my life and he looked right at me with those eyes and he said I am defensive, that's because I have something to defend. What about you? I was a really smart line because it got me over the glibness of journalism and it made me realize that if I'm going to do something, I want to defend it. And you see, nowadays, when people hate journalists and I often engage on Twitter with people who say you know, you're a phony or you did this or you guys are paid off and I'm like look, I'm not being defensive, I have something to defend. I work hard for those stories. I believe in it. What you're saying is not true and if I made a mistake, I'll own it. I have no issue with that. But I also go out there and talk to people.
Evan Solomon:So, whether it's the trucker protest in Ottawa, like I think of Richard Ford and I'm like you know, I don't mind defending that stuff because I wanted, since that moment, to make sure that the work I have to do is the work I believe in and I'll defend. I'm not going to be perfect. I'm going to screw up. Everyone does. You know, we're not perfect people and when you do, you own it, but you should create work that you can defend and when someone says you're getting defensive about it, you should, like Richard Ford, say, yeah, it's worth defending because it merits. We worked hard for this me, my team, my community. So I don't mind. Not, I don't mean go to war, I don't mean tack it to a tree and shoot it with a shotgun, but I do mean it's okay to defend the work if you are doing work you believe in. And that was a really good piece of advice from a smart guy.
Aaron Pete:That was a really good piece of advice, and it can be so challenging to walk such a sensitive line of asking the important question or the relevant question or the question people want to hear, but doing that in a respectful and thoughtful way. So I'm going to try and do that right now and ask you about your experience leaving the CBC and if you have any reflections that you'd be willing to share on that.
Evan Solomon:Yeah, I mean it was a very widely told story, as you know, and the CBC and I settled in and part of that is that we don't talk about the details on it and I've never said a bad word about CBC. My way through all this stuff and very different than the culture today where people seem to yell about everything is I was very open about it. I dealt with it right away and we reached a good agreement. But I will say the best. I mean, look, it wasn't an easy time. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and be inauthentic and say it all worked out. It was a shock and it was a difficult moment, but the thing that I really, whatever I was one of the reasons I never spoke much about. It was not my style to complain. But secondly, whatever I said, you know people are going to take a position on and I knew that the best response is what would I do next? Right, because then it's not biased. People could. The facts will speak to themselves, you know. So, for whatever people said or thought or whatever the allegations were, I'm like OK, that happened. Obviously I have my view on it, but here's what happened next.
Evan Solomon:Then, a couple of weeks, I was writing a column on McLean's, I had a show on serious exam. I was a regular panelist on global with Tom Clark hosting the show. I hosted the Rogers election coverage and then I was at CTV hosting the radio and power play and question period in the Evan Solomon show. So what that says is OK, for whatever some may have said, everyone else looked into it and offered me jobs and I ended up having a great job. So what was great about it is I was externally validated and it's just not my way to diss anybody.
Evan Solomon:I have no bad things to say about people. I'm trying to move forward with my actions and my work and I continue to work and I love it. And I will say this. I say this to people If you're hitting home runs your whole life, you're going to get hit in the face with a pitch. Occasionally that happens. Get up, and my dad gave me the best inheritance shrink the rear view mirror and grow the windshield Like. It doesn't mean forget. It doesn't mean be bitter, it doesn't mean don't reflect. It just means the road ahead is long and keep working.
Evan Solomon:And I've been very lucky, very, very fortunate to have, since CBC, to have worked eight fantastic years at CTV and I continue. You know I'm still a correspondent at CTV Today. I did episode of CTV, as I do every single week. So I still work with those folks and lots of other media. So, look, it's part of life. It's a long road and you climb the mountain. There's going to be a few stumbles and that's. I'm not the only. I'll tell you, in a world that you and I are looking at, I am hardly a victim. You pick yourself up and you move along and I'm better for it. So I'm a happy guy.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. I think there is journeys, and everything that happened brought you over to CTV and it ended up as I described to you before we started inspiring me. Watching your interview on TV with Ellis Ross and Pam Palmitter and the conversation that was taking place there while I was in law school inspired me. That's the kind of work that I want to do. I want to be a part of these conversations.
Aaron Pete:I saw what Ellis Ross was saying and I've interviewed him. I talked about your interview with him and how that inspired me and what he said and how it impacted me, because there's two different perspectives and there's merit to both of them, but one weighed so much more for me and that was that my communities and poverty and that when she wasn't willing to talk about what members and what community members face every single day and that that's the problem, that didn't resonate with me and what he said did, and so I went, graduated law school, joined council and now I'm working to repair the homes in our community and improve the economic development in our community. And that's all largely based on being able to hear that interview with him and just hearing his philosophy reflect so perfectly onto me and inspire me. So the work you're doing today has had a large influence on the people who watch your show.
Evan Solomon:I mean, I love. I can't thank you enough for telling me that it means a lot and you always believe, and I believe in my soul, that having a healthy debate changes people's minds right and can change their life and can awaken an activism. I had those same things as you did and the fact that you disagree with Pam Palmer and agreed with Ellis or someone else watching may have agreed with Pam and disagree with Ellis Not what we want, like the ability to disagree and pursue the argument or the idea that you want is the very cornerstone of our democracy. Without having to hurt the other person, without having to dismantle the other person's integrity, you can simply dismantle their idea through the process of elections and running for council. That's what we need and too often we're just afraid to disagree, like I always liked the passionate debate, I liked it when people got at it because they give a dart, they care and anyway I really appreciate that and the work that I'm doing here at GZERO, the work that I did at CTV or CBC or anywhere, continues to be about expressing ideas hard, pressing people in power hard and, you hope, bringing engagement of people like you.
Evan Solomon:You become a lawyer and a podcaster and elected official and you're a community builder and you're in the game and just a circle back to what we started. You grab hold of the pen and start writing the instructions for the next generation to see how do we want to live and what do we value and how does our community need to change. And you've got yourself a hold of the pen. That's pretty cool.
Aaron Pete:Evan, you are a motivational person. This has been one of the most exciting interviews. Would you mind please telling people how they can follow your work and keep up to date and stay informed as citizens?
Evan Solomon:Well, right back at you, just for the record. I mean, I love this podcast. You've done great work. You know, I was checking up on it before when you reached out, and Vashi Capello's great interview with Vashi, who of course, is doing power play and a question period, and the radio show, as she followed in my footsteps, and CTV and I think actually at CBC. I love Vashi and she's a friend of mine and your interview with her was fantastic and you're just so probing and careful about your questions and I just think you're doing a great job. So, first of all, thank you. I love the entrepreneurial spirit of it, which I love Just get in there and mix it up. And so it was a real pleasure as a fellow entrepreneur to join and support and at least be part of your community. So thank you and anytime If you want to follow our geopolitical coverage again, it's very nonpartisan, we mix it up.
Evan Solomon:We have these kind of debates. Go to gzeromediacom. You can sign up for our daily free newsletters. We have them every morning. You got them about geopolitics. Ian Bremer writes one, we have one on AI. We have one on Canada US. We have a weekly show in Canada as well on PBS called GZERO World, hosted by Ian Brammer. So all that stuff is about. Everything is political, which I continue to love and pursue. So, aaron, thanks.
Aaron Pete:Thank you so much. You were so easy to schedule with and communicate with, and you were so willing to do this, and that's such an honor coming from someone who's trying to grow and trying to learn from individuals like yourself. So thank you for being so gracious with your time. Best of luck, and I hope to chat again in the future. Come down to New York.
Evan Solomon:We need more Canada, thanks, perfect.
Tim McApline:If you transported yourself back to June of 2020 and you're sitting down with Jacob, your first guest, and you looked forward and did you ever think you would hear the sentence? Yeah, I was checking out your interview with Bashee and looking at your website and you're doing really good at this. From Evan Solomon, like, was that in your wildest imagination?
Aaron Pete:If I'm being honest, not that specific, but I have an expectation of myself that, yes, we would eventually hit the point where people would be impressed, and that's always been the goal and I won't stop until I have the respect of the people I admire most.
Tim McApline:And then you're going to stop. Is that what you're saying?
Aaron Pete:I will only be open to retirement once we hit those peaks. I said 100 episodes minimum, but the goal is to hit a point where I know that I've done this well and I think we're on that path.
Tim McApline:Yeah, that was pretty cool. That was a really good interview.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more, and everything that I hoped it'd be, and so much more than I could have ever imagined.
Tim McApline:Yeah, there's a certain charisma and just like amplitude from an absolute pro, like and just and really thoughtful questions.
Aaron Pete:I love that.
Tim McApline:Yeah, yeah, I love that when they're like whoa, that's some deep cuts there, buddy, and you get a lot of very good question. Very good question. That's all. That's a somewhat of a stalling technique for them to recall, but you do get about a lot, which is amazing.
Aaron Pete:The goal is always to ask high quality questions and take it from a different perspective. But there's so much that goes behind the scenes of like. Don't always vamp with a long intro to your question Sometimes, but a lot of them are just I just want the answer to the question, so I don't need to make it 200 words. I can say a 10 word question.
Tim McApline:Well done. Thank you very much.
Aaron Pete:That was a great question from you too. Thank you, appreciate it. You're producing over the ice, yeah.
Tim McApline:Yeah, I am.