The Herle Burly

The Herle Burly is a Canadian politics interview show with a taste for the people behind the machinery. It is not built around tidy pundit rounds. It prefers the long answer, the old campaign story, the institutional memory, and the argument that needs a little room. Recent episodes show its range clearly. Bob Rae brings the conversation outward to Canada and the world, including the United Nations, China, human rights, and the challenge of dealing with difficult states while still defending values. Brian Topp and Jordan Leitnitz turn inward, tracing how money, labour, provincial party sections, and federal rules changed the NDP's position over time. A look back at Ontario in 1985 uses David Peterson, Vince Borg, and Herschel Ezrin to examine how a new Liberal government came to power and pushed reforms that still matter. A live conversation with David Eby puts British Columbia inside the national frame, from major resource projects to relations with Ottawa. Corey Tanik's campaign debrief on Doug Ford's third majority gets into platform choices, affordability, Trump as an electoral force, and the strange pressure of running a campaign around contingencies. The tone is loose, sometimes teasing, and clearly comfortable around political lifers. The substance is dense. This is a show where backroom structure matters as much as public message. It makes room for partisan memory without becoming only nostalgia. It also treats provincial politics as central, not secondary. Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, federal parties, and international files all sit in the same political universe. The strongest episodes work because guests are not asked only what happened. They are asked why the incentives pointed that way, who lost power, and what changed after the press conference ended. The result is a show for listeners who want Canadian politics explained by practitioners with scars, habits, loyalties, and useful stories.