Throughout the Canadian federal election, we’re taking weekly breaks to think and talk about other things. On today’s program, in light of ongoing debates in American pop culture, we’ll be discussing the phenomenon of heteropessimism with a Toronto culture critic who is quite literally writing the book on it.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto-based journalist, author, and podcaster. She’s co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast, opinion editor at The Canadian Jewish News, and a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. Her forthcoming podcast is The Jewish Angle.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Women’s fertility is a third rail in Canadian politics. We all learned this again last week, when Pierre Poilievre made a comment about biological clocks that sparked outrage. If you followed the controversy in the mainstream media only, you might not know that a number of women were glad to see Poilievre raise the issue of fertility — including my guest on today’s show.

Melanie Paradis the president of Texture Communications and a veteran Conservative campaigner. Her recent piece for The Line is titled “Poilievre was right to bring up my biological clock.”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

During the 2025 Canadian election season, we’ll be pausing from time to time to take a breather and to think about other issues — often interesting new books. My guest on today’s program is a blues musician, a scholar, and a heterodox thinker. He joins us for a conversation about his deeply personal new book on interracial family life in the south.

Adam Gussow is a professional harmonica player and a professor of English at the University of Mississippi. His new book is My Family & I: A Mississippi Memoir.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com