Hey everybody, we have a special Olympic-sized episode today.

I'm talking to Canada's National Post-Columnus Sabrina Medo

and also Stu Wu of the Wall Street Journal who is in Beijing covering the games.

Please give it a listen.

Joining us now from Toronto, Canada is National Post-Columnus Sabrina Medo. Her

journalistic range spans from culture to politics north of the border, but lately,

her attention has been focused on the Beijing Olympic Games. Sabrina, welcome to take-line.

Thanks for having me. Let's go right into it. You know, the games are always a display of geopolitical

relations, and I think this game's perhaps that is more present than ever with tensions in the

Ukraine and tensions generally between the West and China, specifically Canada and the U.S.

and China. Always there in the background is providing a kind of context to what we're seeing.

How are people viewing the games in Canada and do those kind of existing tensions between

Canada and China influence the way people are thinking about the games right now?

Absolutely. Like you said, the Olympics never happens in a silo. There are always broader societal

and political implications, and countries and their leaders are very aware of this.

So they do use the games to disseminate propaganda or to influence the international

conversation and to try and sway public opinion, and China in particular has been pretty prolific

in trying to use the Olympics to do that, dating back from when Beijing hosted the games in 2008

to now when they're hosting them in 2022. But this time around, I think the public in general

is whizing up a bit to their ulterior motives. Obviously, they've been in the news a lot over

the last couple of years for their increasingly aggressive foreign policy. There was the incident

with the two Michaels in Canada where they were detained for a very long time without cause,

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