When the government is the one talking about press freedom, that s the time to hold on to your wallet. Today's show is about how Canada is an embarrassment to the idea of press freedom and why you should be worried about it.
00:10:28.860I'm on a sidewalk. Are you kidding? Are you kidding? I told you. What is this? You can't. Am I under arrest? Am I under arrest? Am I under arrest? Am I under arrest? Because otherwise you have no right.
00:13:07.480I'm not talking about what Stephen Gilboa does as a liberal or what Stephen Gilboa does in his personal life.
00:13:12.680The government-run, government-owned account that broadcasts news and announcements by the ministry, by the department, has blocked Rebel News in the person of me and Sheila Gunn-Reed.
00:13:26.080If they can turn off that service, they can turn off anything to you.
00:13:37.440The most obvious one, banning journalists from attending press conferences.
00:13:43.200Here's a blast from the past couple years back.
00:13:45.900Kian Bexty, our alumnus, being physically frog-marched out of the prime minister's press conference because he, not that he did anything wrong.
00:14:07.440This is Ottawa, Canada, 2020, when Justin Trudeau is having his RCMP throw out a journalist for no reason, because I wouldn't show him my phone.
00:14:22.860I wouldn't show him what pictures I've taken.
00:16:13.400But I mentioned new legal developments because that ranking of Canada didn't have anything to say.
00:16:20.160C-11 is a new bill that used to be called C-10.
00:16:23.800And C-11 has introduced a requirement that tech companies like Google and Facebook change their algorithms to suit the government's tastes.
00:16:37.160So, I mean, I'm furious and frustrated all the time with the algorithms that suppress conservative views and promote liberal views that the tech companies do on their own.
00:16:46.400But now C-11 commands those companies to follow Justin Trudeau's whims.
00:16:52.740And the eighth one, I'm not sure if it goes to journalistic freedom, but it goes to something about journalism, is that Canadian governments, not just the feds, provincially too, routinely violate access to information laws.
00:17:06.600You know, some of our access to information requests about Trudeau have been delayed six years.
00:17:12.620For years. Now, we'll wait them out, but the thing is, once we finally get them and they're heavily redacted, they're, you know, the story has gone.
00:17:23.700The news has gone. The government gets away with it.
00:17:26.200So that, I give you that as the background.
00:17:28.840Even this weird and wacky international rating system that clearly doesn't know what's going on in Canada.
00:17:34.100Even they say Canada has fallen four places in the world.
00:17:38.740But I put it to you, they're not even familiar with half the terrible things that's going on in this country.
00:18:58.040A few years ago, before the pandemic, Sheila and I traveled with Andrew Lawton of True North to London, England, where Canada was co-hosting a media freedom conference with the British government.
00:19:16.340And she was going to have a press conference.
00:19:18.880And Sheila and Andrew Lawton were there.
00:19:21.280And Chrystia Freeland said, you can't come into the press conference at a media freedom conference.
00:19:28.060Now, incredibly, in what may be the only time this ever happened, the rest of the press corps said, well, if they're not allowed, we're not going.
00:19:34.180Obviously, these were not your Ottawa, Toronto, you know, mean girls.
00:19:38.300These were, you know, European-based journalists in the main.
00:27:14.420But look at his obsession with misinformation and disinformation.
00:27:19.040One man's misinformation and disinformation is another man's talkback.
00:27:23.220And everything here from all of these politicians and from the Reporters Without Borders group itself is focused on protect elite speech, demonize critical speech.
00:27:36.660Protect speech that praises the government, demonize the opposition as disinformation.
00:27:44.680The government of Canada is supporting media freedom at home and abroad.
00:27:48.380As co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition and as 2022 chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, Canada is working with international partners to defend media freedom.
00:27:57.940We're also addressing the challenges and the spread of disinformation online by giving people the tools to recognize disinformation and working to build a healthy information ecosystem, including through the Digital Citizen Initiative and new investments in Budget 2022 to fight disinformation.
00:28:12.140Canada is also providing $13.4 million over five years to bolster the G7 rapid response mechanism, which strengthens coordination between countries in identifying and responding to foreign threats to democracy, including state-sponsored disinformation.
00:28:34.040That's government criticizing journalists.
00:28:37.220That's government vetting journalists.
00:28:39.800It's not the government's place to vet journalists.
00:28:41.400It's a journalist's place to vet governments.
00:28:44.640It's incredible how he can say these things.
00:28:47.740I remind you that short weeks ago, only after an access to information request was made by Professor Michael Geist, did we see the hundreds of submissions by not only the public, but by experts in the industry in response to Trudeau's online plans.
00:29:02.800You might remember that Twitter said the only other place they've seen this kind of censorship is in places like China, North Korea, and Iran.
00:29:10.320How perverse is it that Justin Trudeau, who is bringing in North Korean-style censorship, is the chair of some international freedom group for the Internet?
00:29:21.080Obviously, the whole thing is corrupted.
00:29:22.760You know, I think the fact that Justin Trudeau and Christian Freeland and Pablo Rodriguez did more talking about Media Freedom Day than the journalists and the journalist organizations tells you a lot.
00:29:36.300But what they said and what they're getting away with, my friends, I think this is going to be the battle for the years ahead.
00:30:27.020Why don't you give us two minutes on that?
00:30:28.920So we have journalists, young journalists, citizen journalists from all across the country coming in to the Student Journalism Conference,
00:30:35.980where hopefully we will be able to arm them with the skills they need to do citizen journalism.
00:30:41.880And one of the things that I aim to teach them is practical skills that we didn't really have the opportunity to teach me when I started at the company.
00:30:51.880So, you know, of course, part of my role here at Rebel News is to onboard the new journalists, bring them up to speed with our systems,
00:30:58.720but also teach them how to do things efficiently and quickly and often alone.
00:31:05.980You know, back in the before times when we used to travel internationally, I would put all my equipment in a backpack and go across the world and cover a UN conference or to cover a protest alone.
00:31:21.140And it's one of the best ways for student journalists and citizen journalists to tell the other side of the story,
00:31:25.680because you roll up to these protests and you see CBC with their three satellite trucks, their chase producer, their sound guy, a cameraman,
00:31:34.100the on-camera journalist and a guy holding a sheet of tinfoil.
00:31:48.600But in the early days, it was, you know, Rebel, part of the rebellion inherent in the name is rebelling against that high cost, you know, bloated model that was sinking the industry.
00:32:01.360I mean, when I came from Sun News Network, there were 10 people that worked on my show.
00:32:06.680And it was not much longer or more intense than the show I do here.
00:32:10.420In the control room, they had five people.
00:32:14.320So being cheap and cheerful and running around, it's even easier now with, I mean, every cell phone these days has amazing, an amazing camera.
00:32:22.920And you can even edit it right on your phone.
00:32:24.740Those are great practical tips these kids are going to learn.
00:32:28.020And, you know, part of the point of being a citizen journalist is that there really is no huge financial commitment to entry into doing journalism.
00:32:40.160Because it's not, it's a thing you do.
00:34:03.560And the words themselves have to be deplatformed.
00:34:06.400I'm excited about these kids that are coming from all across the country and a couple of kids who cannot fly because there's no fly list are joining via Zoom.
00:34:13.540And half the content is going to be how to be a journalist.
00:34:19.640Half is going to be on civil liberties and freedom.
00:34:23.660I have this dream that if this student journalism conference goes every year, you know, 20 or 25 kids a year for 10 years, you put through 200 kids, 250 kids over a decade, maybe only 10 of them get really involved full time as journalists.
00:34:39.300But you've created a crop of truth speaking citizen journalists.
00:34:43.440I'm very hopeful that they can be an antidote.
00:34:46.380I know there are thousands of state journalists and corporate journalists, but to have a sense of connection and camaraderie and networking and community, I think it's hopeful.
00:34:56.860And, you know, when you think about the impact that our journalists have had here at Rebel News, if you and, you know, on some days there are only 10 journalists working out in the field.
00:35:07.280So, you know, to find and do like a talent ID camp or an ID camp of journalists this way, think about the impact that that can make when you have double the size of Rebel News journalists out there in the world who care about civil liberties and who have the tangible skills and the fearlessness to not only take on the story, but also take on their critics.
00:35:27.940Yeah. And that's the worst case scenario of only one a year out of these kids full time.
00:35:32.580I mean, I did a student journalism conference back in 2014, so long ago, and I see the alumni still.
00:35:40.180I mean, one of them is Raquel Dancho, the MP, the conservative MP for Winnipeg, was quite good.
00:35:47.280And you could tell she was good even back then.
00:35:49.380And so just to help give some speed and direction to these young folks, I think good things have come from.
00:35:55.860Well, I'm really glad you're there flying the flag for Rebel News.
00:35:58.860And I know True North has some folks there, too.
00:36:06.480So there's going to be a great lineup.
00:36:09.020Hey, I want to just ask you a little bit more about Press Freedom Day.
00:36:13.640It really irks me that that day has been colonized by the censors, that Christy Freeland and Justin Trudeau, who are leading the world's worst, the free world's worst censorship campaign, that Twitter has compared to North Korea's, that they are calling themselves the free speech people, the free press people.
00:36:33.820And no one's really calling them on it.
00:36:35.660Yeah, you know, it's funny how the liberals conflate defending free speech with giving journalists money.
00:36:54.220It's colonizing the media with your thought, with your viewpoint.
00:36:59.440You know, I wrote it up for the website the other day where Justin Trudeau has overseen one of the most drastic declines in press freedom in the free world.
00:37:09.360And I went back and looked at where Stephen Harper sat on this issue in his last year in office.
00:37:17.040And I remember 2015, although it seemed so long ago, the media could not shut up about the stranglehold that Stephen Harper had on his party and on information, how poorly he treated journalists.
00:37:29.840But Canada right now, even though, you know, the rankings are a bit funky and skewed and they don't make a lot of sense.
00:37:37.080But even by their metrics, their left wing metrics, we've plummeted to 19.