Juno News - Another media freakout over Pierre Poilievre challenging a reporter

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.400 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here the andrew lotten show

00:01:30.960 on true north on this monday november 27th just after one o'clock eastern time hope you had a

00:01:37.860 wonderful weekend i don't wish to alarm you or perhaps i do it is t minus uh what 30 wait 30

00:01:46.300 days half september april june and november okay november has 30 days uh which means it is t minus

00:01:52.060 28 days until christmas i was reminded of this when a few moments ago i checked the mailbox and

00:02:00.300 something that i had ordered for my nephews arrived the first and only christmas present

00:02:05.900 i've bought and it reminded me of like everything else i need to buy and speaking of mail delivery

00:02:10.780 so i'm experiencing one of these things i'm sure you all have gone through yourselves right now

00:02:15.100 where I'm expecting a very important thing to be delivered today.

00:02:18.320 And they've given me as the delivery window the entire day.

00:02:22.120 So there is a span of, you know, maybe eight, nine hours in which that could be delivered.

00:02:27.220 And I need to sign for it.

00:02:28.840 And I know it's going to come in the 45 minutes that I am on this show.

00:02:33.140 It's like the only thing I have that I can't get away from.

00:02:35.880 I know that the guy is going to deliver it right at the exact inconvenient time.

00:02:40.560 And I'm going to like have to go and go to the post office in like three days or whatever when it's available.

00:02:44.980 So I'm sharing this to say that I'm just like you, experiencing the same real world problems that we all do, like not being able to run to get to the mailman at the door in time.

00:02:54.200 We are going to talk about a fair deal of things today.

00:02:57.040 We have Lev Lysak from C2C Journal on the perils of a digital currency, central bank digital currency, which the Canadian government has vowed to plow ahead with.

00:03:07.460 We also have our good friend from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims, on the now expanding mainstream media bailout that the Liberal government decided to kick a few more millions towards.

00:03:18.960 What's, you know, $120 million between friends, right?

00:03:22.140 And no better friends than the Liberal government and the legacy media.

00:03:26.540 And I also want to talk about this rather amusing story.

00:03:29.020 So you may recall the NDP have this supply and confidence agreement with the Liberal government.

00:03:37.460 So after the 2021 election, the NDP said we are broke AF, which is what the kids say for broke us.

00:03:44.200 Well, you can probably use your imagination on that.

00:03:46.880 They do not have money to go to an election again.

00:03:49.200 Jagmeet Singh knows that he is probably out as leader after the next election.

00:03:53.700 So the NDP said we are going to give the Liberals our undying support for the next four years.

00:03:59.340 We are going to make it as though the Liberals effectively have a majority government,

00:04:03.700 despite not having a majority government and not even getting, I would say, the popular vote.

00:04:08.960 But the NDP can't sell that to its members without showing some concessions. So the NDP,

00:04:14.960 the Liberals, they all went behind a room and they all just said, okay, well, what about this?

00:04:19.860 What about this? And then they come around and the NDP says, okay, we can get our members behind this,

00:04:25.940 but you've got to give us something. So the Liberals said, well, what about that Pharmacare

00:04:31.300 thing that we've been promising that we haven't done, but we had already promised and campaigned

00:04:36.140 on it. And Jagmeet Singh said, sold. He's like, if you ever saw Seinfeld, you'll know there was

00:04:40.640 that episode where Kramer was suing the coffee company because he burned himself on a cup of

00:04:46.780 coffee. And he and his lawyer are going back and forth with the coffee company. And then Kramer

00:04:52.940 goes into the office and they're about to offer him because we saw what they were doing. They

00:04:58.920 were about to offer him, I think it was like, you know, $100,000 and a lifetime supply of free

00:05:02.900 coffee. And the coffee executives say, well, Mr. Kramer, we're prepared to offer you a lifetime

00:05:07.420 supply of free coffee. And, and Kramer goes, I'll take it. And that was the end of it. So Kramer

00:05:12.660 is Jagmeet Singh, the coffee executives are Justin Trudeau. He gave away anything and everything he

00:05:18.780 could and got nothing in return. Now, why that is important is because the NDP have, the membership

00:05:27.240 have basically been duped by their leader right now.

00:05:30.360 They've been led to believe

00:05:31.320 that we are going to get a more NDP-oriented government,

00:05:34.760 a more socialist government from the liberals.

00:05:37.480 Now, I mean, again,

00:05:38.220 Stephen Gilbeau got up there a couple of weeks ago

00:05:40.040 and he said, well, I'm a proud socialist

00:05:41.640 and I'm sure a few of the NDP socialists were like,

00:05:44.420 yeah, yeah, down with the patriarchy and capitalism

00:05:47.080 and all that jazz.

00:05:48.640 But realistically speaking,

00:05:51.340 the liberals have not delivered on these key NDP pledges.

00:05:54.920 Now, this is all a bit of a windup

00:05:56.400 to this fantastic story in the Globe and Mail. NDP open to waiving end-of-year deadline for

00:06:04.020 Pharmacare legislation. You see, this wasn't just a general promise. The pledge to deliver a

00:06:10.720 Pharmacare plan came with a time frame. The Liberals had to do it by the end of 2023.

00:06:17.520 The Liberals had two years, two years plus a few months, give or take, to come up with this plan,

00:06:23.580 and supposedly they've been working behind the scenes

00:06:26.120 with the NDP for that two years and a bit.

00:06:29.780 And this Pharmacare plan,

00:06:31.420 which by the way, I do not want and I do not support.

00:06:34.100 So make no mistake,

00:06:35.020 I am not criticizing the government right now

00:06:37.100 because I wish they had produced this.

00:06:38.920 I'm glad they haven't.

00:06:40.040 I'm glad it's like that so-called gun buyback 0.96

00:06:42.520 where just bureaucratic ineptitude and incompetence

00:06:45.120 have prevented a bad policy from coming to fruition.

00:06:48.220 But the reason I bring this up

00:06:49.740 is because all of this has led to the NDP

00:06:53.300 reneging on its one concession that it got from the liberals, which was to deliver this thing by

00:07:01.360 the end of 2023. Now, hilariously, and this is the part, I mean, I think it's hilarious. You may

00:07:06.660 not think it's hilarious. I think it's hilarious because Jagmeet Singh is the guy that did the

00:07:11.080 victory dance after like subsequent election losses. He just pretended that he won both of

00:07:16.360 those elections because I think he genuinely believes it. No one around him wants to tell

00:07:19.940 him the truth, which is that, no, you actually failed, Jagmeet, but that's okay. But Jagmeet

00:07:24.960 Singh does this thing where his party and his health critic, Don Davies, are now saying, well,

00:07:32.260 we're okay waiting because it'll be worth the wait. That's what this story said. We're okay

00:07:39.920 waiting because it will be worth the wait. So they're now saying, well, yeah, they aren't doing

00:07:44.700 it in time, but it's going to be extra, extra good when they do. So we're okay with it all of

00:07:50.740 a sudden. And I'm just looking at this saying, oh my goodness, if you believe this, if you are

00:07:56.660 an NDP member and you believe that you are getting anything from your party, giving a blank check to

00:08:03.320 Justin Trudeau for four years, I have some oceanfront property in Saskatchewan for you. 0.92

00:08:08.400 this is like the most insane thing ever it's that old you know fool me once shame on you fool me 0.98

00:08:15.000 twice shame on me uh the NDPers who support this who keep going down this road should be saying

00:08:19.680 shame on me shame on me shame on me because you are not getting anything for this so that is

00:08:25.820 covering off the left side of Canadian politics today let's hop back over to the right when Pierre

00:08:31.700 Poliev got before reporters in Toronto it's gotten to the point where it's always going to be good

00:08:38.160 It's always going to be good when he gets up there because Pierre Polyev, whether you like him or not, doesn't like accepting the premise of the question.

00:08:45.040 In fact, he doesn't even like the pivot.

00:08:47.300 You may recall this exchange on the weekend with a reporter from the Canadian press who probably regretted getting out of bed that morning.

00:08:54.000 Do you think it was responsible for you to call yesterday's explosion by the customs, by the checkpoint at the Rainbow Bridge, terrorism,

00:09:02.780 when no U.S. or Canadian officials said that was, or authorities said that was the case?

00:09:07.260 and when the New York governor also said there was no evidence to suggest terrorism activity.

00:09:12.300 Actually, you're wrong. Are you with CP?

00:09:14.320 Okay, so CP, by the way, CP, just for everyone's knowledge,

00:09:17.880 did have to make three corrections for falsehoods that they put into a single article.

00:09:23.140 I think that might be unprecedented.

00:09:25.260 I'm actually thinking about checking with the Guinness Book of World Records

00:09:28.620 to see if there's ever been a news agency that has had to issue three corrections

00:09:33.320 for patent falsehoods that they admit they had been made in one single article and now you've

00:09:38.820 made yet another falsehood in your question. Where you are wrong is that CTV reported that

00:09:45.540 the government of Canada was presuming that the incident was terrorist. So yeah that was and

00:09:51.360 that's what I said in my remarks. You're right. It was a media report. Which is what I said in the

00:09:59.400 house. I said there are media reports. What kind of statement? I didn't. I said there

00:10:13.380 were media reports. No, there's no distinction. What I said, and I was right, was that there

00:10:23.020 were media reports of a terror-related event. By your admission, there were media reports

00:10:31.780 of a terror-related event. And that media report, according to CTV, unless you're questioning their

00:10:38.460 integrity now, came from security officials in the Trudeau government. So do you think the CTV

00:10:45.740 was irresponsible in putting out that tweet do you sorry i'm asking i i have already answered that

00:10:56.380 do you do you think ctv was irresponsible to put that tweet out

00:11:04.300 well you just did comment

00:11:09.260 okay so i you know i just hope you're not going to print something that you have to apologize for

00:11:13.100 Oregon. Oh, I, as an audio guy, I can't actually drop a mic because it pains me too much. It's

00:11:20.700 like burning a book, but metaphorical mic drop right there. Oh, I've never really, I was going

00:11:27.060 to say I've never really been a drug user. I've never at all been a drug user. I don't use drugs,

00:11:30.640 but like, I imagine this is what it feels like to be high. I'm just like, you know, put that into

00:11:35.100 my veins right there. Just a loop of those sort of smack downs because anytime a conservative

00:11:39.960 politician has failed and floundered in recent years, the reason for it has typically been an

00:11:45.200 inability to engage in even the simplest of coherent and cogent and clear answers from the

00:11:53.220 media. And in that particular case, in that particular case, we see Pierre Paulier doing

00:12:00.000 what he does best, which is challenging the premise, attacking it head on. The only thing

00:12:03.940 that would have made that slightly better is if at the end he went and said, hold on for a moment,

00:12:07.660 I got something for you. He goes back to his briefcase. He opens it up. He pulls out a big

00:12:12.180 shiny red apple and says, you get today's apple of the day. Because an apple a day keeps the media

00:12:19.060 at bay. I believe that's how the saying goes. Wait, no, I might be mixing it up with something

00:12:22.780 else. But that was basically what Pierre Polyev was doing. Now, as far as the actual substance,

00:12:27.580 Pierre Polyev was right. And the journal, Sean's asking me if that's the opposite of the poutine.

00:12:32.180 Well, it's a bit of a play on the poutine because, you know, you may remember Justin Trudeau gives

00:12:35.980 out poutine to reporters he likes as a reward for a Pierre Polyev the apple could kind of be like

00:12:41.380 the Razzie where you like reward the worst uh there yeah Sean I just said the Razzie thing

00:12:46.320 Sean I did Sean's gonna think he came up with that but I came up with it first but there's a bit of

00:12:50.260 a delay so I mean I don't know we'll share that we'll share the credit on that one to make up for

00:12:53.820 last week's math mishap but nevertheless we are gonna see this so yeah he has to like basically

00:12:58.880 walk around with a bushel of apples like one of those like uh cubs doing apple day and he'll just

00:13:03.320 start handing them out to his least favorite reporters of the day. But what he actually said

00:13:07.340 in the House of Commons was exactly what he shared with the media at that press conference, which was

00:13:12.960 that there were media reports acknowledging that this had been a terrorism incident. There were

00:13:19.560 media reports acknowledging this was a terrorist attack. The media report said the Canadian

00:13:23.760 government was treating it as such. And by the way, I mean, I mentioned this at the tail end of

00:13:28.700 my show on Wednesday. And True North and its coverage was deliberately cautious on this

00:13:34.560 because while it looked and sounded and felt like terrorism, there was some reporting of that,

00:13:39.320 notably from Fox News, it was not that. And it's not to say that we were always just sitting back

00:13:45.600 and just saying, well, we'll just wait until tomorrow to cover it. We were obviously keeping

00:13:49.080 up with all of the coverage, but at a certain point, you have to just decide which of these

00:13:53.660 reports is seeming more plausible than the others. And at the beginning, pretty much everyone was

00:13:57.720 running with the fact that this was likely national security related. And then as more

00:14:01.480 details came, we realized it was not. And I think there are still some unanswered questions about

00:14:06.040 what exactly happened and why. But we know the fact that it was near the border had nothing to

00:14:10.580 do with anything. There was no, I mean, Vivek Ramaswamy, I saw him on Fox News when this was

00:14:15.020 going on saying, this is why we need to secure the northern border. And then you find out a few

00:14:18.920 hours later, this was just a couple who had been at the casino in New York and had neither come

00:14:23.380 from Canada, nor was en route to Canada. So you have to come up with some new talking points there,

00:14:28.120 Vivek. But the reality is that Pierre Polyev didn't say anything in the House of Commons that

00:14:35.180 was as irresponsible as that reporter's question was trying to make it out to be. And why this is

00:14:41.900 relevant, why this is important, is because the media always does this with him. And they never

00:14:49.480 learn their lesson. Paul Wells, an independent journalist, not a right winger by any stretch,

00:14:53.920 had a great column about this on the weekend on a sub stack where he basically said individual

00:14:57.920 journalists are smart, but you put them in the group. And for whatever reason that the really

00:15:02.220 unwise decisions tend to come out in these scrums. He said, when people get one chance to ask a

00:15:07.760 question at a press conference, they tend to just go forward and ask this really, really pointed

00:15:14.040 question, but it's always like a why won't you, or a didn't you, or shouldn't you. It's always

00:15:19.360 very accusatory in nature. And that's, and I get it because whenever I've been at a press conference

00:15:25.960 that Justin Trudeau's at, and it's like, and I know, all right, well, they're never giving me

00:15:29.080 an interview. This is going to be my one and only chance to ask him a question this year.

00:15:32.300 I've got to make it a good one. And you try to like word it perfectly and pack all of the stuff

00:15:37.140 into it. But you, when you go into a press conference or a scrum thinking that a question

00:15:41.440 is going to be this like just silver bullet that I mean that's violent rhetoric I'm sorry but this

00:15:46.640 this silver rubber duck that just soars through the air and just lands on impact and does just

00:15:53.000 the perfect amount of damage like it's just not going to happen but journalists want to do that

00:15:57.900 they want to end conservatives careers so they always want to be the ones to come up with the

00:16:02.480 questions that are just going to cause them to absolutely lose their mind lose their support and

00:16:08.480 just go away into the wilderness. Now, this is the media's sport. Pierre Polyev turns this into

00:16:15.300 a sport of his own. Pierre Polyev loves this sort of stuff, which is why he's so good at it.

00:16:20.680 And everyone thinks they can beat him at his own game. And when he comes out in an exchange like

00:16:26.760 this, like the apple munching incident like this, the media doesn't like it. Sean put together a

00:16:32.360 little list of some of these responses here from people, which I'll go through. Globe and Mail

00:16:37.900 columnist Andrew Coyne had this to say on X, which is the artist formerly known as Twitter.

00:16:42.820 I don't know who he thinks he's impressing with this campus Tory childishness, but they're probably

00:16:48.660 already voting for him. So this is Andrew Coyne saying that, well, the only people that like this

00:16:53.920 are already going to vote for him. He's not going to win any votes with this. Tabitha Southie, who 0.89

00:16:57.800 is a former Globe and Mail columnist, said this entire incident ought to disqualify the man as

00:17:04.020 Prime Minister. And as a cautionary tale, Pierre Polyev is what happens when you mistake your

00:17:08.220 mentions for your constituency. A Globe and Mail columnist mistaking Twitter for real life. Well,

00:17:14.460 it's a shame I'm reading that on Twitter and I could go the rest of my real life without actually

00:17:19.200 seeing or hearing of Tabitha Salvi. We have another one. This one's from a CBC panel featuring

00:17:24.560 Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert. I quite like this one. Let's roll that clip.

00:17:28.740 It will be very hard to sell a leader who is turning out to be an intellectual bully,

00:17:36.740 especially one who picks on people who are smaller than him,

00:17:42.740 in the sense that the journalist asking a question is smaller than someone who is the leader of a major party.

00:17:49.740 And I don't know what is being said outside Quebec in the other language,

00:17:56.740 But I was on a panel today, and the words I used associated with Pierre Poilier, and

00:18:03.860 they are gaining currency, is that he is someone who will lie whenever it suits his purpose.

00:18:10.740 Last word to you, Andrew.

00:18:12.740 Well, it depends what kind of leader you're looking for.

00:18:14.980 You know, it used to be we looked for leaders, we wanted to look up to them.

00:18:18.180 We wanted leaders, and we looked up to them because they were able to rise above these

00:18:21.460 kind of petty squabbles.

00:18:23.660 This is small and insecure, and it appeals to people who want a leader who they don't have to look up to,

00:18:28.560 who's just as small and insecure as they are.

00:18:30.240 That's not the kind, I think, that most Canadians are looking for.

00:18:33.300 I think they want people who are uniters and not divideers,

00:18:36.560 where people are trying to appeal to the best of us and not the worst of us.

00:18:40.360 Because there is nothing to parrot the everyman's position,

00:18:44.240 like the perspective of Andrew Ivory Tower Coyne and Chantel Toronto star Hebert.

00:18:50.400 So three CBC panelists, they're all seemingly in agreement.

00:18:54.100 We have intellectual bully.

00:18:55.980 We have the idea of this one I particularly enjoy. 0.90

00:18:59.680 He's a liar, even though what he said there is technically accurate. 0.84

00:19:04.260 I mean, Andrew Coyne also did the bonus side swipe at conservative voters because they're petty and insecure for wanting to elect a petty and insecure guy like Pierre Polyev. 0.99

00:19:12.040 Well, what does that say about Justin Trudeau, that that petty, insecure, intellectual bully, lying tyrant is just crushing Justin Trudeau in the polls? 0.60

00:19:20.700 Well, there's a serious point to all of this, which is that those journalists that are asking Pierre Paulyev those questions are getting even more money from the Liberal government as of last week. 0.93

00:19:31.260 Are they related? Maybe, maybe not.

00:19:33.420 But certainly we have one leader who is threatening to end that gravy train, and he's the one that seems to get more of their ire at scrums.

00:19:40.840 Chris Sims is the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and joins me as always on Mondays.

00:19:46.880 Chris, I'm pulling you away from a staff meeting today, so I don't know if I should say thank you or you're welcome.

00:19:53.020 I can say thank you for now.

00:19:56.220 All right. Well, let's start with the basics here.

00:19:59.100 What has the government announced on this media bailout, which seems to be a continuous plan of theirs now?

00:20:04.180 Yes. To your point and all excellent points on this, Andrew, as always, so far up until now, the so-called media bailout has been just shy of $600 million for journalists outside of the CBC. Keep in mind, viewers, this is other than CBC reporters.

00:20:22.580 So up until now, they would get on average around $14,000 or so per reporter. So per newsroom

00:20:31.020 employee, if they had this so-called bailout money that was coming from the Trudeau government

00:20:35.500 in a newsroom, they would get between $13,000 and $14,000 per reporter. Now, this entire time,

00:20:43.600 a lot of these big media companies had a lobby group that was working on their behalf in Ottawa

00:20:49.140 hand out, asking for more money. Lo and behold, during the budget update last week from Finance

00:20:56.140 Minister Chrystia Freeland slipped in there to protect the free press, if you can believe it,

00:21:02.200 they have now more than doubled that amount. So by the time the smoke clears, it looks like

00:21:08.580 each reporter or each newsroom employee will be getting around $28,000 or $29,000.

00:21:17.020 dollars. This is, again, coming from the federal government. So the Taxpayers Federation are super

00:21:22.940 ticked off for two reasons. One, this is an enormous waste of money. There is no way in hell

00:21:28.000 that one nickel of taxpayers' money should go to any private corporation. We're opposed to all

00:21:33.500 corporate welfare, much less media companies. Two, this is a huge and obvious conflict of interest.

00:21:40.760 And Coyne himself has said this directly in newspapers,

00:21:45.820 basically saying, we'll be seen as bag men for the government if we take this money, folks.

00:21:52.200 This is a huge conflict of interest.

00:21:54.480 So to see him sort of changing his tune a little bit on the ad issue panel is pretty disappointing.

00:22:00.140 At the end of the day, this means more money for journalists

00:22:03.460 who are on the payroll already of the Trudeau government.

00:22:06.380 Well, and the one part of this that I find the most ridiculous is that there is no, there's no measure at all of success. And more importantly, there's no target for sustainability because, you know, everyone knows that old saying about teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime versus when you give him a fish and you feed him for a day.

00:22:24.960 Well, this is government giving journalists fish year after year after year. The problems that plague newsrooms, the reason that these newsrooms are in such dire straits and are laying off people is because they don't have a viable business model. This subsidy doesn't charge it, which means it becomes a permanent fixture in the Canadian economy unless a politician comes along and says, well, I'm going to cut you guys off, which then is it's very easy to end a government program politically, as we know.

00:22:50.140 Yeah, for sure. And in fact, I'll go a step further. It's the subsidy itself, I think, that is helping to destroy their businesses. So as we've seen government funding of media creep up over the last few years, we have seen the people's trust in media tank. Just absolutely tank. I've never seen it this bad before. And surprise, the two are obviously related.

00:23:17.620 So the last poll I saw, it was this big in-depth dive.

00:23:21.200 They do it for the past 20 years.

00:23:23.300 It's this corporation in Canada that does a survey on trust.

00:23:27.180 And the last number I saw, I think it was 64% of Canadians now think that journalists are actively trying to mislead them with statements they know to be false.

00:23:39.120 As a journalist, that hurts a lot because you're supposed to lose sleep over a mistake, over a typo, over getting a number or a date wrong, by accident, by innocent mistake.

00:23:52.520 No, no, no, forget that.

00:23:53.940 Now, a big chunk of a majority of Canadians now think that they're actively trying to mislead them.

00:24:00.820 And that's likely connected to the fact that they're on the government's payroll.

00:24:05.420 role. And what's really disappointing about this, Andrew, is that this doesn't have to be about

00:24:09.940 politics. This could be a left-wing journalism organization or a right-wing or one that tries

00:24:16.240 to stay straight down the middle. You shouldn't take a nickel from the government because one of

00:24:21.880 your roles as a journalist is to speak truth to power. And if you're counting on the people in

00:24:28.420 the halls of power for your paycheck, you are not being accountable to the people. You are not

00:24:34.860 speaking truth to power. You're not comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

00:24:39.380 You're asking the comfortable for a handout. That is not real journalism. And further,

00:24:46.400 there's no way then that people who support organizations like the Taxpayers Federation

00:24:50.680 who watch True North or even people on the left, there's no way then if we have more journalists

00:24:56.080 going on the government payroll by the day and them getting more money by the day, there's no

00:25:00.660 way for them to hold the government to account using these organizations? How are they to believe

00:25:06.780 the numbers and the reports coming out of the parliamentary press gallery when they're

00:25:11.640 wondering in the back of their mind, all right, how much of your paycheck is counting on Justin

00:25:15.600 Trudeau? Yeah, and I think that's where, and I'm glad you gave credit where it's due to Andrew

00:25:20.260 Coyne on this. He has been fairly good on this issue because it does undermine the good journalists

00:25:25.280 who are just trying to be there that are not beholden to this, but are now part of a climate

00:25:29.300 that is. And I've said the same in the past about Unifor membership. A lot of print reporters in

00:25:35.180 Canada are members of Unifor. Unifor declared itself the official opposition effectively to

00:25:40.280 the Conservatives in the last two elections. And if you're a reader, how are you not supposed to

00:25:45.320 wonder, well, hang on, is this union steward at this local newspaper not in the bag for one

00:25:50.420 particular side as well? Yeah, exactly. And it's to your point of perception here. And right now,

00:25:58.200 I hope that there are some journalists watching this and thinking about it because I know there

00:26:04.220 must be by the law of numbers and the people I've worked with in the past of various media

00:26:08.340 organizations, there must be people right now thinking, A, I'm not really comfortable with

00:26:13.120 this as a reporter or B, I'm doing my job. I'm trying really hard. I'm being balanced.

00:26:20.200 That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter because just as an ethics, it is the perception of

00:26:26.780 corruption, which matters. Now, because people know that an increasing number of reporters are

00:26:34.000 on the government payroll, it clouds everybody with suspicion. And so it's truly really sad and

00:26:40.280 unfair for those reporters who are doing their damnedest to keep all their W5 straight, to keep

00:26:45.960 their facts straight, to be as balanced as they possibly can. It doesn't matter. They'll be

00:26:50.380 perceived as being on the payroll of the federal government nonetheless. And this is critically

00:26:55.820 important because it's happening simultaneously along with a crackdown on independent media

00:27:02.140 voices so with one hand it's you picture it like a vice grip okay like the ones that use in shop

00:27:07.660 class on the one side of that metal panel we've got trudeau increasingly funding certain media

00:27:14.220 organizations and certain reporters on the other side he's tightening this vice on online journalism

00:27:22.300 and independent journalism using things like c11 and c18 so c18 is the reason why you suddenly

00:27:29.740 can't see news on facebook anymore google has said they're going to follow suit and pull their news

00:27:35.180 links off the internet that's because of the trudeau government and two c11 is now passed

00:27:41.420 and the crtc is rolling out its regulations and they have announced that platforms that host

00:27:48.380 podcasts including shows like this are now going to need to register in order to be regulated

00:27:54.840 what that means as far as free expression goes we don't know which is why we're super concerned

00:28:00.860 about these two things happening at the same time very well said i'm just flattered you think i was

00:28:06.320 in shot class uh rather than the like theater arts music nerd that i was i did four years of

00:28:12.260 metal work including auto mechanics so i understand what a vice group is at least i didn't need to use

00:28:16.700 We didn't need like a cello analogy to speak my language.

00:28:19.540 But nevertheless, thank you so much, Chris Sims.

00:28:22.140 I'll let you get back to your staff meeting.

00:28:23.380 Send my best to your wonderful colleagues

00:28:25.020 and we will talk to you soon.

00:28:26.340 Thanks, Andrew.

00:28:27.440 All right, that does it for Chris Sims

00:28:29.480 on this edition of the show,

00:28:30.820 but we have lots more still to come.

00:28:32.900 In particular, I want to just revisit this idea

00:28:36.780 of central bank digital currency

00:28:38.100 that I was talking about earlier on in the program briefly

00:28:41.260 and also a couple of weeks back

00:28:42.840 because this hasn't gotten a lot of coverage in Canada.

00:28:45.860 Part of the reason is because we don't have a firm ironclad proposal, but we do know that the

00:28:50.420 Bank of Canada is proceeding with this. They are talking about it, if you read their materials,

00:28:55.320 as though it is inevitable, as though it's just this thing that's going to come. We're all mere

00:28:59.380 passengers and they're just going to shepherd us through this transition. And if you're someone

00:29:04.340 who, like most people in Canadian society, walks around using your debit and credit card everywhere,

00:29:09.220 you're probably thinking, all right, well, digital currency, what's the big deal?

00:29:12.860 Electronic banking and digital currency are two very different things.

00:29:17.020 And we'll talk about why that is now with Gleb Lysik, who is a phenomenal writer with the C2C Journal.

00:29:23.280 We've had him on before about his work there.

00:29:25.280 And in particular, he has a great piece out this month, Hush Money, The Untold Dangers and Delusions of Central Bank Digital Currency.

00:29:33.900 Gleb, good to have you back. Thanks for coming on the show today.

00:29:37.000 Hey, nice to, thanks a lot for having me back here.

00:29:40.280 so let's talk first off with what central bank digital currency is because i i do think it's

00:29:46.240 important people not conflate it with online banking and electronic finance which is a pretty

00:29:51.660 ubiquitous part of the finance system right now well the the major difference in between the c

00:29:57.340 cbdc of central bank digital currency is that it is uh controlled by the central bank right so

00:30:03.800 So the central bank has it, has a liability to you for that currency.

00:30:10.980 It's very similar to cash in that respect.

00:30:14.660 So if you have a bank note, you can always go to the central bank and say, well, I need something for it.

00:30:25.260 And what we have right now is with commercial banks, you have the money, your online banking, these money, they belong to the, they sit with the commercial bank, right?

00:30:41.440 and they are not affiliated with the central bank.

00:30:49.120 For the most part, the central bank just offers some insurance

00:30:54.100 that these banks will pay you, let's say, cash.

00:30:59.340 You can withdraw cash if you have an online banking account.

00:31:01.860 So that's the major difference, the liability.

00:31:04.400 The liability of CBDC, as with cash, lies with the central bank.

00:31:10.820 the liability of the digital money we use now lies with the commercial banks.

00:31:18.220 One of the things that the Bank of Canada has told us on this is that it will remain available,

00:31:23.920 it's an option, it's voluntary, it's not basically outlawing cash. But I've heard some people

00:31:29.320 who don't really buy that. I mean, we already see in some ways aspects of a society that's

00:31:35.080 moving beyond cash. There are some major retailers that have said they won't take cash in certain

00:31:38.920 venues and covid was certainly a part of that do you buy from what you've seen that a central bank

00:31:43.800 digital currency would coexist alongside cash or do you think it would really eventually be a

00:31:48.920 a replacement yeah that's definitely how it is uh explained to everybody while this

00:31:55.960 everybody it's not widely advertised uh as to how cbdc exactly is going to behave in canada

00:32:01.480 what it's going to do but certainly uh the way the central bank the government is assuring us

00:32:08.200 is that if cbdc gets introduced it will not replace cash it will not replace your online

00:32:15.880 backing account or anything it will just be an alternative a third type of a currency um so and

00:32:25.560 obviously if you read my article you will probably get from it that i have personally i doubt that

00:32:31.480 this is the case there's no reasons for cbdc to be introduced at the third method of team and

00:32:37.160 there's absolutely no impetus no incentives from uh from the people who use uh who use money right

00:32:43.960 there's uh and even um central back itself did the research on that there's absolutely no need for it

00:32:50.520 right that that begs the question uh if the cbdc gets introduced uh then obviously

00:33:00.920 it needs to take its place over something and it's over something is probably going to be cash

00:33:06.360 and we have examples in the world how it's been introduced that's uh i explained it in my article

00:33:11.560 what happened in nigeria for example where they went live with the cbdc under the same promise 1.00

00:33:18.200 that cbdc is not going to replace cash and as soon as the cbd well not as soon as a year after

00:33:24.600 from the introduction of cbdc they just cancel cash there and uh half of the population in nigeria

00:33:30.440 relies on cash and they canceled it right despite of the promises i'm not going to claim that it's

00:33:37.900 going to happen exactly the same in canada well i'm just speculating on that but i'm just saying

00:33:43.600 that the promise is made uh it's not going to replace anything it's just going to be introduced

00:33:49.200 as as an option as a convenience but we we know how it works for the most part it gets introduced

00:33:58.100 for a reason and right now i don't see any reason other than replacing something which is probably

00:34:03.700 going to be cash i want to talk about the nigeria case in just a moment but before we we get there

00:34:08.740 gleba i wanted to ask you about the the offline aspect i've mentioned when this topic has come up

00:34:13.700 on the show in the past you know we we have a very real and very recent example of what happens when

00:34:19.140 our telecom infrastructure is just hampered instantly which is when the the rogers outage

00:34:23.860 happened i think it was about a year and a half ago or you know 15 months or so ago and you had

00:34:29.860 retailers who were entirely reliant on rogers to run their debit and credit card terminals that

00:34:34.260 couldn't do transactions if people didn't have cash they were they were um up the creek without

00:34:38.980 a paddle and you know the central banks that are pushing cbdc kind of claim that they can find a

00:34:45.460 way around this but really there has been no solution proposed for what happens in a situation

00:34:51.220 in which for whatever reason people cannot use an electronic device in which case you have power

00:34:56.660 outages or whatnot and but they they kind of avoid that that's a big giant glaring problem in this

00:35:03.940 yeah absolutely it's uh it's it's pretty obvious to me it should be for anybody that if you want to

00:35:11.860 do an electronic transaction in between two parties a seller and a buyer at least one device

00:35:20.260 needs to be needs to have power right i mean uh they are transmitting electromagnetic waves

00:35:26.740 to exchange the information so you must have power there's no question about that whereas

00:35:31.700 with cash obviously you just pass on the bank notes so fundamentally everything every solution

00:35:38.180 about cbdc uh and there are lots of interesting um innovations you know and that allow to

00:35:50.420 exchange today this currency in sort of a semi offline mode but they're all nowhere near in what

00:35:58.260 cash offers in this respect so it's a very it's a very long discussion it's like i mean they're like

00:36:05.380 all the offline solutions i couldn't fit into my article uh they're they're pretty complicated

00:36:11.460 and you need to consider various scenarios as like a long-term uh outage was it just a short-term

00:36:17.060 outage how much cash you can exchange uh sort of in that semi-offline mode with the other party

00:36:22.980 uh yeah it's it's a bit convoluted but again it's a cash is such a simple solution to all of that

00:36:30.340 problems that cbdc brings up when we start talking about offline operation and stuff

00:36:36.420 um so i'm not sure if i'm answering questions well you are and i said i wanted to go back to

00:36:41.300 to nigeria because nigeria had this pilot project originally and it had very very little uptake and

00:36:48.180 this is a you know very large country uh half of them are as you say reliant on cash they did this

00:36:52.980 i think it was 0.8 percent of of people started using this and then they expanded it and what

00:36:58.100 happened yeah so the the way it started in nigeria is that they introduced the cbdc in 2021 and

00:37:07.540 And just for the people who already had bank accounts, just to see what the uptake is going to be, I guess, and they only, they didn't really see much of an adoption of CBDC.

00:37:21.840 It was already obvious only 0.8% of that banked population downloaded the wallets and they weren't using them at all.

00:37:33.480 I guess some curious people just downloaded a new free application to their phone and didn't really know what to do about it.

00:37:42.140 And that's pretty much was the level of adoption.

00:37:44.920 So not much that.

00:37:47.180 And a year later, the government, seeing those results, maybe they didn't want to take that as a voting choice of the constituents.

00:38:02.320 they just decided to double down and they just uh canceled cash and um requested everybody

00:38:09.040 including those who did not have uh accounts with banks uh they just wanted them to bring their

00:38:17.200 paper money to to the bank offices and exchange that for the digital currency that was a great

00:38:25.840 failure and uh people were literally starving there because they they ended up with uh with

00:38:30.880 the paper money that was worthless that would not be accepted anywhere. Up until this moment,

00:38:38.080 Nigerians don't understand what's going on. They don't understand the value that CBDC offers. 1.00

00:38:46.240 The adoption is happening, but that's only because of the artificial cash shortages. People

00:38:53.360 just don't have any other choice. Well, you mentioned in your essay here the advisors

00:38:59.920 from the world economic forum and the international monetary fund i mean were they pushing this on

00:39:05.120 nigeria as just some massive experiment or was this the nigerian government that wanted to do

00:39:10.400 this and then asked for some external advice or do we not know kind of who the who the initiator

00:39:15.840 was yeah yeah they definitely had the advisors and consultants from the imf and the world economic

00:39:23.120 forum i would probably put more emphasis on the imf um but were they the ones pushing this did

00:39:30.880 they kind of look at nigeria as being you know basically a lab for this cbdc experiment i i i

00:39:37.680 honestly don't know much about who was pushing who right i just i just know that the consultants

00:39:42.560 were there they were they were pushing that agenda i just don't understand why because uh actually

00:39:48.720 if we look at the World Economic Forum, they have a pretty decent framework for introducing

00:39:55.120 CBDC. They give you a very balanced approach to what are the cons and pros of CBDC,

00:40:01.760 and what are the risks of etc. So I was actually quite surprised at how I'm biased that

00:40:08.480 that framework was but if uh in in nigeria case it just didn't work right uh for some reason uh

00:40:18.400 if they will follow through that that very same uh framework they would have said no guys sir you

00:40:23.360 should just you should stop immediately like there's no way it's gonna work right instead

00:40:28.960 they just pushed it through all right on to the starving people it just blows my mind like obviously

00:40:35.200 i'm not privy to all the details as to uh who exactly did what there and why but you you can

00:40:42.000 judge that uh the results as to uh what happened there it looks like they were just pushing that

00:40:47.760 whether it was coming from the government or from imf or or world economic forum

00:40:54.640 they all obviously together they decided to push well i appreciate you bringing it up i hadn't

00:41:01.520 actually read about the nigeria case until you put it in your essay there people can read that

00:41:05.360 at c2c journal.ca hush money the untold dangers and delusions of central bank digital currency

00:41:11.840 it's a lengthy read but definitely a good one gleb lysic the author joins us now gleb thanks

00:41:16.880 for coming on as always good to talk to you thank you very much all right thank you sir uh one thing

00:41:22.400 i'll mention just before we go because i've got like five emails from it in the last two hours

00:41:26.640 and people are commenting in the YouTube channel.

00:41:29.240 You may have seen there's a petition

00:41:30.760 that is going around at ourcommons.ca,

00:41:34.380 which is the House of Commons website.

00:41:36.700 It's a petition to the House of Commons

00:41:39.260 that we, the citizens of Canada,

00:41:42.140 have lost confidence in Justin Trudeau

00:41:44.420 and the Liberal NDP coalition.

00:41:46.800 Oh, well, rah, rah, rah, let's all sign this.

00:41:49.440 The petition goes on that we call on the House

00:41:52.520 for a vote of no confidence.

00:41:55.400 They ask for an election 40 days after the vote.

00:41:58.640 They say the government is not acting in the best interest of Canada.

00:42:02.720 Well, of the Canadians who have seen this, 40,000 have signed it as of this moment.

00:42:10.240 39,778.

00:42:12.120 Now, that's impressive.

00:42:13.440 Most House of Commons petitions go absolutely nowhere.

00:42:15.860 The petition has to be sponsored by a Member of Parliament.

00:42:18.740 In this case, it's Conservative MP from Peterborough, Michelle Ferreri.

00:42:22.300 Look, if you want to sign the petition, do it.

00:42:24.620 but let me caution you by saying it means nothing. It's not a huge news story. You know,

00:42:31.140 in the last election, the Liberals got 5.5 million votes. The Conservatives got 5.7. The

00:42:38.800 Bloc got 1.3. NDP got 3 million. The Greens got 396,000. The People's Party got 840,000.

00:42:47.300 That there are 40,000 people that do not have confidence in the government right now is not

00:42:52.160 all that surprising. I'm not saying you shouldn't express your frustrations with the government in

00:42:57.700 a myriad of forms, including petitions, but I'm saying that this is not binding, so don't put too

00:43:02.440 much stock on it. It is the NDP that ultimately has to decide to pull its support from the Liberal

00:43:07.540 government. So if you are inclined to sign the petition, I would also say send a letter to your

00:43:11.580 NDP member of parliament asking them how they in good conscience support a government that has done

00:43:16.300 absolutely nothing to live up to this supply and confidence agreement between the Liberals and the

00:43:21.660 NDP. And I think that letter might weigh more heavily on the democratic process than this

00:43:25.900 petition will. That does it for us for today. We'll be back in just 23 hours and 15 minutes

00:43:30.520 with more of the Canada. Wait, 20. Yeah, I said that right. 2315. My math is all getting be

00:43:36.120 fuddled up here. But we will talk to you all tomorrow. Thank you. God bless and good day to

00:43:40.700 you all. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True

00:43:46.000 North at www.tnc.news.

00:44:16.000 We'll be right back.

Juno News - November 27, 2023

Another media freakout over Pierre Poilievre challenging a reporter

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