00:02:28.840And I know it's going to come in the 45 minutes that I am on this show.
00:02:33.140It's like the only thing I have that I can't get away from.
00:02:35.880I know that the guy is going to deliver it right at the exact inconvenient time.
00:02:40.560And I'm going to like have to go and go to the post office in like three days or whatever when it's available.
00:02:44.980So 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.
00:02:54.200We are going to talk about a fair deal of things today.
00:02:57.040We 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.
00:03:07.460We 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.
00:03:18.960What's, you know, $120 million between friends, right?
00:03:22.140And no better friends than the Liberal government and the legacy media.
00:03:26.540And I also want to talk about this rather amusing story.
00:03:29.020So you may recall the NDP have this supply and confidence agreement with the Liberal government.
00:03:37.460So after the 2021 election, the NDP said we are broke AF, which is what the kids say for broke us.
00:03:44.200Well, you can probably use your imagination on that.
00:03:46.880They do not have money to go to an election again.
00:03:49.200Jagmeet Singh knows that he is probably out as leader after the next election.
00:03:53.700So the NDP said we are going to give the Liberals our undying support for the next four years.
00:03:59.340We are going to make it as though the Liberals effectively have a majority government,
00:04:03.700despite not having a majority government and not even getting, I would say, the popular vote.
00:04:08.960But the NDP can't sell that to its members without showing some concessions. So the NDP,
00:04:14.960the Liberals, they all went behind a room and they all just said, okay, well, what about this?
00:04:19.860What about this? And then they come around and the NDP says, okay, we can get our members behind this,
00:04:25.940but you've got to give us something. So the Liberals said, well, what about that Pharmacare
00:04:31.300thing that we've been promising that we haven't done, but we had already promised and campaigned
00:04:36.140on it. And Jagmeet Singh said, sold. He's like, if you ever saw Seinfeld, you'll know there was
00:04:40.640that episode where Kramer was suing the coffee company because he burned himself on a cup of
00:04:46.780coffee. And he and his lawyer are going back and forth with the coffee company. And then Kramer
00:04:52.940goes into the office and they're about to offer him because we saw what they were doing. They
00:04:58.920were about to offer him, I think it was like, you know, $100,000 and a lifetime supply of free
00:05:02.900coffee. And the coffee executives say, well, Mr. Kramer, we're prepared to offer you a lifetime
00:05:07.420supply of free coffee. And, and Kramer goes, I'll take it. And that was the end of it. So Kramer
00:05:12.660is Jagmeet Singh, the coffee executives are Justin Trudeau. He gave away anything and everything he
00:05:18.780could and got nothing in return. Now, why that is important is because the NDP have, the membership
00:05:27.240have basically been duped by their leader right now.
00:06:49.740is because all of this has led to the NDP
00:06:53.300reneging on its one concession that it got from the liberals, which was to deliver this thing by
00:07:01.360the end of 2023. Now, hilariously, and this is the part, I mean, I think it's hilarious. You may
00:07:06.660not think it's hilarious. I think it's hilarious because Jagmeet Singh is the guy that did the
00:07:11.080victory dance after like subsequent election losses. He just pretended that he won both of
00:07:16.360those elections because I think he genuinely believes it. No one around him wants to tell
00:07:19.940him the truth, which is that, no, you actually failed, Jagmeet, but that's okay. But Jagmeet
00:07:24.960Singh does this thing where his party and his health critic, Don Davies, are now saying, well,
00:07:32.260we're okay waiting because it'll be worth the wait. That's what this story said. We're okay
00:07:39.920waiting because it will be worth the wait. So they're now saying, well, yeah, they aren't doing
00:07:44.700it in time, but it's going to be extra, extra good when they do. So we're okay with it all of
00:07:50.740a sudden. And I'm just looking at this saying, oh my goodness, if you believe this, if you are
00:07:56.660an NDP member and you believe that you are getting anything from your party, giving a blank check to
00:08:03.320Justin Trudeau for four years, I have some oceanfront property in Saskatchewan for you.
00:08:08.400this is like the most insane thing ever it's that old you know fool me once shame on you fool me
00:08:15.000twice shame on me uh the NDPers who support this who keep going down this road should be saying
00:08:19.680shame on me shame on me shame on me because you are not getting anything for this so that is
00:08:25.820covering off the left side of Canadian politics today let's hop back over to the right when Pierre
00:08:31.700Poliev got before reporters in Toronto it's gotten to the point where it's always going to be good
00:08:38.160It'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.
00:08:45.040In fact, he doesn't even like the pivot.
00:08:47.300You may recall this exchange on the weekend with a reporter from the Canadian press who probably regretted getting out of bed that morning.
00:08:54.000Do you think it was responsible for you to call yesterday's explosion by the customs, by the checkpoint at the Rainbow Bridge, terrorism,
00:09:02.780when no U.S. or Canadian officials said that was, or authorities said that was the case?
00:09:07.260and when the New York governor also said there was no evidence to suggest terrorism activity.
00:09:12.300Actually, you're wrong. Are you with CP?
00:09:14.320Okay, so CP, by the way, CP, just for everyone's knowledge,
00:09:17.880did have to make three corrections for falsehoods that they put into a single article.
00:18:55.980We have the idea of this one I particularly enjoy.
00:18:59.680He's a liar, even though what he said there is technically accurate.
00:19:04.260I 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.
00:19:12.040Well, what does that say about Justin Trudeau, that that petty, insecure, intellectual bully, lying tyrant is just crushing Justin Trudeau in the polls?
00:19:20.700Well, 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.
00:19:33.420But 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.
00:19:40.840Chris Sims is the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and joins me as always on Mondays.
00:19:46.880Chris, 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.
00:19:56.220All right. Well, let's start with the basics here.
00:19:59.100What has the government announced on this media bailout, which seems to be a continuous plan of theirs now?
00:20:04.180Yes. 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.
00:20:22.580So up until now, they would get on average around $14,000 or so per reporter. So per newsroom
00:20:31.020employee, if they had this so-called bailout money that was coming from the Trudeau government
00:20:35.500in a newsroom, they would get between $13,000 and $14,000 per reporter. Now, this entire time,
00:20:43.600a lot of these big media companies had a lobby group that was working on their behalf in Ottawa
00:20:49.140hand out, asking for more money. Lo and behold, during the budget update last week from Finance
00:20:56.140Minister Chrystia Freeland slipped in there to protect the free press, if you can believe it,
00:21:02.200they have now more than doubled that amount. So by the time the smoke clears, it looks like
00:21:08.580each reporter or each newsroom employee will be getting around $28,000 or $29,000.
00:21:17.020dollars. This is, again, coming from the federal government. So the Taxpayers Federation are super
00:21:22.940ticked off for two reasons. One, this is an enormous waste of money. There is no way in hell
00:21:28.000that one nickel of taxpayers' money should go to any private corporation. We're opposed to all
00:21:33.500corporate welfare, much less media companies. Two, this is a huge and obvious conflict of interest.
00:21:40.760And Coyne himself has said this directly in newspapers,
00:21:45.820basically saying, we'll be seen as bag men for the government if we take this money, folks.
00:21:54.480So to see him sort of changing his tune a little bit on the ad issue panel is pretty disappointing.
00:22:00.140At the end of the day, this means more money for journalists
00:22:03.460who are on the payroll already of the Trudeau government.
00:22:06.380Well, 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.
00:22:24.960Well, 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.
00:22:50.140Yeah, 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.
00:23:17.620So the last poll I saw, it was this big in-depth dive.
00:23:23.300It's this corporation in Canada that does a survey on trust.
00:23:27.180And 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.
00:23:39.120As 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.
00:28:42.840because this hasn't gotten a lot of coverage in Canada.
00:28:45.860Part of the reason is because we don't have a firm ironclad proposal, but we do know that the
00:28:50.420Bank of Canada is proceeding with this. They are talking about it, if you read their materials,
00:28:55.320as though it is inevitable, as though it's just this thing that's going to come. We're all mere
00:28:59.380passengers and they're just going to shepherd us through this transition. And if you're someone
00:29:04.340who, like most people in Canadian society, walks around using your debit and credit card everywhere,
00:29:09.220you're probably thinking, all right, well, digital currency, what's the big deal?
00:29:12.860Electronic banking and digital currency are two very different things.
00:29:17.020And we'll talk about why that is now with Gleb Lysik, who is a phenomenal writer with the C2C Journal.
00:29:23.280We've had him on before about his work there.
00:29:25.280And in particular, he has a great piece out this month, Hush Money, The Untold Dangers and Delusions of Central Bank Digital Currency.
00:29:33.900Gleb, good to have you back. Thanks for coming on the show today.
00:29:37.000Hey, nice to, thanks a lot for having me back here.
00:29:40.280so let's talk first off with what central bank digital currency is because i i do think it's
00:29:46.240important people not conflate it with online banking and electronic finance which is a pretty
00:29:51.660ubiquitous part of the finance system right now well the the major difference in between the c
00:29:57.340cbdc of central bank digital currency is that it is uh controlled by the central bank right so
00:30:03.800So the central bank has it, has a liability to you for that currency.
00:30:10.980It's very similar to cash in that respect.
00:30:14.660So if you have a bank note, you can always go to the central bank and say, well, I need something for it.
00:30:25.260And 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?
00:30:41.440and they are not affiliated with the central bank.
00:30:49.120For the most part, the central bank just offers some insurance
00:30:54.100that these banks will pay you, let's say, cash.
00:30:59.340You can withdraw cash if you have an online banking account.
00:31:01.860So that's the major difference, the liability.
00:31:04.400The liability of CBDC, as with cash, lies with the central bank.
00:31:10.820the liability of the digital money we use now lies with the commercial banks.
00:31:18.220One of the things that the Bank of Canada has told us on this is that it will remain available,
00:31:23.920it's an option, it's voluntary, it's not basically outlawing cash. But I've heard some people
00:31:29.320who don't really buy that. I mean, we already see in some ways aspects of a society that's
00:31:35.080moving beyond cash. There are some major retailers that have said they won't take cash in certain
00:31:38.920venues and covid was certainly a part of that do you buy from what you've seen that a central bank
00:31:43.800digital currency would coexist alongside cash or do you think it would really eventually be a
00:31:48.920a replacement yeah that's definitely how it is uh explained to everybody while this
00:31:55.960everybody it's not widely advertised uh as to how cbdc exactly is going to behave in canada
00:32:01.480what it's going to do but certainly uh the way the central bank the government is assuring us
00:32:08.200is that if cbdc gets introduced it will not replace cash it will not replace your online
00:32:15.880backing account or anything it will just be an alternative a third type of a currency um so and
00:32:25.560obviously if you read my article you will probably get from it that i have personally i doubt that
00:32:31.480this is the case there's no reasons for cbdc to be introduced at the third method of team and
00:32:37.160there's absolutely no impetus no incentives from uh from the people who use uh who use money right
00:32:43.960there's uh and even um central back itself did the research on that there's absolutely no need for it
00:32:50.520right that that begs the question uh if the cbdc gets introduced uh then obviously
00:33:00.920it needs to take its place over something and it's over something is probably going to be cash
00:33:06.360and we have examples in the world how it's been introduced that's uh i explained it in my article
00:33:11.560what happened in nigeria for example where they went live with the cbdc under the same promise
00:33:18.200that cbdc is not going to replace cash and as soon as the cbd well not as soon as a year after
00:33:24.600from the introduction of cbdc they just cancel cash there and uh half of the population in nigeria
00:33:30.440relies on cash and they canceled it right despite of the promises i'm not going to claim that it's
00:33:37.900going to happen exactly the same in canada well i'm just speculating on that but i'm just saying
00:33:43.600that the promise is made uh it's not going to replace anything it's just going to be introduced
00:33:49.200as as an option as a convenience but we we know how it works for the most part it gets introduced
00:33:58.100for a reason and right now i don't see any reason other than replacing something which is probably
00:34:03.700going to be cash i want to talk about the nigeria case in just a moment but before we we get there
00:34:08.740gleba i wanted to ask you about the the offline aspect i've mentioned when this topic has come up
00:34:13.700on the show in the past you know we we have a very real and very recent example of what happens when
00:34:19.140our telecom infrastructure is just hampered instantly which is when the the rogers outage
00:34:23.860happened i think it was about a year and a half ago or you know 15 months or so ago and you had
00:34:29.860retailers who were entirely reliant on rogers to run their debit and credit card terminals that
00:34:34.260couldn't do transactions if people didn't have cash they were they were um up the creek without
00:34:38.980a paddle and you know the central banks that are pushing cbdc kind of claim that they can find a
00:34:45.460way around this but really there has been no solution proposed for what happens in a situation
00:34:51.220in which for whatever reason people cannot use an electronic device in which case you have power
00:34:56.660outages or whatnot and but they they kind of avoid that that's a big giant glaring problem in this
00:35:03.940yeah absolutely it's uh it's it's pretty obvious to me it should be for anybody that if you want to
00:35:11.860do an electronic transaction in between two parties a seller and a buyer at least one device
00:35:20.260needs to be needs to have power right i mean uh they are transmitting electromagnetic waves
00:35:26.740to exchange the information so you must have power there's no question about that whereas
00:35:31.700with cash obviously you just pass on the bank notes so fundamentally everything every solution
00:35:38.180about cbdc uh and there are lots of interesting um innovations you know and that allow to
00:35:50.420exchange today this currency in sort of a semi offline mode but they're all nowhere near in what
00:35:58.260cash offers in this respect so it's a very it's a very long discussion it's like i mean they're like
00:36:05.380all the offline solutions i couldn't fit into my article uh they're they're pretty complicated
00:36:11.460and you need to consider various scenarios as like a long-term uh outage was it just a short-term
00:36:17.060outage how much cash you can exchange uh sort of in that semi-offline mode with the other party
00:36:22.980uh yeah it's it's a bit convoluted but again it's a cash is such a simple solution to all of that
00:36:30.340problems that cbdc brings up when we start talking about offline operation and stuff
00:36:36.420um so i'm not sure if i'm answering questions well you are and i said i wanted to go back to
00:36:41.300to nigeria because nigeria had this pilot project originally and it had very very little uptake and
00:36:48.180this is a you know very large country uh half of them are as you say reliant on cash they did this
00:36:52.980i think it was 0.8 percent of of people started using this and then they expanded it and what
00:36:58.100happened yeah so the the way it started in nigeria is that they introduced the cbdc in 2021 and
00:37:07.540And 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.
00:37:21.840It was already obvious only 0.8% of that banked population downloaded the wallets and they weren't using them at all.
00:37:33.480I guess some curious people just downloaded a new free application to their phone and didn't really know what to do about it.
00:37:42.140And that's pretty much was the level of adoption.