Juno News - C-18's hidden cost to taxpayers

00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome back to the Alberta Roundup I am joined by Chris Sims the Alberta Director of

00:00:15.360 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation today we are going to talk about Bill C18 everyone's favorite

00:00:21.420 piece of legislation not obviously Chris we are very concerned about C18 over here in the media

00:00:26.820 there's a lot of uncertainty about exactly what it will do but we do know that Facebook and now Google

00:00:33.120 have said they are just simply not going to allow link sharing to news platforms which is of course

00:00:38.640 a big problem for us then of course Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez stepped in and said

00:00:43.920 don't worry if you guys are not able to have money from this legislation like we said it would do we

00:00:50.580 will step in and help you out Chris can you explain why that's a problem well I think a lot of us saw

00:00:57.960 this problem coming and it was interesting to see people from the so-called left and right all pleading

00:01:04.020 with the federal government at the same time saying uh this is a disaster waiting to happen so big tech

00:01:09.300 giants typically like Google and Facebook don't stay up at night worrying about whether or not Canadian

00:01:15.420 uh newsrooms are getting per click revenue that's just a rounding error really when it comes to their

00:01:21.480 bottom line so it doesn't seem like they're super interested in paying for links and so now like you

00:01:28.980 said the Heritage Minister piped up and said oh don't worry we need to make sure that these newsrooms

00:01:35.220 stay open who's we the government I guess and we are going to make sure that you have the resources you

00:01:42.120 need now resources of course is government speak for taxpayers money this is a huge problem for two

00:01:49.320 major reasons one as a long time lifelong journalist myself it's wrong for journalists to be paid by the

00:01:57.000 government period you cannot hold a government to account if you're counting on that government for

00:02:03.000 your paycheck so that doesn't fly and two there's no way that taxpayers should be on the hook to fund

00:02:10.020 media companies and keeping newsrooms open that is not the role of the taxpayer here and so we're

00:02:16.740 coming after this for two major reasons one is accountability and the second is the cost when

00:02:23.640 we're talking about the cost we know that taxpayers are already doing so much to keep these failing

00:02:29.220 legacy media outlets afloat we have the just under 600 million dollar bailout that the federal

00:02:35.700 government promised to journalism companies we know that's been paid out over the past couple of years

00:02:40.320 do you know what the cost of that actually boils down to per newsroom that's a great question so it

00:02:46.080 was Canada land that actually sat down and did the math so credit to them they worked it out and they

00:02:51.960 said on average it boils down to about 13 000 per journalist that is taking it now I gotta stress

00:02:59.700 not all media outlets for taking this money but the problem as you well know with journalism is the

00:03:06.360 perception right it's the perception of bias it's the perception of ethics that erodes trust so if

00:03:13.380 everybody just assumes that say a broadcaster a mainstream network broadcaster is taking taxpayers

00:03:19.920 money they're going to go with that and they're going to think that and that's going to erode trust

00:03:24.300 and let's get down to the exact cost here with 13 000 imagine that you are a journalist on parliament

00:03:30.720 hill you're part of the parliamentary press gallery it's your job ostensibly to hold the government to

00:03:36.520 account the government pays 13 000 of your salary it could be a deciding factor whether or not you have a

00:03:44.700 job the opposition wants to scrap that program how on earth are you supposed to call that game straight

00:03:52.920 like no human being would be able to and even if you tried again the perception is there that you're being

00:04:00.360 paid by the government the perception is a huge issue and I just find it so frustrating as a taxpayer myself

00:04:07.460 and I know that other Canadian taxpayers feel this way we've seen such a decline in trust in media and yet we're

00:04:13.480 being forced to basically boost these Canadian companies that we don't support their work we see the propaganda

00:04:19.720 it was so obvious during the coven 19 pandemic here in Alberta it was very obvious during the recent

00:04:25.320 Alberta election and so we're being forced to pay these salaries through our taxes and it feels just

00:04:30.760 very wrong and it feels very discouraging and I think the only way that we would see a change in it is a

00:04:36.280 change in government as you've mentioned the Conservatives don't want to continue this policy

00:04:40.600 but we have a media that seems to be actively campaigning against the Conservatives and it's hard not to draw

00:04:45.640 that parallel when you're saying well you know some of you guys might go under if we had a Conservative

00:04:50.760 government and this is exactly the problem with taking money as a journalist from the government

00:04:56.760 this is the problem you're either directly on the payroll so you're either part of the CBC which gets 1.2

00:05:02.840 billion dollars from the government every year and by the way throws a little fit when Twitter labels

00:05:09.320 them government funded media they are they are if they have a problem with being called that there's a real

00:05:15.480 simple solution they can stop taking government money they can stop taking taxpayers money and then on

00:05:20.600 top of the CBC now we have this so-called media bailout and this is exactly the pickle we're in right now

00:05:27.160 and it's to his credit mainstream columnist for the Globe and Mail Andrew Coyne said we're going to wind up

00:05:33.880 seeing the government as grantsmen this is putting us in an unending conflict of interest and you

00:05:40.840 brought up the issue of trust and I recently wrote a piece I don't know where it's going to eventually

00:05:45.640 get printed but I keep tabs on something that's called the trust survey or the trust index it's been

00:05:52.040 going on for 30 years it's a major survey of most countries including Canada Rachel it just took my

00:05:59.720 breath away because a couple of years ago around 40 percent of polled Canadians thought that journalists

00:06:07.320 were quote deliberately trying to mislead them with things they know to be false so I'm not talking

00:06:12.920 mispronunciation accidental numbers grew up typo none of that that still keeps journalists up at night or it

00:06:19.560 should none of those accidents I went back and checked that stat the most recent one that's there

00:06:25.080 more than 60 percent of Canadians now think that journalists are actively trying to mislead them

00:06:33.320 with statements they know to be false like that's just shattering if you think about all the different

00:06:41.000 types of jobs that journalists have you can cover city hall you can be covering like brutally difficult

00:06:47.080 court cases where you have to be accurate even things like you know massive weather warnings of oh my

00:06:52.440 goodness like there's a tornado warning things like that of your day-to-day now 60 percent of Canadians

00:06:58.040 think that they're telling a fib this is a really major crisis and from the taxpayers perspective

00:07:06.120 two of the major elements that need to change here are no government funding because that will save us

00:07:11.720 money but also no government funding because we need to try to get some of that accountability and trust back

00:07:17.960 yeah those numbers are absolutely staggering but honestly not terribly surprising Canadians aren't 1.00

00:07:24.120 just jumping to these conclusions on their own they actually have reason to believe them I myself have

00:07:29.160 spoken and written publicly about the censorship I experienced during the coven 19 pandemic trying

00:07:35.240 to cover things that were critical of lockdowns and a vaccine mandates this of course was while I was

00:07:40.360 still working within the mainstream media and in recent months we've had you know the inquiry into the

00:07:45.240 coven 19 pandemic we've had a lot of journalists that worked at big legacy media outlets like global

00:07:50.440 and cbc say there was censorship and we were told to cover these things from a certain way with that

00:07:55.560 way of course being pushing the government narrative so Canadians are educated and they are coming to these

00:08:01.160 conclusions based on the evidence that's all around them and unfortunately with legislation like c18

00:08:06.440 it's going to make it harder for Canadians to find trusted and reliable news sources so certainly something

00:08:12.600 we will be keeping a very close eye on while I have you Chris I also wanted to talk to you about the

00:08:18.360 clean energy regulations the clean fuel regulations rather that came into effect on Canada today happy

00:08:24.440 Canada day everyone we have a new tax for you from the Liberal government of course you know it just

00:08:30.040 seems crazy to me that we're having more of these standards put in place we know it's going to drive up

00:08:34.360 costs for Canadians and every single person I know is struggling right now young families are really

00:08:39.000 struggling it's so disheartening what does this new tax mean for Albertans it's just disgusting uh I

00:08:46.040 straight up had a guy phone me out of the blue because they see you know see us having these

00:08:50.280 conversations Rachel and they think that we're government people or can help somehow right because

00:08:54.760 they don't know um he was out of food he was completely out of food he and his diabetic wife and

00:09:00.120 he clearly didn't have a lot of access to information and means and stuff and so I phoned the Calgary

00:09:05.320 food bank and I made sure to get a hamper out to him and stuff and he was really at his wit's end

00:09:10.520 um and that was surprising that was the first one I've gotten like a hot call here in Alberta in a

00:09:15.240 year in British Columbia I used to get those calls all the time it was brutal from working people and 1.00

00:09:22.520 I'm circling back to BC for a reason because BC has had two carbon taxes now for years they have had

00:09:29.400 the highest first carbon tax in all of North America and they've got the highest second carbon tax in

00:09:34.360 all of North America the second carbon tax is a form of government fuel regulation that basically uh

00:09:41.160 fines energy companies for the content of carbon in their product so what that means is if the company

00:09:49.800 can't reduce its carbon content it gets a fee or a fine coming from the government they then take that

00:09:56.440 cost and pass it on down to the consumer which makes things like gasoline and diesel cost more at the

00:10:01.640 pump in British Columbia right now on average it makes it cost around 15 cents extra per liter of

00:10:08.840 gasoline and around 17 cents extra per liter of diesel layered on top of the first carbon tax

00:10:15.720 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a look at the situation in BC and said huh that's super cool I'm

00:10:21.560 going to duplicate that across the whole country like I'm not really kidding he said so that he's using it

00:10:26.600 as a template and so now as of July 1st we now have a clean fuel standard we now have a second carbon tax

00:10:34.920 coast to coast it's across Canada we don't know how much it's going to cost right out of the shoots

00:10:41.480 so like I explained there's like international credit trading systems and stuff we're going to have

00:10:47.320 to wait and see how much cost is actually being passed down to the consumer to figure out what

00:10:52.920 it's going to be extra at the pump but within the next seven years it's going to be the same amount

00:10:59.320 as it is in BC and this is coming from the parliamentary budget officer so an independent

00:11:04.680 officer of parliament has done all the math on this you can go find his study it's going to be about

00:11:10.680 14 cents extra per liter of gas and around 17 cents extra per liter of diesel and keep in mind diesel is

00:11:18.520 the lifeblood of the economy right now we don't have dilithium crystals right now I wish we did like

00:11:24.200 tomorrow that'd be great we don't diesel is our mode of power it moves our trucks and it moves our trains

00:11:30.360 which carry all of our stuff which then makes everything cost more yeah so the cost of everything

00:11:36.680 are obviously going to increase and it just seems like with this policy as well with everything else

00:11:41.560 the liberal government does we don't really know what the cost is going to be we don't really know

00:11:46.840 what the impact is going to be we do know what's going to drive a cost we do know what's going to

00:11:51.080 drive business out of Canada same with c18 we don't really know what's going to happen it's just seems

00:11:56.280 pretty crazy to me that we have a government that's so carefree with passing legislation without being

00:12:01.160 exactly sure of what it's going to do I don't know how that happens but it just seems to be the

00:12:06.200 common thing nowadays we're passing all this legislation it's very unclear how it'll be

00:12:09.800 achieved and you know when we look at this new fuel standard that's going to drive a cost about 14

00:12:14.520 cents back when I was in Ontario I thought you know at some point maybe I will turn to having an

00:12:19.080 electric vehicle but that's just not something people at Alberta are interested in they don't

00:12:22.840 think it's going to be reliable for the winters it's not something they're considering doing whatsoever

00:12:27.480 so this is really just driving up costs without a real solution for people unless they're just going to

00:12:32.120 give up driving altogether which we know the Liberal government would love and this is another element

00:12:36.840 you brought up the issue of electric cars and like I said I mean I think a lot of people would switch

00:12:41.320 if they could trust that there's going to be an affordable alternative dependable energy source

00:12:45.880 but this is a really interesting stat so let's use even BC as an example okay which is super keen on

00:12:52.200 the idea of electrification if everyone say Santa brought them a free electric car boom it's in your

00:12:59.160 driveway just for that personal transportation and bare bones home heating like just enough to keep

00:13:05.160 your pipes not frozen forget like transport industry separate that personal use for personal use only

00:13:13.720 the staff that I was told by an expert on energy was that BC would need nine new site c dams

00:13:21.880 nine of them I was shocked because anybody who's familiar with energy in British Columbia knows that

00:13:31.000 site c has been like a 25 year long planning project it's a massive hydroelectric dam up in the interior

00:13:38.840 and the idea that the amount of juice that they would need based on our current technologies

00:13:43.560 would be nine new ones tomorrow if we all switched so this is the other element and the other part of the

00:13:49.960 equation that the government just isn't answering because they're saying well just trust us here's

00:13:54.280 a rebate here just trust us get an electric car and people are going oh where's the energy coming

00:13:59.000 from and how much is it going to cost me and there's so many unknowns there and getting back to the

00:14:04.440 fact that you know the the Trudeau government seems bent on punishing especially western Canadians

00:14:10.840 it was the parliamentary budget officer that did the math Rachel the two the two combined carbon taxes

00:14:17.560 within the next seven years are going to cost around thirty nine hundred dollars extra

00:14:24.360 for Alberta families that's with rebates factored in net it's going to cost us almost four grand per

00:14:31.240 Alberta family well Chris certainly some dark news stories here I don't imagine people are feeling

00:14:38.040 super you know lifted up and enlightened after this it is very difficult unfortunately we do need to be

00:14:42.680 aware of these things and we so appreciate the work that you are doing to really crunch the numbers and

00:14:47.720 bring all the facts to light as we mentioned there is a lot of unknown but certainly the work at the

00:14:52.680 Canadian Taxpayers Federation is shining a bit of a light in what seems to be a lot of darkness and

00:14:56.840 uncertainty right now so we really appreciate that and we appreciate you coming on the show today

00:15:01.080 and we'll talk to you soon thanks Chris thank you

Juno News - July 04, 2023

C-18's hidden cost to taxpayers

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