00:03:03.260So you just have to wear them down instead, where it's like, all right, we'll just pay for the computer.
00:03:07.940So anyway, this is something we can all relate to.
00:03:10.720So hopefully you are having a wonderful day. It is Tuesday, March 12th here on The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:03:15.880Here's the segue because not everyone has the budget that CBC does.
00:03:21.160CBC wouldn't have blinked twice at a $2,300 computer repair.
00:03:25.620In fact, they probably would have just bought a new computer because that's what I would do if I had $1.4 billion a year coming to me without really having anything to show for it.
00:03:37.080But one of the big points that I wanted to raise here is that CBC has been paying out
00:03:43.880millions of dollars in bonuses while also crying poverty, basically.
00:03:49.480You may have seen in the past, Catherine Tate, the head of CBC, who runs Canada State Broadcaster
00:03:55.700from some fancy condo in Brooklyn, I think, or something to that effect.
00:04:00.660She has lamented the financial strife of CBC.
00:07:39.620So look, Tate should have done the right thing.
00:07:41.540she should have been at committee and said there will be no bonuses at the CBC. Obviously,
00:07:46.180she's not willing to end the gravy train. So the question is, who in government is going to do
00:07:51.420that? Now, the Canadian Heritage Minister, Pascal Saint-Ange, she should step in. But even beyond
00:07:56.800that minister, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, her budget is April the 16th.
00:08:02.440In her last budget, she said she would find a billion dollars in savings in these crown
00:08:07.900corporations like the CBC, I believe over a four-year period. Well, Andrew, it seems pretty
00:08:13.300obvious to me that the very first place to find savings is to stop rewarding these failing crown
00:08:19.340corporations with taxpayer-funded bonuses. Yeah, very well said. Great work on this. Franco
00:08:24.800Terrizano, we'll check in with you again in the future, I'm sure. Thanks for coming on.
00:08:28.860Hey, thanks, Andrew. Yeah, and failing is right. And I just want to make this point here because
00:08:33.240we're not talking about a network that's being rewarded for being relevant. We're not talking
00:08:37.600certainly about bonuses that are coming because viewership is so high ad revenue so high and it's
00:08:43.000not even like we're talking about a culturally relevant entity to a lot of Canadians or certainly
00:08:48.240anyone outside the country this I was going to play yesterday and I'm glad we didn't get around
00:08:52.640to it because it fits in well today uh did you watch the Oscars on Sunday no didn't think so
00:08:57.900uh it was uh there was some movie about uh Barbie developing a nuclear weapon that did I don't know
00:09:04.280something weird like that but uh there was a whole thing the oscars the world's uh famous actors
00:09:09.640descend they all award each other and compliment each other and uh presumably make jokes about
00:09:14.440trump and the the big focal point is always the red carpet you walk the red carpet you shout out
00:09:20.840who are you wearing who are you wearing and uh let's look at cbc on the red carpet at the oscars
00:09:26.280red carpet is open you can maybe hear some cheering we don't have the rights so
00:09:34.280that is as close as i'm getting to the red carpet right now this uh white wall of of canvas but
00:09:42.340over there is actually the press center so i'll be i'll be hanging out backstage i'll be fine
00:09:47.400oh well that's nice cbc sends its crack journalists there who is uh basically just
00:09:54.020forced to report on the red carpet from some parking lot across the street, but they let him
00:09:58.800into the media center at least. So you don't need to shout, who are you wearing from there? You can
00:10:02.720just walk up the escalator and try not to get shanked by a homeless guy in Los Angeles. Thank
00:10:07.040goodness we have CBC with its budget to send someone to cover the red carpet without actually
00:10:12.600being on the red carpet. That is the CBC experience for you in a nutshell. Now, I shouldn't be too
00:10:19.520judgmental because I have definitely covered things that I haven't been invited to in the past,
00:10:22.900But I believe I have more access in Davos when I'm outside the perimeter than Eli seemed to have there.
00:10:29.940I forget his last name, Eli Glasner, it is, than Eli Glasner did covering the Oscars.
00:10:35.420Now, the Conservatives have, of course, been unrepentant on this pledge from Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev to defund the CBC.
00:10:44.120He has time and time again said that he's going to cut their budget.
00:10:47.280He even makes that joke, which I heard him make again the other day, where some Canadian family, some newlywed couple is going to go to their new condo in the former Front Street headquarters of CBC in Toronto.
00:11:00.600But right now, I mean, I'm with Franco.
00:11:02.500The $15 million is an easy way to find saving.
00:11:04.900Let's not give executive bonuses to this failing government subsidized outlet.
00:11:10.100But more importantly, let's just get rid of the whole darn thing.
00:31:38.220but he says it does not include content that's awful but lawful it includes expressions of
00:31:45.600detestation and vilification it does not include insults offensive comments or jokes that are not
00:31:50.820very polite he says that but there's no way he can actually make that make that statement because
00:31:58.920we don't genuinely know what will be captured by this bill and what won't be a lot will be
00:32:05.300subject to regulations. It will be subject to decisions made by adjudicators on the Canadian
00:32:10.160Human Rights Tribunal, which, yes, you can say, all right, well, we can appeal this to the Supreme
00:32:14.400Court and get judicial review and all of that, but he cannot actually make the claim that it won't
00:32:20.160cover content that you'll hear, that awful but lawful. Well, yes, I mean, technically,
00:32:26.420the bill will only cover things that aren't lawful, but that's because it will be under
00:32:29.960the bill's authority, that adjudicators determine for themselves what is lawful and what is not.
00:32:36.040So there's a bit of a circular logic taking place in what Verani has said. And he's, of course,
00:32:41.880very graciously invited Margaret Atwood to be re-educated by him. He said he'll have a chat
00:32:47.020with Margaret Atwood about the bill. Now, Margaret Atwood, whatever you think of her politics,
00:32:51.400good on her for standing up because she is part of that vintage that does take free speech
00:32:55.860seriously because she's part of that generation of novelists like, for example, Salman Rushdie
00:33:00.820that know full well what censorship is. Salman Rushdie nearly lost his life because of radical
00:33:08.300Islamist resistance to his book. But the problem was not just the radical Islamist that didn't
00:33:13.820like his book, it was censors that didn't like his book. And I have no doubt that Salman Rushdie
00:33:19.740would be subject to the star chambers that will be established under Bill C-63
00:33:24.600if his book is published in a venue in which the Canadian Human Rights Commission wants to claim
00:33:30.160jurisdiction. I have no doubt that anyone who misgenders someone on social media
00:33:34.500will be subject to it. You want to talk about all of these instances in history when we saw,
00:33:40.200whether it was the Western Standard publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons, whether it was
00:33:44.460Mark Stein's book, America Alone, all of these things that were targeted by Human Rights
00:33:49.020commissions in the 2000s and before will be targeted once again, but I think we will even
00:33:55.260from there expand what people are trying to capture. And we are just supposed to be so hopeful
00:34:00.580that the Human Rights Commission will exercise this authority judiciously and responsibly.
00:34:06.200And that's basically the government's argument here, just trust us. And one of the most insidious
00:34:11.340aspects of this bill has been that the government is pushing all of this very controversial,
00:34:17.000very contentious stuff and they're doing this while also claiming that this bill is really
00:34:25.040about protecting children they're they're doing some tremendous gaslighting here they're saying
00:34:29.540that this is all just to protect children from online exploitation yes there are sections of
00:34:34.060the bill that does that those would be uncontroversial if they were passed on their own
00:34:38.280I believe this is a point that was raised by Peter Menzies in the Epoch Times he is well he's been on
00:34:43.740the show before. You know who he is. He's a legend, but he is also a former vice chair
00:34:47.540with the CRTC. Peter, it's good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming back on today.
00:34:53.980Oh, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.
00:34:56.520Do you think the government is trying to just do this all in one fell swoop because they think
00:35:02.620that these things belong together? Or do you think that the child exploitation stuff is really
00:35:07.020the political cover for the online censorship provisions i have no insight into their thinking
00:35:14.380um i wish i did and i could answer that that way it appears that they have bundled a whole bunch
00:35:21.020of things into something because they couldn't do them the way they originally wanted to do them
00:35:27.020which was all going to be through the digital safety commissioner the digital czar if they
00:35:34.540wanted to call it that, the digital version of the CRTC for oversight. That got so much pushback
00:35:40.300from the public and various platforms that described it at various times as similar to
00:35:47.840what is used in Iran or North Korea or China. And those statements, I don't think were hyperbolic
00:35:54.720because they actually were. So I think what they did was they tried to divide it up into certain,
00:36:00.560into these different portions these sort of three areas and then of course as you were just
00:36:06.900discussing get the human rights commission to do what they figured out that they couldn't legally
00:36:15.540do through the creation of the office of a digital safety commissioner and and explain that part to
00:36:23.620people because i i haven't covered that as extensively on the show what that digital
00:36:27.200safety commissioner is supposed to be as the government envisions it with c63 well it's
00:36:33.320i mean the simplest way to put it is that it's an oversight body that that
00:36:36.980looks over the how the platforms conduct their business now having you know co-authored a paper
00:36:44.820that called for something not dissimilar from that and it imposed what it does is it imposes
00:36:50.100a duty of care it in fact imposes three duties of care but we don't need to get into those
00:36:54.940those specifically on the platforms to make sure that they perform responsibly essentially that
00:37:03.740everything each of the harms that it points to are already things that are illegal for the most part
00:37:10.640and they're designed to protect children from being exploited from people being embarrassed from
00:37:15.900people being victims of extortion through other things like recruitment for terrorism child
00:37:23.560pornography, child sexual exploitation, a number of things that are already illegal. And that for
00:37:29.060the most part, in fact, entirely, as far as I know, the platforms have been working for years
00:37:35.140to make sure don't get posted on their websites at all. So it's kind of double coverage. I don't
00:37:42.120mind the duty of care thing at all. Because, I mean, after all, these are very powerful,
00:37:47.780almost monopolistic platforms. And somebody's got to have some oversight somewhere making sure that
00:37:53.180they aren't being run by bond villains, you know, that Mark Zuckerberg is, and this is where I was
00:37:58.860disappointed. I thought there should have been a duty of care to ensure free speech in an unbiased
00:38:03.580fashion, right? Some people suspect Mark Zuckerberg of being a closet leftist who's suppressing
00:38:09.980right-wing views. Currently, the same view was held, or previously the same view was held over
00:38:16.660twitter now the left seems to think that elon musk is let uh you know extremists of all kinds
00:38:23.380run amok on x twitter um there needs to be somebody overlooking that to make sure like i said
00:38:30.020essentially bond villains is the best description of it that people are behaving responsibly and
00:38:35.620using and not abusing their power but well and and i know the areas are a real problem yeah and
00:38:42.260And it gets away from C63 somewhat, but I don't think hugely.
00:38:45.880We've already seen through C18, which was the Online News Act, how Facebook chooses
00:38:51.300to respond to what it believes as excessive regulation from the government.
00:38:55.220In this case, the government was saying that they would have to compensate news companies
00:38:59.300in Canada, and Facebook decides, all right, we'll just ban news in Canada.
00:39:03.240Now, I don't know if Meta, the parent company of Facebook, would, in response to C63, say
00:39:09.120this isn't worth it and just pull the plug and say Canadians can't use Facebook at all.
00:39:13.060That does seem extreme, but it's possible that they may just say, like, we just don't want to
00:39:17.580even deal with this. Yeah, they could, but I really don't think they will because basically,
00:39:23.680I think they're probably pretty happy. There've been no statements from them yet that I'm aware
00:39:27.660of, but I think the platforms are probably reasonably happy. They've been kind of looking
00:39:33.440for some kind of consistent global regulation to to help them get their affairs in order so they
00:39:40.000know exactly what the rules are and like i said they're they're all just about everything they're
00:39:44.640being asked to do they're already doing um so i don't i mean they're on the child stuff or on the
00:39:50.800the hate speech stuff because i i wouldn't say they're doing it on the hate stuff because their
00:39:54.240threshold is much different than i think the government's is going to well that's where we
00:39:58.000we're going to get into you know when you get into the meat of the matter and the regulation so i
00:40:02.320I mean, I think it'll be very important to have a look at what these regulations are once that part of the bill gets passed.
00:40:10.500I mean, hopefully the government will step away from the Human Rights Commission one,
00:40:14.580which is the one that's going to be used to basically harass people online and cost some money and suppress free speech.
00:40:25.280I mean, you're right in the sense that one of the factors that could come into play is that the platforms will, rather than stay close to the line, step way back from the line and start self-censoring in a more enthusiastic fashion, I guess you'd call it.
00:40:44.400But as far as Facebook is concerned, for the most part, they're quite happy without news, near as everything I've heard indicates that, because there's less fighting.
00:40:54.020People, they get fewer complaints from people, there's less bullying.
00:41:01.460It's a happier space, people sharing pictures of grandchildren and children and weddings and funerals, et cetera, moments of their life, which I think they're more comfortable with.
00:41:14.400You mentioned regulations. And I think that's always the danger of bills that establish a
00:41:21.360framework is that you kind of pass it and don't entirely know how it's going to be used. And I
00:41:25.560just wanted to ask with your experience with the CRGC, like the CRGC obviously has the authority
00:41:30.540to, you know, govern, you know, for example, what you can play before and after the watershed hour
00:41:34.920and things like that. So there is a kind of a moral, not moral standards, but there's a,
00:41:40.220there's an obscenity standard that has been set by these regulations. How good are they
00:41:45.800at doing that? And how kind of much latitude do they have to determine these things?
00:41:51.820Well, the watershed hour, that one always lights me up because it only actually applies on Eastern
00:41:57.640time zones. Oh, really? Yeah. Something that's inappropriate to put on the air at 9 p.m. Eastern
00:42:04.120is just fine at 6 p.m pacific right i didn't know that that's actually an interesting bit
00:42:10.520of trivia they don't apply these bc kids have just been subject to just horrendous horrendous
00:42:15.340things exactly they just ignore it but they keep it in place and the kids in bc seem to be growing
00:42:21.300up okay anyway with their parents controlling what they watch um but that's been the case that's been
00:42:26.440the case for years um one of the things that concerns me greatly about the digital safety
00:42:31.880commissioner like i said i don't have any problem with the duties of harm but the power is given to
00:42:35.960the new digital safety commission and there's there is also going to be a digital safe digital
00:42:41.240ombudsman to deal with appeals etc and that's a whole other story but that seems relatively
00:42:49.400harmless at the moment but with the digital safety commissioner the powers are extensive
00:42:54.360and the opportunity for the digital safety commissioner's office to expand its turf going
00:43:00.600forward is, appears endless. And that's really, really worrying because all of these organs, I
00:43:08.640mean, it's human nature in almost any business for people to seek to expand their turf and their
00:43:15.160power and their influence and their importance and their, the number of cool conferences they
00:43:21.400get invited to and speeches they get invited to make. It's just human nature. So giving them that
00:43:26.580much power that worries me because there should be there should be a firm fence around how much
00:43:31.340power how much power they have um and like i said with the you know the the watershed hour how good
00:43:37.800are they at it well not that good all right well fair enough uh peter menzies former vice chair of
00:43:43.640the crtc and uh also fantastic uh contributor uh to a number of places the mcdonald lorry institute
00:43:49.640you have a great piece in the epic times on this as well so uh thank you very much peter always
00:43:53.880good to talk to you. Thanks a lot, Andrew. Good to talk to you. All right. That does it for us
00:43:57.880for today. We'll be back in just 23 hours and 15 minutes with more of Canada's Most
00:44:02.400Irreverent Talk Show, The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day