Juno News - CBC paying out millions in bonuses while laying off staff

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

00:01:19.720 i am victorious i wanted to actually do we are the champions by queen on today's show but every

00:01:31.940 time you play a song uh youtube doesn't like it and they demonetize you but i will gloat a little

00:01:38.020 bit this is a victory for the little guy so when i do this show i always make a point because we

00:01:44.280 are sticklers for internet quality of plugging in the computer you don't want to rely on wi-fi

00:01:48.960 you want to use the ethernet cable now stay with me here because something happened on my computer

00:01:54.480 which is actually a relatively good quality computer because i i put it through a lot doing

00:01:59.580 this show the ethernet port stopped working now this is the second time this has happened

00:02:04.660 in six months the first time it was under warranty the second time it was not so i took my trusty

00:02:11.360 computer the other day to the apple store and they wanted to like literally this is apple for you

00:02:16.920 They wanted to charge me $2,300 to replace a part that they replaced six months ago

00:02:23.360 and, or at least claim they replaced six months ago.

00:02:26.420 And I was like, well, I'm at that point, like, what do I just have to do this like twice

00:02:29.700 a year to keep using this computer?

00:02:31.420 And so anyway, so I did the whole like Karen routine and I asked to speak to the manager

00:02:36.260 and the manager held firm.

00:02:37.660 And then I took the computer home and I called Apple and they said, well, we can't do anything.

00:02:42.040 And then I Karen'd again, this time by phone.

00:02:46.060 And today, like the chief, well, they're not the chief Karen.

00:02:49.280 I guess I'm the chief Karen.

00:02:50.580 But today I found out they were going to cover it.

00:02:52.840 I just have to pay $160 for labor.

00:02:55.220 So that is a victory.

00:02:56.920 And the goal with customer service is that it's a battle of will.

00:03:01.220 They're trying to wear you down.

00:03:03.260 So you just have to wear them down instead, where it's like, all right, we'll just pay for the computer.

00:03:07.940 So anyway, this is something we can all relate to.

00:03:10.720 So hopefully you are having a wonderful day. It is Tuesday, March 12th here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:03:15.880 Here's the segue because not everyone has the budget that CBC does.

00:03:21.160 CBC wouldn't have blinked twice at a $2,300 computer repair.

00:03:25.620 In 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.

00:03:37.080 But one of the big points that I wanted to raise here is that CBC has been paying out

00:03:43.880 millions of dollars in bonuses while also crying poverty, basically.

00:03:49.480 You may have seen in the past, Catherine Tate, the head of CBC, who runs Canada State Broadcaster

00:03:55.700 from some fancy condo in Brooklyn, I think, or something to that effect.

00:04:00.660 She has lamented the financial strife of CBC.

00:04:04.380 Take a look.

00:04:04.880 Each year, with cuts to our budget.

00:04:09.960 Unlike the private sector, we cannot manage fluctuations through loans or bridge financing.

00:04:14.700 We must balance our budget each and every year.

00:04:18.940 Over the three years of the pandemic, as revenues plummeted, most media companies had to lay

00:04:24.120 off staff.

00:04:25.620 We shifted resources to maintain services and to protect jobs.

00:04:30.520 we benefited from $21 million in additional government funding for each of the past three

00:04:36.080 years. But today, our ability to shift resources and find savings is no longer sufficient to meet

00:04:43.140 the growing deficit. Oh, it's so difficult. They start every year with cuts. Well, CBC's budget

00:04:51.440 actually doesn't get cut. That was a bit of misinformation, courtesy of the woman that 1.00

00:04:57.000 holds herself up as being the chief, not the chief news reporter, but the head of the agency

00:05:01.660 that presents itself as being the chief news reporters in this country. And we know that

00:05:06.680 CBC is actually laying people off. They did a big round of layoffs in 2023, just before year end,

00:05:12.960 but they also found it in their budget to give $14.9 million in bonuses. Now that was as of the

00:05:21.680 end of October. It could actually be with the next two months of data that that increase,

00:05:27.320 that number increases. These figures come courtesy of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:05:32.340 so we thought we'd bring back our old chum, Franco Terrizano, to delve into this. Franco,

00:05:37.780 quite the scoop you guys have got here, not hugely surprising, but it does really take the wind out

00:05:43.960 of this big routine they do all the time when they're appearing before MPs complaining about

00:05:48.120 their budget yeah i mean look uh you just saw tate there crying about the cupboards apparently

00:05:53.760 being bare at the cbc well i guess not bare enough to not give out 15 million dollars in bonuses in

00:06:01.000 2023 to about 1100 staffers the average bonus was uh just over 13 000 smackers right doesn't sound

00:06:10.460 doesn't that sound nice but here's the thing right she mentioned these tough times in recent years

00:06:15.220 the pandemic yada yada yada but every year the cbc is handing out taxpayer funded bonuses right

00:06:21.460 so 15 million dollars in bonuses in 2023 uh could easily be higher than that but look 114

00:06:29.940 million dollars in bonuses paid out at the cbc since 2015. and of course that is all coming from

00:06:37.620 taxpayers so there you have it folks your hard-earned money paying for these bonuses at the cbc

00:06:44.220 Yeah, that is quite significant over the course of just shy of a decade, $114 million in bonuses.

00:06:51.480 We have a budget that really continues to go up.

00:06:55.180 I mean, we're looking at $1.4 billion.

00:06:57.440 Now, where is it that she's getting this idea that they start every year from a place of cuts from?

00:07:03.140 I have no idea, Andrew.

00:07:06.000 She must be reading CBC then.

00:07:08.220 I have no idea.

00:07:09.240 I mean, look, another sleight of hand is coming from the federal government.

00:07:13.000 when they say that they're finding savings,

00:07:15.760 yet their annual spending is increasing

00:07:17.380 by billions and billions of dollars.

00:07:19.120 Now look, Tate, as the president and CEO of the CBC,

00:07:22.660 her annual pay is somewhere between $470,000

00:07:26.900 and $620,000.

00:07:29.900 Now that includes salary, bonus, other types of benefits.

00:07:34.140 They won't actually say exactly what Tate's annual pay is,

00:07:38.260 but that's the range.

00:07:39.620 So look, Tate should have done the right thing.

00:07:41.540 she should have been at committee and said there will be no bonuses at the CBC. Obviously,

00:07:46.180 she's not willing to end the gravy train. So the question is, who in government is going to do

00:07:51.420 that? Now, the Canadian Heritage Minister, Pascal Saint-Ange, she should step in. But even beyond

00:07:56.800 that minister, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, her budget is April the 16th.

00:08:02.440 In her last budget, she said she would find a billion dollars in savings in these crown

00:08:07.900 corporations like the CBC, I believe over a four-year period. Well, Andrew, it seems pretty

00:08:13.300 obvious to me that the very first place to find savings is to stop rewarding these failing crown

00:08:19.340 corporations with taxpayer-funded bonuses. Yeah, very well said. Great work on this. Franco

00:08:24.800 Terrizano, we'll check in with you again in the future, I'm sure. Thanks for coming on.

00:08:28.860 Hey, thanks, Andrew. Yeah, and failing is right. And I just want to make this point here because

00:08:33.240 we're not talking about a network that's being rewarded for being relevant. We're not talking

00:08:37.600 certainly about bonuses that are coming because viewership is so high ad revenue so high and it's

00:08:43.000 not even like we're talking about a culturally relevant entity to a lot of Canadians or certainly

00:08:48.240 anyone outside the country this I was going to play yesterday and I'm glad we didn't get around

00:08:52.640 to it because it fits in well today uh did you watch the Oscars on Sunday no didn't think so

00:08:57.900 uh it was uh there was some movie about uh Barbie developing a nuclear weapon that did I don't know

00:09:04.280 something weird like that but uh there was a whole thing the oscars the world's uh famous actors

00:09:09.640 descend they all award each other and compliment each other and uh presumably make jokes about

00:09:14.440 trump and the the big focal point is always the red carpet you walk the red carpet you shout out

00:09:20.840 who are you wearing who are you wearing and uh let's look at cbc on the red carpet at the oscars

00:09:26.280 red carpet is open you can maybe hear some cheering we don't have the rights so

00:09:34.280 that is as close as i'm getting to the red carpet right now this uh white wall of of canvas but

00:09:42.340 over there is actually the press center so i'll be i'll be hanging out backstage i'll be fine

00:09:47.400 oh well that's nice cbc sends its crack journalists there who is uh basically just

00:09:54.020 forced to report on the red carpet from some parking lot across the street, but they let him

00:09:58.800 into the media center at least. So you don't need to shout, who are you wearing from there? You can

00:10:02.720 just walk up the escalator and try not to get shanked by a homeless guy in Los Angeles. Thank

00:10:07.040 goodness we have CBC with its budget to send someone to cover the red carpet without actually

00:10:12.600 being on the red carpet. That is the CBC experience for you in a nutshell. Now, I shouldn't be too

00:10:19.520 judgmental because I have definitely covered things that I haven't been invited to in the past,

00:10:22.900 But I believe I have more access in Davos when I'm outside the perimeter than Eli seemed to have there.

00:10:29.940 I forget his last name, Eli Glasner, it is, than Eli Glasner did covering the Oscars.

00:10:35.420 Now, the Conservatives have, of course, been unrepentant on this pledge from Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev to defund the CBC.

00:10:44.120 He has time and time again said that he's going to cut their budget.

00:10:47.280 He 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.

00:11:00.600 But right now, I mean, I'm with Franco. 0.67

00:11:02.500 The $15 million is an easy way to find saving.

00:11:04.900 Let's not give executive bonuses to this failing government subsidized outlet. 0.97

00:11:10.100 But more importantly, let's just get rid of the whole darn thing. 0.95

00:11:13.180 This is not a difficult decision. 0.94

00:11:15.320 and by the way i'm not saying we should shut the doors on cbc i'm not saying we should lock

00:11:20.160 everyone out i'm saying just cut their budget down to zero let them occupy i mean i look i would say

00:11:26.680 sell them off but i worry that no one would want to buy cbc certainly there's no business case for

00:11:33.180 it in its current operation so however you get there whether you sell it off whether you just

00:11:38.800 cut the budget whether you make sure it's no longer a crown corporation this is absolutely

00:11:43.240 easy. And you know what? Most Canadians would not even miss it. BBC is paid for by a license fee.

00:11:50.700 And this is something that people have to, and they periodically complain about it. Like you

00:11:55.240 could be sent to jail if you don't pay your license fee in the UK. But BBC, whatever issues

00:12:00.300 I have with its editorial bias, is actually a much higher quality outlet. It's a much higher

00:12:05.360 quality network than CBC. You look at legendary programs that have come out of the Beeb in a way

00:12:10.660 that CBC has not. CBC has given you a little mosque on the prairie and being Erica, which I

00:12:18.380 know are tremendously culturally relevant years later. I will say Schitt's Creek is a bit of a

00:12:22.680 win, but you know what? I'm convinced Schitt's Creek could have been done and would have been

00:12:25.840 done by the private sector had CBC not been there. So with $1.4 billion, they aren't even performing

00:12:32.660 well, but they are certainly patting themselves and each other on the back as these executive

00:12:38.180 bonuses indicate. So I think if anything, Pollyev's pledged to defund them, we'll probably find

00:12:43.960 it. Well, it'll be an easier sell to Canadians when more stories like this come out. We are

00:12:49.080 going to pivot from CBC to BC here because you may have caught this announcement last week

00:12:54.700 from the RCMP that they had seized large quantities of drugs, which I mean, it's BC,

00:13:01.180 calciferase but 10 000 prescription drugs that had been originally distributed through government

00:13:08.860 safe supply programs so-called safe supply programs and we can get to that shortly but

00:13:14.940 these guns these drugs were put out through this channel and then they were diverted and end up in

00:13:21.500 the hands of organized crime which are of course selling these opioids for profit now following

00:13:27.660 this we have the premier of british columbia and the attorney general and solicitor general of bc

00:13:33.420 saying oh we've never really seen evidence of too much diversion it's all just no big deal here that

00:13:38.620 was effectively premier david eby's point on this but diversion has been something the critics of

00:13:43.740 these so-called safe supply programs have been sounding the alarm about for quite some time

00:13:49.020 one of these is journalist adam zivo from the national post who joins us once again adam good

00:13:54.860 to talk to you thanks for coming back on oh thanks for having me back on the show so how does diversion

00:14:00.700 work first and foremost because i i know this is something that people that have you know blissfully

00:14:04.860 not been in this world might not realize or understand well so safer supply is a program

00:14:10.780 where we give out free pharmaceutical opioids and stimulants as a way to dissuade people from using

00:14:16.060 the illicit street supplies so for example if you're addicted to fentanyl you don't know what's

00:14:20.460 in it could be contaminated with benzodiazepines or xylazine uh the dosage is unpredictable so you

00:14:26.140 can easily take too much which causes you to overdose and die so uh the concept behind safer

00:14:30.940 supply is that if we give you uh government funded drugs that you'll know what you're getting and

00:14:36.380 therefore you'll stay alive until you can seek treatment and that sounds great in theory but in

00:14:40.700 practice a significant portion of those drugs are actually sold on the street so that drug users

00:14:46.460 can make money to buy stronger substances which means that not only were we not mitigating

00:14:52.940 these substances in that market we're actually uh subsidizing it and flooding

00:14:59.180 diverted drugs so is this a case of drug users people that are on these drugs going

00:15:05.900 getting them and basically wanting to do with that like one red paper clip guy did years ago of like

00:15:10.380 trading them up for something else or is it people that are for whatever reason not drug users that

00:15:15.740 that are being co-opted or paid to go into these programs and pose as drug users? Or is it a bit

00:15:21.440 of both? It's a combination of both. So the vast majority of it are people who are actually addicted

00:15:27.020 to fentanyl. And we give out something called hydromorphone, which is the strongest heroin.

00:15:31.100 But fentanyl is 10 to 50 times stronger than heroin and hydromorphone. So if you're a fentanyl

00:15:35.740 user, the hydromorphone is not going to do anything for you. So you're going to go and

00:15:39.120 sell your hydromorphone to get money to buy fentanyl. So those people are actually addicts.

00:15:43.620 then there's a smaller population of people who may have drug issues but it's not as severe and

00:15:48.740 for them they are often coerced by these are vulnerable women who are coerced by abusive 1.00

00:15:54.420 partners or spouses who push them to get as much safer supplies possible to sell for money

00:16:00.020 so it's a combination and i mean when you look at organized crime which is what the police

00:16:05.140 allegations here are being involved in it it wouldn't be difficult to imagine uh criminal

00:16:10.260 organizations that are running these vast networks. I mean, in many cases, this is in BC,

00:16:15.080 but these could be spanning the entire country. And it seems to be really unbelievable for the

00:16:20.760 province to come out and say, well, we've not really seen any evidence of this when police

00:16:24.280 have literally made that claim days earlier. Well, here's the thing. I've been hearing about

00:16:29.120 organized crimes involvement in this market for about a year now. I heard it when I was doing my

00:16:33.420 initial report based on interviews with 14 addiction physicians, and that report came out

00:16:37.220 in May. Then I interviewed another addiction physician who prescribed Safer Supply in

00:16:41.340 Victoria. And she said, yeah, we're aware of the fact that organized crime is involved here too.

00:16:45.520 Then last July, I interviewed former drug users in London, Ontario. And one of them said, yeah,

00:16:49.660 he just got out of jail. He knows that organized crime is involved because his associates are in

00:16:53.940 organized crime and they traffic Safer Supply. And then last October, I went and basically did

00:17:00.700 investigation on safer supply uh trafficking on reddit and found dozens of example of thousands

00:17:08.140 of pills being sold online originating from safer supply validated with safer supply prescriptions

00:17:15.900 and it's obvious that if you're trafficking to that degree that there's an element of

00:17:19.580 organization there and then on top of that i even interviewed uh one drug dealer who i was able to

00:17:25.580 locate through this investigation who confirmed like how this all works he mentioned that you

00:17:30.300 would have criminals put together teams of let's say five or six safer supply clients and then

00:17:34.780 that criminal would go and buy up all of their supply get like a thousand pills in a week and

00:17:39.100 then ship it all over canada so we know this is happening and then in january or rather early

00:17:44.620 february the bc government came out with a report based on extensive interviews with clinicians and

00:17:51.500 drug users across the province and they concluded diversion was a common occurrence and then last

00:17:58.940 week the rcmp at the lower level did two big drug busts where they found thousands of safer supply

00:18:05.020 pills that have been sold and you know these these frontline police officers are saying

00:18:09.420 that organized crime is involved but now now that there's political pressure here all of a sudden

00:18:15.420 the top level of the rcmp is spreading this new narrative which is completely at odds with all

00:18:21.900 the other information that we have out there which to me would raise concerns about the

00:18:27.980 the politicization of the leadership of the RCMP. Yeah, and I've been obviously, I think,

00:18:34.340 giving a fair bit of deserved criticism to the B.C. government here, but the federal government

00:18:38.200 is not immune from this at all. And I know you've written about this, where activists in,

00:18:43.820 or experts rather, in this space have brought their concerns directly to the federal government,

00:18:47.720 and basically they've fallen on deaf ears. Well, yeah, I mean, look, right now the Minister of

00:18:52.280 Mental Health Addictions is Yara Sachs. She is not competent to be in her position. She just comes 1.00

00:18:56.940 from a background where she was a yoga teacher and then she was the head of some mental health

00:19:00.700 nonprofit. I mean, you know, we got a yoga teacher in charge and we've got a former drama teacher in

00:19:05.560 charge. Maybe not the best team to be handling a high stakes initiative like this. And a team of

00:19:12.480 17 addiction physicians, many of you who are highly respected in their field, tried to write

00:19:17.120 a public letter to Yara and said, you know, we have concerns. We are seeing mass diversion in

00:19:22.620 our practices. We are seeing people relapse because of safer supply in our practices.

00:19:27.320 We have some very moderate recommendations on how you can reform this program so you can keep it in

00:19:33.740 some aspect, but make it much more responsible and much less harmful to surrounding communities.

00:19:39.000 And she ignored them. And after she ignored them, they found more signatories. So there was now

00:19:44.360 another open letter with 35 signatories. It came out, I believe, in late October, early November.

00:19:50.780 and she ignored that too so then they sent a third letter and then she finally responded

00:19:56.700 she gave them 30 minutes of her time in january which is nothing and she changed the timing right

00:20:03.580 beforehand which suggests that they either you know that they weren't really valuable

00:20:07.100 and they gave her a presentation that was very firmly based in evidence you know these highly

00:20:12.220 experienced addiction physicians and i i've reviewed the slides that they showed to the

00:20:16.300 minister you know it was all solid material it was all thoughtful none of it was alarmist all

00:20:21.420 of it was based on evidence and strong reasoning and she never responded and then a few weeks later

00:20:27.580 told the canadian press that criticism of safer supplies unfounded and based in fear and stigma

00:20:35.020 and so she's essentially arguing that these addiction physicians who went into this field

00:20:41.020 to help people who are struggling with addiction now have some giant fear and stigma directed

00:20:47.980 towards their clients, which doesn't make any sense at all. One of the things that I wanted

00:20:53.520 to raise on this is that obviously, if you do have organized crime co-opting this system,

00:20:59.280 as you've certainly laid out the case for, we're going to see more people using this

00:21:03.460 than would otherwise be eligible or drawn to it. And the problem is, is that the people that

00:21:07.900 are all in on this see increases in usage as being a positive because they say oh well great

00:21:13.820 more people are using this program that's what we want so there isn't really there isn't really an

00:21:18.540 incentive for them to face the fact that it's not working and face the fact that even if you believe

00:21:24.060 in the core essence of what safe supply is supposed to be which is dubious the diversion problem

00:21:29.900 isn't really being caught by them well for them many of these people think the diversion is

00:21:34.940 totally fine because they want to flood the market with quote unquote safe because organized crime is

00:21:40.300 selling the uh the safe government approved drugs is that the yeah well because they say look if

00:21:45.420 people buy these these diverted pharmaceutical drugs at least it's not something that made in

00:21:50.620 someone's bathtub and therefore it's safer for them to use um the fact that when you add more

00:21:56.300 supply to the market that cheapens prices and that leads to more overall usage and you can't just

00:22:02.860 expect to replace the entire illicit supply with pharmaceutical opioids that's not going to work

00:22:08.540 that's not what we're seeing in practice today you know uh what happens is that the people who

00:22:13.420 are using the street fentanyl car fentanyl they just continue using that they don't want the

00:22:17.660 pharmaceutical goods that we're giving to them so this idea that we're keeping people safe is really

00:22:22.140 naive um and then on top of that the entire reason that we have an opioid crisis to begin with in

00:22:28.300 in North America, is because we're doing exactly what these harm reduction activists want. We did

00:22:33.460 that, sorry, 20 years ago. So you had this, you know, the OxyContin scandal, where you had this

00:22:39.200 predatory pharmaceutical company called Purdue Pharma, that essentially lied to people about

00:22:43.580 how dangerous pharmaceutical opioids are, said it was safe, said it was fine, and then flooded

00:22:48.040 communities with safe pharmaceutical opioids. And that got everyone addicted, and then created

00:22:52.520 the crisis that we see today. So now, for some reason, even though 20 years ago to 10 years ago,

00:22:57.880 like like this isn't 100 years ago this is very recent we saw how damaging it is some people are

00:23:03.080 saying ridiculously that flooding communities with pharmaceutical opioids is somehow a good thing

00:23:08.040 wow well very very well put and good work on this adam zeevo from the national post and i should

00:23:14.500 also plug you are the founder and director of the center for responsible drug policy what's that

00:23:19.640 about uh it's a new organization that i started launched about a month ago uh that is focused as

00:23:25.400 the name suggests, on pushing Canada towards more responsible drug policies that rein back some of

00:23:31.080 the excesses that we've seen in recent years. But at the same time, we are cognizant of the fact

00:23:37.760 that the war on drugs rhetoric that we saw in the 80s and 90s doesn't work either. So we're

00:23:42.220 basically trying to chart a middle path that doesn't just rely on incarcerating drug users,

00:23:47.020 that is actually empathetic to their needs and focuses on addressing why people do drugs

00:23:51.820 and investing into mental health and housing,

00:23:54.840 but at the same time saying that maybe it's not a good idea

00:23:57.480 to give everyone free drugs to destroy themselves,

00:23:59.780 and maybe it's not a good idea to decriminalize drugs

00:24:02.460 without investing into treatment and recovery.

00:24:05.100 Very, very well put on that point as well.

00:24:07.340 Adam, thanks very much.

00:24:09.060 Thanks for having me.

00:24:10.180 Thank you.

00:24:10.840 And I should say, I wholeheartedly agree.

00:24:13.080 The criminalization approach doesn't work.

00:24:15.560 Now, this is where my inner libertarian comes out,

00:24:18.460 because if you were to talk about what you actually believe

00:24:21.760 as far as whether drug use should be a choice that people can make.

00:24:26.120 I think most pure libertarians will say, absolutely, yes, you should.

00:24:29.340 But when you cannot separate drug use from criminality,

00:24:35.440 and I don't mean by criminalizing drug use,

00:24:37.220 I mean by all the crimes that are related to people

00:24:39.500 that are often suffering from addiction,

00:24:41.160 property crime, which is a massive vandalism

00:24:44.480 and then trespassing and all of these things,

00:24:47.560 and trafficking, of course,

00:24:48.920 then you get into a much more dicey territory. And yeah, locking up drug users is not stopping

00:24:56.140 the problem. Otherwise, it would have been dealt with in the 80s. As Adam said, locking up drug

00:25:00.280 dealers hasn't even really worked, because that's been the attitude that they've taken in a number

00:25:05.020 of jurisdictions. So then you look at, okay, what is the way forward? And to be honest, I think the

00:25:09.760 most sensible approach that I've seen, and it will take some time to see whether it bears out,

00:25:15.600 is what Alberta is doing, which is saying that, you know, we'll give you this option, which is

00:25:19.320 treatment and it can be forced, forced treatment. But if forced treatment is an alternative to being

00:25:25.340 prosecuted, then look, you're still going to get some absolute, like you're going to get some

00:25:31.480 pushback. We're seeing this, but the problem is the pushback is not coming from people that are

00:25:35.500 making a libertarian argument that, you know, my body, my choice. The pushback is coming from

00:25:40.020 people that are effectively normalizing drug use. They want to normalize that and they don't

00:25:44.600 actually think that the state has an interest in trying to push people out of that lifestyle. So

00:25:49.860 it's a fascinating discussion, one that I've only started immersing myself in within the last year

00:25:54.960 or so, but we'll certainly see more instances of it as it puts itself on the political agenda.

00:26:00.880 And I guess I should say we have a couple of clips. I will just play either one of them. If I,

00:26:04.940 Sean, you know which one's better than the other one from a conservative leader, Pierre Polyev on

00:26:09.140 this. Just yesterday, the RCMP confirmed that thousands of these pills have made their way

00:26:15.700 into the hands of organized crime. So your tax dollars are paying for organized criminals to

00:26:21.500 get their hands on the same pharmaceutical drugs that caused the crisis in the first place. This

00:26:26.640 is insanity. I will put an end to it. We will stop funding drugs and start funding treatment and

00:26:32.080 recovery to bring our loved ones home drug-free. I've got an eye roll emoji from someone displeased

00:26:40.000 with my commentary on this. Like I said, my radical libertarianism sometimes rubs people

00:26:45.160 the wrong way. Although in this case, it might not, it might be the other way, the other direction

00:26:48.520 of the complaint. But nevertheless, I mean, Polyev, so I do know, and I've been told that 0.65

00:26:54.780 Polyev has quite a good relationship with Danielle Smith's chief of staff, Marshall Smith, who himself

00:27:00.760 is a former, well, he's, I mean, you're always an addict, I believe, but a recovered addict,

00:27:06.220 and he was a drug user, and he's actually been quite an instrumental force in pushing the Alberta

00:27:12.560 approach. And I understand Marshall Smith and Pierre Polyev have spoken quite a bit about this.

00:27:17.680 Now, mostly provincial, that's the issue is mostly provincial, but it would be interesting to see,

00:27:23.340 especially in light of what Polyev said there, what the federal government's approach on this

00:27:28.320 would be with a conservative government in place there. So the reality is, we'll play that other

00:27:35.620 clip now, safe supply policies are simply not working. We were told that decriminalizing crack,

00:27:43.400 heroin, cocaine, and other hard drugs was proven by all the experts to work. And then we added to

00:27:50.660 that taxpayer-subsidized opioids, which they called, ironically, a safe supply, that somehow

00:27:58.720 this was going to protect addicts from overdoses.

00:28:02.900 What has happened?

00:28:04.280 The data's in.

00:28:05.500 The debate is over.

00:28:06.500 We've had 40,000 overdose deaths in the last eight years, a 200 percent increase.

00:28:13.840 And where these policies have been tried most enthusiastically, the results have been the

00:28:20.060 most horrifying and that is the the point i've stressed on the show in the past no one can look

00:28:26.220 at british columbia which has been look whatever people think about british columbia's approach to

00:28:31.420 this it's actually been very useful because bc has turned itself into a provincial laboratory

00:28:37.420 it's turned itself into a testing center where we can look at this approach and see if it's working

00:28:43.260 and i'm sorry but there is not a single metric a single argument you can give for british columbia

00:28:49.420 faring better on these issues because of its approach. If anything, it's worse. Now, some

00:28:54.300 people would say, okay, well, that's just because British Columbia has a bigger drug problem in

00:28:58.460 general. But certainly you cannot say that this permissive approach, the safe supply approach,

00:29:04.060 even, I mean, I remember when supervised injection sites were controversial and the activists used

00:29:09.140 to say, well, it's not like we're giving them the drugs, they're bringing their own drugs. And now

00:29:12.040 that wasn't enough. Now we are in fact giving them the drugs and it simply is not working.

00:29:17.720 And that's why British Columbia is seeing this time and time again.

00:29:22.160 Now, we're going to move on from this for now, but I do want to talk some more about Bill C-63.

00:29:28.100 Now, this is the Liberal Government's Online Harms Act.

00:29:31.860 It's the bill that, among other things, reintroduces Section 13 to the Canadian Human Rights Act,

00:29:37.280 which prohibits online hate, hate being subject to a definition provided by the federal government

00:29:44.040 and one that will inevitably and invariably censor what you can say

00:29:49.020 and by extension, what you can read online.

00:29:52.060 Now, Margaret Atwood, who I disagree with on a fair bit of stuff politically,

00:29:56.060 but Margaret Atwood decided to weigh in on this. 0.50

00:29:59.480 The author, I'm actually watching with my wife now, The Handmaid's Tale,

00:30:03.740 which I had avoided assuming it would be excessively preachy,

00:30:07.020 but the first few episodes have not actually been all that preachy

00:30:09.560 and I'm enjoying it so far.

00:30:11.900 But Sean says he likes The Handmaid's Tale too.

00:30:13.960 all right, well, Sean, we'll have to do a viewing party.

00:30:16.080 I mean, we work in different cities,

00:30:17.140 so it might be difficult.

00:30:17.980 But anyway, it was a nice gesture on my part.

00:30:20.960 So the Handmaid's Tale.

00:30:22.500 No, we're not talking about the Handmaid's Tale.

00:30:23.640 Margaret Atwood.

00:30:24.860 There we go.

00:30:25.380 Thanks for bringing me back on track.

00:30:27.160 Margaret Atwood says,

00:30:28.040 if this account of the bill is true,

00:30:30.540 it's lettre de cachet all over again.

00:30:33.680 The possibilities for revenge,

00:30:36.880 false accusations, and thought crime stuff

00:30:39.000 are so inviting.

00:30:41.800 Trudeau's Orwellian online harms bill. Now, by the way, the lettre de cachet she's talking about,

00:30:50.480 that's a reference to arbitrary whims by the roi de France, by the king of France,

00:30:56.920 that basically were judgments that could not be appealed. So she's talking about

00:31:00.880 the edicts that will invariably come down from the higher authority that is the Canadian Human

00:31:05.960 Rights Tribunal, the federal government, the list of things you can and can't say

00:31:10.440 that will become foisted upon Canadians.

00:31:13.620 Now, Margaret Atwood, I'm glad she did that.

00:31:17.000 I'm glad she wrote about that.

00:31:18.140 Now, she then got a response from the Justice Minister,

00:31:23.120 Arif Farhani, who didn't like that Margaret Atwood

00:31:25.500 had tweeted out criticism of his bill.

00:31:28.860 And I forget, we don't have the graphic of his response

00:31:31.740 because I actually didn't see,

00:31:32.700 I don't follow Arif Farhani on Twitter, I guess.

00:31:34.860 Well, I didn't follow Margaret Atwood either,

00:31:36.780 but that one broke into my bubble.

00:31:38.220 but he says it does not include content that's awful but lawful it includes expressions of

00:31:45.600 detestation and vilification it does not include insults offensive comments or jokes that are not

00:31:50.820 very polite he says that but there's no way he can actually make that make that statement because

00:31:58.920 we don't genuinely know what will be captured by this bill and what won't be a lot will be

00:32:05.300 subject to regulations. It will be subject to decisions made by adjudicators on the Canadian

00:32:10.160 Human Rights Tribunal, which, yes, you can say, all right, well, we can appeal this to the Supreme

00:32:14.400 Court and get judicial review and all of that, but he cannot actually make the claim that it won't

00:32:20.160 cover content that you'll hear, that awful but lawful. Well, yes, I mean, technically,

00:32:26.420 the bill will only cover things that aren't lawful, but that's because it will be under

00:32:29.960 the bill's authority, that adjudicators determine for themselves what is lawful and what is not.

00:32:36.040 So there's a bit of a circular logic taking place in what Verani has said. And he's, of course,

00:32:41.880 very graciously invited Margaret Atwood to be re-educated by him. He said he'll have a chat

00:32:47.020 with Margaret Atwood about the bill. Now, Margaret Atwood, whatever you think of her politics,

00:32:51.400 good on her for standing up because she is part of that vintage that does take free speech 0.95

00:32:55.860 seriously because she's part of that generation of novelists like, for example, Salman Rushdie

00:33:00.820 that know full well what censorship is. Salman Rushdie nearly lost his life because of radical

00:33:08.300 Islamist resistance to his book. But the problem was not just the radical Islamist that didn't

00:33:13.820 like his book, it was censors that didn't like his book. And I have no doubt that Salman Rushdie

00:33:19.740 would be subject to the star chambers that will be established under Bill C-63

00:33:24.600 if his book is published in a venue in which the Canadian Human Rights Commission wants to claim

00:33:30.160 jurisdiction. I have no doubt that anyone who misgenders someone on social media

00:33:34.500 will be subject to it. You want to talk about all of these instances in history when we saw,

00:33:40.200 whether it was the Western Standard publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons, whether it was

00:33:44.460 Mark Stein's book, America Alone, all of these things that were targeted by Human Rights

00:33:49.020 commissions in the 2000s and before will be targeted once again, but I think we will even

00:33:55.260 from there expand what people are trying to capture. And we are just supposed to be so hopeful

00:34:00.580 that the Human Rights Commission will exercise this authority judiciously and responsibly.

00:34:06.200 And that's basically the government's argument here, just trust us. And one of the most insidious

00:34:11.340 aspects of this bill has been that the government is pushing all of this very controversial,

00:34:17.000 very contentious stuff and they're doing this while also claiming that this bill is really

00:34:25.040 about protecting children they're they're doing some tremendous gaslighting here they're saying

00:34:29.540 that this is all just to protect children from online exploitation yes there are sections of

00:34:34.060 the bill that does that those would be uncontroversial if they were passed on their own

00:34:38.280 I believe this is a point that was raised by Peter Menzies in the Epoch Times he is well he's been on

00:34:43.740 the show before. You know who he is. He's a legend, but he is also a former vice chair

00:34:47.540 with the CRTC. Peter, it's good to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming back on today.

00:34:53.980 Oh, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.

00:34:56.520 Do you think the government is trying to just do this all in one fell swoop because they think

00:35:02.620 that these things belong together? Or do you think that the child exploitation stuff is really

00:35:07.020 the political cover for the online censorship provisions i have no insight into their thinking

00:35:14.380 um i wish i did and i could answer that that way it appears that they have bundled a whole bunch

00:35:21.020 of things into something because they couldn't do them the way they originally wanted to do them

00:35:27.020 which was all going to be through the digital safety commissioner the digital czar if they

00:35:34.540 wanted to call it that, the digital version of the CRTC for oversight. That got so much pushback

00:35:40.300 from the public and various platforms that described it at various times as similar to

00:35:47.840 what is used in Iran or North Korea or China. And those statements, I don't think were hyperbolic

00:35:54.720 because they actually were. So I think what they did was they tried to divide it up into certain,

00:36:00.560 into these different portions these sort of three areas and then of course as you were just

00:36:06.900 discussing get the human rights commission to do what they figured out that they couldn't legally

00:36:15.540 do through the creation of the office of a digital safety commissioner and and explain that part to

00:36:23.620 people because i i haven't covered that as extensively on the show what that digital

00:36:27.200 safety commissioner is supposed to be as the government envisions it with c63 well it's

00:36:33.320 i mean the simplest way to put it is that it's an oversight body that that

00:36:36.980 looks over the how the platforms conduct their business now having you know co-authored a paper

00:36:44.820 that called for something not dissimilar from that and it imposed what it does is it imposes

00:36:50.100 a duty of care it in fact imposes three duties of care but we don't need to get into those

00:36:54.940 those specifically on the platforms to make sure that they perform responsibly essentially that

00:37:03.740 everything each of the harms that it points to are already things that are illegal for the most part

00:37:10.640 and they're designed to protect children from being exploited from people being embarrassed from

00:37:15.900 people being victims of extortion through other things like recruitment for terrorism child

00:37:23.560 pornography, child sexual exploitation, a number of things that are already illegal. And that for

00:37:29.060 the most part, in fact, entirely, as far as I know, the platforms have been working for years

00:37:35.140 to make sure don't get posted on their websites at all. So it's kind of double coverage. I don't

00:37:42.120 mind the duty of care thing at all. Because, I mean, after all, these are very powerful,

00:37:47.780 almost monopolistic platforms. And somebody's got to have some oversight somewhere making sure that

00:37:53.180 they aren't being run by bond villains, you know, that Mark Zuckerberg is, and this is where I was

00:37:58.860 disappointed. I thought there should have been a duty of care to ensure free speech in an unbiased

00:38:03.580 fashion, right? Some people suspect Mark Zuckerberg of being a closet leftist who's suppressing

00:38:09.980 right-wing views. Currently, the same view was held, or previously the same view was held over

00:38:16.660 twitter now the left seems to think that elon musk is let uh you know extremists of all kinds

00:38:23.380 run amok on x twitter um there needs to be somebody overlooking that to make sure like i said

00:38:30.020 essentially bond villains is the best description of it that people are behaving responsibly and

00:38:35.620 using and not abusing their power but well and and i know the areas are a real problem yeah and

00:38:42.260 And it gets away from C63 somewhat, but I don't think hugely.

00:38:45.880 We've already seen through C18, which was the Online News Act, how Facebook chooses

00:38:51.300 to respond to what it believes as excessive regulation from the government.

00:38:55.220 In this case, the government was saying that they would have to compensate news companies

00:38:59.300 in Canada, and Facebook decides, all right, we'll just ban news in Canada.

00:39:03.240 Now, I don't know if Meta, the parent company of Facebook, would, in response to C63, say

00:39:09.120 this isn't worth it and just pull the plug and say Canadians can't use Facebook at all.

00:39:13.060 That does seem extreme, but it's possible that they may just say, like, we just don't want to

00:39:17.580 even deal with this. Yeah, they could, but I really don't think they will because basically,

00:39:23.680 I think they're probably pretty happy. There've been no statements from them yet that I'm aware

00:39:27.660 of, but I think the platforms are probably reasonably happy. They've been kind of looking

00:39:33.440 for some kind of consistent global regulation to to help them get their affairs in order so they

00:39:40.000 know exactly what the rules are and like i said they're they're all just about everything they're

00:39:44.640 being asked to do they're already doing um so i don't i mean they're on the child stuff or on the

00:39:50.800 the hate speech stuff because i i wouldn't say they're doing it on the hate stuff because their

00:39:54.240 threshold is much different than i think the government's is going to well that's where we

00:39:58.000 we're going to get into you know when you get into the meat of the matter and the regulation so i

00:40:02.320 I 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.

00:40:10.500 I mean, hopefully the government will step away from the Human Rights Commission one,

00:40:14.580 which is the one that's going to be used to basically harass people online and cost some money and suppress free speech.

00:40:25.280 I 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.

00:40:44.400 But 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.

00:40:54.020 People, they get fewer complaints from people, there's less bullying.

00:41:01.460 It'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.

00:41:14.400 You mentioned regulations. And I think that's always the danger of bills that establish a

00:41:21.360 framework is that you kind of pass it and don't entirely know how it's going to be used. And I

00:41:25.560 just wanted to ask with your experience with the CRGC, like the CRGC obviously has the authority

00:41:30.540 to, you know, govern, you know, for example, what you can play before and after the watershed hour

00:41:34.920 and things like that. So there is a kind of a moral, not moral standards, but there's a,

00:41:40.220 there's an obscenity standard that has been set by these regulations. How good are they

00:41:45.800 at doing that? And how kind of much latitude do they have to determine these things?

00:41:51.820 Well, the watershed hour, that one always lights me up because it only actually applies on Eastern

00:41:57.640 time zones. Oh, really? Yeah. Something that's inappropriate to put on the air at 9 p.m. Eastern

00:42:04.120 is just fine at 6 p.m pacific right i didn't know that that's actually an interesting bit

00:42:10.520 of trivia they don't apply these bc kids have just been subject to just horrendous horrendous

00:42:15.340 things exactly they just ignore it but they keep it in place and the kids in bc seem to be growing

00:42:21.300 up okay anyway with their parents controlling what they watch um but that's been the case that's been

00:42:26.440 the case for years um one of the things that concerns me greatly about the digital safety

00:42:31.880 commissioner like i said i don't have any problem with the duties of harm but the power is given to

00:42:35.960 the new digital safety commission and there's there is also going to be a digital safe digital

00:42:41.240 ombudsman to deal with appeals etc and that's a whole other story but that seems relatively

00:42:49.400 harmless at the moment but with the digital safety commissioner the powers are extensive

00:42:54.360 and the opportunity for the digital safety commissioner's office to expand its turf going

00:43:00.600 forward is, appears endless. And that's really, really worrying because all of these organs, I

00:43:08.640 mean, it's human nature in almost any business for people to seek to expand their turf and their

00:43:15.160 power and their influence and their importance and their, the number of cool conferences they

00:43:21.400 get invited to and speeches they get invited to make. It's just human nature. So giving them that

00:43:26.580 much power that worries me because there should be there should be a firm fence around how much

00:43:31.340 power how much power they have um and like i said with the you know the the watershed hour how good

00:43:37.800 are they at it well not that good all right well fair enough uh peter menzies former vice chair of

00:43:43.640 the crtc and uh also fantastic uh contributor uh to a number of places the mcdonald lorry institute

00:43:49.640 you have a great piece in the epic times on this as well so uh thank you very much peter always

00:43:53.880 good to talk to you. Thanks a lot, Andrew. Good to talk to you. All right. That does it for us

00:43:57.880 for today. We'll be back in just 23 hours and 15 minutes with more of Canada's Most

00:44:02.400 Irreverent Talk Show, The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. Thank you, God bless, and good day

00:44:07.040 to you all.

00:44:23.880 We'll be right back.

00:44:53.880 We'll be right back.

Juno News - March 12, 2024

CBC paying out millions in bonuses while laying off staff

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