Juno News - Cities clash with province over Alberta’s election reform bills

00:00:00.000 Well, William, I know that the viewers have been complaining about how your hair always looks bad on camera.

00:00:03.840 So I think it was nice of you to put a little effort in this morning.

00:00:07.120 Well, I would take issue with always complaining, considering I've really only been in camera once in the entire time.

00:00:14.520 But I want to look good for our True North supporters and True North people who like our programming.

00:00:21.020 That's not true. You were a pretty regular during the Alberta election, if I remember correctly, and on our election night show.

00:00:28.380 Well, that's true. We, you know, as an Albertan, I'm always excited when we cover Alberta topics.

00:00:36.000 A real strength that we have as an organization is we have dedicated and wonderful journalists like you and Isaac covering Alberta and its important issues.

00:00:45.220 It's the second time you've lied on the show. You're talking about how much you admire us and that you only did your hair the one time.

00:00:51.660 We are covering CBC later.

00:00:54.740 Or maybe I'm just getting in a CBC frame of mind by delivering false news.

00:01:00.200 It's also, Isaac, how do you feel that you're losing your True North podcast virginity today?

00:01:08.300 I don't know that I necessarily feel that way because I do the daily brief usually at least once a week, sometimes numerous times.

00:01:16.140 And that feels like a podcast to me, although there's no video portion, of course.

00:01:19.500 Yeah, the videos.

00:01:22.620 I don't know how I feel about it.

00:01:24.160 You know, of course, I'm excited to have the opportunity to be on video, but it is definitely new.

00:01:32.340 So, well, maybe next time you'll remember to do your hair when you're on camera.

00:01:35.600 But I think, all right, guys, let's get it started.

00:01:37.240 Hey, everyone.

00:01:46.680 Welcome to Off the Record.

00:01:48.360 In the words of Andrew Lawton, our regular show host, this is sort of True North's fun Friday show.

00:01:54.280 I'm Rachel Emanuel.

00:01:55.080 I'll be hosting the show today.

00:01:56.620 And I am joined by William McBeath and Isaac Lamoureux.

00:02:01.000 Isaac is new to the video podcasting format.

00:02:03.700 Welcome to the show, both.

00:02:05.520 Thank you.

00:02:06.440 Nice to be here.

00:02:07.400 So, we actually have a Alberta-based crew today, which is a pretty rare thing.

00:02:12.880 Everyone here on the show is based in Alberta.

00:02:14.700 William and I coming to you from Calgary and Isaac from Edmonton.

00:02:17.420 I actually believe that Isaac is coming for my crown as the Alberta reporter.

00:02:21.580 He's actually introduced himself on a couple occasions now as the new Alberta reporter.

00:02:24.960 So, we'll see how he does today.

00:02:26.020 You guys can let us know in the comments what you think.

00:02:28.060 Maybe, you know, I might have to give up my Alberta Roundup show and replace of a new fan favorite.

00:02:31.880 But, Isaac, you've actually been doing some great work on the Alberta coverage.

00:02:34.260 I use it regularly in my shows on Saturdays.

00:02:36.260 And I know that you've been following Bill 20 pretty closely.

00:02:39.500 This is a very controversial piece of legislation.

00:02:42.200 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith.

00:02:43.800 She's had to defend this multiple times since it was announced.

00:02:46.060 Alberta government said, you know, there's going to be amendments introduced.

00:02:48.680 So, why don't you break it down for us?

00:02:49.960 What's really going on here?

00:02:51.240 Why is this bill so controversial?

00:02:52.640 Yeah, thanks.

00:02:55.320 So, obviously, there's a lot of things within Bill 20.

00:02:58.200 But when I first read it, one of the things that stood out to me was the introduction of political parties at the municipal level.

00:03:06.120 I mean, obviously, this is a huge change to municipal politics within Alberta.

00:03:13.140 And so, they're introducing a pilot project for local political parties, which will occur in Edmonton and Calgary during the next municipal election.

00:03:23.420 And local candidates aren't required to join a political party, but will be given the opportunity to do so.

00:03:28.620 As far as I understand, all the candidates on the voting list will have a party next to their name.

00:03:34.220 And obviously, it could show independent if a candidate did not want to join a party.

00:03:39.320 Also, something interesting to note is that each municipal party will be independent in the sense that a municipal party within Edmonton versus one in Calgary will have no relation.

00:03:48.400 There's lots of rules around that, how they can't even share with the provincial government, the federal government, their parties within those.

00:03:55.380 They can't share any information, that kind of thing.

00:03:56.980 I think that was one of the more, you know, people, something we're more excited about that part of the bill.

00:04:02.360 Not everyone accepted it, but I think that was one of the more accepted things of the bill.

00:04:05.860 Another thing that it's going to do is it's going to ban tabulators.

00:04:08.560 So, in provincial elections and in municipal elections, tabulators, which are used to tally the vote, will not be allowed to be used anymore.

00:04:15.580 Of course, some people took issue with this, but a lot of praise for the premier on this.

00:04:18.780 And then on the controversial side of things, one of the things that the bill would also do is it would allow the provincial government to fire city councillors

00:04:26.900 in extreme circumstances and also to basically undo city bylaws.

00:04:32.240 Say, you know what, we're going to cancel that city bylaw.

00:04:34.180 We have Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek responding to this bill.

00:04:36.760 She was very critical of it.

00:04:38.140 Let's play that clip of what she had to say about it and some of her concerns.

00:04:41.160 So, right now, all it says is removal of the council member if it's in the public's interest, but public interest is not defined.

00:04:50.080 I do know that Minister McIver has said something to the effect of public interest can be defined as public push or, you know, public request.

00:04:59.580 I still don't know what that looks like.

00:05:01.500 And in an age where recall exists, does it now mean that you can file a recall petition against someone and that becomes the grounds for cabinet making a move towards removal?

00:05:12.260 It's all unclear.

00:05:13.580 It doesn't mesh together well.

00:05:15.200 And public interest has to be defined very clearly for the public.

00:05:20.980 William, what's your take on this?

00:05:22.620 Well, I would have to laugh because I think one of the reasons Mayor Gondek is so concerned is because of how deeply unpopular she is.

00:05:31.000 And, of course, she's concerned about a public push because at 30 percent approval, she could well be a target of removal. 0.99

00:05:38.720 So I can understand why she's a big concern.

00:05:40.720 All of that being said, I think the goal of the bill is simply to have a mechanism to remove city councillors or other municipal elected officials when they really go off the wire and maybe move into areas or adopt policy positions that are completely contrary to what has been established in areas like that that are outside their area of jurisdiction.

00:06:04.480 So areas that are under the governance of the province.

00:06:06.320 That being said, there's already mechanisms to deal with errant elected officials. 0.66

00:06:13.360 I'm not sure there's a lot of need to have a separate bill to enshrine that power.

00:06:19.740 But I do think it reflects the fact that so many of our city councils have gone way off the deep end on issues.

00:06:24.860 Mayor Gondek herself, for example, said one of her jobs was to lead the resistance to the province's changes to gender rights and parental rights policy.

00:06:33.980 Well, I really don't think that's actually the job of the mayor of Calgary.

00:06:37.160 The job of the mayor of Calgary is to try and deliver the core services that Calgarians expect.

00:06:42.080 Plowing the snow, filling the potholes, collecting the garbage.

00:06:45.180 All things, by the way, that Calgary does not do particularly well, despite taking a lot of dollars from our property taxes.

00:06:52.320 Yeah, I have to say that I'm inclined to agree with you.

00:06:54.700 I think there's already mechanisms for a lot of the things that the government can deal with here, especially when it comes to removing city councillors.

00:06:59.820 I do like the areas of this bill that focus on, for example, banning the tabulators.

00:07:04.140 I don't have any issue with creating, you know, political parties and municipalities.

00:07:07.620 I'm totally fine with that.

00:07:08.900 I don't like the provincial government stepping in and saying, we're going to undo city bylaws.

00:07:13.580 We're going to fire councillors.

00:07:14.560 Even in extreme circumstances, I don't think the solution to bad government is more government.

00:07:19.260 I think this is government overreach from the provincial government. 0.99

00:07:21.380 I think that in Calgary, if we say this city councillor sucks or our city council as a whole sucks, 0.98

00:07:26.500 that's when Calgarians need to get involved and do what they can to remove those councillors. 0.98

00:07:31.200 We just had a recall petition for Jody Gondik.

00:07:33.960 That was unsuccessful, partly because the parameters for the petition were so extreme.

00:07:38.640 They needed over half a million signatures.

00:07:40.660 I interviewed the individual leading the petition on many occasions.

00:07:44.200 He said, well, there's no way we're going to get that many signatures because there's such a large portion of the population in Calgary that doesn't speak English.

00:07:49.940 We can barely talk to them to explain to them what we're doing here.

00:07:53.120 But the provincial government has already said, you know what, we're going to look at the petition and we're going to amend that legislation so that it's more reasonable.

00:07:59.560 So they already have an avenue for dealing with that.

00:08:01.720 You know, if Calgarians take issue with their government, they need to really get involved and vote them out at the next election or seek to recall them.

00:08:07.680 But I don't like this provincial government stepping in and saying we're going to have rights.

00:08:11.060 And for people who do support this, for conservatives who do support this piece of legislation and the mechanism specifically for the provincial government to step in and fire city councillors,

00:08:20.060 how would they feel if we had an Alberta NDP government right now?

00:08:23.120 Pushing forward this legislation because we might have an Alberta NDP government again one day and I would be curious to see which city councillors they're going to be targeting.

00:08:29.760 So I think this legislation needs to be severely, severely amended.

00:08:33.240 I take some serious issues with it.

00:08:35.640 Another thing the Alberta government is doing right now is they are pushing a high speed railway.

00:08:40.840 Now, I did a show on it this earlier this week and I had a lot of viewers say, oh, we've been talking about high speed rail in the province for years.

00:08:46.960 It's never going to happen.

00:08:47.940 And while Alberta Premier Daniel Smith seems to love trains and seems that she really wants to push this forward, the government has said they're going to spend $9 million studying what this would look like.

00:08:57.800 That includes ridership demand and infrastructure needs.

00:09:00.900 $9 million just to study this.

00:09:02.680 That's before anything is even built.

00:09:04.480 And there would be six phases to this plan.

00:09:07.080 First of all, they want to connect the airports in Edmonton and Calgary to the downtown cities.

00:09:12.040 They also want to connect Edmonton and Calgary to each other through a high speed rail and they want to connect places like Calgary to Banff and Edmonton to Jasper.

00:09:22.000 So it's an interesting idea.

00:09:23.580 I don't know that we're really in the place to be spending money on this right now.

00:09:26.780 I think a lot of people would rather see that money spent on one time payments to families or, you know, removing the fuel tax altogether.

00:09:32.720 But I had the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims, on my show this week to discuss.

00:09:38.820 Here's what she had to say about it.

00:09:40.360 That's a great question.

00:09:42.160 It kind of surprised me when I saw the announcement.

00:09:45.040 And so the answer is no.

00:09:46.560 We hear from supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who are, by the way, by and large, pretty big fans of Premier Daniel Smith.

00:09:54.340 So they're quite often on her side.

00:09:56.140 I hadn't seen one email in the last two years asking for this sort of a thing.

00:10:03.800 So, William, you've lived in Alberta for a long time.

00:10:06.320 This was in Calgary a long time.

00:10:07.260 What do you think of this plan?

00:10:08.000 Is a high-speed rail something that you're just desperate to have in the province?

00:10:12.220 Yeah.

00:10:12.580 I mean, Daniel Smith has always been a big fan of rail.

00:10:16.460 This was something when I worked for her back in the Wellrose days.

00:10:20.000 She was very gung-ho on rail opportunity.

00:10:23.580 The question is, is there a business case for it?

00:10:25.760 Does it make financial sense for Alberta?

00:10:27.640 Anyone who's driven Highway 2 in the past couple of years knows that we are absolutely at capacity on that corridor, that you can't put thousands more car trips every day onto that road at just two lanes for large chunks of it.

00:10:43.540 So I do think there's a conversation to be had around what we're going to do about overcrowding on Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary and how we can alleviate that.

00:10:53.880 Speaking personally, I would love a train that goes from downtown Calgary to the airport.

00:10:59.700 You know, I think my family who lives in Edmonton, they live in downtown Edmonton.

00:11:03.860 Getting from downtown Edmonton to their airport is a $120 taxi trip, and that's each way.

00:11:10.000 So $240 tacked onto your trip in order to be able to take a flight somewhere, go away for a vacation, I think is an issue.

00:11:20.060 Whether or not high-speed rail or commuter rail is the answer, I don't know.

00:11:22.740 I suppose that's what we'll learn from the study.

00:11:25.740 But I don't think we should commit to anything just because we like rail or we think trains are cool.

00:11:31.540 I thought trains were cool when I was a kid.

00:11:33.640 I didn't get billions of dollars to go out and build a train set or build a train because of it.

00:11:38.060 So let's see, I guess, what the study turns out.

00:11:41.340 Yeah, I think that what you've addressed sort of goes back to one of the reasons that the government is pushing this is just the population growth.

00:11:47.380 There's about 4.9 million people in Alberta now.

00:11:49.660 That population has already increased rapidly just in the last few years.

00:11:52.800 And the government is predicting 7.1 million Albertans by 2051.

00:11:57.260 So they are expecting rapid population growth.

00:11:59.280 I don't think that surprises anyone.

00:12:00.780 We've seen how people are flooding to the cities from elsewhere in Canada in search of more affordability.

00:12:05.220 But one of the questions I have is, you know, yeah, okay, a rail from downtown Calgary to the airport.

00:12:10.300 I'm sure that would be useful for a lot of people.

00:12:12.540 You know, even maybe there's an argument for a railway from Calgary to Edmonton.

00:12:16.820 We're talking about a railway from Edmonton to Jasper, from Calgary to Banff.

00:12:21.060 It's like, what are you going to do when you get there?

00:12:22.060 Are you going to wait around in the cold for the bus?

00:12:23.640 That sounds awful.

00:12:25.320 What do you think, Isaac?

00:12:27.620 Yeah, I don't know.

00:12:28.680 Obviously, I've lived in Alberta almost all of my life.

00:12:31.980 And it's nice to conceptualize, I suppose, a railway system similar to the ones they have in Europe, where you can kind of just take the train wherever you want to, especially the mountains.

00:12:43.200 But like you said, I mean, that's without thinking of all the issues that come along with it.

00:12:47.240 Like, oh, when you actually get to the mountain, then what?

00:12:49.280 But just speaking quickly to the rails, I remember when I first wrote my rail story, the lead I went with was the Alberta government said that this time will be different.

00:12:59.940 Because as you both know, we've been talking about railways in Alberta for what seems like forever now.

00:13:05.680 But the key difference to note here is that the government has said, look, in the past, we've kind of just tried to focus on this project or this project or this project.

00:13:14.520 But this thing we're doing now, this master rail plan is a holistic approach.

00:13:18.440 We're looking at all these projects together.

00:13:19.980 How can we get this thing done?

00:13:21.260 This is the way forward.

00:13:22.780 So maybe that's the way to do it.

00:13:24.680 And this holistic approach will actually come to fruition.

00:13:27.800 We'll see, I guess.

00:13:30.220 Speaking of holistic approaches, the Ontario Provincial Police are looking at ways to reduce bad driving in the province, I guess.

00:13:38.200 Seems like there's been an exponential increase of accidents and the OPP is becoming increasingly concerned.

00:13:43.660 They have a new initiative to try to deal with some of these issues.

00:13:47.560 Isaac, you covered the story this week.

00:13:49.060 What is going on in Ontario right now?

00:13:51.480 Yeah.

00:13:51.880 So this is really interesting.

00:13:54.480 Basically, if you're pulled over on an Ontario highway, you will be forced to take a breath test no matter what.

00:14:03.940 They don't need suspicion because of legislation that was passed in 2018, which essentially gives police the right to do this if they have an approved screening device on their persons, which when I talked to criminal defense lawyer, Sean Robichaud, he said that all police forces are starting to just equip all their officers with these automatic devices.

00:14:26.860 So basically, anyone who's pulled over on the highway, regardless of the reason, so speeding, seatbelt, anything, you're going to be forced to do a mandatory breath test.

00:14:35.540 And if you refuse to do it, I wouldn't recommend that because you'll be subject to essentially being guilty by default.

00:14:42.700 And, yeah, just a quick note was that when I initially wrote the story, I just used breathalyzers, but Robichaud reached out to me saying, hey, just so you know, automatic screening devices, which the police have on their persons, are different from breathalyzers, which are normally at police stations, which are a much larger device.

00:15:00.720 And as far as I understand with the legislation, they don't actually need cause to administer the breath test with the automatic screening device, but they do need cause to do the breathalyzers at the police station.

00:15:14.240 And what's been some of the public reaction to this so far?

00:15:16.780 Are people generally supportive or are people taking issue with this, Isaac?

00:15:20.340 Yeah, so the public reaction, especially on our Twitter posts that we've posted on True North, people are very, I guess, upset.

00:15:28.900 You know, a lot of people are obviously concerned about this being a charter violation.

00:15:33.220 When I talked to the criminal defense lawyer, Sean Robichaud, he said the opposite, kind of.

00:15:38.720 He said, look, the charter is a simple document.

00:15:41.800 It's used to help courts determine what legislation and laws are.

00:15:46.220 But once those laws are determined in the courts, which he said this has been up to the Supreme Court of Canada, the laws are what they are.

00:15:52.560 So the charter doesn't really help you in that sense.

00:15:54.500 And just to read the charter here, Section 8 of the charter states, everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

00:16:02.160 And Section 9 states, everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

00:16:06.700 But I guess the Supreme Court of Canada found that this is a minimally intrusive thing that the police are doing with these automatic breathalyzers.

00:16:15.380 So, or sorry, breath tests.

00:16:16.640 You know, I have to say that I think this is largely a response just to some of the mass immigration that we're seeing, especially in Toronto and the GTA area.

00:16:25.300 I lived in Niagara for most of my life.

00:16:27.280 In the past few years, there's so much traffic from Toronto to Niagara, from leaving Toronto, heading out towards the east, towards Ottawa, increasing amounts of accidents.

00:16:36.860 The highway's always plugged up.

00:16:38.900 Seems like people don't know what they're doing on the road these days.

00:16:41.020 I obviously haven't lived in Ontario for a couple of years now, but it seems like every summer my family's messaging me saying traffic is just getting worse and worse.

00:16:47.700 You can't even get in that stretch from Beamsville to St. Catharines without getting plugged up.

00:16:51.740 And there's just been a lot of really horrific accidents.

00:16:53.620 So I would assume this is sort of a response to some of the issues that we're seeing with people really not driving well.

00:16:59.320 Maybe there's also some issues with people actually not really knowing how to drive in addition to people driving under the influence,

00:17:05.360 which is becoming more common since we've legalized marijuana, obviously.

00:17:08.440 You know, I'm not going to say I'm in favor of the policy, but I would say that it's sort of a natural reaction to simply letting too many people in the country think that we actually need to start fixing some of the real issues as opposed to just putting band-aid fixes on things.

00:17:21.240 William, what's your take?

00:17:23.320 Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone objects to getting drunk drivers off the road.

00:17:28.200 I think as a policy goal, pretty well everybody's united that we shouldn't have people who are drunk out there driving.

00:17:35.280 The worry is, is that well-intentioned pieces of legislation can set bad precedents and they can allow the erosion of our freedoms and our rights under the guise of trying to achieve positive policy outcomes.

00:17:49.700 So I think we have to be very careful whenever there's a new law that in some way curtails or limits something that we have enjoyed as a right or a freedom,

00:17:58.860 even if we think that the goal of the policy is well-intentioned.

00:18:04.000 And I think that's in this case, what the concern a lot of people have is not about getting drunk drivers off the road,

00:18:10.080 but simply giving law enforcement more power to exercise in an arbitrary manner against ordinary Canadians.

00:18:17.480 Yeah, absolutely.

00:18:20.540 Well, while we're taking a look at Ontario, let's go over to Ottawa.

00:18:23.060 There was a little bit of drama in one of the House of Commons committee meetings.

00:18:25.960 I know, I know, that never happens.

00:18:28.080 William, you've went all over this one.

00:18:30.000 What happened in the House of Commons Canadian Heritage Committee this week?

00:18:33.100 Well, I think I'm amongst many people who enjoy seeing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation get a swift kick in the pants.

00:18:42.020 We find them very high-handed and taking an awful lot of our tax dollars.

00:18:48.100 So what happened was that the president of CBC, Catherine Tate, was brought before the Heritage Committee

00:18:55.220 and asked yet again about bonuses for CBC executives.

00:19:00.340 As you may know, CBC executives get annual performance bonuses.

00:19:05.940 Not a lot of good news, though, at CBC.

00:19:08.400 So a lot of people are starting to wonder whether or not these bonuses are merited.

00:19:13.720 I can tell you my personal opinion that they're not.

00:19:16.300 But MP Rachel Thomas took aim at Catherine Tate and wanted to know the details of when we'd learn about bonuses. 1.00

00:19:24.520 And you can see that in the clip.

00:19:26.140 It was quite a fiery exchange between the two.

00:19:28.400 Have you made recommendations with your management team as to whether or not the eight top executives get bonuses for the 2023-2024 fiscal year?

00:19:38.140 We have not.

00:19:39.160 No recommendations have been made?

00:19:40.760 No, we have not.

00:19:42.240 When will those recommendations be made?

00:19:43.820 At the June board meeting.

00:19:46.520 So by the board, management team will have nothing to do with the recommendations?

00:19:50.140 We will present the results.

00:19:52.800 We will present the results of the financial year and the results of the KPIs.

00:19:58.780 And we will have an opportunity to discuss them.

00:20:02.180 And the HRGC, which is the Human Resources and Governance Committee, will review them.

00:20:08.460 And they will make their recommendation to the board.

00:20:12.180 Basically, Thomas pushed and said, we really want to see some data on whether or not they're getting bonuses.

00:20:19.840 Catherine Tate, in a pretty emphatic manner, saying that information isn't available, which I think is surprising for a lot of people, considering the fiscal year is already well over.

00:20:29.400 And just, you know, looking at CBC's performance, particularly in the past year or so, you really have to wonder how they're justifying executive bonuses.

00:20:39.340 They're laying off hundreds of their employees.

00:20:42.180 They're planning to lay off hundreds more of their employees.

00:20:45.860 Viewership is at an all-time low.

00:20:48.960 There is an absolute crisis happening about what the role of the CBC is, whether or not it's justified, whether or not existing in its current format is in any way a positive net for Canadians.

00:20:59.180 And, of course, likely future Prime Minister Pierre Pallievre has said that there will be a massive shake-up at CBC, if not an outright defunding and shutting it down.

00:21:10.440 So all of that put together, I'm not sure, equals big bonuses for CBC executives are justified.

00:21:17.060 Catherine Tate was actually the winner of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Teddy Waste Award, beating out even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

00:21:24.160 So I don't think it gets much worse than that, beating out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for an award on waste.

00:21:30.020 But, yeah, you can see how indignant she is there when she's being questioned.

00:21:33.900 You know, seems a little bit like someone who maybe has a little bit something to hide.

00:21:37.240 But this is the issue that we always see, whether it's with just the federal government or anything that receives federal funding, is just sort of the lack of accountability.

00:21:43.860 And as soon as there's government money in a situation, it seems that people, they just don't care.

00:21:48.480 They're not accountable to the private sector where there's actually much higher standards.

00:21:51.680 They're handing out bonuses for who knows what, I guess, for losing all those viewers, for handing all of them to us, I think is probably what they're celebrating there.

00:21:59.960 Maybe Catherine Tate is secretly a conservative. 1.00

00:22:02.080 And she's actually celebrating that, you know, her organization's bad coverage, biased coverage has sent a lot of people over to outlets like us.

00:22:10.220 Isaac, what's your take?

00:22:12.560 Yeah, I don't know.

00:22:14.320 The first thing that comes to mind is, as you mentioned, Rachel, there's obviously a lack of accountability there.

00:22:18.700 The CBC is getting over a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars on an annual basis.

00:22:23.260 And all their shows are bleeding money.

00:22:27.120 Their organization as a whole can't even show a profit.

00:22:30.380 So I don't know how any of that money is warranted.

00:22:33.220 And as you mentioned, William, it'll be very interesting to me to see if Polyefra takes office, what he's going to do with the CBC, because obviously he's been very vocal in his pledge to defund them.

00:22:46.200 But I don't know that he can I don't know that he can really just squash the company as a whole.

00:22:52.580 And I don't know how either how it could really be reformatted into something that could be justifiable long term in the sense that it won't be biased towards whatever governments in power can actually be what it's supposed to be, which is, I guess, an unbiased state broadcaster.

00:23:09.580 I mean, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

00:23:11.460 Well, I don't I just don't think we need a state broadcaster.

00:23:13.960 I think we don't need to squash the CBC.

00:23:15.800 We just need to take taxpayer dollars from them.

00:23:18.300 You know, if they want to do the hard work of finding those private dollars on their own, which I know they already do receive some private funding, they can continue to do that and make a go for it on their own.

00:23:26.480 It's just I don't want to be funding it.

00:23:27.980 I don't agree with my tax dollars being used to push a liberal narrative and to run cover for the Trudeau liberals time and time again.

00:23:34.880 It's actually very frustrating.

00:23:36.440 But if they want to continue running as an organization without my tax dollars, I have no issue with that.

00:23:40.440 I think we're kind of in an era where people more and more are saying, listen, media is partisan.

00:23:45.300 A lot of media, they seem to have bias.

00:23:46.800 They seem to have they seem to have an ideology which sort of frames their coverage.

00:23:51.260 I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that.

00:23:53.540 But what is the issue is, one, when people try to hide it and say, oh, we're you know, we're we're we're we're fair mainstream media.

00:23:59.600 We cover the government equally, which is obviously not the case.

00:24:02.040 Or alternatively, when they're receiving taxpayer dollars for it.

00:24:05.100 And we have one party which says we'll continue funding you.

00:24:07.960 We'll give you all the money for your bonuses and for all your reporters that, you know, are pushing the trans agenda, things like that.

00:24:15.160 And another party, the conservative party, which is saying we would actually pull funding from the CBC.

00:24:19.620 So even at space, you just know you're not going to get fair coverage, which we're not getting.

00:24:22.960 And we've pointed it out here at True North time and time again.

00:24:25.720 I think one of my favorite things that Pierre Polyev has said time and time again is that he would actually empty the CBC headquarters

00:24:31.740 in Ottawa and make it make it housing often talks about the young families you can see moving.

00:24:35.700 And I think that's a pretty nice image for us all.

00:24:37.920 But William, what's your prediction?

00:24:39.240 If we were to have a conservative government, what do you think they would actually do on the CBC?

00:24:44.120 Would we really see them remove all those taxpayer dollars?

00:24:46.520 You think they'll maybe wash down what they've promised to do?

00:24:50.280 Yeah, I you know, it's a great question.

00:24:52.240 I can say personally, I really hope so.

00:24:55.040 I think for people who supported Stephen Harper and the Harper government for a 10 year period,

00:25:01.740 the failure to do something about CBC really stands out as something left undone and something

00:25:08.580 that a lot of people were really wishing that Prime Minister Harper could have tackled during

00:25:13.720 his time in office, because, of course, it is not a fair and unbiased news machine.

00:25:18.280 This is a network funded by taxpayer dollars who sued the Conservative Party during an election

00:25:24.320 campaign and then had their lawsuit dismissed as being frivolous and without merit.

00:25:29.220 So the fact that they make that kind of poor decision just shows you that the rot that

00:25:34.860 has set in at CBC right up to the top, right up to Catherine Tate, who enjoys apparently, 1.00

00:25:41.020 although we don't know the details, some form of executive compensation bonus.

00:25:45.360 I think there is a lot that can be done.

00:25:47.420 And I would say particularly French English language.

00:25:50.000 CBC television is where most people are directing their their ire, the idea that we have an English

00:25:57.080 language television network when there's already five, six, seven, eight more private sector

00:26:03.400 competitors just shows that this is not needed anymore.

00:26:06.080 And, yeah, fingers crossed that a new quality of government will do what it takes to fix or ditch CBC. 0.87

00:26:14.820 You know, I can say that back when I worked on Parliament Hill covering the federal government,

00:26:18.800 that was, I guess, three, three and a half years ago now, maybe not quite that long.

00:26:22.240 But there wasn't a lot of love for the CBC, even among the other mainstream journalism outlets.

00:26:28.600 People felt like the CBC got an unfair deal, that they had extra funding.

00:26:32.420 And there is even some complaints that with the amount of funding that the CBC gets,

00:26:36.520 they are not breaking big stories.

00:26:39.260 It's other outlets like Global News, The Globe and Mail.

00:26:41.680 They're the ones who are breaking a lot of the bigger stories.

00:26:44.000 CBC then is following those stories.

00:26:45.740 But considering the insane amount of funding they're getting, they're not really doing

00:26:48.840 entrepreneurial journalism.

00:26:50.760 We're seeing that from a lot of the outlets that receive far less federal funding, of course,

00:26:54.840 all outlets basically receiving some funding nowadays, except for independent outlets like ours.

00:26:59.140 But I think defunding the CBC in some capacity, if not all capacity, I would like to obviously

00:27:04.080 see it defunded in an entire capacity, is what's going to make the difference for how the future

00:27:09.040 of our country is shaped.

00:27:09.800 Because there is still a lot of people who tune into those shows, who especially read

00:27:13.160 their stories and who are not thinking critically about these issues.

00:27:16.480 When you look at the states, I know Donald Trump, President Trump, he recognized that the

00:27:20.680 issues with media were one of the greatest problems facing his presidency, that he had a media

00:27:26.540 that was out to get him.

00:27:28.320 And it wasn't just the media, it was also things on social media.

00:27:30.360 Of course, he tried to make truth social.

00:27:32.100 That never really took off.

00:27:33.220 But I think one of the things that we were really grateful for in independent media was

00:27:36.520 Elon Musk actually buying Twitter and making it a place for free speech again.

00:27:40.500 And we've seen a lot of improvement with that, especially basically being blacklisted

00:27:43.820 on places like Facebook.

00:27:45.200 Twitter is one of the main outlets that we have to get our news out nowadays.

00:27:48.180 Of course, we also have YouTube, but there's a fair amount of censorship.

00:27:50.460 So these are really the areas that we need to apply pressure on if we're going to want

00:27:54.420 to see positive change in the country and make sure that, you know, people who wouldn't

00:27:57.820 otherwise have heard of places like True North are able to hear us and that we're able

00:28:00.700 to get our message out.

00:28:02.140 Isaac, what's your take on this?

00:28:05.660 Yeah.

00:28:08.300 Obviously, I'm very grateful that Elon Musk, I guess, essentially took a financial loss

00:28:14.840 in trying to fight for free speech in buying Twitter at the time, what is now known as X.

00:28:19.700 Yeah, as you mentioned, yeah, it's one of the best ways, not only for us to get news

00:28:23.900 out, but for me and I'm sure many other young people and people, all sorts of Canadians to

00:28:28.640 consume news is through Twitter.

00:28:30.980 And I think it always has, or sorry, X.

00:28:33.220 I think it always has been that too, in that I remember seeing some data a few years ago

00:28:39.220 in that like the most amount of politicians were on X as compared to other social medias.

00:28:44.540 And so obviously it's always been kind of a political social media in that sense.

00:28:48.980 So obviously it has a lot of influence, especially surrounding elections.

00:28:53.220 It'll be interesting to see what happens in our next federal election, especially with

00:28:58.160 the mainstream media and their potential fight against Poilievre and how hard they're going

00:29:05.180 to be on him, which I know, I think a lot of young people maybe aren't watching mainstream

00:29:12.700 media as much, but I really do think that their main user base would probably be the older

00:29:17.180 generation as well as I'm thinking immigrants probably watch a lot of mainstream media because

00:29:22.020 I mean, if you just have like, if you just watch TV, those are probably the news channels

00:29:26.840 you're going to watch.

00:29:27.660 And then subsequently you'll probably follow their journalism online as well.

00:29:33.040 So yeah, that's kind of what I think.

00:29:34.640 Well, everyone, that's about time for today.

00:29:37.960 Thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of Off the Record.

00:29:41.040 I believe Andrew Lawton will be back next week.

00:29:42.860 I'm not going to make any promises though.

00:29:44.920 Thanks, Isaac, for joining us for your first ever video podcast.

00:29:48.960 We'll hope that you'll be back for more.

00:29:50.180 And William, of course, it's always great to get some insight on Alberta as you know,

00:29:54.100 you're an Alberta lifetimer.

00:29:55.540 So we'll be back next week.

00:29:56.740 We hope that you guys have a great weekend.

00:29:57.940 Take care.

00:30:06.180 Rachel, is this where I remind you that my last name is Macbeth?

00:30:09.520 Not Macbeth.

00:30:12.060 I was going to ask you before we started and I was like,

00:30:14.680 I was like, oh no, it's definitely Macbeth.

00:30:21.180 Oops, I forgot to say everything you've heard was off the record.

00:30:23.820 I forgot that's how we closed it.

00:30:27.940 I was like, oh man.

00:30:29.060 I forgot to say everything she told me.

00:30:30.380 I forgot to say everything she told me.

00:30:31.520 What's wrong with me?

00:30:32.460 I forgot to say everything she just told me to take care of.

00:30:33.740 All right, people are saying everything she

00:30:48.540 going to do soon.

Juno News - May 10, 2024

Cities clash with province over Alberta’s election reform bills

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