Juno News - September 30, 2021


Journalists are calling the cops on Maxime Bernier for tweeting


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

181.33505

Word count

6,574

Sentence count

402

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Coming up, journalists go to the police on Maxime Bernier, Jason Kenney supports Aaron O'Toole as Conservative leader, and a look at rising public sector pay. The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:06.660 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.620 Coming up, journalists sick the police on Maxime Bernier.
00:00:16.540 Jason Kenney supports Aaron O'Toole hanging around as Conservative leader.
00:00:20.420 And a look at rising public sector pay.
00:00:24.180 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:34.960 Thursday, September 30th.
00:00:36.680 I know September just flew by in the year 2021.
00:00:40.900 Elections will do that.
00:00:41.880 They'll make time pass and then before you know it, you're in another election.
00:00:45.760 And then you're just in an endless cycle of time passing.
00:00:48.580 I once heard from someone that adulthood is just a string of saying,
00:00:52.980 well, things will slow down next week over and over until you die.
00:00:57.080 And on that cheery note, hello, welcome.
00:00:58.960 Thanks for tuning in.
00:01:01.280 I will give a bit of a shameless plug.
00:01:04.320 Right now, I am pre-recording this, of course, because I am going to be this weekend in Calgary, Alberta,
00:01:10.840 for the Virtual Canada Strong and Free Network Conference.
00:01:15.180 And I know it's weird to be in Calgary for a virtual conference.
00:01:18.100 This was, of course, going to be a big in-person conference in Red Deer.
00:01:21.340 And then, as you know, because I railed against it on this show a little while ago,
00:01:25.920 the Alberta government put in a range of restrictions that made having this in-person conference in the province
00:01:31.380 that was hashtag open for summer impossible.
00:01:34.640 So we're doing it.
00:01:35.860 But it's going to be in a studio.
00:01:37.500 So it's going to be great quality.
00:01:39.200 And there will be lots to talk about.
00:01:41.120 I'm going to be on a panel with Danielle Smith and Bruce Party and Jonathan Kaye
00:01:45.840 about the 1984 totalitarian and Orwellian moves that governments are making across the country.
00:01:52.960 And, in fact, across the world, we'll also be talking about free speech and Bill C-36 and C-10.
00:01:58.400 That's going to be on Saturday.
00:02:00.100 And if you want to register to watch that live, you can go to canadastrongandfree.network.
00:02:05.420 I hope you do.
00:02:06.300 It's going to be an absolute blast.
00:02:07.920 And lots of other great speakers as well, notably Dennis Prager.
00:02:11.020 So not often I get to be on the same lineup as Dennis Prager.
00:02:14.520 Now, as you can see in that picture, the picture of me is a little bit smaller than his.
00:02:19.080 But still, I'm there.
00:02:20.120 I'm in the ballpark.
00:02:21.180 I'm in the wheelhouse.
00:02:21.840 So hopefully I will be able to hear lots of feedback from you on how that goes.
00:02:26.300 Only good feedback, though.
00:02:27.400 I get enough of the nasty stuff.
00:02:28.820 I want to talk about Alberta a little bit later on in the show.
00:02:32.380 But I do want to start off by talking about the Canadian Association of Journalists going to war against Maxime Bernier.
00:02:39.900 Now, there's that old saying in news that when a dog bites a man, it's not news.
00:02:46.320 But when a man bites a dog, that's news.
00:02:48.420 And journalists attacking PPC is, I think, the epitome of dog bites man.
00:02:53.440 You'd say, well, what else is new?
00:02:55.140 But this is a particularly interesting attack because the CAJ is calling on the RCMP, the National Police Agency in Canada, to investigate Maxime Bernier.
00:03:06.420 So this independent, nonpartisan Association of Journalists wants police to investigate the leader of a political party that they completely ignored and, in a lot of cases, misrepresented in their coverage for the last six, seven weeks.
00:03:22.680 The backstory of this goes back about a week.
00:03:26.180 Maxime Bernier had fielded a number of media requests from reporters that were all, he thought, done in kind of a very bad faith way.
00:03:34.280 They were predicated on this idea that the PPC is rooted in racism or appeals to racists and white supremacists.
00:03:42.000 I'm going to read them because the honesty here is very important.
00:03:45.480 One of the requests from a CTV reporter says, I'm writing a story on the PPC in light of its rising popularity, yada, yada, yada, attracts and is endorsed by far-right groups, including neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
00:04:00.940 And while it may attract a broad spectrum of people that don't necessarily hold these extremist views, the fact is there are people affiliated with the PPC with known ties to either neo-Nazi or white nationalist groups.
00:04:13.020 How do you respond to this?
00:04:14.320 Another request that came from Global News says, I'm working on a story about black indigenous people of color voters.
00:04:21.260 That's what BIPOC means and their feelings.
00:04:23.580 I've spoken with a number of people and they're concerned about what your party stands for.
00:04:27.720 And they've expressed discomfort upon seeing your signs.
00:04:32.440 They fear that the PPC is pushing far-right extremism and allowing people who are xenophobic in the party and to run as candidates.
00:04:41.060 And then there was a request from the Hill Times that says,
00:04:43.980 I'm working on a story about violence and incidents of hate on the campaign trail and says this guy from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network says there are PPC supporters
00:04:52.860 that are all in the same group and that's the exposure to racist and far-right propaganda that led to violence.
00:04:59.660 And again, he's just writing a story about what this one guy who's an activist says and putting it to Maxime Bernier to respond to.
00:05:07.980 So Bernier tweeted out all three of these and says, these are from far-left activists masquerading as journalists.
00:05:16.540 And then he went one step further and in another tweet shared their email addresses and said,
00:05:23.980 you know what, if they're going to play dirty, we're going to play dirty too.
00:05:27.060 Why don't you email them and let them know what you think?
00:05:30.040 And predictably, we saw from a lot of these reporters, they were getting a bunch of nasty messages from people
00:05:34.900 because Maxime Bernier sicked his supporters on these reporters.
00:05:37.920 Now, this is something that there's a lot to delve into here and I want to be very clear, I do not support what he's done.
00:05:46.480 Yes, it's public, their public email addresses, sure.
00:05:50.160 I don't support taking a mob approach to social media.
00:05:54.440 There's something about rising above, you can call them out, but the idea of getting people to email them serves no purpose whatsoever.
00:06:01.360 So, with that being said, it's his right to talk about what they're doing.
00:06:06.380 It's his right to talk about, and I'd say it's encouraged to talk about what these reporters are doing
00:06:11.000 and show people the media requests because I'm a journalist.
00:06:14.360 I have sent media requests.
00:06:15.960 I know when I read those exactly what's happening.
00:06:19.040 They've already written the stories.
00:06:22.060 They've already written the stories and they're just checking the box to say,
00:06:25.820 I've asked for comment or they're going to weave whatever Maxime Bernier tells them into an existing narrative.
00:06:32.340 So, that Hilltime story is about, oh, the party's racist.
00:06:35.720 So, what does Maxime Bernier say to that?
00:06:37.980 The global story was about, okay, the party makes indigenous people and black people and other people of color nervous.
00:06:44.020 What does Bernier say to that?
00:06:45.500 And the first one was that this party is a magnet for white supremacists.
00:06:48.540 What does Bernier say about that?
00:06:50.420 The stories were already written.
00:06:52.580 So, it doesn't matter what Bernier or some PPC spokesperson say.
00:06:57.900 They're just fitting into an existing narrative.
00:07:00.140 So, I get the frustration and I get the PPC saying, we're not going to play ball with that.
00:07:04.520 And I even get them saying, this is what we're up against.
00:07:07.760 I just draw the line before sharing the email addresses because then all of a sudden, you have to own what your supporters email these reporters.
00:07:16.860 And yes, their public email addresses, someone who's motivated enough could look up all of those reporters and send them an email.
00:07:22.900 Now, that is something they could do.
00:07:25.580 But by directing people to tell them what you think and play dirty, you're stooping to their level.
00:07:32.180 And he says that's what he's doing.
00:07:33.420 He said, they're going to play dirty.
00:07:34.400 We're going to play dirty.
00:07:35.400 I'm more of a rise above kind of guy.
00:07:37.120 However, that does not mean that this is a criminal harassment, which is what the Canadian Association of Journalists now says it is.
00:07:47.360 They're arguing in this press release they sent out yesterday that law enforcement has to address targeted harassment of reporters.
00:07:55.000 They say that this tweet from Bernier, which resulted in Twitter suspending his account for 12 hours, presumably under the doxing policy or anti-doxing policy,
00:08:06.220 that this is something that desperately needs to be investigated.
00:08:10.620 And they say efforts to intimidate journalists from asking tough, serious questions is a tactic ripped directly from the pages of an authoritarian playbook.
00:08:19.840 The messages being directed towards reporters and editors are absolutely vile, deplorable, and completely acceptable.
00:08:25.520 We strongly stand by our members during these distressing times.
00:08:29.320 And they go on to say that there are sections of the criminal code that prohibit the willful promotion of hatred.
00:08:35.720 And they're saying that now being a journalist is a protected ground against hate speech in the criminal code, which, by the way, it's not.
00:08:43.920 But I digress.
00:08:45.180 That's the argument they're making here.
00:08:48.180 Now, at one point, and I'm going to delve into this in a future show, they go on to link this to C36 and talk about the importance of regulating online harms,
00:08:58.600 which is what restoring Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act would do.
00:09:02.060 Again, journalism, not a protected human rights group.
00:09:05.760 As much as they may want to think they're special, they're not that special.
00:09:09.180 Now, I've had favorable interactions with the Canadian Association of Journalists.
00:09:14.120 In 2019, when the Leaders Debates Commission banned True North, the CAJ actually issued a statement defending us.
00:09:21.040 And they didn't like how their guidelines on journalism had been appropriated by the government and used to exclude.
00:09:28.060 So the CAJ has been solid on the issue of press freedom in the past.
00:09:32.980 However, the Canadian Association of Journalists would also not admit True North as a member because they draw a line internally for what journalism is that excludes us.
00:09:43.580 That being said, that's besides the point.
00:09:45.740 I'm just trying to give some context about where it is they're coming from here.
00:09:49.740 They believe that they are the official club, and in a lot of ways they are, for journalists in Canada.
00:09:58.500 So they're absolutely right to want to support their members.
00:10:01.440 They're absolutely in the right to want to tell members,
00:10:04.040 hey, if you've been, you know, having some troubles with people emailing you things and you need some support,
00:10:08.520 we're going to reach out and provide it to you.
00:10:10.440 That's all fine.
00:10:11.240 But to say that the police should be investigating a political leader for mean tweets about journalists is absolutely,
00:10:22.000 I mean, it's just, it's egregious.
00:10:23.380 For starters, it just doesn't help them.
00:10:26.060 It doesn't help them because it turns back on them because all of a sudden most people are going to say just toughen up.
00:10:32.180 And that's terrible because I've seen some of the email, I mean, I see emails that are sent to me,
00:10:37.620 but I've seen some of the emails that a lot of reporters will tweet out that they get,
00:10:41.540 vile things, sexist, racist, just horrible things that no one should say at all to another human being.
00:10:48.460 And when I see that, I'm like, oh, I don't like that people are subjected to that nastiness.
00:10:53.500 It's just, it's just not good.
00:10:55.840 And while that is inexcusable,
00:10:58.480 I am a firm believer in this idea that there are certain jobs and roles you take on that invite it.
00:11:05.480 And that doesn't make it right.
00:11:07.600 That I'm not at all doing this.
00:11:09.260 I'm not, don't accuse me of victim blaming.
00:11:10.960 I'm not saying it's right.
00:11:11.980 I'm saying that in the society that we have now, it's going to happen.
00:11:16.420 So you do need to have a tough skin and by and large, a lot of journalists do.
00:11:21.740 But more importantly, journalists above most other groups should be taking a very firm stand
00:11:28.460 in support of free speech, unequivocally, unquestioningly in support of free speech.
00:11:35.120 That should be the role of journalists because journalists use their free speech to challenge
00:11:39.260 authority.
00:11:39.760 They use their right to freedom of the press to challenge authority.
00:11:43.080 And you can only do that if you take a principled stand in support of free speech.
00:11:47.720 So what the Canadian Association of Journalists is doing here is calling on Canada's police
00:11:55.720 to start clamping down on speech that they do not approve of.
00:12:00.660 Now, I want you to understand why this is such a bizarre position to take.
00:12:05.640 Because the CAJ has for years taken aim at the RCMP for being too heavy handed.
00:12:12.580 There's one statement in 2017, RCMP named Canada's most secretive law agency, as they
00:12:20.240 talk about giving the RCMP the Code of Silence Award for achievement in government secrecy,
00:12:25.780 which, by the way, the RCMP probably deserves.
00:12:28.100 Another article here where the CAJ says that the RCMP needs to follow the court order to
00:12:33.100 respect media rights after a journalist was arrested at Ferry Creek out in Vancouver Island
00:12:39.220 or on Vancouver Island.
00:12:40.620 So the idea here is that they've accused the RCMP in the past of being too opaque, of being
00:12:48.360 too heavy handed, of not respecting rights.
00:12:50.600 And now they're turning around and saying, we don't like what Maxime Bernier tweeted.
00:12:55.080 So you should launch an investigation and charge him with hate speech.
00:13:00.680 Now, here's the thing.
00:13:02.360 Twitter has its own policies.
00:13:04.060 Twitter suspended Bernier's account and pulled the tweet.
00:13:06.960 Twitter made its decision there based on its terms of service.
00:13:10.620 In a free market sense, that's what should have happened.
00:13:12.940 But they want to go one step further.
00:13:16.020 What do they do?
00:13:16.520 Do they want him in handcuffs?
00:13:18.080 Do they want him?
00:13:18.660 What do they want to happen?
00:13:20.180 Do they want to make it illegal to tweet out a reporter's email address and say, tell them
00:13:25.220 what you think?
00:13:27.120 Again, I wouldn't do it because I think it surrenders the moral high ground.
00:13:32.000 But I certainly would not support the criminalization of something like that.
00:13:39.320 And I remember years ago when Section 13 was first under the microscope around the time
00:13:44.900 it was repealed by a private member's bill from Conservative MP Brian Storseth.
00:13:49.260 Most people in the media were very much in favor of free speech.
00:13:53.200 They were against Section 13.
00:13:54.960 They were in favor of it being repealed.
00:13:57.100 And it's scary how a decade later, less than a decade later in fact, the media cabal really
00:14:04.660 doesn't care all that much about free speech.
00:14:07.120 They want to protect their rights.
00:14:08.960 They want to protect their insular freedoms.
00:14:11.460 And this is the problem with the parliamentary press gallery monopoly is that they oftentimes
00:14:15.740 as an organization, I'm not talking about individual reporters, as an organization, they tend to
00:14:20.600 only look inward and focus on their own rights, their own freedoms, without looking at the
00:14:27.860 broader picture.
00:14:29.300 And I've got to give credit where it's due.
00:14:31.100 I've told the story countless times, and I'm going to keep telling it, when I was covering
00:14:34.760 the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London, England in 2019.
00:14:39.840 And Chrystia Freeland said, we're going to let everyone into our press conferences except
00:14:44.120 for Rebel and True North.
00:14:45.860 Sheila Gunn-Reed was there for Rebel.
00:14:47.440 I was there for True North.
00:14:48.620 All of the reporters from the Globe and Mail, CBC, CTV, Al Jazeera, Global News, they all
00:14:55.040 said, we're not covering your stinking press conference unless you accredit everyone.
00:15:00.860 I want to see more of that.
00:15:03.260 And for the most part, I do.
00:15:05.680 I've been treated very well when I was out on the campaign trail covering the conservatives.
00:15:10.060 I had great relationships with a lot of journalists.
00:15:12.440 We worked together.
00:15:13.120 But some of these institutions, these organizations, I don't know if you're familiar with it.
00:15:19.060 John O'Sullivan, who's a fantastic writer, I've interviewed him in the past.
00:15:22.320 I should have him back on.
00:15:23.540 He was a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher.
00:15:26.660 He coined O'Sullivan's first law, in which he said that any institution that is not explicitly
00:15:33.280 right-wing will over time become explicitly left-wing.
00:15:36.940 And it's impossible to come up with a piece of, I mean, even a lot of the so-called right-wing
00:15:42.620 organizations still drift left.
00:15:44.220 But he was tremendously on point with that.
00:15:47.680 And I would say a lot of these journalism organizations are the same.
00:15:50.780 They're made up of journalists who, on an individual level, may be fair and balanced and dedicated.
00:15:55.520 But once they morph into that institution, the institution takes on a mind of its own.
00:16:01.460 And as we're seeing in the CAJ, moves in a direction that fundamentally does not respect
00:16:06.700 the very right on which its members rely to earn a living and to do the work they do.
00:16:13.320 And it's absolutely shameful.
00:16:15.500 We've got to take a break.
00:16:16.440 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:16:19.580 Stay tuned.
00:16:21.800 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:16:26.300 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:16:28.580 Speaking of the RCMP, I have to talk about this story.
00:16:31.280 And also speaking of the media, the RCMP's union is pushing back against the vaccine mandate
00:16:38.280 that Justin Trudeau has promised.
00:16:39.580 He said just the other day, if you have flights booked in the next couple of weeks, you better
00:16:43.900 make sure you're vaccinated because the mandate is coming.
00:16:47.300 That's the message that he's putting forward.
00:16:50.340 And interestingly enough, there was a tweet from Rosemary Barton that I found kind of interesting.
00:16:56.800 Justin Trudeau was doing some photo op at a vaccine clinic and there was a guy getting
00:17:01.800 vaccinated and he told Justin Trudeau he's getting it because he realizes he can't do, I won't 1.00
00:17:08.180 say the word because I don't want to lose our clean tag on iTunes, but you can see it up on the
00:17:11.440 screen there, he can't do crap until he gets it.
00:17:14.540 So that actually is very dangerous for people who are opposing vaccine mandates because there
00:17:20.160 are a lot of people that are like that guy where they're only getting it because they feel
00:17:24.180 the government is forcing them to.
00:17:26.580 But anyway, the RCMP union is pushing back against a vaccine mandate.
00:17:31.460 They say that a police officer should have a right to refuse vaccination.
00:17:35.600 Now, this is a position that most civilized people and most civilized societies would take,
00:17:41.940 that you do not surrender your right to decide what you put in your body.
00:17:46.380 But I want to, I mean, the story itself is pretty standard, but I want to hone in on the
00:17:50.960 way CBC reported on the story.
00:17:53.400 Look at the headline and look at the use of quotation marks.
00:17:56.720 The RCMP union says it supports a Mountie's right to refuse vaccination.
00:18:02.600 And I know they're quoting, but at the same time, they're also making a point when they
00:18:08.860 say that whoever wrote the headline, and oftentimes it's, in fact, usually it's not the reporter
00:18:13.340 itself who writes the reporter themselves who writes the headline, but, but by whoever wrote
00:18:17.200 that headline is trying to say that this is just a made up thing.
00:18:20.500 You don't have a right.
00:18:21.220 They support their right to refuse vaccination.
00:18:24.080 And there's something very revealing in just a couple of small quotation marks.
00:18:28.900 Sheila Gunn-Reed, Sheila's getting a couple of plugs on the show today. 1.00
00:18:32.180 Sheila's a good friend.
00:18:33.280 I do not regret this at all.
00:18:35.180 But she asked on Twitter, why did you put right in scare quotes?
00:18:38.640 It is their right.
00:18:39.560 Yeah, they are the, they are the scare quotes.
00:18:41.460 Those are what you do when you want to terrify someone, which is basically what's happening
00:18:45.300 now.
00:18:45.580 Although in fairness, I do think that we should put some quotation marks in the Canadian
00:18:49.660 Charter of Rights and Freedoms now around rights and freedoms.
00:18:52.700 Doesn't that work?
00:18:53.360 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
00:18:56.580 See, that's how you use scare quotes, CBC.
00:19:00.400 One interesting thing, just before we jump into talking about government pay and public
00:19:05.820 sector pay is the Aaron O'Toole leadership fight.
00:19:09.340 Now, Aaron O'Toole is still gung-ho wanting to hold on to his leadership of the Conservative
00:19:14.220 Party of Canada.
00:19:15.660 And one interesting development in this is that Premier Jason Kenney is supporting Aaron
00:19:22.320 O'Toole still sort of.
00:19:24.860 And I say sort of for a reason that will become apparent in just a moment.
00:19:28.960 Now, to give you a bit of the backstory here, Jason Kenney gave a very, very desirable endorsement
00:19:34.940 to O'Toole during the leadership race last year.
00:19:37.920 Kenney's endorsement likely moved some votes in Alberta, certainly established Aaron O'Toole
00:19:42.900 as being the anti-Peter McKay candidate, which I think is very positive outside of, you know,
00:19:48.340 perhaps Atlantic Canada and maybe a couple of downtown Toronto ridings.
00:19:52.180 And that endorsement from Kenney came with the designation that Aaron O'Toole is the only
00:19:57.920 true blue Conservative.
00:19:59.060 He's the only one that's not going to bring the party to the left.
00:20:01.940 He's solid, rah, rah, rah.
00:20:03.320 So I was interested because I was covering a press conference by Jason Kenney last week
00:20:09.100 in this idea of whether he still supports O'Toole's continued leadership.
00:20:13.960 Here was that exchange.
00:20:15.260 Last year, you endorsed Aaron O'Toole's leadership bid, which we know was ultimately successful
00:20:20.200 for the Conservative Party.
00:20:22.060 After the election results, there have been some calls from within the federal Conservative
00:20:26.140 Party for Aaron O'Toole to step down or certainly people wanting him to lose a leadership
00:20:31.980 review, perhaps.
00:20:33.200 Does he have your support to remain as federal Conservative leader still?
00:20:37.960 I think that a party like the Federal Conservatives should maintain stability.
00:20:45.280 You know, I was part of Prime Minister Harper's Conservative Party when he lost the 2004 election.
00:20:50.560 Many people were disappointed.
00:20:51.580 He went on to become Prime Minister and form a very effective government for the next decade.
00:20:56.720 So I think constantly changing leaders doesn't create a public confidence.
00:21:06.140 And I think, you know, to be a leader as Mr. O'Toole has tried to be in the context of
00:21:11.900 the pandemic is especially challenging to get your message out, to meet Canadians, to get
00:21:15.300 to be known.
00:21:16.480 So I'm sure that Aaron is going to work with his team to identify things that could have
00:21:22.160 been done better in this campaign and the lead up to it, to listen to Grassroots Party
00:21:27.540 members.
00:21:28.480 But I think the immediate instinct to remove a leader after a disappointing election outcome
00:21:35.640 just creates constant instability.
00:21:38.560 I've played this for a few different people.
00:21:41.800 And it's interesting how people take different things from it.
00:21:45.240 So when I heard that, I was thinking it was very tacit.
00:21:48.700 He didn't talk about anything objectively about O'Toole that he thinks makes him deserving
00:21:52.920 of staying on.
00:21:53.760 There was even that one line about O'Toole trying to be a leader.
00:21:57.920 And at the same time, he seems to emphasize continuity and stability more than, yeah, Aaron
00:22:03.160 O'Toole has a lot to be proud of and he should carry on.
00:22:06.120 Now, other people have heard that and say, yeah, he's supporting O'Toole.
00:22:09.340 He's saying that O'Toole should remain on.
00:22:11.560 So I'll let you figure out what he means.
00:22:13.920 I don't want to start parsing words and saying, oh, well, you know, it sounded like there
00:22:17.140 was a comma there and that changes the meaning of it.
00:22:19.560 But certainly it wasn't gung-ho.
00:22:21.480 It wasn't an enthusiastic support, which I found interesting.
00:22:25.580 However, there's another angle to this, which is that Jason Kenney is facing calls for his
00:22:31.700 own ousting from the leadership of the United Conservative Party.
00:22:35.820 So I understand him not wanting to decide to be on team, let's dethrone the leader right
00:22:41.880 about now.
00:22:42.380 He's had two MLAs in his caucus, Lila Ahir and Angela Pitt, within the last week that
00:22:47.840 have said they do not have confidence in his leadership.
00:22:50.940 They've not been kicked out just yet.
00:22:53.380 But when Todd Lowen and Drew Barnes said very similar things a few months back, they were
00:22:58.640 gone in very short order.
00:23:00.140 And the UCP has actually moved up its leadership review.
00:23:04.140 They were supposed to have one in the fall, wherein United Conservative Party members in
00:23:08.700 Alberta could vote to oust Jason Kenney as leader.
00:23:12.440 That was going to be in the fall.
00:23:13.720 Now they've moved it up to the spring by popular demand.
00:23:17.460 Now, in fairness, this is something that's constitutionally mandated.
00:23:20.660 It's not because they're wanting to get rid of Jason Kenney that they're doing this,
00:23:25.480 but there is a lot of interest and a lot of demand for doing it more quickly and doing
00:23:31.220 it sooner.
00:23:31.940 So that is reflective of a demand in the UCP.
00:23:36.300 So we will certainly be following that and I'll be out there in April in Edmonton.
00:23:41.660 Not that April in Edmonton is still winter, I think, by Edmonton standards.
00:23:45.800 So I'll dress warmly, but I will be there.
00:23:47.600 I will be covering that for you as that nears.
00:23:50.840 I want to turn to one topic that always is unchanging.
00:23:54.820 Another one of these dog bites man topics, but I still think one worth talking about, 1.00
00:23:59.020 and that is public sector pay on the rise.
00:24:01.700 And specifically in this context, public sector pay not on the decline.
00:24:05.820 A lot of Canadians dealt with pay freezes or pay cuts or job losses over the pandemic.
00:24:11.060 In the private sector, the public sector pretty immune from that, even as the tax base shrinks
00:24:17.160 and other austerity measures come into play.
00:24:20.380 I want to talk about a new report from our friends over at secondstreet.org.
00:24:23.700 COVID has led to pay cuts in business, but no government has cut pay.
00:24:28.700 Colin Craig is the president and joins me now.
00:24:31.360 Colin, good to talk to you.
00:24:32.340 Thanks for coming on as always.
00:24:34.380 Well, thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:24:36.140 So explain this.
00:24:37.500 We've seen for the last year and a half, businesses that have been forced by government
00:24:41.240 fiat to shut down.
00:24:42.760 We've had a lot of insecurity in the private sector on jobs,
00:24:46.540 yet none of that insecurity and uncertainty has made its way to the public sector.
00:24:51.520 Yeah, that's basically it.
00:24:53.660 As the pandemic emerged, we saw all these news stories about various businesses in many
00:24:57.880 industries struggling and having no choice but to cut back on compensation.
00:25:02.840 Everything from Chrysler in the automotive sector to oil and gas companies to entertainment
00:25:09.700 companies like Cineplex, CFL teams.
00:25:12.400 There were so many different stories.
00:25:13.960 We thought, well, wait a second.
00:25:14.920 You know, there's one sector here that's missing, and that's the government.
00:25:17.720 And so it got us thinking, you know, when was the last time that governments actually
00:25:22.020 cut employee pay?
00:25:23.140 And so we filed these requests right across the country to ask that question.
00:25:27.360 I know that we haven't yet seen the totality of the financial toll that COVID has taken.
00:25:33.800 And I include in that not just the pandemic itself, but also the lockdowns and restrictions
00:25:38.140 and whatnot.
00:25:39.220 But one thing that we know is that the private sector has to be responsive to the market.
00:25:43.380 If your business goes down, you don't have enough money to keep your staff and you don't
00:25:47.220 need as many staff.
00:25:48.480 In the case of government, we know from all of these business losses that the tax base
00:25:52.480 had to shrink, at least in some way.
00:25:54.640 But that same responsiveness to revenue, to inflow, isn't there with government.
00:26:00.580 No, it's not.
00:26:01.360 Because governments just look at your kids and mine. 0.55
00:26:04.160 They just rack up tons and tons of debt rather than saying, hey, wait a second.
00:26:09.000 You know, we got to curtail spending a bit.
00:26:10.840 I don't think too many Canadians would say the government shouldn't have done anything
00:26:14.980 in terms of relief in that.
00:26:16.360 I think most people would agree that that was necessary.
00:26:18.860 But just the overall largesse, there was no restraint on the government's part.
00:26:23.780 So you had lots of people in the private sector taking pay reductions.
00:26:27.900 And as our research found, really nothing in government.
00:26:32.460 You know, the federal government told us that they don't have any records of ever cutting
00:26:36.460 employee pay, never mind during the pandemic, never at all.
00:26:40.840 That's what they told us.
00:26:42.280 Or if it did happen, it went so far back that everyone's forgotten and no one has any record
00:26:46.300 of it.
00:26:47.740 Provincially, pretty much across the country, provinces had no records on any kind of pay
00:26:54.060 reductions.
00:26:54.680 The last pay reduction seemed to have happened in the 1990s, which, you know, if you think
00:26:59.260 about that, that's over 20 years ago now since there's been any real wage restraint in
00:27:04.060 government at the provincial level.
00:27:06.320 Well, the one example that we did find was Manitoba, where employees were required to
00:27:11.000 take five unpaid days off, which isn't the same as a pay cut, because with a pay cut,
00:27:16.300 you still do the same amount of work.
00:27:17.880 You just make less doing it.
00:27:19.860 So that was one example provincially.
00:27:22.000 And then at the city level, we saw that in Mississauga, they had four positions that will
00:27:27.400 receive a pay reduction, but it's not for current employees, it's for future employees.
00:27:32.380 So the bottom line is out of millions and millions of government employees covered by our
00:27:36.300 information requests, there were no pay cuts.
00:27:39.080 And when you talk about how far back this goes, yeah, it's possible that, you know, in 1927,
00:27:45.260 the fisheries department took, you know, took a pay cut in some way.
00:27:48.680 But we're talking about overwhelmingly a compensation that's only ever rising and never going back,
00:27:54.400 even when the economy itself retreats, it sounds like.
00:27:58.060 Yeah, basically.
00:27:58.860 I mean, we fundamentally have two different societies when it comes to working in this country.
00:28:04.860 You have those outside of government who, as you alluded to, have to face the ups and downs
00:28:10.040 of the market.
00:28:11.040 Companies have to respond.
00:28:12.540 They have to compete.
00:28:13.540 They have to be responsible.
00:28:14.740 They can't just rack up enormous amounts of debt to not worry about how they're going
00:28:19.980 to pay for it.
00:28:21.040 And then on the other side of the equation is government.
00:28:24.600 And government.
00:28:27.220 And I mean, there's been hundreds of thousands of employees in government who actually received
00:28:32.080 pay increases during the pandemic.
00:28:34.860 In some cases, those were contracts that had been signed before the pandemic hit.
00:28:40.360 But in other cases, you had the government out signing new contracts with pay increases
00:28:44.580 during the pandemic.
00:28:45.520 And the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, found that over 300,000 federal employees alone
00:28:51.340 received a pay increase during the pandemic.
00:28:53.340 So it's really two different worlds.
00:28:55.160 And I think it's fair when people ask that question, how is this fair for everyday working
00:29:01.960 people who are having to face these tough economic times, and yet they're paying for
00:29:07.400 people in government who don't really have to face it?
00:29:09.720 I do get the question of fairness, but if you're a public sector worker who signed up to work
00:29:16.620 for whatever department or whatever municipality under a certain set of circumstances, I can
00:29:21.420 understand you listening to this interview right now and saying, well, hang on, why does
00:29:25.400 other people's suffering have to become my suffering?
00:29:27.960 I mean, isn't there an argument that instead of trying to be doing this race to the bottom,
00:29:31.980 we could try to remove some of these barriers that were preventing the public sector from
00:29:36.080 having prosperity or the private sector, rather?
00:29:39.220 Yeah, and I think we have to ask the question, well, when would the public sector ever have
00:29:43.420 to feel the pinch?
00:29:45.560 If not now, during a downturn when everyone else is and they're the ones who are struggling
00:29:50.040 to put food on their tables and they're also having to pay for pay increases and those in
00:29:56.320 government to not ever be affected, it doesn't seem like a fair argument to say that those
00:30:01.880 in government should never have their belts tightened.
00:30:04.860 And to be fair, it's not the case that there's never any restraint.
00:30:08.360 You will see pay freezes in government.
00:30:12.500 You will see that from time to time, but it's the actual pay cut, a 5% cut, a 10% pay cut,
00:30:18.960 whatever it is, it's just, it's really become unheard of in government.
00:30:23.020 Like I say, the last examples that we identified went back to the 1990s in Ontario.
00:30:28.260 They had Ray Days, which is similar to what I talked about with what Manitoba did, where
00:30:32.100 they had unpaid days.
00:30:33.760 They did do that up to 12 unpaid days.
00:30:36.100 Manitoba did something similar.
00:30:37.880 In Alberta, they did a 5% pay reduction.
00:30:41.160 PEI did something, I believe it was in the late 90s too.
00:30:43.600 So you did see those examples in the 90s and at the provincial level, but really it's been
00:30:48.140 a totally different world since the 90s.
00:30:50.780 And you have this sort of two society state where you have those in government who really
00:30:56.240 are not affected by what's happening in the outside world.
00:30:59.800 And then those in the outside world, people in private sector and nonprofits and that,
00:31:03.140 that quite often do have to feel the pinch.
00:31:06.400 And how did the underlying circumstances that led to that austerity in the 90s compare to
00:31:12.560 the challenges in the last year and a half?
00:31:15.520 You know, that's a very good question.
00:31:16.660 My guess would be that it would pale in comparison to what we're facing today.
00:31:20.880 I mean, you look at the federal government alone, they racked up hundreds and hundreds
00:31:24.340 of billions of dollars in debt in one year alone, simply to pay for the pandemic.
00:31:30.500 A lot of provinces are back swimming in debt again.
00:31:34.220 So there's a lot of very tough financial situations out there.
00:31:38.320 And I think really what people might want to reflect on is this.
00:31:42.180 How do we address this situation we're in?
00:31:44.040 We've got governments spending way more than what they're bringing in in revenues.
00:31:48.260 And that is not sustainable.
00:31:49.880 So how do you deal with it?
00:31:51.540 And often governments present two scenarios.
00:31:53.580 They say we either cut services or we raise taxes.
00:31:57.680 Now, I think a lot of the services that Canadians receive from governments, they probably wouldn't
00:32:02.540 want those cut. 0.93
00:32:03.580 Policing, health care, people fixing roads and bridges.
00:32:06.300 And then on the other end of the equation, you've got raising taxes.
00:32:11.100 No one wants to see taxes go up right now because that would hurt a lot of families that are
00:32:14.880 struggling and a lot of businesses that are struggling.
00:32:17.480 So you often hear these two scenarios.
00:32:19.580 There is a third.
00:32:20.220 And that is to do a better job with the revenues that governments have right now.
00:32:24.260 And one thing they can do is cut salaries back a little bit, cut pensions back a little bit,
00:32:30.400 you know, bring the compensation packages back down to size so that they're more fair with
00:32:34.800 what people in outside government are receiving for the same type of work.
00:32:38.560 And that's one way you can ensure the services continue.
00:32:41.100 It's just done a little bit more cost effectively.
00:32:43.180 I know this was a multi-government level project on your part.
00:32:49.020 You went across the country, federal, provincial, municipal.
00:32:51.600 What were the standout examples, really the worst examples, either for lack of transparency
00:32:56.480 or just for how little in the way of restraint they were exhibiting?
00:33:02.160 You know, that's a very good question.
00:33:03.860 A lot of governments didn't even know when the last time was that they reduced pay.
00:33:09.540 You know, like I said, Ottawa told us they don't have any records of ever doing that.
00:33:12.600 I believe it was New Brunswick as well that did that.
00:33:18.260 You know, in Calgary, Calgary is a city that has been struggling for a good five or six years
00:33:23.560 now because of the oil and gas downturn especially.
00:33:27.360 And they gave us data going back to the 1970s showing that there has been no pay cuts at all,
00:33:33.220 zero.
00:33:34.400 And so there's a lot of examples like that where we know that different parts of the country
00:33:39.340 have struggled economically.
00:33:41.020 And you can see that governments just kind of sailed right through, that there was no
00:33:45.420 wage restraint whatsoever.
00:33:47.440 And I think ultimately the big picture is that we see these studies from the Canadian
00:33:51.560 Federation of Independent Business, from the Fraser Institute and others that show this
00:33:56.300 compensation gap.
00:33:57.320 Government employees making more in terms of their total compensation than people outside
00:34:01.960 of government doing similar work.
00:34:03.320 And so the end result is this, you have everyday taxpayers that have to pay more for those
00:34:09.440 in government to make this higher compensation level.
00:34:13.660 So, you know, the end result is it costs everyday people more in taxes.
00:34:18.560 And I, you know, to be clear, I wouldn't look at the everyday worker in government and say,
00:34:25.540 well, this is their fault.
00:34:26.420 I mean, most people just go to work and they want to put in an honest day's work and get
00:34:30.180 a good paycheck for it.
00:34:31.660 But it's ultimately elected officials and governments that agree to these contracts and
00:34:35.480 they've let these compensation levels run away from what would be competitive.
00:34:40.660 Yeah, and I think it's also important, and I know it's outside the scope of this report,
00:34:45.780 but to look at the general imbalance between public and private sector pay for the same
00:34:51.040 jobs in general, because this is something I know other research has shown is already
00:34:55.820 an area where there's a significant gap.
00:34:58.440 So the public sector employees for the same job in the private sector are making more and
00:35:02.860 pensions.
00:35:03.660 I mean, we could go on all day with this, but I'm glad you've done the work on this.
00:35:06.780 SecondStreet.org has the new report, finding no evidence of any major governments dropping
00:35:12.060 pay despite private sector businesses having to do that or just shut down altogether.
00:35:17.140 Colin Craig, SecondStreet's president, joins us now.
00:35:19.700 Thanks so much for coming on, Colin.
00:35:21.200 Well, thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:35:22.640 And if any of your viewers or listeners would like to actually see their government responses,
00:35:27.420 they're all on our website.
00:35:28.260 They can see them for themselves.
00:35:30.240 Perfect.
00:35:30.680 And we'll put it up on the screen there right now.
00:35:32.880 Thanks very much.
00:35:33.500 We'll talk to you soon, Colin.
00:35:34.700 Thanks again.
00:35:35.180 That was Colin Craig.
00:35:37.180 Like I said, the sun rises, the sun sets, public sector pay goes up, private sector pay goes
00:35:41.600 down.
00:35:41.940 Some things are unchanging, but you still need reminders of that from time to time.
00:35:46.240 We have to end things there.
00:35:47.720 My thanks to all of you for tuning in to the show today.
00:35:50.940 And do check out the Canada Strong and Free Conference on Saturday featuring yours truly
00:35:55.820 and many better people.
00:35:58.140 I mean, if you're signing up just for me, great.
00:35:59.960 But there are other reasons.
00:36:00.980 So at least check out the website and see who's there.
00:36:03.720 We'll talk to you soon.
00:36:05.240 Thank you.
00:36:05.700 God bless and good day to you all.
00:36:07.880 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:36:09.720 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.