Juno News - Liberals mock those who care about foreign interference

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:05.560 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.920 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.320 This is The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:19.780 It is Thursday and as you can see, not in the usual digs.

00:00:23.700 Hopefully next week we'll go back to a bit more programming normalcy.

00:00:28.040 But I'm actually in Ottawa right now.

00:00:30.060 Nothing to do with foreign interference.

00:00:32.040 I'm not having any, you know, clandestine meetings with the Chinese embassy or anything like that.

00:00:36.340 Not that I know of anyway.

00:00:37.620 But I am here for the book launch that I had last night.

00:00:41.200 No, no, no, sorry.

00:00:41.900 It wasn't a book launch because we held it in a room on Parliament Hill.

00:00:46.200 And there's a rule that you can't have a book launch, but you can have a book reception.

00:00:49.500 So we had a book reception, which looks a lot like a book launch, but totally not a book launch.

00:00:55.920 But in any event, it is good to talk to you here.

00:00:59.580 And I appreciate all the news that has been happening as I've been on the road.

00:01:03.960 I've been trying to desperately keep up with it.

00:01:05.880 But we did start a little bit earlier in the week delving into this foreign interference report from NSICOP or NSICOP.

00:01:13.200 I hear both pronunciations.

00:01:14.740 This is a report that came from multiple members of Parliament who are cleared for top secret intelligence.

00:01:21.280 And they found the extent of foreign interference was, I would argue, far worse than what most Canadians were aware of.

00:01:29.560 It isn't just China.

00:01:30.800 It's Iran. 0.91

00:01:31.400 It's India. 0.76

00:01:31.980 Other redacted countries.

00:01:33.340 But the key part here is not that these countries are trying to interfere and, in many cases, succeeding in interfering in our democracy.

00:01:40.220 The issue is that Canadian parliamentarians, MPs, and senators are wittingly, as the report says, wittingly ceding their national pride, their patriotism, their obligation, their oath to Canada.

00:01:52.960 They are wittingly throwing that to the curb as they serve the interests of foreign countries. 1.00

00:01:58.180 Now, this goes far beyond the naivete of, oh, maybe, as I will say a little bit in an interview, I'm sure, this goes far beyond the naivete that some people have of just getting a little extra help from someone with maybe some curious connections that they don't really know about.

00:02:12.700 These are people that know what they're doing and are willingly doing it.

00:02:16.840 And the report that has come out is protecting these people.

00:02:20.260 So far, no one is naming names.

00:02:22.740 Ms. Chrystia Freeland is not naming names and had this to say when asked about why the government won't. 0.97

00:02:29.460 Matters of criminal charges have to be left to law enforcement agencies.

00:02:32.960 But since we don't know who these MPs are that have been alleged to help foreign state actors, can you give any guarantee to Canadians that if they are liberals, they will be removed from caucus?

00:02:42.060 The guarantee I can give to Canadians is our government takes foreign interference very, very seriously.

00:02:53.740 I'm not, I'm just going to say personally, yeah, we and I are very grateful to this committee for its serious and thoughtful work.

00:03:03.060 It's an issue about the fight between democracy and authoritarianism.

00:03:08.160 And that is absolutely the way that our government does and will continue to approach it.

00:03:15.040 And I want to reemphasize, we take very seriously the role of law enforcement.

00:03:24.720 Sorry, the question was, are you going to kick people who have been collaborating with foreign governments out of your caucus?

00:03:33.760 The answer was, I am very grateful to the committee.

00:03:38.500 We take this very seriously.

00:03:40.080 This is like the old joke that I shared after I watched an Erin O'Toole press conference.

00:03:44.800 And I said, next time my wife asked me if I did the dishes, I'll just say, I value clean dishes.

00:03:49.480 And it's imperative that the dishes we eat off of are clean or something.

00:03:52.560 This is, I think, so fascinating to me.

00:03:55.440 Sean Fraser, I won't play the clip because I don't feel like listening to him again.

00:03:59.440 But he was asked about this, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, whenever it was.

00:04:04.380 And he gave the answer that, no, no, no, we can't name the names because then people would know how to interfere in our democracy.

00:04:13.040 Yes, I guess by knowing who's for sale, you'd know if you hear the names.

00:04:16.400 But you need to name the names.

00:04:18.080 This is not at all controversial.

00:04:19.940 Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat, Bloc Québécois, Green, I do not care.

00:04:24.160 These are people who are selling out their country.

00:04:27.560 Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev has called on the government to name names.

00:04:31.360 Mr. Speaker, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians has indicated that members of this House purposely helped hostile foreign actors.

00:04:50.700 Canadians have a right to know who and what the information was.

00:04:55.760 The National Security Committee indicates there are members of this House that have knowingly worked for foreign hostile governments.

00:05:03.660 Canadians have a right to know who and what is the information.

00:05:06.640 Who are they?

00:05:08.620 The Honourable Minister of Public Safety.

00:05:11.000 Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows very well that no government, including the government of which he was a member, is going to discuss particularities of intelligence information publicly, so he knows better than that.

00:05:24.240 But the good news, Mr. Speaker, is if he wanted to get the appropriate security clearance and be able to see the confidential report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, he would be much more informed than he is now.

00:05:39.100 And we would invite him to do so, so he wouldn't stand up and cast aspersions on the floor of the House of Commons without any information whatsoever.

00:05:46.880 Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

00:06:16.880 Mr. Speaker, Justin Trudeau's best buddy, Jamit Singh, has called on the government to name names.

00:06:22.700 Will the Whitting MPs who may have colluded with a foreign state be named?

00:06:26.980 And should those names be public?

00:06:29.320 Well, there absolutely needs to be additional steps.

00:06:31.980 The fact that the Prime Minister has known about this has done nothing.

00:06:34.680 And the fact that the Conservative Party leader, Pierre Polyev, doesn't want to know about this is deeply troubling.

00:06:41.120 What we want to see happen is next steps.

00:06:42.580 So let's see the next.

00:06:45.440 First of all, moving forward, what should happen?

00:06:47.560 There should be an investigation.

00:06:49.840 Charges should be brought forward.

00:06:51.680 Due process should be followed.

00:06:53.100 But there can't just be an ignoring of what are very serious allegations.

00:06:56.880 And so far, that seems to be the approach of Justin Trudeau and Pierre Polyev.

00:07:00.440 Can you say confidently that none of those MPs are in your caucus or have been in an NDP caucus federally?

00:07:06.940 I have no reason to believe in no evidence in front of me.

00:07:09.700 And I've heard no information that in any way suggests new Democrat members of Parliament.

00:07:15.040 But I want to get more information.

00:07:16.120 That's why I requested a classified briefing.

00:07:18.460 I will be receiving that briefing and looking at that information to confirm that.

00:07:22.540 I'm inclined to agree with Jagmeet Singh, by the way.

00:07:26.340 I actually don't think any new Democrat members of Parliament are implicated in this.

00:07:29.980 Not because I think that they're the most incredibly patriotic people, but because if you are trying to interfere in democracy, I feel that going after a new Democrat member of Parliament is like the lowest return on investment.

00:07:41.320 Like they have no power, they're irrelevant.

00:07:43.540 So the idea of like you would get fired as a foreign agent at the Chinese embassy, I think, if you like deployed your capital to win over, you know, Nikki Ashton or Charlie Angus or something like that, because that is not going to help you, you know, take over Canada.

00:07:57.040 But anyway, neither here nor there.

00:07:58.680 The point is that you have now a cross-partisan condemnation of the way the government is handling this.

00:08:03.320 And I think the reason the Liberals are not disclosing this is because they know the bulk, if not all, of the names on that list are from within their own caucus.

00:08:12.400 But it's not even that they're not committing to naming names.

00:08:15.640 They're not even committing to expelling people who have been acting for foreign governments from their caucus if they are Liberals.

00:08:23.780 That tells you everything.

00:08:25.100 And now they're saying, oh, it's the police that have to look after it.

00:08:27.660 Now, the RCMP said this very vague, weird roundabout statement saying, yes, you know, there are some accusations that have to do with democratic institutions and we're on it.

00:08:37.820 And yeah, the RCMP, they're going to be on it like they were on SNC-Lavalin.

00:08:41.320 They're going to be on it like they were on all of these other things.

00:08:43.840 I'm absolutely sure.

00:08:45.800 The takeaway from all of this is that things have gotten far worse in this country than I think we even realized.

00:08:52.300 And then even a lot of the reporting we saw on this from Global News and from the Globe and Mail suggested the gentleman I wanted to bring in on this is Sam Cooper, who has been one of the actually the biggest and most prominent and prolific journalist on this issue since the get go on this.

00:09:09.240 Formerly my colleague at Global News and now he's doing great work over at the Bureau.

00:09:14.220 Sam Cooper joins me.

00:09:15.640 Sam, good to talk to you.

00:09:16.520 Thanks for coming on today.

00:09:18.080 Thanks for having me.

00:09:19.140 Now, obviously, none of these revelations are good for the country.

00:09:22.420 But there must be a bit of indication on your part, because I know you were facing when you were reporting on this many months ago, criticism and people downplaying it.

00:09:30.960 And here we are finding, no, it was actually worse than a lot of people thought.

00:09:35.300 Yeah, Andrew.

00:09:36.220 I mean, it's an interesting situation.

00:09:38.320 What we reported at Global News, as you say, has been confirmed 100 percent accurate.

00:09:43.120 That doesn't stop, you know, certain lawsuits from occurring.

00:09:48.480 And so the situation here is you're right.

00:09:51.900 It's worse than we reported.

00:09:54.060 It's worse than the Globe and Mail reported.

00:09:56.220 And I currently have information, you know, about names and situations, things that would shock Canadians.

00:10:03.620 And I agree with the calls in Parliament that names should be named.

00:10:08.760 The RCMP should be investigating.

00:10:11.080 There should be, you know, criminal investigations underway.

00:10:14.960 And yet the first thing I'd like to stress is, you know, the lawsuits, lawyers, politicians, business people behind them can stand in the way of our democracy.

00:10:25.240 So I think that's an important issue for Canadians to understand.

00:10:28.780 The word that everyone seized on from the NCICOP report, and I think justifiably so, was wittingly.

00:10:34.820 So these are not people that were too naive to realize that maybe a busload of volunteers that showed up on their campaign might have been involved in some foreign state.

00:10:44.320 These are people who knowingly were collaborating.

00:10:47.640 And does that, I mean, because that's the part that I think is so very damaging here.

00:10:52.280 These are people that, as again, this report, this cross-partisan report shows, were actively working against Canada, while in some cases being parliamentarians.

00:11:02.120 Yeah, that's the whole point.

00:11:04.000 And, you know, to unpack the thinking and the reporting, this is why Canadian officials had to risk their careers, risk their freedoms,

00:11:13.600 because they could face prosecutions for coming to me with classified information, both in document form and verbally,

00:11:23.140 saying that the government at the highest levels, not just Justin Trudeau, but this has been happening for a while.

00:11:29.620 Certainly, in my view, some politicians are more implicated than others.

00:11:33.300 But the Liberal Party right now faces, you know, the responsibility that they've been warned for years, that their party especially was implicated.

00:11:43.160 But it was much broader.

00:11:44.760 All politicians are targeted in both houses, as we just heard in the NSI COP bombshell review.

00:11:52.520 And yet this government, others prior, haven't done enough, but this government is especially implicated.

00:11:58.200 So, yes, what I reported at Global News was some, you know, candidates were believed by intelligence to be wittingly receiving benefits,

00:12:09.960 campaign support, funds from the Chinese Communist Party.

00:12:13.520 That's why they were called part of a loosely coordinated network.

00:12:17.060 And so some other politicians, semi-witting, some perhaps not witting.

00:12:21.580 But again, you know, that if you take that, you're wittingly receiving benefits from a foreign state. 0.92

00:12:26.960 And I'll add the proxies involved are much worse than officials.

00:12:31.340 They're involved in very deeply concerning activities in Canada.

00:12:35.080 You take those benefits, of course.

00:12:37.420 It's the unescapable inference that you're going to be doing something back.

00:12:42.380 And that is being used as a puppet in the legislature.

00:12:45.140 That's why, you know, Canadians are freshly shocked with these new revelations.

00:12:49.020 I was sharing some clips earlier in the show of, you know, now the NDP and Conservatives saying release the names and the Liberals hemming and hawing about it.

00:12:57.360 But there's a lot of buck passing going on.

00:12:59.420 You have the committee saying, no, no, no, we aren't able to release names.

00:13:02.920 You've got the government now saying, no, no, no, police have to deal with this.

00:13:06.400 Not, I mean, who has the authority to do this?

00:13:09.060 Who has the authority to just release the names?

00:13:11.120 Unfortunately, you know, I don't believe, barring another set of leaks, it's quite possible that names won't be released.

00:13:20.360 Or we may be into a situation with what happened with the Winnipeg Lab, where people quite clearly could see something very bad was happening within the lab.

00:13:29.820 The opposition parties were saying to the government, you know, release the details.

00:13:34.160 Canadians need to know.

00:13:35.440 The government was fighting that.

00:13:36.760 And so there was a compromise, you know, legally, there was a special little black box created where certain information was released.

00:13:45.740 And, you know, then CSIS documents came out with some names, of course, redacted, but Canadians found more.

00:13:53.700 Maybe that's the situation that occurred here.

00:13:55.680 But we're in a real Gordian knot, because as my reporting has revealed from November 2022, Canada lacks the laws to really prosecute politically sensitive cases.

00:14:06.760 Right.

00:14:06.980 This is why we're in this bind.

00:14:09.180 And yet, as I've reported for the Bureau this week, you know, maybe the most powerful finding of that NSICOP report is they said Justin Trudeau was told in 2019 by NSICOP, you need to follow Australia, get a registry, work on the CSIS Act, the RCMP Act, so we can counter this deeply damaging and increasing foreign interference. 0.55

00:14:31.480 And NSICOP said this week, Justin Trudeau didn't act and it's a serious failure that could harm Canada for years.

00:14:40.040 So, you know, if you ask me, to me, it's the names are important, but what's more important is we need laws to empower the RCMP and CSIS.

00:14:48.380 We need an independent anti-corruption agency that could actually prosecute people working for foreign governments.

00:14:54.240 And, you know, Canadians should be saying, give us the names, but give us the laws.

00:14:59.620 Yeah, I think that's an important point here, because sure, they could be kicked out of caucus conceivably, or maybe they don't run for re-election.

00:15:05.700 But that is not enough of a consequence for someone who is effectively, to be blunt here, selling out their country or betraying their country in this way.

00:15:14.820 And I wanted to ask you about some of those countries here, because obviously the report names the ones that we all talk about in the context of foreign interference often, specifically China, Iran and India.

00:15:24.600 But there are other countries that are implicated that are not named, that are redacted.

00:15:29.180 And are these just open secrets in the community?

00:15:32.060 And why are they not being named?

00:15:33.400 Why are they being given the benefit of protection here by the committee, in your view?

00:15:37.900 Well, in my view, you know, my reporting, including accessing the 2019 classified Canadian eyes only NSI cop report that told Mr. Trudeau, you need to do something about these countries.

00:15:49.720 After I reported that India was named very prominently in that 2019 document, now, you know, Justice Hoag's commission, following my reporting at the Bureau, had to say, give us the information on India.

00:16:02.940 So I would say, without, you know, patting my back too much, my work made India be exposed in that way.

00:16:09.820 You know, before people were saying Russia is the big actor.

00:16:12.820 Now we know China and India.

00:16:14.140 So to your question, who are those redacted countries, you know, if I'm looking at the 2019 precedent document from NSI cop, you know, a major report on foreign interference, I would say Pakistan, very likely the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and perhaps, you know, some other Middle Eastern oriented states, quite possibly Iran would be named in that document.

00:16:38.400 And why is that important, you know, Andrew, for people that follow the Bureau, they know, I've been reporting, it hasn't made its way to other media yet, very much, I don't think, that organized crime is centrally used as a tool by these hostile states to attack our diasporas that came to Canada for freedoms, that want to vote for who they'd like to vote, but they're being intimidated to vote for what, you know, thug, hostile state countries want them to do in Canada.

00:17:06.180 So why do you think the committee is protecting those countries then I mean, because if you really delve into it, a lot of the time identifying the country helps you identify the person involved and you can because you know, a lot of the times, which politicians have connections to which diaspora communities and that's not to say that there's there's a necessary guilt there.

00:17:28.020 But I also wonder if they're hiding the countries because doing so really obscures the people a bit more.

00:17:34.900 Yeah, you know, there's all kinds of, you know, obfuscation or dark reasons that could be going on.

00:17:41.260 I'm just speculating today because it doesn't make sense to me.

00:17:44.840 Look, if the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is in that document, why at this point, why are you hiding that from the Canadian people?

00:17:51.480 I don't know that, but it's quite possible.

00:17:54.680 I'm told by my sources that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been very active in a dangerous way, you know, in, you know, sending agents into Canada.

00:18:04.260 So that, you know, brings up the case of why didn't Canadians know for for for a few years that Indian agents using organized crime or Chinese agents using organized crime were targeting our diasporas.

00:18:16.180 So why aren't these other countries that are, you know, less powerful, less involved in the diasporas than China and India named?

00:18:24.780 Who knows, you know, if I have to guess right now and don't hold me to it, you know, maybe there are trade issues that would make sense.

00:18:31.920 You know, arms deals.

00:18:33.400 I don't know.

00:18:34.040 Just count the number of reasons.

00:18:35.400 It could be anything.

00:18:36.800 I just apologize.

00:18:38.000 I'm in a hotel right now.

00:18:39.100 So if you hear construction above me, it was a very inopportune timing to you and the listeners.

00:18:43.380 One of the things that jumps out to me and I go back to your point about lacking the means to prosecute these things is that we have an election coming up in a little over a year and sure, maybe public awareness about this will help a little bit, you know, politicians will be a little bit more on guard.

00:19:03.700 But if you haven't actually changed the legal mechanisms to what you were saying, Sam, we aren't really in any better position to protect against this moving forward, are we?

00:19:13.880 Not at all.

00:19:15.140 Again, you know, let me stress very clearly.

00:19:17.780 When the Bureau launched last June, my very first story said Justin Trudeau's administration has been firmly warned by NSICOP, recommended.

00:19:27.480 You need a foreign agent registry like Australia, the UK now, America has. 0.53

00:19:33.080 You need to empower the RCMP to go after, you know, people involved, whether they're politicians or proxies for other states.

00:19:41.560 What came out of that NSICOP report this week is that, sure, we know these are deeply concerning cases.

00:19:48.680 You know, I could read the list.

00:19:50.140 Politicians allegedly knowingly receiving money laundering like transactions, acting for other governments once they receive campaign support.

00:19:58.200 So these should be crimes in a real, you know, let me just not let's don't sugarcoat it.

00:20:03.300 These are crimes in a real modern state, but not in Canada.

00:20:06.520 So we're not in a better position at all.

00:20:08.980 And again, this isn't partisan at all.

00:20:10.840 The evidence is Justin Trudeau should have acted and he didn't.

00:20:14.480 That's what NSICOP said this week.

00:20:16.480 I'm not, you know, born as a critic or of Justin Trudeau.

00:20:20.860 That's the evidence.

00:20:21.860 And, you know, for if Mr. Poliev wins the next election, he had better take the lesson.

00:20:27.400 When intelligence tells you your laws need to change, you'd better do it or it's dereliction of duty in my view.

00:20:32.700 Well, you do a tremendous work at the Bureau and it's be oftentimes trickles a few weeks later into other media outlets.

00:20:39.420 But wait, don't don't don't wait unnecessarily.

00:20:41.780 Just read it at the Bureau first, everyone.

00:20:43.760 Sam Cooper.

00:20:44.820 And also, I would recommend checking out Sam Cooper's book, Willful Blindness.

00:20:49.380 Sam, appreciate you coming on.

00:20:50.500 Very good work on this.

00:20:51.860 Great.

00:20:52.140 Thanks, Andrew.

00:20:53.120 Thank you.

00:20:53.960 Thanks again to Sam Cooper for coming on the show.

00:20:57.200 And again, just to drive home the point I made earlier about how the Liberal government is not taking this seriously.

00:21:03.280 This morning, this was all being discussed at committee.

00:21:06.260 And I chanced upon this tweet from Mercedes Stevenson, a great journalist who shares that Jennifer O'Connell,

00:21:14.400 the Liberal member of Parliament, was telling Conservatives who are concerned about this, quote,

00:21:19.420 Now, this is a heckle, so I don't know if the quality of the clip is good enough to share with you here.

00:21:28.620 But the reality is, this is, I think, the dismissive attitude we're seeing about something that Canadians should be taking incredibly, incredibly seriously.

00:21:38.320 I want to get some political response to this.

00:21:40.240 We'll also talk about this capital gains tax hike that doesn't seem to be materializing.

00:21:45.400 Adam Chambers, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Simcoe North, joins me now.

00:21:49.720 Adam, good to talk to you.

00:21:50.580 Thanks for coming on the show today.

00:21:52.600 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:21:53.980 You've been in Parliament for a few years now, and I know the foreign interference issue has continued to rise in terms of prominence.

00:22:00.860 But how did you feel as a Member of Parliament when you get this report that was assembled by some of your colleagues,

00:22:06.980 that some of the people you're in the House of Commons with have been, as the report says,

00:22:10.740 wittingly working against Canada's interests, basically?

00:22:13.960 Well, look, it was deeply troubling to read the report.

00:22:18.980 I'm still going through it as well.

00:22:20.720 We have had a government who's clearly not been taking this as seriously as it should have been.

00:22:30.280 And I think people like Sam Cooper and others at The Globe that have been following this very, very closely

00:22:37.080 have really pushed the government and exposed many of the stories.

00:22:41.080 And, in fact, we wouldn't have these stories had some of these leaks not happened.

00:22:46.240 And, you know, people like Sam, who've done the work, have really been vindicated with what we've seen in this report.

00:22:51.220 Now, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev has, alongside Jagmeet Singh, I should point out, called on the government to release the names.

00:22:59.180 Do you have any tools available as an opposition party to actually make the government do this?

00:23:04.280 And is that something you'll be continuing to hammer in the, you know, remaining couple of weeks you have in the House of Commons

00:23:10.120 before the summer session, before the session ends for summer?

00:23:14.060 Well, I suspect that all opposition parties will canvas all of the tools that they have to encourage the government to release the names.

00:23:21.680 But let's be honest, this is a government who took a former speaker to court to prevent releasing information with respect to the Winnipeg lab docs.

00:23:29.680 So, you know, I think, you know, we will do what we can.

00:23:33.680 But clearly, as you mentioned in the lead in here, the Liberal government and some of its members aren't really treating this with the level of seriousness it deserves.

00:23:42.320 I think Canadians expect some more information on this.

00:23:46.620 And let's remember, the government who had all of the information was the one who was saying for multiple months that an inquiry wasn't needed.

00:23:57.340 They were the ones who were dragged into the inquiry by all opposition parties.

00:24:02.060 They tried to avoid doing that.

00:24:03.940 Recall former Governor General David Johnson said, nothing to see here.

00:24:08.200 Please move along.

00:24:09.340 But yet, in fact, we then find in this explosive report that we absolutely need more information.

00:24:14.720 So I was happy that all opposition parties seem to be calling for the same thing.

00:24:19.740 So we will have a couple of weeks left to push the government to release more information.

00:24:23.460 Just lastly, if there are any Conservative MPs implicated in this, will they be, as you understand it, out of the caucus?

00:24:31.980 Well, look, I think we'd have to deal with the information when we receive it.

00:24:35.660 Let's first get the names.

00:24:37.060 Then we can decide what we do with those individuals.

00:24:40.700 I suspect there are varying degrees of actions.

00:24:45.280 And depending on are these individuals still in caucus today?

00:24:48.440 Are they former parliamentarians?

00:24:49.880 Do they reside in the Senate?

00:24:51.020 Are they part of a caucus?

00:24:53.120 Are they not?

00:24:54.740 At least what we need is more information.

00:24:57.140 And I think then we should appropriately deal with those individuals based on the seriousness of what is alleged to have occurred.

00:25:04.900 What I had originally wanted to get you on the show about, you had asked Chrystia Freeland earlier this week in the House of Commons about this impending.

00:25:12.800 So I don't even know if it is impending anymore.

00:25:14.960 It's supposed to be an impending capital gains tax hike.

00:25:17.920 This was originally promised by the Liberals in the budget going back to, I think, April 16th.

00:25:24.340 And it's supposed to come into effect in less than three weeks.

00:25:28.960 And the government has still not implemented any legislation to this effect.

00:25:33.780 And to the contrary, they've said it's coming.

00:25:35.960 So just what on earth is happening here?

00:25:38.500 Let's start there.

00:25:39.160 Well, let's just talk about process.

00:25:42.360 So April 16th, there's a budget.

00:25:45.380 In the budget, the government indicates that it will increase the taxes on capital gains on effective June 25th.

00:25:53.800 By the way, they also increased the taxes on the excise tax on cigarettes.

00:25:58.440 That was implemented immediately.

00:26:01.540 So normally, tax changes are implemented immediately.

00:26:04.880 But the government said it wanted to give people time to plan and set an implementation date of June 25th.

00:26:12.720 Now, they're being a little too cute by half.

00:26:16.080 The reason why the government's giving people time to plan is because it will force a lot of transactions to occur between the budget and June 25th,

00:26:23.400 which will trigger a lot of revenues because people will pay taxes after they dispose assets.

00:26:29.080 But the truth is, when a government introduces or makes mentions of a tax change, that change does take effect.

00:26:36.800 So CRA will still execute or implement this tax change on June 25th, even without legislation.

00:26:47.200 But I think, and conservatives have said, I mean, this is just patently unfair for individuals to expect to arrange their affairs

00:26:53.940 or sell assets with no legislation or no rules in place.

00:26:59.160 It's only a matter of proper process that they have legislation before they may choose to decide to sell assets.

00:27:08.680 For example, we're hearing a number of rumors that the government's considering some carve-outs.

00:27:13.160 Carve-outs for physicians, maybe some carve-outs for those in the real estate sector,

00:27:17.760 maybe carve-outs for families or farmers.

00:27:19.740 Who knows?

00:27:21.100 But I think they owe it to Canadians who are trying to figure out how to deal with this increased tax

00:27:26.840 to show them the legislation so that they can arrange their affairs appropriately.

00:27:32.160 Yeah, and just for people that aren't aware of this, when you mentioned physicians,

00:27:35.380 this is a group that in lieu of fee increases some years back had an arrangement that many of them abused

00:27:40.360 where they used their professional corporations, they used their assets as their retirement plan, basically.

00:27:46.340 So this is incredibly important.

00:27:48.300 And we're not, I mean, yes, family doctors do all right, but we're not talking about these, you know, billionaires in their yachts here.

00:27:53.840 We're talking about small business owners that have structured their life and their work around this.

00:27:58.860 And you're right.

00:27:59.720 So they may be doing some, you know, mass sell-off of assets in that, this interregnum period without realizing that, oh, they didn't need to.

00:28:06.600 Correct.

00:28:07.100 Correct.

00:28:07.960 I mean, it's quite, it would be quite frustrating, I could imagine, for somebody to go through the process, sell some assets,

00:28:16.900 all of a sudden to find out that the government has changed its mind.

00:28:20.280 And it's not like that hasn't happened before.

00:28:22.540 The most recent example was what many have called the bear trust scandal, which was the government requiring, CRA requiring a number of filings for those who have bear trust,

00:28:33.200 only to reverse the decision on the day before the filings were due.

00:28:38.840 And we found out that over 40,000 people, 43,000 individuals filed the paperwork for the bear trust at an average,

00:28:48.700 most people paid an average of anywhere between $500 and $1,000 per filing.

00:28:54.320 So a complete boondoggle by the government that created a ton of additional complexity and compliance costs for taxpayers to then realize they didn't have to do it in the first place.

00:29:05.200 So what will happen with the capital gains?

00:29:07.120 Maybe there will be carve-outs.

00:29:09.340 And Minister Freeland's response in the House indicates that the legislation won't be finalized, it won't be tabled, maybe we'll get a ways and means motion,

00:29:18.700 maybe they'll just publish draft legislation on the finance website, but there's no way they will have a bill tabled and passed before June 25th.

00:29:28.160 Just to go back to your objection here, is it just the process you take issue with, or is it the capital gains tax increase itself?

00:29:35.180 Like, will you and the Conservatives vote against that when it comes?

00:29:39.100 Well, it's hard to say you're going to vote for or against a bill you haven't seen yet.

00:29:44.360 So if they table a ways and means motion within a couple of weeks before we go, I think we'll have an opportunity to go through it.

00:29:50.020 But let's think about why they are bringing in this tax increase in the first place.

00:29:54.220 Well, the reason the government needs this revenue is because the spending has just continued to grow and grow out of control.

00:30:02.400 So if you were to not do the spending, which we have impressed upon the government for the last number of years, you know, slow down your spending growth, rein in some of these programs,

00:30:10.860 you don't have to keep adding spending every single year.

00:30:13.260 If you took that spending pressure away, you wouldn't have the pressure to be raising taxes.

00:30:20.320 But if it were presented without carve-outs the way it initially was in the budget, would you support or oppose it?

00:30:27.340 Well, look, two things.

00:30:29.040 One, it's a piece of financial legislation which is a confidence measure for the government.

00:30:33.420 And we have voted against every single confidence measure that this government has brought forward

00:30:39.020 and every single piece of financial legislation that this government has brought forward.

00:30:42.700 So, I mean, that will give you a little bit of an indication of where my personal leanings are.

00:30:47.600 All right.

00:30:48.280 Well, Adam Chambers, Member of Parliament for Simcoe North, good to talk to you.

00:30:51.840 Thanks very much for coming on today.

00:30:53.780 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:30:55.380 Thanks again to Adam Chambers.

00:30:57.140 That's actually quite a fascinating angle he raised in that interview there in talking about how this basically triggers the panic.

00:31:04.400 People sell off their assets, government gets to collect a windfall and use that to basically spend more money without incurring any debt.

00:31:12.120 It's some 3D chess from Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau.

00:31:15.600 And again, it's kind of speaking to a bit of a mindset, but I think there's something to that.

00:31:19.260 The government gets to benefit from the uncertainty right now, which is quite something.

00:31:23.860 So I wanted to do another segment here that looks at the media.

00:31:27.780 We had such great feedback from our chat with Peter Menzies.

00:31:30.380 I caught up back when I was in the studio before I left for Ottawa with Lydia Miljan.

00:31:35.380 Take a look.

00:31:45.640 We've had a bit of a theme emerge this week.

00:31:48.280 It wasn't intentional from the outset, but there's been lots of material on it,

00:31:51.800 which is the status and health or lack thereof of the media industry in Canada.

00:31:57.700 And we generally have two camps on this.

00:31:59.540 I spoke to Jen Gerson of The Line a few weeks ago, and she says we have to be comfortable with the idea of collapse

00:32:06.180 so that something new can come from the ashes.

00:32:08.460 And then we have the Government of Canada approach, which is basically to subsidize media

00:32:12.840 so that hopefully it can limp along and survive just a little bit longer,

00:32:16.980 maybe until right after the next election.

00:32:18.820 Who knows?

00:32:19.680 Well, there was a fascinating piece I read from Professor Lydia Miljan at the Fraser Institute.

00:32:25.360 She's a professor at the University of Windsor in political science,

00:32:29.420 and she looks at federal support for journalism with a very empirical lens.

00:32:35.620 And I thought there was a lot to take away from this.

00:32:37.600 So it's my delight to bring Professor Miljan onto the show.

00:32:41.360 Lydia, good to talk to you.

00:32:42.280 Thanks for coming on today.

00:32:43.820 My pleasure, Andrew.

00:32:44.540 So you touched on something in a much more academically rigorous way than my chit-chat with Jen Gerson last week.

00:32:52.480 But you get to the same conclusion, I think, which is that we need to be comfortable with the idea of there being a change in the industry

00:33:00.220 like we see in everything else.

00:33:01.820 No one talks about keeping the horse carriage industry alive.

00:33:04.820 No one talks about keeping, you know, analog washing machines alive.

00:33:08.700 All of these things have been replaced by something else.

00:33:11.060 But with media, we're not seeing that.

00:33:13.140 People are very uncomfortable with the idea of a market-forced reinvention.

00:33:19.580 Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:20.640 I mean, it's a crazy system that we're in that we assume that market failures are always bad.

00:33:26.980 And I understand that, you know, there's some sentimentality to this, right?

00:33:31.640 You know, you're always concerned that people are going to lose their jobs and that, you know, you don't want people to go without their professions.

00:33:38.960 But on the other hand, if nobody's watching, if nobody's consuming your product, what is the point of it?

00:33:45.260 You know, certainly there is a public service aspect of the media, but there is also a business aspect of it.

00:33:53.000 And if it can't make the business case, then, you know, perhaps we allow for industries to go under and certain corporations to go under.

00:34:01.140 And yes, job losses.

00:34:02.660 But at the same time, it allows innovation.

00:34:04.680 And that's one of the biggest problems I find with this country is that we don't have enough innovation.

00:34:08.680 There's too much of a reliance on asking the government to prop everything up.

00:34:14.140 And they're propping up failing industries.

00:34:16.180 And, you know, when you look at the data coming in, you know, there were all sorts of subsidies during the pandemic.

00:34:22.080 There was all sorts of buyouts and bailouts for the media.

00:34:24.740 And it doesn't look like it saved a journalist, even one journalist job.

00:34:29.360 In fact, we've lost hundreds of journalist jobs to companies that actually received those very generous payments from the government.

00:34:37.660 Well, and you're right.

00:34:38.400 There's an emotional attachment to the media, which I get.

00:34:42.140 I think journalists sometimes can be a bit too lofty about what it is.

00:34:45.420 And you had a quote from Roy Thompson in your paper here, which I had actually not read before, that I thought was a nice reality check.

00:34:53.160 He said, I buy newspapers to make money, to buy more newspapers to make more money.

00:34:57.800 And it's not to undermine the work that journalists do.

00:35:00.260 But newspapers are businesses.

00:35:01.880 They are for-profit commercial enterprises.

00:35:04.380 The number of non-profit media organizations in Canada is very- I mean, there are lots that don't turn a profit, but the number that are registered non-profits is very small.

00:35:13.240 So it is especially weird through that lens.

00:35:15.480 These are businesses that seem to have this special place carved out in people's hearts, in the government's heart.

00:35:22.380 There is.

00:35:23.140 And I certainly wouldn't be someone to say we need more non-profits or more government-

00:35:28.640 There's a difference between non-profits and government-supported, but I don't think we need more government-supported media.

00:35:35.960 You know, we have a CBC and it has its own problems.

00:35:40.000 And one of the largest concerns of that problem is that they don't have to innovate.

00:35:44.920 They've never really had to rely on their audiences.

00:35:46.860 And again, ratings, they sort of snub their nose at advertising and audience sizes, saying, you know, well, we want to give people what they need rather than necessarily what they want.

00:35:59.320 Well, you can't be force-feeding it to people, right?

00:36:02.560 As their audiences are declining, we just keep on giving them more money.

00:36:06.740 And that's not solving any problem.

00:36:08.880 It's not allowing that public function.

00:36:10.560 All they end up doing is becoming their own echo chamber, which they criticize other echo chambers for.

00:36:16.640 So, you know, all the other media outlets are, in fact, for profit.

00:36:20.400 And that's why newspapers, I mean, newspapers really used to be a license to print money.

00:36:23.880 They had an amazing ability with innovation, right?

00:36:27.360 You know, if you think about the history of journalism, it started with, you know, one-person community presses.

00:36:32.380 They were weeklies.

00:36:33.680 And, you know, the person cranking out, usually a man cranking out this weekly newspaper, making a few bucks.

00:36:39.360 But then with innovation, with modernization, with commercialization, you got the, you got bigger newspapers, you got the newspaper chains.

00:36:48.480 And that's where, you know, you know, the Pulitzer and Randolph Hearst and all those great names of journalism made their millions because they were able to sell a product, both, you know, like their penny sheets.

00:37:01.680 So they sold to the public.

00:37:03.480 But because there was such a high volume of public consuming it, they actually made their main money off of advertising.

00:37:10.520 And that model worked great until about the 1980s.

00:37:12.900 And then you saw in the 1980s the whole business starting to be really, you know, we were concerned about concentration of ownership then, you know, that there were too few chains owned by too few people.

00:37:24.200 We had the Kent Commission, and they actually recommended government intervention.

00:37:28.980 The governor of the day said, no, we'll pass.

00:37:30.800 We don't think that it is right for the government to be propping up the media, that this is freedom of speech.

00:37:37.900 And it's not a good idea for them to be entering into the private sector.

00:37:42.060 And so now we're in a really bizarre situation where our current government thinks that that is the only way to move forward.

00:37:48.260 They are so blindsided by the need that they're going to save journalism with subsidies that they can't imagine that people can actually innovate with, you know.

00:37:57.320 So, you know, so if news organizations fall and you allow that to happen, it does open up the market for entrance because people are always going to be consuming news.

00:38:07.580 People want information.

00:38:09.120 They just don't necessarily like the information they're getting right now.

00:38:12.060 So we have now a couple of years of data on this that since the government put a few measures in place, there are things like the local journalism initiative.

00:38:22.340 There was the big $580 million fund, which I think was increased.

00:38:27.460 You have the figure at $885 million overall that's gone into journalism in the last five years, which doesn't count money to CBC, which is, you know, $1.3, $1.4 billion a year.

00:38:38.840 Has this worked?

00:38:40.380 Has this achieved anything?

00:38:43.440 As far as I can tell, it's just made it easier for those companies to lay off reporters.

00:38:48.980 I mean, we've had massive layoffs in BCE.

00:38:51.720 We have newspapers closing right, left and center.

00:38:56.000 It doesn't seem to be doing anything in terms of actual journalist jobs.

00:39:00.740 It certainly helped corporations' bottom line.

00:39:04.480 You know, it certainly allowed for some corporations to give their executives bonuses.

00:39:09.900 But in terms of actually saving journalists' positions, no.

00:39:13.400 And I see increasingly, you know, when I go online, I see increasingly a number of journalists who have left the industry either by choice or by edict.

00:39:21.060 And they're doing other things, and they're opening other news organizations.

00:39:24.880 Sometimes they're going into the private sector.

00:39:26.540 But certainly, we've seen job losses rather than any, even, you could say it would be successful if there were no journalists who lost a job for the last three years.

00:39:36.600 That is certainly not the case.

00:39:38.000 We have job, incredible job losses, and they seem to be continuing.

00:39:42.520 And there's shows that, you know, the VCE had announced huge layoffs.

00:39:47.600 They laid off a huge number of really senior journalists, well-respected journalists by industry standards.

00:39:55.700 And they just did a wholesale cut of both programs and positions. 0.87

00:40:01.200 Yeah, I mean, I'm almost, this will sound very Machiavellian on my part, but I'm almost glad in a way that it's not working.

00:40:08.240 Because that would sort of cement this as being part of just the permanent subsidization of the media.

00:40:14.000 So we're back to square one here.

00:40:16.060 I mean, some people in the media, and specifically the newspaper industry, say this is all a sign that they need to do more, that it's not enough.

00:40:22.700 But I think most people should hopefully take your view on this, which is, okay, let's actually pull this back and start talking about the market forces.

00:40:30.300 Because right now, the incentive to reinvent, the incentive to find a way forward for traditional media just hasn't been there.

00:40:37.700 The way they stem, the way they adapt to these things is just by cutting and cutting and cutting.

00:40:43.500 And that doesn't really deal with the core problem.

00:40:46.440 Right.

00:40:46.640 And they're not, there's been some innovations, like some of these, you know, some organizations get podcasts out.

00:40:53.020 I mean, I'm not talking about this, obviously.

00:40:55.100 Yeah, yeah, no, and they all have websites.

00:40:57.080 I mean, that in and of itself is an adaptation.

00:40:59.300 I mean, I'm going to give kudos, right?

00:41:01.180 You're an innovator, right?

00:41:02.220 You are outside the traditional model, and you're creating your own spaces.

00:41:06.740 And we don't see that kind of innovation when it comes to the traditional media outlets.

00:41:11.260 They are very comfortable in how they put out the news.

00:41:14.880 They're comfortable in their brand.

00:41:16.440 And they certainly are excited about getting more government money.

00:41:20.360 But the problem with getting more government money is that you don't have that hunger at the doorstep, sort of propelling you to try new things.

00:41:28.020 And then there's that whole other disaster that the government does with their online news act, and they're trying to pressure the big tech giants.

00:41:38.540 I mean, there's a lot of money still to be made in the news industry.

00:41:42.140 It's just not being made by the people that the government wants to make money.

00:41:45.960 But certainly Google and YouTube and all these new startups have made billions of dollars in the news industry.

00:41:53.600 And the argument, and at one point, a few years ago, I kind of, I felt, I sort of got sucked into this argument myself where it's like, oh, the big tech giants aren't paying their fair share.

00:42:06.600 They're using traditional media outlets as clickbait, and they're just writing off their coattails.

00:42:13.900 And so they should be paying them something for their content.

00:42:16.240 And I see that in terms of intellectual property, you know, they can't just scrape the data off of traditional sites.

00:42:23.320 They should compensate them somehow.

00:42:24.860 And there were some private deals being made.

00:42:27.120 But then the government sticks its oar in and say, we're going to force you to pay a certain amount.

00:42:32.620 We're going to negotiate with you, which meant that a lot of those private deals went sideways.

00:42:37.560 And it resulted in Canadians not even being able to access news on social media sites.

00:42:42.580 And a lot of those traditional news medias were inhibited saying, well, we aren't getting people to dial in through, you know, traditional cable or, you know, over the air.

00:42:51.360 But we can get people to watch our Facebook live streams or our Twitter streams.

00:42:55.440 And Twitter and Facebook to this day don't allow media content.

00:42:59.460 We don't even allow us to share news stories amongst our friends on that platform anymore.

00:43:04.740 So they've made it that much more difficult for startups to begin.

00:43:08.940 I mean, I live in a small town in southern Ontario, and our newspaper had folded a few years back.

00:43:14.820 But there were some enterprising people in town that said, no, we still need a community paper.

00:43:19.120 And they did it through Facebook.

00:43:21.140 And that online news act actually prevents that company from sharing local news and really the only venue that was successful for them.

00:43:31.660 So government not only subsidizes the wrong things, tries to pick the wrong winners and losers, but in addition to that, they get in the way of innovators.

00:43:41.280 So it's not saving jobs, which we've discussed.

00:43:44.260 And you also make another point, Lydia, which I think is incredibly important, which is that it's not bringing audiences back.

00:43:49.420 Now, this is, I think, incredibly important because C-18, the online news act notwithstanding, it's not hard to access news.

00:43:58.360 You know, it's not even like you need to be in range of the radio now.

00:44:00.980 In most cases, you can listen to the, you know, listen to the website cast on newspapers.

00:44:05.880 You can read it all online.

00:44:07.200 So when audiences are shrinking in size, that's because audiences are not wanting to seek it out.

00:44:12.240 They're not wanting to do it.

00:44:13.500 That's not a subsidy problem.

00:44:15.060 That's not a business model problem.

00:44:16.500 I don't know what the answer is.

00:44:17.820 I suspect trust is part of it.

00:44:19.860 I suspect just the bombardment in popular culture.

00:44:22.720 You have more options now, so you don't need to be as reliant on one individual newspaper or one individual radio station as you used to be.

00:44:30.180 But news companies should be looking at that question more than just the funding equation.

00:44:35.640 Absolutely.

00:44:36.220 They need to be providing the content that people are seeking.

00:44:39.160 And, you know, I consume a lot of news and I do subscribe to different news organizations.

00:44:45.320 And I do find it frustrating, and this is always something that academics complain about, is that the news is so homogeneous, right, that everyone's covering the same story with the same lens.

00:44:55.260 And I spent decades comparing, you know, different news organizations on how they covered the main stories.

00:45:01.660 And, you know, there are some small differences.

00:45:04.500 Let's say if you compare CBC and CTV, you know, CBC is more left of center.

00:45:09.880 CTV tends to be a little bit more central.

00:45:11.820 I wouldn't say they were right wing by any stretch.

00:45:13.780 But that's one of the problems, is that Canadians aren't willing to just accept what traditional sort of mainstream, that liberal left of center viewpoint, that the position that organizations are doing, that they're always giving you the same messaging, is falling short.

00:45:34.220 People want alternative perspectives.

00:45:36.040 They want new ideas.

00:45:37.200 They want to hear not just the same headlines, you know, like if you listen to, say, and I've been traveling this week, so I've been listening to a lot of, you know, CBC, because that's the only thing I've been getting.

00:45:47.760 And the stories that they cover aren't necessarily the stories that I'm interested in, and they're always sort of from that same lens.

00:45:53.520 So, yeah, I then go on Twitter, and I go to other news organizations to get different points of view, because people, you know, it's not that this is sort of a classic adage of journalism.

00:46:05.540 It's not that journalism tells you what to think, but they tell you what to think about.

00:46:11.600 And I think that's where people are saying, you know what, we're kind of tired of you telling us this type of messaging to think about.

00:46:17.720 We want to think about other things.

00:46:19.020 The paper in the Fraser Institute, Federal Support for Journalism, Academics, they always, you're always good.

00:46:25.660 You can just do the literal title.

00:46:27.060 You don't need to come up with idioms like I do in my work to sell it.

00:46:31.400 But it was a very good piece, a lot of detail in there that I think is important to keep in mind.

00:46:35.540 Professor Lydia Miljan, thank you so much for your time.

00:46:37.900 Good to talk to you.

00:46:38.520 My pleasure.

00:46:39.360 Thanks, Andrew.

00:46:43.360 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:46:49.020 That was a great interview.

00:46:51.560 Thanks again to Lydia Miljan, to Sam Cooper, to Adam Chambers, to all those who joined the show today.

00:46:56.200 It was a bit of a packed one, a lot of news to work in there.

00:46:58.960 I will be back in the regular studio next week and also back for Off the Record tomorrow.

00:47:04.080 So do tune into that if you want something that even manages to surpass the irreverence we strive for on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:47:10.800 But if that's not your bag, that's all right.

00:47:12.840 Have a great weekend, everyone.

00:47:13.960 Thank you.

00:47:14.440 God bless.

00:47:15.060 And good day to you all.

00:47:15.980 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:47:18.880 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:47:24.380 Thank you.

Juno News - June 06, 2024

Liberals mock those who care about foreign interference

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