00:02:36.080I think probably a lot of your viewers are familiar with the sort of broad liniments of the story.
00:02:41.180But basically they sort of claimed that I was racist, hateful, and by implication morally unfit to stand for office and had to be removed from the ballot.
00:02:52.080And so I wanted to name them in my defamation claim.
00:02:56.440They're one of 14 or 15 parties that I named.
00:02:59.360But I encountered a problem, which is that the Alberta NDP doesn't actually exist.
00:03:04.060So even when it was the governing party of Alberta, it had no legal personality.
00:03:11.000It was not incorporated as a society or as a not-for-profit company or anything else.
00:03:17.180And so we did some research, my lawyer and I, and we tried to figure out, well, under what auspices were they even registered as a political party?
00:03:30.220And we found, with the help of Elections Alberta, that they registered in 1977 pursuant to a trust deed, where the trustee was the Alberta New Democratic Party Foundation.
00:03:41.240So we thought, aha, we can sue the trustee, but we couldn't, because the Alberta New Democratic Party Foundation also is non-existent, doesn't exist.
00:03:52.180But then we looked at the Alberta NDP's constitution, in which it says that it is established as a section of the federal NDP.
00:04:00.460And the federal NDP does have an incorporated association that can be sued.
00:04:05.080And the federal party's constitution, likewise, acknowledges this kind of reciprocal relationship, where it is deprimed, ultimately, over the provincial parties.
00:04:28.100And so they filed for a summary dismissal.
00:04:31.340And this became a very protracted, extremely convoluted matter, right before we went before a judge to hear this application for summary dismissal.
00:04:45.340And on our side, we had asked if the court would be willing to provide us some direction as to who is the party, the liable party that we can name.
00:04:52.740Hours before we go before the judge, the Alberta NDP, or their sort of, yeah, I suppose their lawyer, even though they're a non-party, they said, look, we can come to a solution.
00:05:05.940We will name and indemnify an individual to stand on our behalf.
00:05:11.640So we would go before the judge and we're like, you know what, if we can do that, that would be fine with us.
00:05:16.420We don't care who we sue as long as we have someone to sue and they're properly indemnified.
00:05:19.940And so on that basis, the judge said, all right, that sounds good.
00:05:25.860In that case, you're discontinuing against the federal party and I owe them costs.
00:05:32.100The federal party claimed that they had spent over $90,000 to that point to attend, you know, a one hour hearing and a 12 minute questioning and to put together one 12 page brief.
00:05:43.780So they, which is a massive, I think, massive inflation of their legal costs.
00:05:50.420And they stuck that with me with that.
00:05:52.860And I think they were, my suspicion, not proven just based on the circumstantial evidence is they were trying to prejudice me against continuing the litigation because obviously I couldn't afford that.
00:06:02.500Um, you know, you know, the defamation had rendered me like jobless and I was already struggling financially.
00:06:09.380So, uh, and then the Alberta party never named that representative and they didn't respond to us when we tried to look for that person's name for many months.
00:06:19.300And so finally we went before a judge again and appealed this and said, look, we still don't have a party to name.
00:06:26.460They reneged on their agreement that they made before the applications judge.
00:06:30.860And also this cost award against me is not reasonable, right?
00:06:35.380That's, that's not justifiable based on the case law that we have.
00:06:39.280So that judge overturned everything and said, actually, um, the, you know, the federal party's application for summary dismissal is refused.
00:06:48.140There is reason to believe that they may have some, at least vicarious liability here.
00:06:52.680They reversed the cost award, gave me back my money, um, and told the, the Alberta NDP, get your house in order.
00:06:59.740You have 30 days name and properly indemnify someone.
00:07:06.980So it's, this is solely on the question of who to name and, um, it, it, it was kind of enhanced costs because the justice bound that the parties, the federal and provincial NDP, but especially the provincial NDP had engaged in lit, litigation misconduct that needlessly delayed these proceedings.
00:07:26.020So we're now more than four years into these proceedings and we've basically just figured out who to name on behalf of the Alberta NDP.
00:07:32.040Wow, that is shocking behavior on the part of both the federal NDP branch and the provincial branch here in Alberta.
00:07:42.280I don't think my viewers will be too shocked to hear that.
00:07:44.840When you were told that you were going to have to pay $90,000 in costs to the federal NDP, I know you said that you think that they were hoping to do this so that you would simply be too discouraged to continue going.
00:07:56.280But at that point, you know, did it register with you, you know, maybe this is something that I can't continue with.
00:08:11.420And, and so to clarify, I was ordered to pay 45% of their full indemnity.
00:08:16.480So it ended up being about $45,000 in the end that I had to put up.
00:08:21.280Um, but again, you know, the, the context here, I am the primary breadwinner for my two small children.
00:08:28.960Um, I was rendered unemployable by this defamation.
00:08:32.300Like no employer would consider looking at me.
00:08:34.680I was a reputational liability to anyone who associated with me.
00:08:38.480And I was now fighting, I was fighting for a restraining order against one of the people involved who had continued sort of stalking and harassing me thereafter.
00:08:47.800Um, I was now ordered to, you know, so I'm like, just, you know, the amount of stress was, um, very significant, I think is an understatement.
00:08:57.120Um, and then I felt essentially like I was tricked, you know, like the, um, very much seemed to me like the provincial party lied before an applications judge in order to frustrate these proceedings.
00:09:09.520Um, and then I was being punished for having been tricked.
00:09:13.080And, um, that's the point at which I think the last shred of my belief in a just world evaporated.
00:09:23.080And I thought, you know, like, look, serious depression will do weird things to your perceptions, right?
00:09:30.100You, you end up with a very attenuated view of the future and you think things will never change.
00:09:35.860So that's the point at which I was like, there's no justice in this world.
00:09:39.020The best I can hope for is justice in the next.
00:09:40.900And like nearly walked in front of a bus that night.
00:10:13.300Um, for me, I think my understanding of hope is that it's not something to look for in this world in general.
00:10:20.080So, um, I think the hope for us human beings lies, it's something that we can look to after this life in this world is just a kind of pilgrimage.
00:10:33.080Um, and so, you know, like my philosophical disposition is we can certainly hope for justice in this world, but, you know, it's probably going to be frustrated in one way or another.
00:10:46.520So we should probably try to fix our eyes on eternity.
00:10:51.000So you said that the Alberta NDP, this has been going on for four years now, they finally named the individual that you are able to go after for this defamation case.
00:11:02.100What, what is currently ongoing in this process?
00:11:04.420Yeah, so they named their executive director, uh, Garrett Spellesey, and, uh, we've started discovery with him.
00:11:13.100So we've have a pretty tight timeline to try to conclude the discovery because this is the last piece of the puzzle.
00:11:18.540Um, we have mediation with all of the parties, all of the, all of the defendants have requested mediation.
00:11:24.160So we have mediation scheduled for the spring.
00:11:26.300And like I said, we'll get a trial date later this month in December.
00:11:29.400So that will most likely be something like a five, six week trial in the first quarter of 2026 is what we're hoping for.
00:11:36.760So all told this process, by the time it we've gone through trial, it will have been nearly, well, goodness, it, yeah, it'll be like seven years that this will have been ongoing.
00:13:09.940So Duncan Kinney is the executive director of Progress Alberta, which was a registered third party advertiser during the 2019 election.
00:13:15.820So basically advertising on behalf of the NDP or against the UCP, uh, they were also engaged.
00:13:22.720They kind of got involved publicly in defaming me about 10 days after the fact, um, they went after Danielle Smith for having me on her radio show.
00:13:32.140So they launched a petition against her, you know, threatened to target her advertisers for giving me a platform.
00:13:38.260Um, and they've just settled out for a quarter million, uh, what was it maybe like two months ago now?
00:13:46.180So all of the other defendants, a few of them have made offers to settle, but those are still being negotiated.
00:13:51.400Um, but I think we'll be going to trial against the major defendants, which would be the Alberta NDP, the CBC, Toronto Star, and the Broadband Institute, which runs Press Progress.
00:14:02.680You, as I mentioned in my opening statement, were like so viciously canceled.
00:14:07.280You've even just talked about some of the ways, um, you know, organizations were going after podcasters simply for having you on their show, for giving you a platform, trying to get their advertisers canceled.
00:14:17.360It's such a textbook case of a vicious, vicious canceling.
00:14:20.640I feel like since 2019, the world has changed so much and I don't know that what happened to you could happen in today's culture when we're so tired of the restrictions on our speech and people being canceled over really nothing.
00:14:36.780Do you think that what happened to you back in 2019 could happen today?
00:14:42.960Um, I'm sure that there are some people out there who have experienced something analogous more recently, but I think we've definitely, the wave has probably crested, right?
00:14:54.260I think we're, I think we're over the peak of the cancel culture, sort of mass psychosis thing that was happening from, you know, 2018 to 2020, maybe, uh, which is good.
00:15:06.140Um, but I, I think it's valuable to recognize that these phenomena, they, they did destroy lives.
00:15:12.320Um, you know, you have a number of instances of people who did actually end their lives, um, or who've been sort of permanently damaged in some way, uh, by what they went through, whether it's through post traumatic stress or severe depression or the breakdown of relationships.
00:15:30.140Um, and, you know, and I think that there was also, there was a real cost socially, right?
00:15:35.140So it doesn't just affect those individuals.
00:15:37.140Um, in my case, it affected all of my would be constituents, uh, who were deprived of the opportunity to vote for the person whom they nominated to represent them in that election.
00:15:46.140Um, but you know, what, what happened to me was basically, you know, a selective leak of excerpts of a private conversation that were deceptively edited and presented and so on.
00:15:56.140So it kind of, it, it erodes the boundary between the public and private spheres.
00:16:02.140It undermines social trust when the media will just sort of go along with it.
00:16:07.140When, you know, someone says I'm an informant, someone's committed a thought crime, you know, ruin their lives for me.
00:16:11.140Um, it, it, it, it erodes social trust when you feel like you're always looking over your shoulder, wondering who's listening, who's going to inform on you to the state broadcaster or whatever, um, where that's a credible fear.
00:16:24.140I don't think that's a healthy society.
00:16:26.140So it destroys trust and openness, which is the basis for social cooperation and social peace.
00:16:32.140Um, you know, it chills free inquiry again, when you feel like you can't ask questions in good faith on matters of legitimate public interest for fear of being misrepresented somehow.
00:16:42.140Uh, it, you know, it suffocates your ability to seek truth and the whole cancel culture phenomenon really incentivized, um, you know, a rush to judgment, a rush to outrage, you know, the least charitable interpretations of strangers' motivations.
00:16:57.140Um, it encourages people to see each other as enemies.
00:17:01.140So like, these are incredibly socially corrosive things that cancel culture was playing on and that its proponents were playing on.
00:17:09.140And I think that there should be consequences for people who do that.
00:17:13.140Like the, the, the proponents, again, of these tactics always say, there's no such thing as cancel culture.
00:17:18.140It's just consequence culture, like, okay, so let's hold you account accountable for what you've done.
00:17:24.140And, you know, yes, it's going to be a very long process.
00:17:27.140And, but at least, you know, you are going to have the benefit of, um, of a fair sort of trial that I never got.
00:17:35.140Um, but I think ultimately there, there, there does have to be accountability.
00:17:39.140And I like to think that by pursuing this case and seeing it through to the end, that it will disincentivize this kind of behavior in the future.
00:17:48.140That these actors will not be quite so cavalier before they ruin someone's life over, you know, an anonymous accusation.
00:18:31.140Next, we are moving to our very own local solution.
00:18:35.140Our own local celebrity, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation.
00:18:39.140Chris Sims is joining us today to discuss her legendary testimony at the Canadian Heritage Committee.
00:18:46.140I suspect some of you caught a few of those clips yesterday.
00:18:50.140Chris, thank you so much for being here today.
00:18:52.140I know you've been a regular on the show, but I feel like I'm in such awe of you today after that amazing performance at committee.
00:18:59.140I imagined sometimes that you would have said really similar things as a longtime journalist who is opposed to government interference in journalism.
00:19:08.140So I was kind of channeling that whole thing while I was giving my presentation to the committee.
00:19:13.140And the Heritage Committee, of course, is examining whether or not we should defund the CBC or if we need a state broadcaster.
00:19:20.140They don't put it in quite those terms.
00:19:22.140But that's why at the Taxpayers Federation, I flew out and delivered that statement and then took questions.
00:19:27.140We actually went through three rounds of questions.
00:19:35.140They just said a lot of silly things like, well, I like listening to CBC radio one in the morning.
00:19:40.140What do you mean we can't spend one point four billion dollars on it?
00:19:43.140So I think it was generally well received and it was good to be able to point out what a waste of money the CBC is, how few viewers they actually do have in reality, and also why it's wrong for journalists to be paid by the government.
00:19:57.140Well, you certainly held your own and did a very good job.
00:20:00.140Very good job. Did you feel like I know you said you went through three rounds of questions.
00:20:03.140I feel like that would have been a little bit anxiety inducing.
00:20:06.140Did you feel like the questions were all reasonable and fair or did you feel like it was a hostile environment?
00:20:12.140I know a few I guess it was actually probably just last week or the week before.
00:20:15.140Lauren Southern was at a committee, a different committee, of course, when they were discussing foreign interference.
00:20:21.140And that was like so hostile to watch.
00:20:24.140Lauren Southern obviously, you know, very intelligent, was able to hold her own similar to you yesterday.
00:20:28.140But it definitely felt like the Liberal MPs, you know, they're really there.
00:20:32.140They've had their staff working on this for weeks trying to come up with those gotcha questions.
00:20:38.140Did you feel like they were trying to trying to get you?
00:20:40.140Or did you feel like they were actually just trying to get information?
00:20:43.140Definitely a hostile environment for sure.
00:20:45.140They don't like watching the Canadian Taxpayers Federation walk through those committee doors on a good day.
00:20:50.140As you've probably seen, my friend and colleague Franco Terrazzano, he's put the boots to them over and over again about things like their ridiculous spending,
00:20:57.140why they need to get that under control, why they need to balance the budget, all those sort of important topics.
00:21:01.140And also another colleague of mine, Devin Drover, at the same time on the same day was just down the hall from me arguing that we need to scrap the carbon tax.
00:21:10.140And so anytime, especially sitting politicians see the Taxpayers Federation walk through the door, they aren't happy.
00:21:17.140But I don't care because they work for us, not the other way around.
00:21:21.140A backbench member of parliament, regardless of party, pulls in $200,000 a year with pretty much all of their expenses covered,
00:21:29.140including things like travel, paying their electricity bill, a lot of their food here in the national capital.
00:21:34.140So they're living pretty high on the hog.
00:21:36.140So I don't really care about their feelings.
00:21:38.140As far as the hostile questions go, the one that your audience might find funny is that they tried doing kind of a gotcha-ish question of,
00:21:46.140well, you do interviews on True North.
00:21:49.140And it's like, yeah, we know they're posted on the Internet.
00:24:00.140The CBC is getting $1.4 billion from taxpayers this year.
00:24:05.140That money could instead pay the salaries of around 7,000 paramedics and 7,000 police officers.
00:24:12.140That money could instead pay for groceries for about 85,000 Canadian families for a year.
00:24:19.140Instead, taxpayers are paying $1.4 billion so the CBC can hand out huge bonuses, get microscopic ratings, and overpay its out-of-touch executives.
00:24:31.140CBC CEO Catherine Tate refused to tell this committee if she will take a severance when she leaves the state broadcaster.
00:24:38.140Tate considers that to be a personal matter, end quote.
00:24:42.140It's not personal if it's taxpayers' money.
00:24:49.140I have to ask, you really laid into the fact a few times during your committee testimony that, like, no one's watching the CBC.
00:24:55.140You just described it in that clip as a microscopic audience.
00:24:59.140How did the committee handle receiving that news?
00:25:02.140I think a lot of them, so I'm not trying to be ageist, but a lot of them are a bit older than us.
00:25:08.140So they're still kind of stuck in this mentality of, oh, well, let's see, we have four channels on our bunny-eared television and that's what you tune into for the news.
00:25:16.140That has changed so much that when we got, so here at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we filed an FOI and we obtained documents showing the supper hour news ratings.
00:25:27.140And legitimately, I had to recheck and recheck them and talk about it with our team.
00:26:57.140If you know what that means, as far as the grid goes for federal bureaucrat payment for Crown Corporation, you're trying to track her down.
00:27:13.140There is no way that some bureaucrat of a state broadcaster should be paid that kind of money.
00:27:19.140Well, I'm certainly glad that we have you guys to dig into this.
00:27:22.140I have to ask, I know you often kind of, you know, you don't want to weigh too much into your personal opinion, but with Catherine Tate and her not telling the committee whether she'll take a severance when she leaves.
00:27:31.140Like, is this someone who is just in it for the money?
00:27:34.140Because that's certainly how it strikes me.
00:27:36.140So what I would say is all of her performances at this committee have definitely bolstered the case to defund the CBC.
00:27:45.140And it's not just because of the numbers, although the numbers are appalling.
00:27:50.140It is just rolling off of her of being entitled to entitlements.
00:27:54.140Like, for example, she was saying things, again, I'm paraphrasing in one of her more recent committee appearances.
00:28:00.140Things like, oh, well, the people of Canada would be upset if the president of the CBC was not at the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games.
00:28:12.140She even said something like, if not for the CBC, the language Inuktitut would not exist in Canada.
00:28:19.140That is so weird, because quite often the CBC will try to hide behind this idea that, oh, well, what about Indigenous programming?
00:28:29.140You need us for Indigenous programming, don't you?
00:28:31.140Well, actually, if you look at the numbers that were dug up by Blacklock's Reporter, which is an outstanding journalism organization that does not take money from the government.
00:28:39.140They're spending more money, Rachel, like more than twice as much on their executive bonuses than they do on Indigenous programming.
00:28:49.140APTN, which is run out of Winnipeg, which takes a tiny fraction of taxpayers' money for like a one event per year.
00:28:58.140They do way better for Indigenous programming.
00:29:01.140And last I checked, I think they broadcast in like 12 separate Indigenous languages.
00:29:06.140So they do not need the CBC from Toronto to come in and save Indigenous culture.
00:29:12.140That just gets my hair standing on end.
00:29:14.140One of the things that you did at the committee testimony that I really appreciated is you kept reminding the committee and the MPs that it was taxpayers' money.
00:29:23.140They would be like, well, you know, federal subsidies, and you're like, no, no, this is money paid by the Canadian taxpayer, by people.
00:29:30.140Like you and me and all of you watching at home, you are going to work every day.
00:29:34.140You're waking up at 6 a.m., driving to work in the dark on the snowy icy roads so that Catherine Tate can go to the Olympics opening ceremony.
00:29:44.140And she thinks that you'll be upset if she's not there.
00:29:49.140I can tell you for a fact, no one cares, Catherine Tate.
00:29:54.140You are just as out of touch as Chrystia Freeland, who said this week that Canadian mothers are grateful that we can now afford rotisserie chickens at the grocery store because those prepared meals really make all that much of a difference.
00:30:08.140Let me tell you, the nights that you're eating a rotisserie chicken at home, you're not celebrating like how you're like, oh, sorry.
00:31:26.140But to the point on the roast chicken, when she actually said this is a gift to mothers around Christmas.
00:31:31.140Okay. Number one, the GST on a roast chicken with seasoning roughly will cost you around 45 cents, 50 cents, depending on what you're getting it for.
00:31:40.140And for her to say that while she's a cabinet minister, pulling in $300,000 per year with most of her expenses covered.
00:31:52.140Saying to mothers that receiving the ability to pay for rotisserie chicken is like a Christmas gift would be like your husband or your family buying you like cooking ware for Christmas.
00:32:03.140It's like, do you know that like I have value as like more than someone who prepares food for you?
00:32:09.140Like it's just, it's so like, it's like the worst thing that you could receive.
00:32:12.140Okay. Some of you at home are like, Oh, I like getting cooked.
00:32:14.140Most women do not want cookware for Christmas.
00:32:31.140So moving back to the committee testimony, I wanted to play my favorite moment when you were asked about CBC being the keeper of Canadian culture.
00:32:42.140So for those that would say, well, it's required for Canadian culture, for the preservation of Canadian culture, how would you respond to that?
00:32:50.140I find that odd because there is a lot of private media companies and there is a lot of other forms of entertainment and news that Canadians are choosing to watch and to listen to and to share.
00:33:04.140And the idea that a government funded broadcaster is going to be the keeper of Canadian culture is kind of insulting to people's intelligence and their own choice.
00:33:15.140If I don't watch the CBC, does that mean that I'm not Canadian? That's absurd.
00:33:44.140The NDP got uncomfortable because they actually, you know, I may disagree with a lot of their policies, but they do kind of have firm principles on stuff.
00:33:51.140Whereas the Liberals were just like, oh, why did she say that?
00:33:55.140And this again leads back to my opening point off the top of the interview is that I think a lot of times there's this kind of holdover of like, you know, welcome everybody to hockey night in Canada.
00:34:05.140You've only got three channels to pick from and we're it. You have to tune into the CBC for the weather report or the hockey news or to find out what's going on.
00:34:13.140And I think it's this strange holdover of like, well, without the CBC, who would have delivered you Mr. Dress Up?
00:34:20.140Or, you know, where would have Peter Zosky worked right?
00:34:23.140Going back to some of, you know, the older programming that was on the CBC.
00:34:28.140We're not saying that you need to take all of the archives of the CBC and throw them into an incinerator, put them at the National Archives so people can access them.
00:34:36.140Further, the CBC independent of taxpayers money generates around 400 to 500 million ish dollars per year.
00:34:48.140They could still do their little radio thing.
00:34:50.140They could still have a big digital archive if they manage their money well and they don't blow it on bonuses and overpaying their executives.
00:34:58.140And so for them to say, oh, well, what would happen to Canadian culture?
00:35:01.140That is such a self-centered attitude.
00:35:04.140Again, we have lots of people in Canada, obviously the majority of them, who are not watching the CBC anymore.
00:35:11.140Are we going to revoke their citizenship?
00:35:59.140And now I have to turn to the comment section because I have been embroiled in a very significant controversy.
00:36:08.140And, you know, I've taken a few weeks to think about it and I think that it's finally time that I address it.
00:36:15.140So this is something that I have been seeing, I believe, from the same person under a number of my videos, a comment that has been left under a number of my videos on YouTube.
00:36:25.140And I received a lengthy email about it the other day.
00:36:28.140So I'm going to address this controversy right now for the very first time on the Rachel Parker Show.
00:36:35.140Mrs. Parker, please, please, please explain to me why you do not use the word woman and consistently replace the word woman with the word woman when you talk.
00:36:49.140Both Megan Murphy and Linda blade used both the word woman and the word woman throughout your interview with them using as I and most people do woman for singular and woman for plural.
00:37:06.140Meanwhile, as you always do, you used only the woman even when you were referring to multiple woman or two women in general.
00:37:17.140You use only the word woman for both singular and plural.
00:37:23.140You presumably have a reason for this.
00:37:26.140Please, please, please explain to me why you refuse to use the word woman.
00:37:32.140I have asked you this question several times over the last year or so.