Juno News - The Liberal gov spent $1 billion on DEI

00:00:00.000 A high school student in Hamilton recorded a teacher who took control of a grade 11 English

00:00:10.260 class to lecture students about Black Lives Matter and systemic racism.

00:00:15.840 Federal documents show that the Liberal government has spent more than a billion

00:00:20.280 dollars on DEI programs since 2016. Legal experts and civil liberties groups

00:00:27.120 are sounding the alarm on yet another Liberal bill, this time the Strong Borders Act,

00:00:32.980 which was meant to assuage concerns over Canada's shared border with the U.S.

00:00:38.320 Hello Canada, it's Friday, September 19th. This is the True North Daily Brief.

00:00:43.680 I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Clayton DeMaine.

00:00:46.520 We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.

00:00:50.240 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:57.120 Recordings leaked by a high school student reveal how a Hamilton-Wentworth district school board

00:01:05.040 teacher commandeered a grade 11 English class to lecture students on Black Lives Matter oppression

00:01:12.100 and social justice activism. The leaked audio shared with True North reveals that this grade 11 English

00:01:19.200 class, ostensibly about literature, writing, and communication, was entirely devoted to discussions

00:01:25.760 of social justice, anti-oppression, and systemic racism. The class was told that Black Lives Matter

00:01:33.740 was not up for debate, while referring to the phrase quote, all lives matter, as objectionable.

00:01:41.280 Black Lives Matter.

00:01:43.960 Have you ever heard somebody say that out loud?

00:01:46.340 Or does it just only happen on the internet?

00:01:50.960 If it's only ever happened on the internet, I'll say it out loud. Black Lives Matter.

00:01:54.020 That's a full sentence. That's a full sentence. Full stop. Okay? Have you guys ever heard the

00:02:02.380 response to this? That is not cool at all. It says all lives matter.

00:02:06.940 The student who provided the recording and who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of reprisals

00:02:13.140 told True North this was not the first time this year that English classes had been replaced

00:02:18.560 with social justice lessons. Testimony from the student indicates that the entire lesson was

00:02:24.400 used for discussing social justice activism and systemic racism with no apparent instruction in

00:02:31.620 literature, writing skills, or other required components. The teacher also lectured that excluding

00:02:37.460 dissenting voices was a form of survival.

00:02:40.480 Like, get out kind of thing, right? Like, you're not welcome if this is your attitude. And if you're hurt by

00:02:48.080 that, even better. That means I don't have to get rid of you. You're getting rid of yourself.

00:02:53.680 Does that make sense? It's a question of, like, safety. I'm clearly not safe around you if my

00:02:59.680 liberation is important to me and you just want to do it for me, right? But if you don't work with me,

00:03:05.120 hey, let's work together. Let's go, right? If we're on a team, we're on a team. If you want to come in and

00:03:12.320 tell me what I'm supposed to do and tell me and dictate to me, you're no better, right? You're just, you're just,

00:03:18.080 you know, a puppet by a different, I'm sorry, a puppet master by another name. Does that make sense?

00:03:24.080 So, Clayton, we've covered a lot of stories throughout the years where there's been presentations,

00:03:30.060 there's been policies enacted in classrooms, but very rarely do we have students, in this case,

00:03:36.880 a high school student coming to us with an actual recording from one of these so-called,

00:03:43.140 you know, educational sessions. How often is this sort of thing happening in Canadian schools?

00:03:50.180 I mean, it is rare for students to give us recordings, but given the state of education

00:03:56.540 and curriculums across Canada, how often is this really happening?

00:04:01.740 Right, Cosman. I mean, we've covered this a lot, like you said, on True North,

00:04:05.460 and I've experienced this myself, and I can't imagine my experience was unique. So when I took

00:04:12.580 a journalism program in Durham College, it was pretty good, but I certainly had moments exactly

00:04:18.440 like this. For example, for the first four weeks of a class that was supposed to be on different roles

00:04:26.180 in a newsroom, at least an hour every week was dedicated to learning about social justice,

00:04:31.520 decolonialism, and injustices facing Indigenous people. And it's one of those things that might

00:04:37.620 be an important conversation to be had, especially if debate was encouraged, unlike in this case.

00:04:43.680 But the course wasn't an Indigenous social justice studies class, and I wonder what more I could have

00:04:50.760 learned from the course if one third of it for the first month wasn't dedicated to my professor being

00:04:58.500 on a soapbox. I remember we even had a panel discussion with Indigenous people working in

00:05:03.960 journalism for the class, and the event was broadcast live. And some people on the panel kept repeating

00:05:09.960 that there had been mass graves uncovered in Kamloops in BC. And long story short, they ended up

00:05:17.560 preventing me from asking any more questions when I politely asked the panelists if I was missing

00:05:22.560 something and if bodies had been uncovered on the site, where the media repeatedly, you know,

00:05:28.020 said that there were mass graves found. And I even asked if they would support excavation on the site

00:05:34.620 to provide evidence of the claim. And the professor was very irate with me. I even had multiple back

00:05:40.540 and forth arguments with my professor, where I had to do as much research as a full project might have

00:05:46.040 taken to defend myself, who was just questioning some of the opinions that were being presented in the

00:05:51.440 class as if they were fact. So yeah, I'm sure this isn't an isolated incident. The very school board

00:05:56.760 where the recording we just heard took place has expanded its critical race theory program, for

00:06:02.460 example, called Learn, Disrupt, Rebuild, to over 30 schools, as True North reported. And readers of True

00:06:09.480 North will know just how often this does come up. Elementary school teachers were told just a few

00:06:15.380 months ago that they have to, quote, decolonize their minds, and that whiteness is, quote, a destructive 0.99

00:06:22.320 force. And a student at the University of Western Ontario had a DEI crusade waged against her for

00:06:29.800 questioning the tenets of the woke religion. And anti-Israel curriculum or lectures against so-called

00:06:35.760 Islamophobia have just become the norm. The BC NDP and Premier David Eby's office are not answering

00:06:46.680 questions about a leaked contract showing the province could spend nearly half a million dollars

00:06:52.540 on a self-described, quote, radical Marxist comedian hired to write the Premier's jokes. According to the

00:06:59.860 documents, comedian Charles Demers was retained at $165 an hour under a two-year agreement valued at

00:07:08.340 $150,000, with two optional one-year extensions that could bring the total to $450,000. Demers' political

00:07:17.640 leanings are also attracting scrutiny. In a 2018 CBC interview, he described himself as a lifelong

00:07:25.060 Marxist. Demers said at the time, quote, as a teenager, I was in a radical communist sect with a

00:07:32.000 Marxist newspaper published in New York that we sold on street corners. The BC NDP redirected questions

00:07:39.840 about the contract to the Premier's office, which did not respond by the deadline. The contract, which

00:07:46.060 runs from February 6, 2025 to January 31, 2027, requires Demers to research, draft, and edit

00:07:54.780 speeches, speaking notes, media advisories, news releases, digital content reports, strategies,

00:08:01.880 and op-eds. The terms also call for regular progress updates and virtual meetings with staff. It's

00:08:08.560 unclear what specific services Demers has delivered so far. However, a glowing quote attributed to him

00:08:15.360 praising EB already appears on the Premier's NDP website bio page. EB and Demers' ties go back years.

00:08:23.940 In 2022, the comedian spoke at the Premier's swearing-in ceremony. That relationship has

00:08:31.180 prompted questions about whether the contract was sole-sourced or if other candidates were

00:08:36.240 considered. Asked about the deal at a Monday press conference before defending the need for outside

00:08:42.140 help, EB laughed off a reporter's quip saying, quote, do you get a discount if the jokes bomb? So,

00:08:49.060 Cosman, this is a pretty wild story. What's the backlash to EB making this contract with this

00:08:56.800 Marxist comedian? Yeah, so there's been some blowback, and EB has taken some heat for this.

00:09:03.800 But for those that don't know, in BC, essentially, the media is more interested in covering and digging

00:09:10.300 into the opposition than they are the actual government. So this revelation came from the

00:09:17.700 conservatives. It was the finance critic Peter Milobar who dug this out. And it's in the midst

00:09:25.240 of a budget. And that budget also revealed that BC, under David Eby's leadership as the NDP Premier,

00:09:34.720 is facing its biggest deficit in its history, an $11.6 billion deficit for a province. And so what

00:09:44.580 does the Premier do? He signs off on this contract that's worth almost half a million dollars,

00:09:51.780 justifying the spending somehow, given the poor fiscal situation the province is in, for a comedian

00:10:01.560 to write his speeches and jokes. And to be quite frank, I've never heard EB make a funny joke. So

00:10:09.920 I don't think he's really getting his money's worth by paying this guy almost half a million dollars

00:10:16.080 to write his speeches for him. So you can't really can't make this stuff up. But Milobar, in his

00:10:23.680 statement revealing this, was all over it. He essentially says, what I think a lot of people

00:10:29.840 are thinking and that families and small businesses are bracing for cutbacks right now,

00:10:36.780 whether it's decisions they make at the grocery store, whether, you know, they're putting money

00:10:43.500 aside, less money aside, having to skip on bills, even at the same time, the Premier decides, oh, he can

00:10:52.640 afford to dish out half a million dollars of taxpayer money on a comedy contract, essentially.

00:11:01.280 So that doesn't exactly scream responsible leadership and fiscal restraint. EB is a perfectly

00:11:09.040 capable guy who can write his own speeches. What it actually screams is how out of touch he is with

00:11:15.320 the average person's hardships. And in his statement, he sort of like tried to brush it off

00:11:23.680 responding to this when he was asked about the media. You know, he says he can't write his own

00:11:29.980 speeches anymore. He wishes he could. And he just like leaves it at that. And his office doesn't respond

00:11:37.220 to a request for further information or clarification. So it appears he doesn't find this to be a serious

00:11:44.900 enough issue. But I think it really illustrates the lack of responsibility and how much willy nilly

00:11:52.640 spending is being done on things that could be cut, like this isn't necessary for the province to

00:11:59.980 function or EB to do its job. Civil liberties advocates and legal experts are renewing calls

00:12:09.300 to reform the Strong Borders Act Bill C-2, as the bill enters its second reading and is once again

00:12:16.540 debated in Parliament. Constitutional lawyers and other legal experts are condemning the current

00:12:22.180 iteration of the Liberal government's bill, sponsored by Public Safety Minister Gary Ananda-Sandri,

00:12:28.680 saying the bill will violate the privacy rights of Canadians if it receives royal assent in its

00:12:35.180 current form. The bill, which began its second round of debates on Tuesday, aims at addressing

00:12:41.120 security concerns along the US-Canada border, a point of contention between the Trump administration

00:12:47.400 and Canada. Among other points, the bill would allow Canada Post and police to open, seize, and retain

00:12:53.500 mail, including letters, quote, under conditions. The bill also permits the disclosure of personal

00:12:59.400 information for immigration and citizenship purposes, prohibits acceptance of $10,000 deposits

00:13:05.880 from third parties under certain conditions, and enhances the Canadian Security Intelligence

00:13:10.580 Services powers. The constitutional lawyers have warned of the scope of the omnibus bill since it

00:13:16.480 was introduced, with many of their concerns not being addressed in the bill's current form.

00:13:21.500 The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms urged Canadians to sign its petition warning of the

00:13:26.940 potential for the criminalization of $10,000 cash transfers to be further limited to smaller sums of money

00:13:34.000 and for it to attack the right for Canadians to do what they want with their cash in an otherwise

00:13:40.160 legal way. So it's interesting, I recall back when Harper introduced huge reforms, including expanding the

00:13:47.980 powers and scope of CSIS, the liberals were all over that. They, you know, painted Harper as some sort of

00:13:55.820 totalitarian, authoritarian leader trying to strip people's freedoms away, but here they are sneaking in

00:14:03.180 little power grabs, but when you add them all up, they accumulate to the erosion of freedoms, as

00:14:10.240 these lawyers quoted in this article have pointed out.

00:14:13.600 What are some of the other concerns raised by civil liberties advocates about this proposed

00:14:19.120 legislation, Clayton?

00:14:21.140 Yeah, Cosman, this is an interesting one because the stated goals of the bill are actually what many

00:14:26.420 conservatives in Canada can get behind, securing the border against unwanted migration and drug

00:14:31.880 traffickers. But civil liberties groups are noting that this bill might have the potential to snuff out a

00:14:38.460 lot of those privacy rights in Canada. And the Canadian Constitution Foundation, for example,

00:14:45.480 released a backgrounder on the bill, warning people that it will give police the power to demand

00:14:51.180 private information without warrants, and will enable law enforcement and CSIS to enlist financial

00:14:58.020 institutions and service providers in general to spy on individuals secretly. So Josh D. Haas, a litigator

00:15:06.600 for the civil liberties group, said at best, the bill will allow government agencies to take shortcuts in

00:15:14.000 their investigations, but at worst, it would empower the feds to create a surveillance state.

00:15:20.080 Christine Van Gein, the CCF's litigation director, said Bill C-2 fails to appropriately balance between

00:15:26.800 privacy and safety, which she argues is a trend of increasing authoritarian sentiment in Canada.

00:15:33.320 The CCF's executive director, Joanna Barron, said the bill should go back to the drawing board and

00:15:40.140 legislators should appropriately weigh the impact it might have on those privacy rights. The University

00:15:46.300 of Ottawa professor in e-law, Michael Geist, has also written extensively about this issue. He recently

00:15:54.380 released an article on his website which outlines several issues he has with the bill, and he's written

00:16:00.440 several articles that are similar. In addition to some of the issues other groups have already raised,

00:16:08.380 he noted that those who could be investigated don't even have to be suspected of breaching

00:16:13.400 the criminal code, with the stipulation for investigation only being, quote, anyone in breach

00:16:20.500 of an act of parliament. He said the data gathered by literally anyone providing a service to the public

00:16:26.520 could be used to identify if someone was at a protest, for example, or access their private

00:16:32.460 communications. Not only that, but the person who is forced under the act to provide information

00:16:38.960 or the organization that's forced to provide information to the state is barred from disclosing

00:16:45.380 for up to a year that they had snooped on individuals on behalf of law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

00:16:52.380 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday

00:17:00.920 by subscribing to The Daily Brief on iTunes and Spotify. Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us

00:17:07.140 with a five-star rating, and please leave a review.

Juno News - September 19, 2025

The Liberal gov spent $1 billion on DEI

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