Juno News - Trudeau's internet policies are an assault on independent media

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:10.540 Hello everyone and welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:18.080 It is Friday, July 28th. We're in the midst of summer, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take our Friday show,

00:00:25.280 which we often break the regular format on, and do something that a lot of people have been asking about,

00:00:30.540 which is kind of an all-in-one look at the Trudeau government's internet regulations, of which there are many, and still many yet to come.

00:00:40.100 Despite this cabinet shuffle, it doesn't sound like the liberals are taking their feet off the gas pedal

00:00:45.060 that is driving the car right off the cliff into an abyss of internet regulation, censorship, and more costs to you and I as taxpayers,

00:00:54.920 not to mention the burdens it will heap on you and I as people in the orbit of independent media,

00:01:00.920 myself as a creator, yourselves in the audience as consumers, and perhaps creators yourself.

00:01:06.780 So I'm going to talk about this from a few different angles today.

00:01:10.160 We're going to talk about Bill C-11, which is the government-mandated algorithm rejigging bill.

00:01:15.800 We're going to talk about C-18, which is the government subsidy bill.

00:01:19.800 And we're also going to try to give you some tools and tactics that you can use to evade and elude these things as best as possible.

00:01:27.900 Now, I should say with a caveat there, a lot of this stuff is only going to be short-lived.

00:01:34.100 The idea of using a VPN may help in some ways, but really what has to happen is these bills have to go.

00:01:40.820 And we're going to talk about exactly why they are so problematic.

00:01:43.860 And I should say, first and foremost, a lot of you may have already seen little glimmers of this in your own lives.

00:01:50.500 If you've tried to access some independent news website and you get a message that says,

00:01:55.200 oh, this content's being blocked in Canada because of government regulations.

00:01:59.460 This is already happening courtesy of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram,

00:02:05.640 because they were given a rather unpleasant choice.

00:02:09.060 They were told you can either pay millions and millions of dollars to Canadian media outlets or you can block the content altogether.

00:02:19.080 They took option B and then the federal government turned around and accused them of bullying

00:02:23.280 because despite, you know, five minutes ago saying you are thieves for allowing this content in your platforms,

00:02:30.020 now they're bullies for naught.

00:02:31.740 So try to figure out how that's going to be squared.

00:02:34.260 And I should say, you know, even so-called conservative or conservative-leaning media companies in Canada

00:02:40.080 are part of the problem here.

00:02:42.080 Post Media, which owns the National Post, has been going hat in hand to government demanding more and more money.

00:02:48.200 And it was a bit curious this week when the Liberal Cabinet Shuffle came about

00:02:52.420 to see this glowing, glowing profile of the new Heritage Minister, Pascal Saint-Ange,

00:02:58.580 the former member and manager of a lesbian rock band, 0.53

00:03:02.920 a woman who is as Heritage Minister up against big tech in the National Post,

00:03:09.040 says a role she's been rehearsing for.

00:03:11.760 Look at this headline.

00:03:12.660 Former rocker sent into the fight for Canada's digital rights.

00:03:17.180 Does this not just strike me?

00:03:19.000 It's a little bit like, as our friend Ezra Levant said,

00:03:22.220 a grant application by Post Media rather than an instance of journalism.

00:03:27.500 Not a single critical word to be said about this woman that now Post Media wants to be the doler of cash. 1.00

00:03:34.240 So let's start off by talking about Bill C-18 here,

00:03:37.660 because what the government has done in this bill is something very insidious.

00:03:42.220 They've basically outsourced what they want to do themselves,

00:03:46.120 which is subsidize the media with tax money.

00:03:49.220 But they've outsourced it so that it's not taxpayers.

00:03:51.940 It's the big, evil, scary, big tech companies that are going to do it,

00:03:55.900 which as a taxpayer, I may say, okay, great.

00:03:58.180 You know, it's not my money.

00:03:59.340 But still, it is nothing short of extortion.

00:04:02.780 Chris Sims with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation had a great piece that she published just last week.

00:04:09.140 Journalists should not be paid by the government.

00:04:12.100 Hard to put a finer point on that.

00:04:14.800 Chris is with us now.

00:04:15.980 So let's talk about that outsourcing aspect here,

00:04:18.840 because obviously you and I were both critical of that $600 million media slush fund.

00:04:24.060 We're very critical of the $1.3 billion that the federal government gives to CBC every year.

00:04:29.640 As taxpayer advocates, you could say at the CTF,

00:04:33.060 you know this is bad because taxpayer money is being siphoned towards these private interests.

00:04:37.820 But what the government's done here is they've tried to basically neutralize that criticism.

00:04:42.100 You know, the language they use, oh, these tech companies have to pay their fair share.

00:04:46.860 It's not taxpayer money.

00:04:48.080 It's big, evil, corporate cash.

00:04:50.360 Yes, exactly.

00:04:51.280 That's the cunning plan right now.

00:04:53.300 But who knows where that big tech fight is going to go, right?

00:04:56.200 Because the answer always from government is we're a government and we're here to help.

00:05:00.800 So up until recently, Heritage Minister at the time, Pablo Rodriguez,

00:05:04.880 was quick to jump on that and say, who knows where this fight with big tech is going to go?

00:05:09.020 But we need to make sure that newsrooms stay open, we meaning government,

00:05:14.160 and we need to make sure that they have the resources they need, meaning your money, meaning taxpayers' money.

00:05:20.180 And so when you add it all up, the money is just atrocious.

00:05:23.940 Over the last four years, if you add in what we've paid to the CBC

00:05:27.720 and what we've handed out to corporate media in the form of bailouts,

00:05:31.640 it's well over $5 billion, like with a B.

00:05:35.920 It's an astonishing amount of money.

00:05:38.920 But aside from the money, Andrew, like you and I having worked in journalism all these years over our lives,

00:05:44.200 we know that if you're counting on the government for your paycheck,

00:05:48.020 it's pretty darn difficult to hold them accountable.

00:05:50.980 And this is the conflict of interest.

00:05:53.060 We won't be able to hold government to account if the media is getting paid by them.

00:05:56.800 No, and I mean, we can talk all the time about individual reporters that may have biases

00:06:02.520 or individual stories that may be biased,

00:06:04.600 but what we've seen here is the media companies literally devote those precious column inches,

00:06:10.960 as the old saying goes, to pieces literally lobbying the government to give them money.

00:06:17.060 We've seen executives at these media companies testifying before Parliament, asking for money.

00:06:22.400 And even the way they report on these bills, you can tell they're demanding money.

00:06:28.240 They're not actually sharing the criticisms about these pieces of legislation that most Canadians are,

00:06:33.760 because they're trying to get a chunk of it themselves.

00:06:36.540 And it's been one of the most, I'd say, brazen examples of an orchestrated media campaign

00:06:42.700 to lobby for political ends.

00:06:45.360 Yes, exactly.

00:06:47.200 And it's, for those of us who've worked on Parliament Hill or worked in media,

00:06:50.840 maybe it's more obvious for us, but I can't help it.

00:06:54.100 When I was hearing Rodriguez being scrummed, I know most of those reporters,

00:06:58.000 I'm not going to call them out because they're nice people,

00:06:59.920 but even the tone was just like, yes, but aren't you to do something?

00:07:04.040 What's to be done?

00:07:05.680 Rather than, you know, 10, 15 years ago, that never would have been the case.

00:07:09.920 It was always holding people to account.

00:07:12.080 Now, of course, a reporter or journalist has their own biases.

00:07:16.020 That's normal.

00:07:17.240 But for the first time ever, there are a lot of journalism jobs

00:07:21.240 that are dependent upon the government's funding.

00:07:25.280 And to give you an example, right and left, the folks at Canada Land,

00:07:29.960 arguably on more of the left side of the spectrum, who don't take government money,

00:07:34.240 worked out how much it costs per reporter.

00:07:37.100 And it's about $13,000.

00:07:39.260 So imagine being that reporter, knowing that $13,000 of your paycheck

00:07:45.840 is coming from that guy, from that minister, from this government.

00:07:50.020 How then are you supposed to ask those hard questions?

00:07:54.000 Like, you can't.

00:07:55.100 It's just human nature.

00:07:56.280 Even if they tried, it's the perception of bias that kills the trust, right?

00:08:00.540 Yeah, and I would actually go beyond that because you have some instances.

00:08:04.560 One of them is this program called the Local Journalism Initiative,

00:08:07.680 which is a program that will finance the entirety or most of the entirety of a reporter's salary,

00:08:14.840 as I understand it.

00:08:16.100 And they're supposed to be covering local issues, municipal issues.

00:08:19.120 But I've seen a lot of mission creep in these roles,

00:08:22.120 where these reporters just become general assignment people.

00:08:25.060 They're writing about climate change.

00:08:26.740 They're writing about this and that.

00:08:28.560 Or sometimes a local story that might have more of a national flavor.

00:08:31.860 And in that case, how are you, when emblazoned under your byline,

00:08:36.520 is the fact that you're a government-subsidized reporter,

00:08:39.580 supposed to not say, well, you know, if this program goes away, my job might go away.

00:08:44.080 And that's not at all an indictment of any of those individual people,

00:08:47.180 because journalists themselves are being put in a pretty untenable situation here

00:08:51.480 by raising these questions, by at least eliciting these questions from readers.

00:08:57.340 Yes, exactly.

00:08:58.480 And again, it's going to influence them.

00:09:01.480 And even if they think it's not influencing their reporting,

00:09:04.760 everybody reading their stuff or listening to their stuff

00:09:07.320 who knows they're being paid by the government

00:09:09.300 will always have that in mind, right?

00:09:12.080 It was funny.

00:09:12.880 Our friend Sheila Gunn-Reed had pointed this out.

00:09:15.080 She said, you know what?

00:09:15.820 If I'm reading my local paper,

00:09:17.120 I'm there for the hog prices and the garage sales.

00:09:19.520 I'm not trying to listen to the latest on, you know,

00:09:23.680 on climate change coming out of Ottawa for my local newspaper report.

00:09:27.460 I can tune elsewhere for that sort of thing.

00:09:29.620 And you're right.

00:09:30.360 So it's changing the way that stories are being covered.

00:09:33.540 And for me, what, you know, upset me most,

00:09:36.220 apart from being Taxpayers' Federation and wanting government so small

00:09:39.620 you could drown it in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist said,

00:09:42.520 what bothered me is the trust issue.

00:09:46.160 I don't know if you saw, but there's this major study,

00:09:48.980 I think it's called the Edelson Trust Survey.

00:09:51.780 Yep.

00:09:52.120 Comes out every year.

00:09:53.240 Been going around for 20 years.

00:09:55.360 And 61% of Canadians now think journalists are actively trying to mislead them

00:10:03.560 with statements they know to be false or gross exaggerations.

00:10:07.260 So that hit me because, you know, good journalists,

00:10:11.980 if you mispronounce somebody's name or you accidentally get a date wrong,

00:10:16.140 like that bugs you.

00:10:17.780 Like, and those are accidents.

00:10:19.600 The idea that a huge majority, 61% of Canadians now think

00:10:23.940 that they're being lied to by journalists,

00:10:27.300 like that's a huge deal.

00:10:29.260 And I think, you know, we think that government funding the media

00:10:33.540 is obviously a huge reason why that trust is eroding.

00:10:38.100 Because it's an obvious conflict of interest.

00:10:40.980 And so I guess what I'm trying to get across is,

00:10:43.640 it's time for folks who are journalists still,

00:10:46.500 and who are taking government money,

00:10:48.060 to just kind of make peace with that and accept that they mustn't do so.

00:10:51.460 Let me ask you about the mechanics of unwrapping

00:10:55.800 and unraveling a lot of this.

00:10:57.580 Because a lot of the times it becomes easier to fight

00:11:01.680 against something being created,

00:11:03.680 but a lot more difficult to dismantle it

00:11:06.940 because of, you know, just the politics of it and path dependency.

00:11:10.220 And once people have gotten accustomed to having a certain amount of money,

00:11:13.420 to take it away from them is actually quite difficult politically.

00:11:16.980 So let's say that, you know, we have a liberal government

00:11:19.400 that goes until 2025 and there's some change in place.

00:11:23.080 I mean, right now, the only viable contender

00:11:24.840 that's proposing to fight this stuff is Pierre Polyev.

00:11:28.520 So suggest there's a conservative government in there in 2025.

00:11:32.940 How easy is it going to be to take back the $600 million in tax credits,

00:11:37.960 to take back the C-18 regulatory environment,

00:11:42.200 assuming that it stays somewhat static between now and then?

00:11:46.400 That's a tough question.

00:11:47.700 And it's something that Mr. Polyev is going to have to deal with

00:11:51.400 if he does become prime minister.

00:11:53.700 As far as we're concerned on this side of the aisle, so to speak,

00:11:57.740 he's committed to it.

00:11:59.340 He has said repeatedly that he is going to defund the CBC.

00:12:02.960 And he has said repeatedly that he is going to stop paying the media,

00:12:07.080 not using those exact words.

00:12:09.020 But so the so-called bailout, which is about $595 million,

00:12:13.220 and it's a cluster of tax credits and direct funding.

00:12:17.160 It's a whole kind of mix of things.

00:12:19.260 And there's also actually a whole bunch of like emergency top-up things

00:12:23.060 that corporate and private newsrooms got over the last few years

00:12:27.260 that pushes it well over $600 million.

00:12:30.180 So he's made the promise.

00:12:31.860 So if he does that by deleting a line item in the budget before lunch,

00:12:36.960 that's pretty quick.

00:12:38.380 I mean, we'd like to see that happen.

00:12:40.000 Because right now, Canadians can barely afford groceries.

00:12:43.520 We have record demand for food banks.

00:12:46.260 You know, the last thing we should be doing is paying media.

00:12:49.860 Because one, it's a waste of money.

00:12:51.560 And two, it completely hinders our ability to hold them to account.

00:12:54.520 But you're right.

00:12:55.140 Once these things are entrenched, there's going to be a huge hue and cry.

00:12:58.060 And I think you're seeing that already.

00:13:00.400 You know, I've been in some pretty yelly moments and scrums on Parliament Hill

00:13:06.020 between the gallery and opposition members and ministers.

00:13:10.540 But I haven't seen the leader of the opposition wheel on his heel

00:13:14.700 and point and kind of go back and forth with individual journalists like that,

00:13:20.060 like we're seeing now.

00:13:21.400 No, I think you're right about that.

00:13:23.740 And, you know, again, you can look at the government's role in this.

00:13:27.840 I mean, Pierre Polyev will get into it.

00:13:30.840 And he'll scrap and do the one-on-one and they'll scrap back.

00:13:33.780 And I actually think that's fine.

00:13:34.740 Because I think the way you combat bias is you have to sort of challenge the premises

00:13:39.220 at source when a question is put to you.

00:13:41.700 And then you look at the contrast of that.

00:13:43.660 Everyone remembers from, I think it was the 2019 election when Pierre Polyev,

00:13:47.880 or sorry, there's a Freudian slip,

00:13:49.380 when Justin Trudeau hands the poutine to David Cochran at CBC and says,

00:13:53.100 you know, the Liberal government will always look out for CBC.

00:13:55.980 I mean, that actually was a tremendously unfair thing to do to David Cochran,

00:14:01.160 who I don't know particularly well.

00:14:03.140 But Trudeau himself has leaned into this whole,

00:14:06.780 we're the friend of the press and they're the friend of us.

00:14:08.960 And it's incumbent on journalists to push back when that happens and say,

00:14:12.900 whoa, we're not your friends.

00:14:14.280 We have a job to do.

00:14:15.180 And the same is true when the government's throwing money at them.

00:14:17.480 But that hasn't happened.

00:14:18.500 It's true.

00:14:20.160 And just speaking from personal experience, I've witnessed.

00:14:23.120 So remember a few years back too, at the Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner.

00:14:27.160 So for normal people who have not worked in the terrarium of Ottawa,

00:14:32.020 the Parliamentary Press Gallery is a club, basically, of journalists whose job it is to cover Parliament Hill.

00:14:38.240 You have to apply for membership.

00:14:40.280 You have to get a special press pass.

00:14:41.940 There's rules of conduct, all that jazz.

00:14:44.820 Fast forward, every year, they have this big, fancy kind of black tie event.

00:14:50.280 It's a big gala.

00:14:51.580 And it used to be really funny to invite politicians there because they were off camera.

00:14:57.160 It used to be off the record.

00:14:58.860 And the politicians would get up there and roast the press. 0.98

00:15:02.400 So they've had past prime ministers, current prime ministers, blah, blah.

00:15:05.980 Now, oddly, it's broadcast.

00:15:09.060 Like, everything is on video now.

00:15:11.000 And one of the more recent ones, then and current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:15:16.200 basically said something along the lines of,

00:15:18.600 well, of course the media is doing our bidding.

00:15:20.980 We're giving them $600 million.

00:15:23.520 Ha, ha, ha.

00:15:24.800 But it wasn't really funny.

00:15:27.260 And you could see the discomfort coming from the gallery.

00:15:30.260 And this, again, is the problem.

00:15:33.000 You should be uncomfortable with the idea of the state covering your paycheck if you're a journalist.

00:15:38.680 Again, it doesn't matter if you want to call it straight down the middle, if you're really into weather,

00:15:43.480 or if you're into sports, or if you're covering Parliament Hill.

00:15:46.320 It shouldn't be coming from the state.

00:15:48.640 Because then, now, we're going to wind up in this situation where trust in journalism is just taking a nosedive fast.

00:15:55.740 And our wasteful spending is going up just as quickly.

00:15:59.300 The two are hand in hand.

00:16:01.200 And so, if there is a different prime minister who then cancels all of this funding,

00:16:05.580 it's probably going to come as a pretty big shock for a lot of people.

00:16:09.680 You know, I was with Sun News Network when it got shut down.

00:16:12.800 And that wasn't because we weren't getting government funding.

00:16:15.340 It's because the government, through the CRTC, wouldn't give us access to an audience.

00:16:20.220 And so, I know what it's like to have the government have its tentacles as to whether or not you exist as a newsroom.

00:16:26.560 It's not going to be a good time.

00:16:27.760 Yeah, and I think that's a great example there.

00:16:30.320 I mean, the left-wing media at the time loved to say that Sun News was demanding some special favor from the government.

00:16:37.760 But it was actually the opposite of that.

00:16:39.780 It was saying, I want you to give us the equal treatment that you give everyone else.

00:16:44.160 And then, just leave us alone.

00:16:46.220 And that was, I think, what should have happened.

00:16:48.060 And it was actually, and we could do a whole, you know, hour-long show on this.

00:16:51.560 I'd say one of the great failings of the Harper government is not actually stacking the CRTC in a way that would be more amenable to a multitude of voices.

00:17:00.080 So, just in closing here, Chris, map this out a little bit.

00:17:03.420 Because what we've seen here is the big tech companies, Facebook and Google, being pretty stubborn on this.

00:17:08.880 And the government being similarly stubborn.

00:17:11.420 Do you think this is the status quo?

00:17:13.060 What we see now with this increasing resistance to allowing news on Facebook and Google?

00:17:18.720 Or do you think that someone is going to blink here?

00:17:21.560 I think, if I were to predict, it's usually the government that blinks in these situations.

00:17:27.380 Because, and it's for a bad reason, they think they have an endless pot of money.

00:17:31.960 And that is taxpayers' money and or the printing press.

00:17:35.760 So, for some reason, this government thinks you can just print billions of dollars out of thin air and it'll solve all your problems.

00:17:42.420 But that makes your problems much worse because it has caused this inflation crisis.

00:17:47.220 Getting back to the idea of groceries not being affordable.

00:17:49.820 Folks, that's why.

00:17:50.660 Because the federal government has been printing billions out of thin air while cranking up your carbon taxes.

00:17:55.880 So, that is helping to make your grocery bill higher.

00:17:59.080 But I think that this speaks to a much bigger problem that is happening not just here in Canada, but throughout the English-speaking world.

00:18:06.600 I can't speak to other Western countries because I'm monolingual.

00:18:09.720 I'm anglophone.

00:18:10.200 But if you listen to news out of the UK, for example, we're hearing a lot of censorship issues coming up there as well.

00:18:17.140 So, if you combine Andrew, so now they're trying to go after big tech.

00:18:21.540 They're in a huge fight as to whether or not who pays for media.

00:18:24.620 The state government is paying media.

00:18:27.560 And further, the state is now determining who a journalist is, who a qualified journalist is, which journalist gets money.

00:18:36.980 And at the same time, they're trying to stifle online expression.

00:18:40.900 So, they're trying to fund other media while potentially strangling alternative media sources like the one we're on right now.

00:18:50.680 That's a really dangerous place to go if you value free expression.

00:18:55.840 Very well said.

00:18:56.980 I would encourage everyone to take a look at Chris's op-ed on this at taxpayer.com.

00:19:01.700 Journalists should not be paid by the government.

00:19:04.180 Now, I agree with it on the headline alone, but the body has a lot more great substance as well that you should check out.

00:19:10.140 Chris Sims, Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:19:13.620 Always good to talk to you, Chris.

00:19:14.900 Thanks for coming on today.

00:19:16.600 Thanks, Andrew.

00:19:17.380 Thank you very much, Chris.

00:19:19.260 That was Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, obviously taking a more right-leaning critique of Bill C-18.

00:19:27.000 But I wanted to put into context here the fact that this is not a right versus left issue.

00:19:33.280 And I think in general, the internet regulation that we are seeing from the government, especially on C-11,

00:19:38.820 has been sometimes even more forcefully criticized by voices on the left than on the right.

00:19:45.040 So, I want to sort of separate out the partisanship here and talk about some of the other critiques that are coming,

00:19:50.300 not necessarily from the taxpayer advocacy perspective, but in general.

00:19:54.440 I mean, the government's stated goal here is about saving journalism.

00:19:58.280 Now, whether that's an accurate reflection of their goal or not, I think we could probably have some debate over.

00:20:04.820 But that's their stated goal.

00:20:06.100 So, even just on that criterion alone, is C-18 going to be the savior of journalism,

00:20:11.700 or is it actually going to have an adverse effect potentially?

00:20:15.140 I want to welcome back to the program a gentleman who has been a voice on this with the group called Open Media,

00:20:21.480 not a right-wing group by any stretch, but that doesn't mean we can't find common ground with them on stuff.

00:20:26.720 And that is Matt Hatfield, who is the campaigns director and is returning to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:20:31.860 Matt, it's good to talk to you again. Thanks for coming back on.

00:20:35.460 Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:20:36.440 So, let's talk about this idea here, first and foremost, about whether C-18 saves journalism,

00:20:41.420 because you've actually said that it could have the opposite effect.

00:20:45.440 Yeah, unfortunately, the government has designed a bill that I think is almost guaranteed not to have the effect that they want it to.

00:20:54.700 And for a variety of reasons, I think it's rotten at its core.

00:20:57.880 And I also think we're seeing right now platforms just aren't going to comply with the government's intention on it.

00:21:02.800 So, the whole bill was built around this idea that platforms are gaining so much value from news that's not being remunerated,

00:21:09.160 and the government wants to fix that or make it fair.

00:21:11.360 However, the platforms, both Meta and Google, are saying, well, if that's the case, we'll stop stealing the news,

00:21:17.400 we'll stop posting this news, and what then?

00:21:20.640 And, of course, a lot of small news in Canada are really freaking out about this,

00:21:24.640 because this is going to take away, you know, 30%, 50% of their traffic in many cases.

00:21:28.200 Yeah, and I mean, we are going to be talking a little bit later on in this show about how True North is doing its best to adapt to this.

00:21:34.620 But the worst thing about it is that the small outlets are the casualties of this fight that wasn't theirs.

00:21:40.900 I mean, to use one more on the left that I was chatting about earlier in the show, Canada Land.

00:21:45.980 I mean, they weren't asking for this money, but now they're going to have their audience throttled.

00:21:50.160 We weren't asking for this money, but now we're going to have our audience throttled.

00:21:53.520 And these small outlets that really were not the target market for C18 in the first place are going to lose access to their audiences.

00:22:01.560 And that's the thing here, is that it wasn't these bootstrap independent media organizations that were saying,

00:22:06.900 we need money.

00:22:07.960 It was Post Media.

00:22:09.260 It was Torstar.

00:22:10.340 It was the Globe and Mail, Global News.

00:22:13.780 Yeah, that's right.

00:22:14.700 And I think part of the tragedy of that is there's multiple small groups missing out.

00:22:18.200 Of course, there's the upstarts like yourself in Canada Land that are being affected for no good reason.

00:22:22.960 And in many ways, you folk were doing great and really succeeding on new platforms.

00:22:27.060 And then there's also local or small local news in the sense of, you know, the little newspaper,

00:22:32.120 conventional newspaper that wants to do reporting on the city council.

00:22:36.020 And they're potentially losing a bunch of revenue here.

00:22:38.340 We're never primary beneficiaries of C18.

00:22:41.200 And, you know, they were already really struggling to make a go of it.

00:22:43.960 Some of them might go out of business specifically because of this bill.

00:22:46.260 Yeah, and the one thing as well, and this gets into a bigger picture discussion that probably we can't solve in a few minutes here,

00:22:54.420 but it's about the definitions of journalism.

00:22:57.060 I mean, look, I obviously am fully candid, but I approach issues from a particular political persuasion.

00:23:02.400 But when you have a bill like this, you force someone to draw a line between what is journalism and what is not.

00:23:09.180 And let's just say that if there's a spectrum between your fairest, most impartial fact-based reporting

00:23:15.000 and you're just conspiratorial, you know, politically charged, made up, or clickbait outlet,

00:23:22.540 at some point, if we're taking out the stuff over here,

00:23:26.260 we're leaving people with only access to the stuff that is more harmful to discourse.

00:23:32.380 Yeah, that's a huge risk.

00:23:34.240 So it remains to be determined exactly how a platform like Meta is going to handle this.

00:23:38.400 But if they are specifically removing everyone who's a qualified Canadian journalist organization,

00:23:43.080 according to the government, that actually accomplishes the opposite purpose of what the government is aiming at,

00:23:47.880 it would be only non-qualified Canadian journalist outlets that would be getting distributed on Facebook.

00:23:52.800 What were the suggestions?

00:23:54.360 Because I know open media was quite forceful, and I mean that in a good way,

00:23:58.680 in trying to get some changes to these.

00:24:00.280 I mean, what were the amendments that you would have liked to have seen,

00:24:03.920 apart from just scrapping the bill?

00:24:05.860 I mean, I still think they ought to scrap the bill and restart.

00:24:11.780 I think there is a case that you can make for some need for public funding for journalism.

00:24:16.420 I think there's a certain brand of journalism that society needs that are never going to produce a lot of clicks.

00:24:21.620 And it's things like, you know, going to those council meetings,

00:24:24.260 taking the notes on very boring meetings that we're probably never going to read those stories

00:24:27.540 until it's a really important moment and we needed to have that reporter there.

00:24:31.000 And they weren't there because it wasn't attracting the clicks.

00:24:33.920 That said, below scrapping the bill, I think the biggest thing that it needed and still needs is more transparency.

00:24:42.880 So there's been a lot of critique of the fact that platforms already have some secret relationships with news organizations.

00:24:49.820 The bill's outcome is greatly expanding those secret deals.

00:24:53.140 And we don't know who's getting the money, what the terms are.

00:24:56.040 Unfortunately, I think because the government has realized their bill has gone awry,

00:25:01.120 they're, in my view, desperate to strike a deal with Google right now to make sure Google participates in some way.

00:25:06.200 And it's not just a net loss for journalism.

00:25:08.320 But I think that's actually going to give Google tremendous scope to decide what they want from these deals.

00:25:14.740 And, you know, if it's Google who's making some of the determinations about like,

00:25:18.740 well, we think you as an organization deserve this much money a year or two from now.

00:25:23.400 And then there's some reporting quite critical of Google coming from that outlet.

00:25:27.060 I mean, we all know things could go awry there, right?

00:25:29.280 And these are some of the most powerful companies in the world.

00:25:31.760 It's deeply problematic for news organizations to be dependent on either them or the government for their welfare.

00:25:37.820 Yeah, and I think it's interesting because what you're describing when you talk about a role for public funding of media,

00:25:44.600 I'm a little bit more leery of than I think you are.

00:25:48.180 But if it were to exist, I would put it exactly where you've described it,

00:25:52.220 on sort of that gap-filling idea of the things for which there is no market.

00:25:56.540 And in theory, that's where CBC has a tremendous function, you know,

00:26:00.220 in talking about French language, indigenous coverage, remote and rural communities.

00:26:05.220 But I think CBC is also a bit of an interesting test case in that it's hard to resist the allure of the big glitzy stuff

00:26:12.220 like the Olympics and the Junos and the online opinion section.

00:26:17.100 And I mean, no one can say that opinions on the internet were an underserved market

00:26:21.700 that was in need of CBC being there.

00:26:24.840 And I'm wondering how you'd look at the local journalism initiative,

00:26:28.040 which I think is probably by design trying to do that.

00:26:31.660 But I don't think it's really stayed squarely focused on those local non-clickbait issues.

00:26:39.440 Yeah, it's a good question.

00:26:40.780 I mean, I think a main factor is that the funds are in no way comparable to C18.

00:26:45.640 And that really speaks to your point.

00:26:47.420 The real purpose of C18 was just dumping a buckload of money from platforms into outlets like Postmedia.

00:26:54.520 And unfortunately, with no real guarantee that any of that money would be spent on journalism.

00:27:00.740 I mean, many of these conglomerates actually have enormous debts that a lot of their money goes to repaying those.

00:27:05.580 It's entirely possible that few, if any, journalists would have been hired,

00:27:08.780 even if C18 were transferring a lot of money, which is part of the problem there.

00:27:12.940 I'm not an expert on the local journalist initiative.

00:27:15.260 And, you know, our focus is really the internet and what happens through the internet.

00:27:19.560 But I do think, as you said, if there's any funding going out,

00:27:23.760 it should really be focused on news deserts, on things that can't find their audience otherwise.

00:27:27.880 And there's a lot of great reporting that can find its audience and doesn't necessarily need that support.

00:27:32.300 Have you heard anything from the government in terms of kind of a benchmarking C18 for what would constitute a success?

00:27:39.300 Like, would, you know, going the next five years with no major corporate media layoffs,

00:27:44.060 is that the standard for success?

00:27:45.600 Is it creating jobs? 0.58

00:27:47.080 Because in my coverage, I actually haven't come across with, you know, how do we measure if this has worked?

00:27:53.800 No, I think they've been very leery of tying it to something like that.

00:27:57.220 Very early on, when the expectation was that Google and Facebook would both be in full compliance,

00:28:02.740 there was a budget estimate of how much revenue they thought would be produced.

00:28:05.820 And that estimate actually became quite controversial itself,

00:28:08.960 because what the revenue of us determined is they thought the vast majority of the funds

00:28:12.860 would not be going to sort of investigative print journalism.

00:28:16.060 It would be going to broadcast outlets, and it would be going to the largest players,

00:28:19.880 including potentially CBC, as well as, you know, the Rogers and Choruses of the World,

00:28:25.820 outlets that even if their news might be suffering, are actually extremely profitable as a whole.

00:28:31.660 And I should remind people as well, despite C-18 going through,

00:28:36.140 Bell has tried to remove all of their local reporting obligations recently,

00:28:40.220 which just speaks to the fact that this bill actually doesn't nudge anything directly

00:28:44.820 towards the area that we need that support.

00:28:47.560 Yeah, and I think, you know, this brings us back to how we started,

00:28:50.460 which is talking about the adverse effects of this.

00:28:53.560 I mean, because all of this was based on, you're right,

00:28:56.320 this expectation that there would be a huge boatload of cash

00:28:59.420 that would be flowing from the tech companies to the media outlets,

00:29:02.780 which, regardless of what happens three, six months down the road,

00:29:06.680 I think it's safe to say is not going to happen at least as optimistically as the government was then.

00:29:12.040 So you either have a level of cash that is less than what was previously anticipated,

00:29:17.700 or you just have this indefinite blackout on tech sites for access to Canadian journalism.

00:29:25.500 Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think looking at what people can realistically experience,

00:29:29.720 I think Meta's out, period.

00:29:30.920 I don't think there's any way the government's going to be able to draw them back in.

00:29:34.500 They have not started blocking news on most of their platforms yet in Canada.

00:29:39.080 Some people are being blocked on Instagram primarily.

00:29:41.880 But I think we can expect to see news content blocked almost certainly in the next few months.

00:29:47.200 Google, I think the government will find some way of cutting a deal with,

00:29:50.020 but I'm concerned that it's going to be a deal that kind of works for post-media and kind of works for Google

00:29:54.640 and actually doesn't work for Canadians or for small news outlets and really kind of cuts out our interests.

00:30:01.720 I'm curious where your concern is on that.

00:30:03.560 What do you think is going to, or why do you think that'll happen?

00:30:06.220 Well, I don't think we're going to see any transparency into the deals, for example.

00:30:09.500 I think Google will, the government and Google are probably going back and forth on the number.

00:30:14.040 It is probably going to go primarily to the largest stakeholders on this, to the conglomerate outlets.

00:30:22.360 And then I guess my concern is just going to be if the government believes it has had to really cajole

00:30:28.400 and beg Google to stay in to cut these deals, their ability to pressure Google around

00:30:32.480 if those deals are set up in inappropriate ways is going to be very low.

00:30:36.800 So actually, I could see a world in which Google comes out of this with a tremendous amount of quiet influence

00:30:41.880 over the news sector that is actually legislatively locked in, that isn't just sort of a dark campaign.

00:30:47.340 And I don't feel comfortable with that.

00:30:49.120 I'm concerned about what may occur to the independence of a reporting on tech issues in that world.

00:30:53.620 I just, I mean, I don't know if you have an answer to this, but in closing, I was wondering, Matt,

00:30:57.100 if you know why Twitter has kind of gotten a pass on this?

00:31:00.220 Because Twitter is, I'd argue, far more relevant for, notwithstanding its recent changes,

00:31:05.720 for the dissemination of news content.

00:31:08.120 But it seems to have been carved out of the discussions.

00:31:11.120 When I've read the legislation, and I don't actually see how it's not applicable,

00:31:15.300 or even a website like Reddit, for example,

00:31:17.320 but this has really been characterized as an assault just on Facebook and Google.

00:31:23.500 You know, I think a simple answer to that question is if it looks like the government

00:31:28.140 hasn't thought very hard about certain things, they probably haven't.

00:31:31.440 I think Google and Meta were seen as the big cash bags.

00:31:36.080 Twitter is very important to journalists and for breaking stories,

00:31:39.020 but it's not nearly on the same financial level.

00:31:41.720 As those two platforms, nor is nearly as many Canadians on it.

00:31:46.500 And I mean, realistically, if they know they're picking a giant fight with Meta,

00:31:51.840 obviously Elon Musk would be an even rougher one to pick a target with these days.

00:31:55.700 He would fight them into the ground on this.

00:31:57.480 And so it tactically probably doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:32:00.080 But in terms of the, you know, letter of the bill,

00:32:03.820 it's very unclear why it should be just those two platforms.

00:32:06.200 Yeah, I know everyone's been talking about the Mark Zuckerberg-Elon Musk cage fight,

00:32:09.360 but I think the Elon Musk-Justin Trudeau cage match would probably be a little bit more of a hot ticket item.

00:32:16.000 All right.

00:32:16.360 Well, certainly interesting to look at this from all the angles.

00:32:18.980 And I know it's an unsatisfying answer to default to,

00:32:21.720 but I think it's an accurate one that maybe they just didn't think it through,

00:32:24.420 or at least not as well as they want to pretend they did.

00:32:27.680 Matt Hatfield, Campaigns Director for Open Media.

00:32:30.300 Thanks again, Matt.

00:32:30.940 My pleasure.

00:32:32.360 We can talk anytime.

00:32:33.360 Thank you very much, Matt.

00:32:35.060 That was Matt Hatfield, Campaigns Director for Open Media.

00:32:38.740 And like I said, this is not just a right-of-center critique of these internet regulations.

00:32:43.680 There are voices on the left and the right that have grave concerns

00:32:47.120 with this whole litany of regulations that the Liberal government have been putting on the internet.

00:32:52.920 We've been speaking for most of the program up to this point about Bill C-18,

00:32:56.840 but I have to go back to the original of this little package of regulations, Bill C-11.

00:33:02.440 Now, this is a bill that has been passed.

00:33:04.180 It's law, although we haven't yet seen the full-throated implementation of it yet that we know of.

00:33:10.620 But at its core, the bill requires the promulgation of Canadian content,

00:33:15.840 the promotion of Canadian content through streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube

00:33:20.940 and Crave and all of these things,

00:33:23.140 which means, by definition, the manipulation of algorithms.

00:33:26.660 So you are actually, when you log on to YouTube,

00:33:29.500 instead of seeing what YouTube might have right now as your homepage,

00:33:33.380 which is content tailored to you based on your interests,

00:33:36.680 you will, it seems like, be forced to see what the Trudeau government wants you to see.

00:33:41.860 Now, maybe they'll serve up some good stuff.

00:33:43.900 I mean, True North, my show is Canadian content,

00:33:46.440 but I have a hard time imagining the passage of a bill that will put my show in front of more Canadians' eyes.

00:33:52.200 I don't think that's what Trudeau would allow to happen.

00:33:54.780 I've seen some tremendous foreign programs on Netflix.

00:33:57.820 Money Heist, one of my favorite shows from Spain.

00:34:00.620 Maybe I wouldn't learn about that under Bill C-11, 0.51

00:34:03.160 because instead I'd have to watch some crappy Quebec soap opera.

00:34:07.020 And, I mean, the hilarity here is that we also have the government extending, 0.67

00:34:11.640 it sounds like, these regulations to pornography.

00:34:14.060 This is what has come out in the last couple of weeks.

00:34:17.060 The big porn companies are saying they want to be exempt from this,

00:34:20.040 because they don't want to have to serve up, you know, crappy discount budget Canadian porn.

00:34:24.180 They want to serve up the good stuff that is attracting the eyeballs of Canadians. 0.90

00:34:28.900 So, there are lots of ways in which I could see this being manipulated

00:34:33.140 and done so in a way that is not just about the benign promotion of Canadian culture and enterprise,

00:34:39.880 but is about promoting a particular type of content creator.

00:34:43.780 And, the government's left so much to the CRTC here as far as developing its own regulations

00:34:50.680 so that what is in the law itself is only going to be a jumping off point

00:34:56.280 for what actually happens when a lot of this stuff gets into motion.

00:35:00.020 And, I've had a lot of people, every time this topic comes up,

00:35:02.560 that have said, well, what about using a VPN?

00:35:04.820 Will that protect you?

00:35:06.220 And, there was actually a great piece in the Epoch Times that was written by Roland Renner,

00:35:10.780 who is a contributor to the Frontier Center, that said, very tactically,

00:35:15.440 how to get the internet and not the Trudeau net.

00:35:18.140 So, I wanted to delve into this in a bit of detail here with Roland Renner himself.

00:35:23.140 Roland, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:35:25.860 Thank you, I have a real place to be here.

00:35:28.480 Now, let's just start.

00:35:29.600 For people that are not as well-versed in the tech of this,

00:35:32.580 what is a VPN and what does it do in relation to your experience as an internet user?

00:35:38.200 Well, it's a virtual private network.

00:35:42.160 So, using security technology, essentially, you build a private network for a group.

00:35:49.600 It could be a company.

00:35:50.840 Lots of companies use them.

00:35:52.400 The government uses them for internal communications.

00:35:56.060 Political parties use them so they can communicate without somebody else coming in and dropping in.

00:36:04.160 It's essentially something that's been developed to enhance security.

00:36:10.040 And the side effect of it, though, is what's important here, is that it eliminates the geofencing.

00:36:18.080 And geofencing is essentially identifying you as from a particular location.

00:36:24.700 So, as you were describing earlier, Andrew, if the government comes in or one of the big tech companies comes in and says,

00:36:32.980 all right, we think that Canada should be watching this or that, they have to identify you as Canadian.

00:36:41.000 And geofencing is the technique they use to do that.

00:36:43.540 And the VPN blocks that through its security processes.

00:36:47.460 So, that means they can't label you.

00:36:51.340 Now, the labeling is sometimes good stuff.

00:36:55.460 Because normally, if you're Canadian, you'd want to watch Canadian news.

00:37:00.680 Maybe not mainstream news, depending on, you know, your opinions, obviously.

00:37:05.580 I haven't watched it in a long time.

00:37:08.020 But if you're Italian, you know, you want the Italian news.

00:37:11.000 If you're Japanese, you want the Japanese news. 1.00

00:37:12.960 So, these things are helpful and generally positive, even though it's a lot of power.

00:37:21.740 So, there's a lot of debate about that.

00:37:23.500 But once you bring in C-11, and now the government is going to get in, even though the CRTC claims they're not going to do that.

00:37:31.840 But this is the side effect.

00:37:34.160 All of a sudden, you're going to have to watch what they want you to watch.

00:37:41.480 And they're going to block things that they don't want you to watch.

00:37:44.080 If you get a VPN, which you can do as a commercial service, there are dozens of them out there.

00:37:50.400 All you got to do is go on the internet, Google it, VPN, Canada, see who's out there offering, compare and contrast,

00:37:59.000 just like you do any kind of internet shopping otherwise, and pick one that suits you.

00:38:03.460 So, there's a technique.

00:38:06.680 It's all legal.

00:38:08.320 You can do it to make sure that you're not blocked by this sort of thing.

00:38:12.540 And at the same time, you will get, you know, more opportunities to explore globally from the AI of the big platforms themselves.

00:38:22.040 Yeah, and you're right that sometimes it's done in a very benign way.

00:38:26.900 I mean, we've all been to websites and they say, oh, it looks like you're, you know, visiting from Canada.

00:38:32.260 Do you want to see prices in Canadian dollars?

00:38:34.160 And it's okay.

00:38:34.640 Well, great.

00:38:35.060 That's, you know, that's very helpful.

00:38:36.340 Thank you.

00:38:36.940 But usually on those that you have the option to switch around.

00:38:39.960 I mean, I was once in the U.S. for a few weeks and I got hooked on some Netflix show and I didn't finish it.

00:38:45.500 And I was like, oh, I'll finish it when I get home.

00:38:46.980 And then I go home and, of course, it's nowhere to be found on Canadian Netflix.

00:38:50.860 So, I did exactly what you're describing, which I'm probably not supposed to do in this context.

00:38:54.660 But I got the VPN and, you know, said I'm in, you know, Seattle, Washington today and then, you know, finished the show off.

00:39:00.500 And Netflix was very wise to this early on.

00:39:03.880 And I think they've had, in some cases, better experiences than others in trying to block this.

00:39:09.300 And I just before logging on to this interview, I did a little test from a VPN and was able to access German Netflix.

00:39:17.080 But in the past, I've received a message that says, basically, I know what you're doing and it's not going to work.

00:39:22.280 So, I'm wondering how advanced VPN blockers are and how that could come work against people that are trying to do this for the reasons you've mentioned.

00:39:33.020 Well, they might be improving them in the future.

00:39:36.580 You know, as you say, it's hit and miss sometimes today.

00:39:40.880 But generally speaking, it's pretty good.

00:39:43.400 And if you go to the big things like Netflix, so they do have to worry about something like copyright.

00:39:54.240 So a lot of programming is owned by different companies and different people in different countries.

00:40:03.760 And that is, you know, one of the fundamental legal challenges that we have for the big platforms as to how they manage this so that creators of content get paid as they should be, really.

00:40:19.960 You know, one way or another by subscription or advertising and all the different models that we've had.

00:40:25.140 But how that is done is changing and adapting.

00:40:29.460 You were referring earlier to, you know, new companies and new creators that are going to be negatively influenced by some of this potential out of Bill C-11.

00:40:44.880 And that's certainly a worry.

00:40:50.200 But so copyright is a real worry.

00:40:53.420 And so Netflix and the larger organizations do try to enforce that sometimes.

00:41:04.940 But if you go to some of these smaller organizations, they don't really have to worry about it, especially if they're generating their own content like you are, for instance.

00:41:17.700 Yeah, and I think it's important in general.

00:41:21.540 And I've always tried to be.

00:41:23.000 And I know that it's a lost cause because you're being tracked in just every conceivable way imaginable when you go to this website or that website.

00:41:30.440 It's like I try, you know, every now and then I'll use the incognito browser because maybe I think that, you know, Google only has 95% of what I'm doing instead of 100% of what I'm doing or something.

00:41:39.760 But with VPNs, I mean, the one thing is that it's this process that sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

00:41:45.680 And I've met people, and this is not meant to insult anyone, but people that I would not consider technical sophisticates that have managed to do this.

00:41:53.260 Because there is this concern now that people are going to be forced into this Internet experience that is very much not authentic.

00:41:59.820 Well, exactly.

00:42:03.540 And I think one of the things that I'm glad you mentioned it, because I should have put that into my piece earlier for Frontier Center.

00:42:11.560 It's not that hard.

00:42:13.840 Now, it does cost a little bit.

00:42:16.580 And there again, you get what you pay for, kind of.

00:42:19.660 So there are some complaints sometimes that it slows you down.

00:42:23.120 It can introduce another choke point into your experience of browsing.

00:42:30.640 However, other than that, it is a small expense.

00:42:38.780 That's about it.

00:42:39.820 I mean, you load it up like any other application, and away you go.

00:42:44.700 So you do not have to be a techie.

00:42:47.720 You do not have to call tech support.

00:42:49.940 I'm sure the VPNs themselves will help you if you really have trouble.

00:42:54.980 But, you know, they have call centers and help desks like everyone else.

00:42:58.640 But it's not hard.

00:43:01.180 Yeah, I use one.

00:43:02.300 I was going to mention the name, and then I'm like, no, screw that.

00:43:04.280 I'm going to, like, ask them for money before I do that.

00:43:07.000 But again, there are many options out there.

00:43:09.880 And certainly, you can learn pretty, pretty easily how to do it.

00:43:14.160 I'll just ask in closing here, Roland, about the concern that I have more fundamentally,

00:43:19.480 that what we're really talking about here is a Band-Aid.

00:43:21.840 I mean, this is a workaround to a problem that really doesn't need to exist,

00:43:26.620 but it's a problem that government is creating here.

00:43:29.820 I agree with that.

00:43:34.020 It is a Band-Aid, but it's nice to have one.

00:43:37.860 In the interim, I mean, the only other thing to do is to get involved politically and complain loud and loud.

00:43:44.780 One of the great ironies of Bill C-11 in its primary role of getting the big platforms to contribute,

00:43:56.580 like Canadian cable companies, 5% of gross broadcasting revenues in Canada to Canadian production funds.

00:44:04.480 That's what it was supposed to initially before.

00:44:08.880 And, you know, the Canadian production industry is booming.

00:44:13.940 These aren't people who need a lot of help.

00:44:17.760 This is a success story.

00:44:19.640 They've got lots of stuff going on for Netflix.

00:44:23.240 They've been, revenue has been growing by 10% a year.

00:44:28.920 We're protecting an industry that no longer needs protection, you know.

00:44:33.820 So this is full of ironies.

00:44:36.220 And they're like, as you're sure you've been discussing, there are five other bills out there.

00:44:41.240 C-18, C-26, C-22.

00:44:46.440 I think there's a Senate bill as well that gets into some of the privacy issues.

00:44:51.860 And then the future online harms bill.

00:44:54.060 Yeah.

00:44:54.660 Full court press on this stuff and getting after what they call lawful but awful in the online harm.

00:45:01.900 So, oh, we have laws against some of these things.

00:45:05.120 Let's enforce the laws if you need to.

00:45:07.240 Well, oh, but what about lawful but awful?

00:45:10.240 Things that are illegal but we don't like.

00:45:13.120 They've actually used this term, which tells you exactly where they're headed.

00:45:16.820 Yeah.

00:45:17.140 In terms of this main point.

00:45:18.100 In my view, it should end at lawful.

00:45:20.740 If it's lawful, it doesn't matter how awful it is.

00:45:22.860 But well said all around.

00:45:24.900 Again, yeah, the Band-Aid is better than bleeding out if those are your only two options.

00:45:28.440 So I think it's good for people to take their tools as they can.

00:45:31.660 And I appreciate you shining a bit of light on it here.

00:45:34.120 Roland Renner, contributor for the Frontier Center.

00:45:36.600 And then this piece in particular that we've been discussing, picked up by the Epoch Times,

00:45:40.680 How to Get the Internet and Not Trudeau Net.

00:45:43.120 So thanks very much, Roland.

00:45:44.520 Good to talk to you.

00:45:45.520 Thank you, Andrew.

00:45:46.000 Thank you for that, Roland Renner.

00:45:49.060 I always get the messages from people that say, yeah, we know the world is terrible,

00:45:52.700 but what are we going to do about it?

00:45:54.040 So we try to throw a little bit of the practical news you can use into the mix here.

00:45:59.420 And I guess I wanted to wrap up this show because we've talked about, again,

00:46:03.640 internet regulations and there's still so much more we need to do.

00:46:07.440 And I actually want to do a whole show on the online harms component,

00:46:10.620 which is hard to do completely because we haven't yet seen the full scope

00:46:15.020 of what the legislation will be and what it'll look like.

00:46:18.200 So we focus on the stuff we know about, C11 and C18.

00:46:22.220 But I know that there is a big question looming over all of us,

00:46:26.380 which is what does this mean for independent media?

00:46:28.680 And I can be a little bit indulgent on this one because True North,

00:46:32.400 I would say, as the platform on which you're consuming this show,

00:46:35.220 is a platform that I hope you have somewhat of a relationship with.

00:46:39.260 And if not, we welcome you.

00:46:40.800 If this is your first experience with us, they're a lot better than me sometimes.

00:46:44.960 Don't worry.

00:46:45.840 But let's talk a little bit about how True North has adapted to this,

00:46:49.320 because obviously it's one thing to jump up and down and cheerlead for Facebook

00:46:54.040 kind of just thumbing its nose at Post Media and the Toronto Star.

00:46:57.720 But when they block the dissemination of news on their platforms,

00:47:00.900 they're actually going to be cutting off a large audience that we have cultivated

00:47:05.220 over the last several years of our existence on Facebook, similarly to YouTube.

00:47:10.140 I remember it was a great boon for independent media

00:47:12.760 when True North started to be included in Google News.

00:47:16.320 So when people are looking up a news story,

00:47:18.100 it's not just the Toronto Star they're seeing, it's also our reporting.

00:47:21.980 So when they're going to be in the process of killing that off,

00:47:25.300 that means some people that might not have accessed us otherwise

00:47:28.060 will lose that exposure to us.

00:47:30.340 So I wanted to bring in our colleague who you've seen on previous shows.

00:47:34.160 He's also working away behind the scenes as our COO, William McBeth,

00:47:39.000 and a longtime political activist and operator in Canadian politics.

00:47:44.520 William, always good to talk to you, sir.

00:47:46.040 Thanks for coming on today.

00:47:47.680 Well, it's an honor to be on your show, Andrew.

00:47:50.400 I mean, one thing that True North has always done very well, I think,

00:47:54.160 is not put our eggs all in one basket.

00:47:56.340 I mean, there's a reason that we upload on a bunch of different platforms,

00:47:59.600 and every now and then we'll get the people that,

00:48:01.340 even though we're on every platform, we think will be like,

00:48:03.320 why are you not on, you know, Blurg.com?

00:48:06.420 And we'll be like, well, look it up and, you know, maybe we upload later.

00:48:09.120 But in general, how do you insulate against this environment

00:48:13.560 where we're seeing this major standoff between the government and big tech?

00:48:19.660 Yeah, I mean, the question is,

00:48:21.620 how do you guard against a government that is intent on being this incompetent

00:48:26.780 when it comes to actually supporting news media in Canada?

00:48:30.740 And it's a tough question.

00:48:33.120 You know, you make the point about not having all of our eggs in one basket.

00:48:36.700 I think that's very important.

00:48:38.300 I would say that's a lesson we learned from legacy media,

00:48:41.340 who were so reliant on one form of advertising for all of their revenue,

00:48:46.080 and then were completely unable to manage the transition to the digital era.

00:48:51.080 For us, that means not just being on Facebook or not just being on YouTube,

00:48:55.820 but being on a whole variety of social media properties

00:48:58.940 from the mainstream to the more avant-garde,

00:49:02.660 and also maintaining traditional tools like having a great news website

00:49:06.720 and having a really great email list

00:49:09.480 so that people can get their content from us in a whole variety of ways.

00:49:14.080 Yeah, and I think the list is a big part of this.

00:49:17.480 And I know that everyone gets just bogged down in their inbox,

00:49:20.660 and I'm guilty of this as well.

00:49:21.900 And every now and then I'll have to go on like an unsubscribed purge

00:49:25.120 because I'm on these mailing lists that I never asked to be on.

00:49:27.920 But that direct communication is really going to be

00:49:31.180 one of the last things left online

00:49:33.900 where you know you are getting access to content

00:49:37.080 that's not being filtered through a manipulated algorithm

00:49:39.600 or just being concealed from you altogether.

00:49:42.000 And again, I know people get a lot of emails.

00:49:44.260 I know it can be annoying.

00:49:45.380 But if someone is concerned who's a True North follower

00:49:47.800 about their ability to find us,

00:49:49.780 that is like the number one way, which is join up our mailing list.

00:49:53.680 Yeah, absolutely.

00:49:54.840 The single best way to make sure that the war between big tech

00:49:59.120 and the Canadian government doesn't preclude you

00:50:02.040 from seeing True North news

00:50:04.000 is to sign up to our email list

00:50:06.160 and is to make sure that you have bookmarked our website

00:50:09.940 so that it's easy to find us.

00:50:11.780 And if you take those two actions,

00:50:14.260 if you make sure that your family, your friends, your loved ones

00:50:17.480 have also signed up for True North emails

00:50:19.860 and also know how to find us at www.tnc.news,

00:50:24.520 that's how you can get around the fact that

00:50:26.900 between government incompetence and big tech,

00:50:29.800 making business decisions means you can still see True North news

00:50:33.360 and it won't be blocked from your phone

00:50:34.780 or from your computer or tablet.

00:50:36.060 Yeah, I mean, we've always, as a point of pride,

00:50:38.940 have really celebrated that we're not on the receiving end

00:50:42.180 of the government media bailout money, nor do we want to be.

00:50:44.860 And I think that's what's the most unfortunate about all of this

00:50:47.540 is that we're being really penalized,

00:50:49.540 as all independent medias are, for a fight that wasn't ours.

00:50:53.880 We were not asking Facebook for money.

00:50:55.980 And in fact, if I could, I mean, just speaking for myself,

00:50:57.980 if I could check a box on Facebook that says

00:51:00.480 we cede all desire for C-18 money

00:51:03.980 in exchange for being able to freely post,

00:51:06.320 I would check that.

00:51:08.360 No question.

00:51:09.700 I mean, the government has implemented

00:51:11.840 a whole series of terrible solutions

00:51:14.620 to try and save so-called dying legacy media.

00:51:18.940 None of them are good.

00:51:20.040 From a $600 million media bailout fund

00:51:23.640 that instantly makes anybody who takes it suspect

00:51:26.500 when it comes to reporting on the government,

00:51:28.520 because how can you trust a media outlet

00:51:30.200 that relies on taxpayer dollars to pay their payroll,

00:51:33.520 to pay their bills, to tell the truth about the government,

00:51:36.380 to now this latest one where they basically said,

00:51:38.700 we're going to try and extort big tech

00:51:41.540 into giving millions or even billions of dollars

00:51:45.080 to dying legacy media.

00:51:46.900 And when people like True North and others said,

00:51:49.520 well, no, the big tech companies

00:51:50.920 are just going to pull out of Canada,

00:51:52.640 the government said that would never happen.

00:51:54.700 And anyone who suggested it would happen

00:51:56.360 was just fear-mongering.

00:51:57.580 So it just shows the legacy of failure

00:52:00.300 that this government has had.

00:52:01.880 And unfortunately, it means for people

00:52:03.580 who are used to finding us on Instagram

00:52:05.580 and on Facebook, both meta properties,

00:52:09.220 it's going to become a lot harder in order to do so.

00:52:11.920 So signing up to our email list,

00:52:13.920 visiting us at www.tnc.news,

00:52:17.160 those are the surest ways of making sure

00:52:19.020 you don't lose True North from your life.

00:52:21.380 Yeah, and I think it's important to contextualize it.

00:52:23.840 I mean, we all get the people

00:52:24.920 that are rightfully suspect

00:52:26.480 where anytime we have like a technical glitch

00:52:29.040 in a live stream, people just say C11.

00:52:30.940 And I would love to be able to blame the government

00:52:33.340 for regular garden variety technical issues.

00:52:36.400 But there is something to this though,

00:52:38.460 which is that it causes people to be very suspect

00:52:41.380 about the experience they're getting online.

00:52:45.120 And right now, up until the point

00:52:47.120 that something major changes,

00:52:48.800 we control our own website.

00:52:50.160 So that's something that people can go to directly.

00:52:52.620 But my concern here is always going to be

00:52:54.860 about these regulations

00:52:56.460 and their ability to limit exposure to new content

00:52:59.600 and not just to True North content.

00:53:01.260 I mean, even to a TV show on Netflix

00:53:03.500 that might be produced out of say, Norway or something

00:53:06.220 that pre-C11 you might find in your homepage suggestions,

00:53:10.540 but post-C11 you won't

00:53:12.380 because it's going to be some crappy Quebec soap opera,

00:53:15.300 like I said earlier, that you have to see.

00:53:16.720 So that is basically it here is that it does really limit

00:53:20.640 the ability for new people

00:53:22.560 to sort of stumble upon us potentially.

00:53:25.460 Yeah, oh, for sure.

00:53:26.620 And to suggest that somehow the CRTC

00:53:30.320 is going to do a better job of telling big tech

00:53:34.720 how to display content

00:53:36.180 that Canadians actually want to see is laughable.

00:53:40.100 Big tech invests billions of dollars building algorithms

00:53:43.480 that are solely designed to try and show you more of what you like

00:53:47.400 or what you might be interested in

00:53:49.160 based on, you know, your previous viewing patterns

00:53:52.240 and other things like that.

00:53:54.040 And now suddenly we're going to have the CRTC,

00:53:57.000 noted not for its deep competency and efficiency,

00:54:01.120 just look at our cell phone market,

00:54:03.280 meddling in how the algorithms start to display Canadian content.

00:54:06.920 And where it could really hurt us is

00:54:09.680 will the impact be great Canadian content

00:54:12.660 isn't going to be shown as much to an international audience

00:54:16.440 because of the meddling that's taking place

00:54:19.320 by the government and the CRTC

00:54:21.080 because a lot of YouTubers who are famous in Canada

00:54:24.580 also are famous in other parts of the world,

00:54:26.620 notably the United States.

00:54:28.080 And it would be a great disservice

00:54:29.740 if our Canadian export of culture and talent

00:54:33.920 and, you know, great entertainment got stymied

00:54:37.880 because, again, there's some Quebec soap opera

00:54:40.260 that isn't getting enough views

00:54:41.960 and therefore the government has meddled

00:54:44.160 to try and show it to more Anglophone Albertans.

00:54:47.840 Yeah, I mean, it's funny.

00:54:49.140 It's creative protectionism, really.

00:54:51.420 And it's particularly ironic from the government

00:54:53.860 that said when it was renegotiating NAFTA

00:54:56.420 that, you know, we need to protect free trade

00:54:58.360 and the rationale behind that

00:55:00.800 was that we needed Canada

00:55:01.940 to be able to access the international market.

00:55:04.160 So it's all well and good to look at Bill C-11

00:55:06.340 and say this will protect Canadians.

00:55:07.880 But imagine if every country in the world

00:55:10.160 had their own C-11 alternative,

00:55:13.120 had their own domestic C-11 comparison or analog.

00:55:17.160 It means that all of a sudden these Canadian shows

00:55:19.620 that might have otherwise had an export value will not.

00:55:23.780 I mean, if the US were as protectionist

00:55:26.180 as Canada is trying to be,

00:55:27.440 Schitt's Creek, which is a very popular Canadian show

00:55:30.480 in the US, would not necessarily be as popular in the US.

00:55:34.780 So you reap what you sow there.

00:55:36.880 And I don't think the government has really anticipated

00:55:39.300 the long-term consequences of this,

00:55:41.640 of not just closing off the foreign content stream

00:55:44.700 to Canadians, but also inadvertently closing off

00:55:47.840 the Canadian stream to international audiences.

00:55:50.540 So I'm glad True North is adapting.

00:55:52.820 I will say I'm annoyed, but I'm not defeated about this

00:55:56.240 because we are doing things.

00:55:57.520 But absolutely, if I can do the shameless plug,

00:55:59.860 get on our mailing list.

00:56:01.020 And more importantly, if you can support independent media

00:56:03.940 by heading to donate.tnc.news,

00:56:06.800 it also allows us to have more tools in the toolbox.

00:56:10.060 We can advertise, we can promote,

00:56:11.740 we can generate more content.

00:56:13.140 So I'm glad to have my colleague,

00:56:15.440 William Macbeth on, as always,

00:56:17.240 this time to shine a bit of a light

00:56:18.620 on what we're doing.

00:56:19.900 William, thanks very much.

00:56:21.560 Thanks very much for having me.

00:56:22.920 All right, thank you.

00:56:23.900 And I know he's the COO,

00:56:25.180 but he didn't make me have him on.

00:56:26.420 That was my own choice there.

00:56:28.360 We will talk to you all next week

00:56:30.300 with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show

00:56:32.820 here on True North.

00:56:33.660 This is the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:56:35.080 Thank you, God bless, and have a wonderful weekend.

00:56:37.660 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:56:40.000 Support the program by donating to True North

00:56:42.060 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - July 28, 2023

Trudeau's internet policies are an assault on independent media

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript