Juno News - Trudeau tightens his grip on online content (ft. Kris Sims)

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 every monday we like to check in with our friend chris sims of the canadian taxpayers federation

00:00:13.840 this is not a simsulation she is here in the flesh well virtually anyway chris always good

00:00:19.520 to talk to you thanks for coming on today hey andrew thanks for covering this you know we cannot

00:00:23.980 understate the importance of this and you know the crdc can spruce it up as much as they want

00:00:28.760 they can talk about modernizing they can talk about holstering canadian content but at its core

00:00:33.620 not even incidentally at its core bill c11 and the regulations that follow are about government

00:00:39.940 manipulating what canadians can see online and by extension what people can publish online yes uh

00:00:46.180 and i think sometimes uh because you've been in both you know mainstream media for a long time

00:00:50.820 alternative media and now what this is um i think those of us who've been in the game for this long

00:00:56.320 sometimes uh don't realize that normal people don't realize how powerful the crtc is okay

00:01:03.220 uh the crtc regulates broadcasting so think of your mainstream networks things like ctv or cbc in some

00:01:13.340 cases global that includes radio as well by the way and through doing that if you run afoul of crtc

00:01:22.460 regulations as they interpret it keep in mind there's always an argument if you run afoul of

00:01:27.900 crtc regulations and they get mad enough at you they will pull your broadcasting license

00:01:34.220 and the the sentence that concerned me most in this release that as you rightly point out was put out on

00:01:42.140 a friday before a government long weekend was online services that offer podcasts must register

00:01:49.780 so to your point youtube spotify any of the others apple any of the other online services that host a

00:02:00.040 podcast like this one must now register well what does that mean what does that look like do they need

00:02:06.820 to give the crtc a list of all of the podcasts that are going to be there and then after that are all

00:02:13.940 those podcasts monitored to see if they run afoul of any crtc regulations this is where we're getting

00:02:21.800 to the crux of free expression and this is why the canadian taxpayers federation was fighting tooth and

00:02:27.880 nail against c11 because if you can't express yourself freely and air ideas that might be controversial

00:02:34.860 or not in line with government narrative it's impossible to hold your government to account

00:02:40.100 you have no voice so this is why people outside of media really need to take this seriously they

00:02:47.280 gotta phone their mp just to build off of your point chris on the crtc you worked for sun news network

00:02:54.340 as i i know a lot of our viewers will be well familiar with and you know in the end sun news network

00:03:00.560 lives on in spirit through independent online media we had ezra levant found the rebel in the wake of it

00:03:06.640 we've had true north which was founded by candace malcolm who i know was also very involved in

00:03:11.340 in sun a lot of the personalities have popped up in all of these other fora sun news died in large

00:03:18.100 part because of the crtc because the crtc would not issue the same treatment that sun news wanted that

00:03:24.940 everyone else in media got in canada that was the issue it wasn't that sun wanted special treatment it

00:03:30.020 was that sun wanted equal treatment and and just imagine the crtc exercising that same level of judgment

00:03:36.280 in latitude on online media services where cbc gem is going to get one treatment from crtc in a way

00:03:45.080 and i i don't know rebel news is financials but let's say rebel it makes 10 million dollars a year

00:03:49.420 fits the criteria the criteria change whatever uh is cbc gem going to get the same shake from the crtc as

00:03:55.580 rebel news absolutely not because we know how crtc has treated cbc versus sun news yes exactly and to

00:04:03.840 give you an example uh to your point we were asking for what was called a mandatory carriage

00:04:09.420 which wouldn't have incurred any cost to taxpayers but it was a carriage service that the crtc had

00:04:15.880 given to all the other news networks okay it had given it to cbc news world as it was called back in

00:04:21.160 the day ctv news channel bnn which is the business news network all sorts of canadian networks had been

00:04:28.800 given mandatory carriage for years on end sun news network had said hey we literally had our desks

00:04:35.300 made in calgary all of our reporters are reporting from canada we even cover local elections right in

00:04:42.240 canada we are canadian as you said before as maple syrup um and they still said no and we got shut down

00:04:50.860 and you run into this problem when you're dealing with government control of broadcasting and i can

00:04:58.680 hear some of the folks right now uh especially in government saying oh well safety alluding to those

00:05:04.920 things i'm gonna hit stop on that right now because it is already illegal to distribute or talk about

00:05:12.200 or promote horrific things like terrorism or keep the kids out of the room images of child sex abuse

00:05:21.580 okay you cannot do that those are against the criminal code of canada for a good reason we are

00:05:28.680 not talking about that that would be an issue to take up with the minister of justice no c11 is the

00:05:35.600 minister of heritage this is about content and judgment of canadian content the issue here is a

00:05:44.420 human being is judging what is and is not worthy canadian content and this is not a right or left

00:05:51.160 issue if i could just reach out to as the late president ronald reagan used to say our friends on

00:05:57.100 the left imagine you're back in the early 2000s imagine that the united states is gearing up to invade

00:06:04.620 iraq remember then back in canada a lot of the protests andrew you might recall were organized

00:06:12.100 online they were internet chat groups and blogs it was before the days of podcasting and they were

00:06:18.160 all open everybody could read them this was part of the open internet and they formed massive protests

00:06:24.280 against canada's participation in that war they had a huge protest on parliament hill all organized

00:06:31.280 online through communications a few days later then prime minister kretchen stood up and said you

00:06:36.280 know what we're sitting this one out no thanks imagine if the government of the day found that to be

00:06:42.520 problematic and didn't want that content promoted what would have happened so if if you're fine with

00:06:51.360 prime minister justin trudeau's judgment of everything and you're one of those voters

00:06:54.760 okay put your shoe on the other foot imagine if pierre polyev were prime minister would you want

00:07:01.340 his government dictating what you can and can't see online you shouldn't i think you're right about

00:07:09.500 that and i would also talk about the unintended consequences here or maybe intended i this actually

00:07:14.540 came up in a housing context recently so italy as a country for whatever reason i i don't know

00:07:20.080 has a policy of reciprocity where if an italian citizen would be prohibited from buying property

00:07:26.820 in a foreign country someone from that country will be prohibited from buying property in italy

00:07:31.180 and you you take what's a very reasonable approach on its face italy is fine letting foreign investment

00:07:36.860 run uh run rampant in the country but if your country is going to ban italy italians from doing 1.00

00:07:42.120 it they're going to ban canadians and how i learned about this was because canada has put in

00:07:46.280 restrictions on foreign home ownership and italy is now looking at how to respond to that i'm told

00:07:51.140 but just take that and put it into a content lens canada believes that we need to start uh basically

00:07:57.440 restricting the inflow of foreign media content to canada that's their that's their stated purpose so

00:08:04.200 that's not even like a conspiratorial thing that's their deliberate reason if i were a country that is

00:08:10.500 wanting to export its media productions why on earth would i ever want to import canadian

00:08:16.880 content in this way if canada is banning you know money heist which is a spanish show or borgen which

00:08:22.800 is denmark and by banning i i mean restricting it and throttling it why would those countries want

00:08:28.140 to import canadian content so we're really taking this form of entertainment protectionism here which

00:08:33.940 canada would never settle for if another country were to do it to us that's a great point we could

00:08:39.000 easily get in to that sort of tit for tat war just on the cultural entertainment level we're talking

00:08:45.260 about you know sitting back and chilling with netflix for a little bit as they say um when you

00:08:50.580 talk about news content and information sharing again things get pretty twisted pretty fast i'll give

00:08:57.280 you a perfect example and it's right within the canadian taxpayers federation uh we call the carbon tax

00:09:02.840 a carbon tax we don't call it a fee we don't call it a price on pollution or whatever else the

00:09:08.240 government calls it the government gets super mad at us for that like they get really ornery over it

00:09:14.100 and especially when we point out that it's not reducing emissions and that people on average are

00:09:20.220 paying out more than they get back that's in direct contradiction to what the government message is

00:09:26.360 they've gone so far as to call it i think they've called us misinformation don't think it's been

00:09:31.680 disinformation so far do a thought process imagine then that they decide that misinformation is no

00:09:39.140 longer allowed under crtc content rules guess what we can't have conversations about the carbon tax

00:09:46.540 anymore then like folks this is really important and if you don't care about the carbon tax pick whatever

00:09:52.980 issue is most important to you and apply that lens this is why we need free expression in canada

00:10:00.120 we need to be able to air out our issues and we need to be able to talk to each other

00:10:04.220 so we can organize and push back on government based on our topics this is a major major threat to that

00:10:10.680 well i'm glad you bring up the misinformation aspect here chris because i i feel one of the

00:10:15.700 most important aspects of this is that we can't look at all of the liberal government's internet

00:10:19.880 regulations in isolation there's a whole suite of them that are being uh pushed through right now we

00:10:24.900 have c11 and c18 which have passed we also have the online hate act which is going to be reintroduced

00:10:31.480 at some point and then there's going to be another online safety uh component which may or may not be

00:10:36.820 part of it that i've been talking about and we see examples of this in the uk and eu so we know how the

00:10:43.500 canadian government is being informed and influenced and as i've talked about on the on the show in the

00:10:48.340 past the most dangerous thing about this is that they're lumping all of these so-called online harms

00:10:53.320 under one regulatory banner which is just harm and within that they're having hate speech

00:10:58.760 misinformation child pornography and if you stand up and say ah you know i don't like this they're

00:11:04.140 going to say well you're an apologist for child pornography like that's going to be the debate

00:11:07.460 when we already have laws on that and if we need to strengthen those let's absolutely do it but all of

00:11:14.120 this is incredibly important and i'm glad you brought it up chris because the government is basically

00:11:19.020 trying to extend its net to capture all of these outlets the forced registration is not benign

00:11:25.360 it means that all of a sudden there's a designated contact person so that when all of these other

00:11:29.760 things pass they know who they have to talk to at each company to get content taken down correct

00:11:34.960 and to your point this could affect based on what you were reading this could affect the standalones

00:11:40.940 as you've described if you're self-hosting but also keep in mind how much of a headache do you think

00:11:46.940 these big guys these big tech companies that do platform these podcasts how much of a headache do

00:11:52.700 you think they want like you really think that they want to put up with constant phone calls from the

00:11:58.160 crtc because they're giving like a relatively tiny canadian voice a tiny canadian podcast no they just

00:12:06.300 won't bother look at what's happened with c18 this is why when you go to facebook you can no longer

00:12:12.040 post or paste a news link anymore because before it was a fight between the government of prime minister

00:12:18.340 justin trudeau and big tech and big tech said no we are not going to pay media organizations based on

00:12:25.940 links that are posted on our sharing platforms well they called their bluff and now they no longer allow

00:12:31.740 those links to be posted because they don't want to pay that fee extrapolate this down the road

00:12:37.360 and apply this new element that's coming out here with c11 and keep in mind to your point that this

00:12:44.000 is not happening in isolation so we've got all of this happening with online content whether it's

00:12:49.740 podcasts or whatever this would be called an online show whatever you want to call it typically called

00:12:55.260 alternative media okay they're doing that at the same time the government is funding mainstream media now

00:13:03.260 and it's not just the cbc yes the cbc gets more than 1.2 billion dollars from taxpayers every year

00:13:10.840 so it is government funded media they're also paying mainstream media and the last report we saw out of

00:13:18.380 our great good journalists out of black locks reporter who do excellent work and have their own independent

00:13:23.960 website is that the mainstream media is looking to double its payment coming from the government

00:13:31.120 this is why journalists mustn't be paid by the government because you can't hold somebody to

00:13:36.480 account if you're counting on them for your paycheck so this is happening on one side they're going on

00:13:42.060 to government payroll and on the other side in what we would call independent media we're getting

00:13:47.160 more and more severe restrictions let's take that c18 comparison a step further if we can chris because

00:13:56.360 i i agree entirely predictable i don't blame meta for making the decision it made i blame

00:14:01.000 the government for you know forcing it and not listening to them be honest about what they were

00:14:05.200 going to do the the one silver lining for an independent media outlet like true north is that

00:14:10.380 when meta says we're going to ban links to your website we still have our website and we spend a

00:14:15.400 lot of time and effort building up our own mailing list telling our audience please go to our website

00:14:20.260 directly join our email list so we can communicate with you directly when we talk about what crtc is doing

00:14:26.600 so those companies were offering a way to promote our content the companies that the crtc is going

00:14:32.980 after under c11 are the companies that actually hold the content in some ways so they're actually talking

00:14:40.220 about websites where the podcast is hosted which means there is no direct way for the consumer

00:14:46.620 to circumvent that once they're gone they're gone and if some of these companies like rumble is a great

00:14:51.700 example rumble has an ideological commitment to this so i could understand them not wanting to play

00:14:56.860 by canada's rules and saying we are effectively blocking access to our platform in canada and if

00:15:02.620 you're a russell brand or a stephen crowder whose show lives on rumble boom that show's gone yes exactly

00:15:09.560 and then what happens next right i've noticed that they keep pushing more and more like the goalposts

00:15:15.880 keep moving farther down the field so do a little thought experiment and this is speculation but

00:15:21.660 it's based on observation of the government's behavior and you know i don't care what color

00:15:28.180 jersey they're wearing this is not a liberal conservative thing i'm talking about the federal

00:15:31.680 government that happens to be in charge right now i'd be saying the exact same thing if this were a

00:15:36.080 conservative government pulling this nonsense so take that thought experiment an extra step what happens

00:15:41.640 then if they decide to go after self-generated self-hosted content in a way that hey your server

00:15:48.040 should no longer be hosting you because your server now needs to comply as a broadcaster

00:15:54.520 well under the crtc that is not that much of a jump away from uh a big podcast hosting website like apple

00:16:03.300 or youtube well and that was the the thing that happened with parlor now i used parlor when it first

00:16:10.560 launched and didn't really do much with it but uh that was a an outlet that ultimately was taken

00:16:16.880 offline by its web host and and you know at that level of web host i'm told there are only a handful

00:16:21.640 of companies that even provide the service so if all of them are playing ball with these government

00:16:25.620 regulations uh the government would have access to the kill switch exactly and so again this is why

00:16:32.140 so for example if you're you know want lower taxes less waste and more accountable government the way

00:16:36.840 we do here at the canadian taxpayers federation we do our own podcast we put our podcasts out on all

00:16:42.740 sorts of these platforms again this is not even a thought experiment it's come directly from the

00:16:47.780 federal government if the federal government decides that calling it a carbon tax and telling

00:16:53.180 people the truth saying on average you're paying more than you get back from the government

00:16:57.360 if they decide that is now misinformation and no longer allowed what then folks what then and if

00:17:05.720 you're the ctf isn't your cup of tea pick whatever issue is important to you if for example you're opposed

00:17:12.760 to the gun grab right the seizure of lawfully owned firearms by law by law abiding people and they have

00:17:19.680 their own podcast but the government decides for whatever reason that they don't like it and it violates

00:17:25.380 this certain list of rules again this is where it becomes really problematic and 100 if you actually

00:17:33.220 violate the criminal code in canada it doesn't matter if you're on a podcast you're going to get in deep

00:17:37.540 trouble right you're going to have to face a jury of your peers or a judge etc you wind up in the

00:17:42.360 justice system this is not we're talking about we're talking about expression through the canadian

00:17:47.820 heritage ministry and through the crtc which is again why i strongly recommend people read uh professor

00:17:54.760 michael geist on this he's a brilliant academic he does deep dives and a lot of thinking on this

00:17:59.540 he's been in the room apparently uh when they've tried to discuss these topics when they're drafting

00:18:04.780 this legislation so he can see where the puck is going and in all earnestly all honestly contact like

00:18:12.160 left-wing podcasts too say folks do you want to live under this kind of regulation coming from the

00:18:18.680 federal government probably not and link arms and defeat this stuff yeah and there have been some

00:18:26.040 left of center groups that have been sounding the alarm on this and i'm very glad for but i think we

00:18:30.820 need a lot more and uh basically this is i mean i hate that old nemo or quote that's like adapted to

00:18:36.100 every stupid context but the first they came for the podcasters does seem appropriate here uh chris sims

00:18:41.800 alberta director for the canadian taxpayers federation and i don't i don't know if we've announced it so maybe we can 0.90

00:18:47.220 announce it now you're going to be uh are you coming to our event i'm not sure yet i'm trying to okay

00:18:52.060 well we hope to uh to see you there uh either way anyone should come to that event october 21st

00:18:57.720 true north nation in calgary chris sims thank you so much thank you thanks for listening to the

00:19:02.680 andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - October 06, 2023

Trudeau tightens his grip on online content (ft. Kris Sims)

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