Juno News - When unions stop representing workers (ft. Brian Lilley)

00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. My name is Chris Simms. I'm the Alberta Director for the

00:00:07.780 Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thank you for including us on what is hopefully your Labor

00:00:13.140 Day long weekend. If you are actually out there laboring, thank you so much for the work you do,

00:00:18.060 and thank you for including us. We have a special show for you today because quite often you'll hear

00:00:23.640 government unions talking a lot about Labor Day. You're going to be seeing parades, you're going

00:00:28.860 to be hearing people saying things like, oh Prime Minister Mark Carney is going to cut

00:00:32.860 government services to the bone. What does that really mean? What's the difference between a trade

00:00:39.780 union, okay, so somebody who is say a carpenter or a boilermaker or a plumber, that's a trade union

00:00:47.240 versus things like PSAC, okay, the Public Service Alliance of Canada and other government unions.

00:00:53.820 What is the difference there? How much are we paying? And how can we actually get more efficient

00:01:00.840 government in order to hold them to account better and actually pay less in taxes? Because I wanted to

00:01:08.540 point out, folks, you're paying like 42, 43% of your pay to taxes. How is that nice for workers?

00:01:20.820 How is that nice for the labor movement? How is it that the biggest mouthpieces in the government

00:01:29.440 labor movement are saying things like, we need to spend more, we need a bigger bureaucracy, we can't

00:01:36.640 cut? I will remind folks that the researchers over at the Fraser Institute, they do a great calculation

00:01:43.360 every single year. They go through all levels of government, federal, provincial, and municipal.

00:01:49.480 They add up all of the taxes, fees, levies, whatever other euphemistic term is being applied to taxes

00:01:56.720 these days, and they come up with a calculation. And this year, yeah, it's around 42 or 43% of your pay

00:02:05.440 on average, that's going out the door in taxes. Let's do this another way. Say you're on regular salary,

00:02:13.360 like most people, and you get your salary deposited into your bank account. Say it's every two weeks. Do a thought

00:02:20.540 experiment. Imagine what usually lands in your bank account. Double it. That's close to how much the government

00:02:30.020 is taking from you. Picture if that amount were doubled. What could you do with that money by choice?

00:02:38.940 Could you afford more nutritious food? Could you pay off some credit card bills? Could you save up maybe

00:02:45.840 for a house? Could you afford to rent a better place? Think of all of the individual choices you would be

00:02:53.200 able to make that would better your life or better the lives of your children and your family if your pay

00:03:00.640 were almost doubled. That's how much taxes various levels of government are taking from you. And that

00:03:08.000 is why I do not understand why the so-called labor movement, especially the ones that are connected

00:03:14.780 to government, refuse to tackle the issue of taxes. Why do they keep on just demanding more and more

00:03:22.380 government? Because at the end of the day, this is your money. And pretty much all of us could be

00:03:33.760 considered laborers. Unless you inherited well, and you're sitting back on your landed gentry manor by

00:03:40.520 the pool, most of us work. Most of us are workers. And you know what the biggest drain on the workers are

00:03:48.420 nowadays, this Labor Day? Taxes. How are we going to get the government to be smaller? How are we going

00:03:55.920 to hold them to account? How are we going to be able to save more of our money? Let's find out.

00:04:02.120 Joining me now is my good friend Brian Lilly. He is, of course, a senior columnist with the Toronto Sun

00:04:07.640 newspaper chain. He's also the host of this podcast. Full comment. You straight up are. Like, Brian,

00:04:14.660 it's between us girls. It's like the only mainstream media podcast, and I'm using that term loosely out

00:04:20.860 of respect, that I listen to. And so you are my conduit into what is actually going on in the

00:04:27.100 parliamentary press gallery and mainstream media. So really, you could just tell me anything, and I'd

00:04:31.120 believe you at this point. Well, it's good to hear from my former intern that she likes listening to

00:04:36.140 my podcast. Yeah, it's kind of weird. You say you're using mainstream media loosely. It's kind of weird

00:04:43.260 whether I am mainstream media or not. I mean, clearly, I write for the Toronto Sun. Full comment

00:04:48.480 is with National Post. Those are pretty mainstream. But a lot of people who are part of the clique,

00:04:53.620 they're like, ooh, Lily, over there. But, you know, I'll tell you on stuff like our trading

00:05:02.020 relationship with the United States, I've been getting calls from high level people telling me,

00:05:06.280 you know what, you're the one that's actually getting the meat on this, that understands what's

00:05:12.300 happening and why there's such a problem with the talks between Canada and the US, Ambassador Hillman.

00:05:20.940 And so it's, or, you know, the various things that are going on. But yeah, I'm in the mainstream,

00:05:26.520 and I'm not accepted by the mainstream. So it's a fun position to be in. I also straddle online and,

00:05:33.000 you know, Dead Tree publications, like a few others that are in the gallery sort of stuff.

00:05:38.120 Didn't you get an interview with Steve Bannon recently? Or was that like an old Sun News Network

00:05:43.220 fever dream that I had? No, that was February. I was down in Washington. And I texted Bannon and

00:05:50.440 said, okay, can we connect? I had met Bannon before the first Trump White House. It's funny,

00:05:59.160 I used to interview Steve Bannon and John Bolton, two guys that both ended up in the Trump administration

00:06:04.180 who can't stand each other. And, you know, both having various troubles with the law. But I reached

00:06:11.780 out to Bannon and I said, can I do an interview with you about the 51st state about trade about

00:06:18.340 what's going on? And he had some really fascinating insights, whether you, you know, like the guy or not,

00:06:24.420 he's very smart guy, very plugged in. And yeah, on that front, the Republicans are starting to say,

00:06:34.660 back then, people like Bannon and others were like, oh, no, we don't mind Doug Ford because,

00:06:39.220 you know, he's hacking the tariffs. But, you know, now they're not liking Doug Ford because he's going

00:06:45.620 personal. And back then he wasn't. So it's interesting times.

00:06:51.140 Yeah, it's always smart. And I'll stand by this to go meet the people who actually have the ear of

00:06:57.300 the U.S. president. So it's a smart thing to do. It was a smart thing for Alberta Premier

00:07:02.260 Danielle Smith to fly down there and talk to Ben Shapiro. That is a smart thing to do.

00:07:07.220 I know we're supposed to be talking about other stuff.

00:07:09.540 I know, I'm sorry.

00:07:10.580 On that, I'll talk about anything with you. You know that.

00:07:14.020 I know.

00:07:14.580 On that issue of talking to people who have the ear of the president or are influential,

00:07:20.500 Danielle Smith was raked over the coals. National TV newscast doing stories about

00:07:25.940 how she's meeting with this controversial guy and he's anti-Canadian. First off, Ben Shapiro used

00:07:31.700 to be a big part of Sun News Network. We ran his columns in the Toronto Sun. We run them again

00:07:36.980 these days, every week, Wednesday or Thursday. And he's a guy whose sister used to live here in Toronto

00:07:44.660 and knows the country well, has spoken up for the country. So she goes down, meets with him. And then

00:07:52.740 what's he doing? He's talking about how Canada is not the enemy. This is a dumb policy. We should

00:07:58.340 change this. He's speaking up for Canada. What's the Canadian embassy doing? They're hiring a firm run by

00:08:06.100 Democrats. A firm who's headed up by a guy whose claim to fame was he helped take back the house

00:08:13.460 from the Republicans in Trump's first term in 2018. And that's the firm that's going to teach them

00:08:20.100 how to access conservative media, how to understand it. Give me a break. As Steven Taylor said, any

00:08:28.100 Canadian who spent a weekend at CPAC has more conservative and Republican connections in

00:08:34.100 Washington than the Canadian embassy does. It's hopeless. Yeah. That's even dumber than I

00:08:39.460 thought they were pulling. Okay. Speaking of dumb, we're speaking today on Labor Day. Yeah. And I, 0.99

00:08:45.940 you know, I've got some mixed feelings about Labor Day. So I was raised in a union household. All of my

00:08:50.900 brothers are tradesmen. They're in what I would call real unions. Okay. Similar to the union that endorsed

00:08:57.620 conservative leader Pierre Polyev. So I know that you have it in your family as well and that it's really

00:09:03.220 important to you. I wanted to get into this Labor Day issue of a real, what I would say, trade union,

00:09:09.860 a normal workers union versus government union, because we're hearing so much. Once again,

00:09:15.700 you and I spent a lot of time together in Ottawa hearing from government unions, including PSAC,

00:09:20.660 now saying the sky is falling because Prime Minister Mark Carney is actually saying, you know what,

00:09:25.940 we got to trim the fat around here. We need to reduce the budget. What's your take on this year's

00:09:30.420 Labor Day? Where do we stand when it comes to unionized workers? Do you know the history of

00:09:35.300 why they chose the first Monday in September? I actually don't. Remind me. I'm going off memory

00:09:41.780 here, but if memory serves, it was to get away from the actual communist celebration on May Day,

00:09:48.260 on May the 1st. And so they wanted something different to try and, you know, okay, well,

00:09:54.260 you're going to have trade unions, but let's not be communists. That's my understanding. You know,

00:09:58.660 hopefully it's not an urban myth, like we change the clocks every spring for the farmers. You know,

00:10:05.220 and where don't they do that in Saskatchewan, where there's a lot of farmers. But my understanding is

00:10:09.940 that's what they did. There is a deep divide between trade unions and government bureaucrat unions.

00:10:20.260 My son is in a trade union down in New Brunswick now, was down visiting him,

00:10:25.700 and mentioned CUPE. And he just went off. I mean, look, the building that I'm sitting in right now

00:10:33.460 is the Ontario legislature at Queen's Park. A lot of the workers here that are part of the Ontario

00:10:40.100 Public Service are represented by CUPE. There's good public service unions and bad ones. OPS is pretty

00:10:46.180 good. CUPE. You know, Fred Hahn, the guy is horrible. He basically runs it as his own personal

00:10:55.540 political pack. It's like he's out there running on other political issues that have zero to do

00:11:02.660 with the working conditions of public servants, which, you know, they should be protected to a

00:11:09.940 degree. I mean, I think they go a little bit crazy in terms of how they do it. And they're more

00:11:16.740 concerned about their working environment than the customer service they provide to you and I as

00:11:21.380 taxpayers. But sure, you know, if you want to unionize, go ahead. But Fred Hahn runs a political

00:11:29.380 operation obsessed with Israel, obsessed with anti-Semitic comments and behavior. You know,

00:11:36.900 if I was a member of that union, and I'm not, I'm a member of Unifor, not by choice,

00:11:43.460 but I am required by law to sing the international I lead twice a day.

00:11:48.180 They, you know, if I was in that CUPE union, I'd be voting to decertify. I'd be saying,

00:11:53.540 get me out of here. Let me go find, you know, a proper union that's going to negotiate a contract, 0.63

00:11:59.140 negotiate him on behalf of me on issues that a lot of workers are dealing with right now, such as,

00:12:07.380 okay, how does AI play into how our jobs are done? Can we use it? Can we not use it? What are the

00:12:13.700 limitations? These are, these are real issues. Fred Hahn going off about resistance by any means

00:12:21.060 necessary after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, isn't a workplace issue.

00:12:26.100 No, it's not. It's a big, big charge political issue. And I can't imagine being forced to pay dues

00:12:34.900 in order to pay that guy's salary. I haven't even looked to see what his salary is. It's probably

00:12:39.620 disgusting. You see less of that in the trade unions. Now, United Steelworkers is pretty far

00:12:46.900 left. I was amazed that Ontario Premier Doug Ford was at their union hall recently in Hamilton at

00:12:52.740 1005. The guys on the shop floor at Stelco, which is where 1005 represents, they love Ford. They love

00:13:00.980 Pierre. I've been to Stelco with both of them. They are mobbed. These guys are conservative voters,

00:13:07.380 but the leadership of local 1005 has generally since the 1930s or 40s been communists. And so I'm amazed

00:13:14.580 that they would stand next to Ford even if he's giving them money for training. But are the steel

00:13:20.980 workers a trade union in the way the carpenters and plumbers are? That's up for debate. But the

00:13:25.780 hardcore trade unions where you've got a skilled trade have moved away from supporting NDP leaning

00:13:35.380 parties. Quick example. You said I grew up with this in my house. I grew up when I was young. I only

00:13:41.300 remember orange signs on the lawn. Didn't know why they were there. Eventually found out it's about

00:13:46.100 elections. And well, my dad came from Scotland. He's an old style labor guy. He was in the Boilermakers.

00:13:56.660 He supported the NDP because that was the party that looked out for working class men and women.

00:14:03.860 So this past federal and provincial election, in fact, the past two provincial elections,

00:14:12.660 the Boilermakers, my dad's old union, my dad's old local, in fact, the guy that announced the

00:14:19.860 endorsements for both Pierre Polyev and Doug Ford apprenticed under my dad. There has been a wholesale

00:14:26.820 change. And it's because these guys build things. And the NDP and to a very strong extent, the liberals

00:14:37.380 will see if Carney changes this. They have moved from being a party that wanted things built to a

00:14:42.420 party of just saying no, you know, no, you can't have a new highway. No, you can't have a new port

00:14:48.020 infrastructure being built. No, we can't build anything. Well, what happens to those men and women 0.98

00:14:54.980 in those unions? If you keep having no be the only answer, they're not working. They're they're on

00:15:01.460 pokey. And that's not where most people want to be. So that's why there's been this wholesale change.

00:15:09.300 And they're, they're voting with their wallets. Also, I would argue on many cultural issues, which

00:15:17.140 some conservatives never want to touch and others want to hang on to too tightly, got to find the

00:15:22.260 balance there. But, you know, their voting patterns have changed, because of the, the way that the

00:15:32.260 parties have decided they want to align. The NDP does not get much support in that. David Puccini,

00:15:40.180 Ontario's labor ministers marching in the Toronto Labor Day parade. That was a tradition started by

00:15:45.780 Monty McNaughton. And, you know, when Monty was in opposition under Tim Hudak, there's no way

00:15:51.620 that they would be showing up. There was a lot of hard work. Stephen Harper tried to bridge this divide

00:15:57.860 a little bit. And he got some support from the Building Trades Council over infrastructure money

00:16:04.660 in a couple of his budgets, but he couldn't get it that far. And the real shift in Canada, I would say,

00:16:13.780 started in Ontario. A lot of hard work by Monty McNaughton, who was, he's out of politics now,

00:16:20.580 but was Doug Ford's labor minister, by Premier Ford himself, and then by successive people that also

00:16:27.460 worked with Pierre Polyev. McNaughton was advising Polyev on his strategy for doing this, essentially

00:16:34.340 replicating what Boris Johnson had done in the UK, taking on the red wall. These guys are never going

00:16:40.980 to make inroads with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, or as I like to call them because it annoys

00:16:45.540 them. PSAC. They don't like PSAC. Did you know that? No, but it's their name. So why not say PSAC

00:16:51.300 all the time? Because it sounds funny and we might giggle. That's the whole point of saying it.

00:16:57.140 Which is why I say it. Exactly. My late brother was also a Boilermaker. He passed away suddenly a couple

00:17:04.180 of years ago. And I could see this shift even in them, in my brothers who were in the trades,

00:17:10.020 and they were all moving that direction. And at least what I was seeing on the ground out west,

00:17:15.460 when Pierre Polyev was doing a lot of those campaign type stops, when he was doing those

00:17:20.820 leadership stops, he would stand there for hours, like two or three hours while people lined up to

00:17:27.060 get a picture with him. And a lot of those guys and gals were there in work boots. They were just 0.83

00:17:32.820 coming off shift. So I really noticed this big ground shift over to team blue and in your neck

00:17:39.780 of the woods, seeing the pipe workers like directly endorse Pierre Polyev because of things like the

00:17:46.740 industrial carbon tax saying that this is going to decimate our jobs in the steel industry and chase

00:17:52.980 some of these industries south to where there is no industrial carbon tax in the States. I found that

00:17:58.020 to be a profound shift. Do you think now you've been in the game for a long time? Do you think

00:18:04.020 that Carney is pragmatic enough to realize this sea change? Do you think that he's going to say

00:18:10.180 something like, okay, you know what? No more industrial carbon tax. I don't want to ruin our

00:18:14.980 steel industry. Turns out we do use it a lot. You know, joking aside, no more, you know,

00:18:20.420 carbon tax tariffs that I've been thinking about imposing. Do you think he might be pragmatic?

00:18:25.220 You know, the comments the other day from Tim Hodgson, which were much, that was in Berlin.

00:18:35.620 So he is the minister of energy and everything, everything that's important to us right now.

00:18:42.100 He was in Berlin and he talked about how Canada's domestic and foreign policy will now align

00:18:49.780 with policies on things around, you know, energy and critical minerals. And he chastised the former

00:18:58.660 Trudeau government for taking LNG off the table and said, they're going to do that. Now they're talking

00:19:03.300 medium term. They're not talking about doing what the Germans did and getting an export terminal built

00:19:08.260 quickly. So, you know, my answer on almost everything with Mark Carney is it depends because

00:19:16.660 he talks a lot, but hasn't delivered much yet. If he starts delivering this fall and early into next

00:19:23.620 year, he has the potential to govern for a long time. If he wants, if he doesn't, and he just keeps

00:19:29.540 talking and not delivering, he could quickly turn into the next Paul Martin. We just, we don't know which

00:19:36.420 way it's going to go. But if he is pragmatic and he builds and Hodgson is giving free reign to go out

00:19:44.340 there and start getting projects moving, he could stop some of this shift. He could pull some of those

00:19:51.780 voters back over to, you know, liberals. You know, I don't see the NDP making that shift. They are

00:19:58.900 quickly trying to make themselves irrelevant. Or as Christian Luprecht described Canada on the foreign,

00:20:05.060 uh, on the international stage the other day, we're significant by our insignificance.

00:20:10.420 Uh, that's what the NDP is trying to do to themselves as a political party. So I don't see

00:20:14.180 them getting it back, but the liberals could peel some away in, uh, John Zerichelli, who is the minister

00:20:21.140 of state for labor. He's not full minister. Uh, the full minister of labor would be Patty Hajdu, who's got a

00:20:27.540 different title. Uh, but Zerichelli is a smart guy. He is a political operative who, uh, goes back to

00:20:38.100 Dalton McGinty at the Queens Park days. Um, worked with the Trudeau government in their early years.

00:20:45.940 If they start using someone like him to make inroads the way that McNaughton did for both

00:20:53.940 Polyev and Ford, that, that would be, uh, problematic for the conservatives at both the

00:21:01.380 federal and provincial levels. Because, um, you know, these guys, I spent 20 years listening to

00:21:09.540 politicians of all stripes, but it started under the liberals, um, saying, well, we're moving to the

00:21:13.940 the knowledge economy. They weren't exactly saying go code, but they were saying we're

00:21:19.780 moving to the knowledge economy. They had no time for this. Uh, you know, you're going to rue the day

00:21:25.700 that you, you hold onto that view going forward. What are the jobs that aren't going to be hit by AI?

00:21:32.660 Things like this or healthcare workers, anything that's hands-on. Um, you know, it's not there yet,

00:21:39.540 but one day I'll be replaced by AI prompts or I'll replace myself with AI prompts and have more time.

00:21:46.660 It'll just be these terrible kind of Frank Miller comic book talking heads that the two of us

00:21:51.380 talking. All right. I quickly wanted you to touch on the government unions and our favorite one to

00:21:56.580 say PSAC in Ottawa. Um, I think it's the Public Service Alliance of Canada and all, in all seriousness,

00:22:02.820 but yeah, PSAC, they're now sounding the alarm saying, oh my gosh, you know, the sky is falling.

00:22:07.940 Carney's going to cut. Okay. Number one, um, the public service, the bureaucracy has grown like

00:22:14.340 in a huge way. So like something like 40% over 10 years, isn't it? Even more. It's like in the 70 range.

00:22:21.220 So I'll put it this way. It's like 99,000 been added since 2015. If we had kept the growth of the

00:22:28.660 bureaucracy in line with population growth, we would be saving $7 billion a year. It was,

00:22:37.140 I couldn't believe it. Franco had to like walk me through the math. That is astonishing amount.

00:22:41.780 Um, so do you, again, another practicality question with Mark Carney, and I know I'm asking you to look

00:22:47.060 into a crystal ball, but do you think he's got it when it comes to making cuts? Do you think he's

00:22:51.860 actually going to make cuts or do you think this is a lot of noise?

00:22:54.580 Well, he's asked his cabinet ministers to make cuts. And so the public service unions are always

00:23:01.140 going to decry. Um, they, they only want more members, but that, that is the point of the union.

00:23:07.300 They're there to represent their members and they want to have more members because that's good for

00:23:11.220 them. And so they're going to oppose any cuts. Uh, no one can look and say that their services are 40 or

00:23:18.660 50% better than they were when the Trudeau liberals took office. Things were actually

00:23:24.740 working pretty well back then. I mean, I remember the passport office got streamlined years ago and

00:23:30.100 getting your passport used to be a huge pain. And then, you know, under Harper, uh, they completely

00:23:36.900 changed the system. Suddenly getting your passport was a breeze. It showed up on time. It was easy to

00:23:41.380 get appointments. And then the Trudeau liberals came in bad management. And we remember the people

00:23:46.100 lining up outside, uh, and get paying people to stand in line to get their passports because it

00:23:51.380 was taking months, uh, to get these things, good management matters. And so look, one of the things

00:23:58.420 that, uh, the, both the unions and the bureaucrats and the political staffers do if they're told to cut

00:24:04.100 is, uh, find something really public. So the RCMP is going to be good. Oh, we need to cut the musical

00:24:10.100 ride. If you are covering, uh, city hall as I have done in Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa. Oh,

00:24:18.020 we have to cut the budget. Oh, waiting pools are going to have to close in libraries. Oh yeah.

00:24:22.420 All the libraries have to be shut down. And so they, they go for these public things. And there was an

00:24:28.020 example of that, that we saw all of their budget cuts that the departments were asked for. The ministers

00:24:35.060 were asked for were supposed to be delivered to Frankie bubbles on, uh, August 28th. So last Thursday

00:24:42.740 and, uh, Frankie bubbles, by the way, for people that haven't heard me call them that that's

00:24:48.180 what I call our, uh, finance minister, Francois Philippe Champagne. My understanding is he knows

00:24:53.380 the nickname and doesn't mind it. So that's funny. He was supposed to. Yeah. And it's not mean. It's

00:24:59.700 like his name champagne bubbles. He, um, he was supposed to get those last Thursday. Well,

00:25:05.620 last week, uh, Stephanie Taylor at national post got added to a group chat, kind of like that guy.

00:25:12.340 What was it? The Atlantic that got added to Pete Hegseth's, uh, group chat. JD Vance's. Oh my gosh.

00:25:19.540 Except this one wasn't about war. It was about budget cuts. And, and so she gets added to a group

00:25:25.380 chat with senior political staffers at environment and climate change Canada. And they're doing what

00:25:31.460 I was just describing, you know, cut the musical ride, cut libraries, cut, uh, we're going to have

00:25:35.620 to close all the schools. If we cut the provincial budget, that sort of thing that, so for their

00:25:40.740 department, they're like, well, what can we cut? Well, you know, there's this program that helps

00:25:44.740 control algae blooms on the great lakes. And people will notice that. So this is what they're talking

00:25:52.260 about cutting. Um, so this is the challenge that Carney's going to have. Uh, if he wants to be

00:25:59.140 successful, I think he should spend a lot of time talking to Jean Chrétien, uh, much like the, uh,

00:26:04.500 former prime minister, Stephen Harper did. One of the stories that I heard about Chrétien was when he

00:26:09.940 finally decided, okay, we have to cut. He didn't come in on a promise to cut and he was forced to do it.

00:26:16.100 And Paul Martin really hated cutting because Paul Martin, despite what people think was a far left

00:26:21.140 liberal, he thought Chrétien was too right wing and he only cut because Chrétien forced him to,

00:26:26.820 but every, uh, department would, their minister would go in and try and make the case of boss.

00:26:32.980 You know, we could, we're doing great work, but we could do so much better. If you just gave me

00:26:37.140 another, uh, 10%, another 5%. Chrétien only had a couple of meetings like this after he decided to cut,

00:26:44.500 because according to the story I was told, people would go in and pitch to him, boss,

00:26:50.180 I need another 5%. He'd sit there, listen patiently, respectfully. The minister would

00:26:55.220 leave and he'd call up treasury board and say, cut them double what they just asked for.

00:27:00.820 If you're not ruthless, the ministers won't do it or most ministers won't. And the bureaucrats will

00:27:08.900 never do it. But you know, there are ways to streamline government services and provide better

00:27:15.300 service without costing more. It's just that we have refused to do it. And look, I know the feds

00:27:22.980 have pooched themselves by getting rid of a lot of office space during the pandemic. And then now they

00:27:28.180 can't even get people to the office three or four days a week, nevermind five. But I think a lot of

00:27:35.940 lost productivity is caused by the work from home mentality. Some people are more productive at home.

00:27:42.660 I know I can be, but writing is a solitary endeavor. But I interviewed one business executive

00:27:49.460 trying to get his office back to work. And his line to me was, you think you're more productive

00:27:54.260 at home, but the company's more productive with you at the office because you're able to collaborate.

00:27:59.780 That, you know, getting them back to office will be a major thing for productivity and also figuring

00:28:05.780 out, well, do you need to, to cut so many jobs? Or are people going to quit and say, no,

00:28:10.580 I don't want to ride the bus in from Orleans. I'm going to stay where I am. That LRT doesn't

00:28:15.940 work properly anyway. No. And we all warned them that it wasn't going to work properly.

00:28:20.260 Brian, before I let you go, I needed just one of our favorite topics is the CBC,

00:28:24.980 or as we named it back at Sun News Network, the state broadcaster. There's something, two things.

00:28:30.420 One, the Taxpayers Federation, we're taking them to court because they're refusing to tell people how much

00:28:34.980 they're spending on ads. Like we don't need to know the specific bus ads. Like we get that,

00:28:40.660 but just give us the entire lump sum amount, which is tax. So you like, you're not even asking for how

00:28:46.100 much did you spend on bus shelter ads or on radio or billboards? Just how much, what's your ad budget?

00:28:54.180 That's a reasonable ask under, I'm pretty well familiar with the access to information law around

00:28:59.540 CBC because I've written more stories about access to information at CBC and their refusals

00:29:05.300 than anyone on the planet. My favorite was, we asked them once, how many vehicles does CBC have

00:29:12.260 either owned or leased? And they refused to admit to anything. They blacked out everything.

00:29:17.540 And there's one page that said they had two satellite trucks and a Ford Taurus. And so I said,

00:29:24.340 apparently CBC runs a whole network on, um, uh, two satellite trucks and a Ford Taurus.

00:29:31.060 They got hauled before committee over that. So I think you guys have a good chance of winning on this.

00:29:35.460 Yeah. I think we're onto them. Uh, cause that's all we're asking is that amount of money.

00:29:39.300 And there's another push, uh, to find out. Okay. So folks might remember a little while ago when

00:29:45.460 former CEO Catherine Tate was dragged in front of the heritage committee. That was really good fun.

00:29:50.100 And she was, people were pointing out the fact that you need like the James Webb telescope to be

00:29:55.140 able to zoom in and find any of their T TV viewers nowadays. It is microscopic. Okay. And her answer

00:30:01.940 was always, oh, but our app, oh, but our app now, all of a sudden people are saying, okay, fine.

00:30:07.620 How many subscribers do you have to your app? They won't say they won't say. Now, a lot of people are

00:30:14.580 saying that must be because they only have like six subscribers. Now I did spend some time on the

00:30:19.940 other side of the wall. I was inside the CBC for like six weeks or so. So I'm hedging my bets here

00:30:25.780 because they're weird. Okay. Like they're, it's as if a newsroom were run by the government.

00:30:32.100 That's what the CBC is like. So they could have their knickers in a twist about some other reason

00:30:38.820 for not revealing how many people they have subscribed to their app. But what's your guess

00:30:42.980 if we're taking bets? Oh, oh, how like an actual number of subscribers? No, no, no. Like why aren't

00:30:51.300 they? Oh, why aren't they? I was like, maybe a couple hundred thousand. CBC is one of those entities

00:31:00.500 that if you like it, you like it a lot. And that's why you can find people who will buy CBC shirts.

00:31:05.220 No one's going to buy a CTV t-shirt and wear it around. Um, they would buy stuff from us back in

00:31:12.020 the day. Yep. Um, I think they're being foolish and paranoid. I think it's going to hurt them in

00:31:20.740 the end. I think they will lose on this one. Um, but they, they are odd, but don't believe things

00:31:27.300 Catherine Tate tells you. She told that committee hearing that she knew nothing about why Travis

00:31:31.540 Danrash was off the air and get the briefing notes for her committee appearance at that meeting,

00:31:36.340 uh, showed that she was briefed on Travis Danrash and why he wasn't on the air. That part of course

00:31:41.220 was redacted. The why. I missed that part. I was so focused on the numbers. She claimed to not know.

00:31:49.540 Yeah. Travis. Yeah. So look, are there going to be some people that have the free app? Uh, sure. My

00:32:01.300 guess is if you ever get the number and you want to know the paid who's paying for CBC app, um,

00:32:08.500 it will, if generally it's going to be between two and a half and 5% of whatever their free subscriber

00:32:15.620 rate is that that's going on years of things like, uh, sub stack subscriber rates. Um, it goes back to

00:32:22.900 the old, um, um, direct mail fundraising. That's about the percentage that would subscribe. So I'm

00:32:31.620 betting it's not an awful lot. Uh, but I would imagine, you know, CRTC wants to rule everything.

00:32:39.220 Everyone's supposed to report how much money they get in from what sources.

00:32:43.700 I wonder if that'll be in a CRTC report soon.

00:32:47.300 I wonder, I get their updates every Friday afternoon. So I'm gonna have to dig into that.

00:32:51.860 Uh, Brian Lilly, thank you so much for your time today. Once again, folks, go check out his columns.

00:32:56.980 He's the senior columnist. I'm using that word nicely, Brian, because we're at the same vintage.

00:33:01.140 Uh, he's a senior columnist at the Toronto sun. He knows everybody and everything. And I'm not kidding.

00:33:06.260 Go like, if you don't subscribe to his podcast, it's this orange square. Okay. I listen to him every

00:33:11.540 weekend. Be sure to tune in Brian. Thank you so much for your time today.

00:33:14.660 Thank you.

00:33:15.140 Happy labor day. Once again, that was Brian Lilly. He is at the Toronto sun and we brought him on

00:33:21.620 for many reasons, obviously, because he's super knowledgeable and he's been in the arena for like

00:33:26.580 decades. Okay. So it's super important. And it's really important to keep an ear cocked

00:33:33.060 on what the mainstream media is doing and saying. And Brian is that great diplomat that goes back and

00:33:39.540 forth between what we're doing right here, independent journalism right online and traditional

00:33:45.940 journalism. Luckily it's at the Toronto sun. So they actually care about things like taxes and crime

00:33:51.300 folks. It's super important, especially on a day like today in labor day, where you're being told a

00:33:56.180 million different messages that you subscribe to things like Juno news, because it's Juno news that

00:34:02.740 is independent along with the other online journalism that is able to bring on guests like this,

00:34:08.900 talk so openly about topics like this, and ultimately hold government to account.

00:34:14.340 Thank you so much for watching. Be sure to click that subscribe button, like this video,

00:34:20.020 and share it with your friends.

Juno News - September 01, 2025

When unions stop representing workers (ft. Brian Lilley)

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