Off the Record - August 23, 2024


Canada’s state broadcaster is obsessed with Kamala Harris

Topics
bull riding CBC Kamala Harris coverage CBC coverage of Kamala Harris Senate appointments and political donations 24 Sussex Drive foreign aid
Hosted by
Kris Sims Andrew Lawton
Mentioned
Sam Harris Charles Adler Justin Trudeau Triple E. Noah Tom Clark Harrison Sussex Drive Pierre Poilievre Sean Fraser Lorene Harper Donald Trump Venato Margaret Thatcher Preston Manning Michelle Obama Danielle Smith Jagmeet Singh David Cochran Tracy Mugley Craig Oliver and 5 more
Liberals blame Stephen Harper for everything The collapse of BC United

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

189.39

Word count

7,259

Sentence count

469

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

12

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of Off The Record, we chat about the weather in Alberta, why the CBC should be defunded, and why Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party's next VP candidate. Plus, we talk about the fact that the CBC spends more than $1.4 billion a month on Kamala's campaign.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I was going to chat about the weather here in Alberta and that it's rodeo season,
00:00:02.980 and I'm taking my kids to watch some bull riding tomorrow night.
00:00:05.260 What's happening in your neck of the woods?
00:00:07.020 Well, you know, Chris, it's actually recording right now, so all of this is being recorded.
00:00:13.300 So I told no one in advance that we'd go easy on you as it's the first time you're hosting the show.
00:00:18.680 Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
00:00:27.320 Hi, welcome to Off the Record.
00:00:28.640 I'm Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:00:32.200 We're here on True North, and I'm going to, I think I just mentioned it,
00:00:36.320 I'm going to be taking my kids to the rodeo tomorrow to watch some bull riding here in the beautiful city of Lethbridge.
00:00:43.100 So we're gearing up into this moment of the end of summer.
00:00:46.160 Sorry, I felt a little cool breeze this morning.
00:00:48.660 I could sense pumpkins growing.
00:00:50.580 So, yeah, that's what we're heading into this weekend.
00:00:52.800 What are you guys up to in your neck of the woods?
00:00:55.860 Definitely nothing as exciting as bull riding, that's for sure.
00:00:58.640 You know, basement living, you know, it's great.
00:01:02.500 Well, I was going to say, maybe Noah this weekend can do some patchwork on his basement there and repair what appears to be some holes in the ceiling.
00:01:10.200 I'm glad it's not in frame right now, but, yeah, there's definitely a hole in frame, actually, now that I'm putting my glasses on. 0.98
00:01:19.900 Damn it. 0.98
00:01:20.880 Well, the problem is the ventilation in the basement here sucks. 0.99
00:01:24.480 Like, I don't know, the vents don't really work all that well.
00:01:27.820 So my dad one day just came downstairs and cut a giant hole in my roof.
00:01:31.460 I'm like, what are you doing?
00:01:32.820 But, yeah, that was just there.
00:01:36.160 Airflow.
00:01:36.780 He's providing you airflow.
00:01:38.640 Harrison, what are you up to this weekend?
00:01:40.420 Nothing.
00:01:40.920 I may be going to Ottawa, actually, tomorrow to do some work, a video project in the works.
00:01:46.560 And then I'm going to a friend's wedding on the weekend.
00:01:48.900 So no bull riding.
00:01:51.160 Can't really do that in Ontario.
00:01:53.420 But, you know, other things are other things in the works.
00:01:57.180 That sounds really nice.
00:01:58.020 Going to a wedding sounds really nice.
00:01:59.320 Are you popping by the CBC by any chance when you head to the Capitol?
00:02:03.540 Wasn't planning on it.
00:02:04.780 No, I was going to actually try to avoid them as much as I as much as I can.
00:02:08.960 But, you know, you never know if something good comes up.
00:02:11.860 I might pop my head in and see what's going on.
00:02:13.780 Well, if you go to buy some poutine on Spark Street or something, maybe they could come out and cover it breathlessly, because at least that would be Canadian content.
00:02:22.360 I wanted to bring this up because it was one of those things where I have a lot of Canadian friends and family who are now suddenly talking about the current U.S. vice president and what we're all assuming to be the presumptive nominee for the Democrats in the United States of America.
00:02:38.880 They're all suddenly talking about Kamala Harris, like a lot, like way more than I was expecting for like a VP.
00:02:45.720 Right. Even as far as our interest in American politics goes.
00:02:49.180 And then I was seeing on True North that apparently more than 60 stories on Kamala Harris have been covered at the CBC.
00:02:58.100 Like, I don't care about private broadcasting.
00:02:59.900 Fill your boots.
00:03:00.560 Talk about her all day.
00:03:01.680 But here we go.
00:03:02.340 So, yeah, the CBC's Kamala Mania, as it is headlined, 68 stories on Harris campaign in just one month.
00:03:10.360 So quick math, that's more than two a day.
00:03:12.820 The reason why I've got an issue with this, of course, is because we want to defund the CBC because the CBC cost taxpayers $1.4 billion per year.
00:03:22.140 And every time we tell them, you know what, you guys should really be defunded.
00:03:25.840 This is a huge waste of money.
00:03:27.360 They clutch their pearls and say, oh, my goodness, who would give out the maple syrup recipes?
00:03:31.900 We're purely Canadian.
00:03:33.820 Like, Noah, what went through your mind when you saw that headline?
00:03:38.060 Well, I just thought, like, the people who try to justify the CBC's existence don't really have an argument that the CBC should be, you know, promoting American contests,
00:03:46.520 especially, you know, skewing their coverage in order to coverage one presidential candidate over the another.
00:03:52.520 I just went on, I just popped on the CBC's website before recording, and I saw that, you know, they're doing extensive coverage of the DNC.
00:03:59.520 You know, they're talking about Kamala Harris and how to pronounce her name correctly.
00:04:03.960 And, you know, they're talking about Michelle Obama's, you know, fantastic speech.
00:04:07.840 And then the one story about Trump is a negative story.
00:04:11.520 It's basically bashing his campaign for, you know, a mess up or whatever, which is fine, you know.
00:04:16.020 So if President Trump is making a mistake and Kamala Harris is making a mistake, then go ahead, cover it.
00:04:21.360 But if you're only covering Donald Trump's mistakes and not his triumphs, and you're only covering Kamala Harris's triumphs and not her, you know, mistakes,
00:04:29.500 then you're really, you know, showing that you have a bias.
00:04:32.720 And even though the CBC has an American bias, they shouldn't even be covering American politics to begin with.
00:04:38.980 You have a lot of other Canadian news outlets who do just as good of a job, if not a better job, at covering American politics.
00:04:46.020 And you have thousands upon thousands of media organizations in the United States that does a good enough job at covering their own country.
00:04:55.780 The CBC's mandate is to cover Canadian topics.
00:05:00.000 So I think that, in my mind, when the CBC, they're publishing stories about Kamala Harris incessantly, I'm like, where's the stories about Justin Trudeau?
00:05:09.900 Where's the stories about Jagmeet Singh and Premier Ford and the people who are actually in power in Canada and the people that actually matter to Canadians,
00:05:18.240 not just the, you know, the Americans who are, you know, doing their own thing, you know, good on them, but they're not Canada.
00:05:26.160 Yeah, that's a great point. It kind of reminds me of what their, I don't know what their primetime stuff is like lately.
00:05:31.340 I know that very few Canadians are watching it, but it reminds me back when I was a kid where they used to import American primetime shows
00:05:38.280 in a desperate attempt to get people to watch Canadian, the Canadian channel, even though it was American shows.
00:05:44.500 I kind of have some sympathy for that, trying to get some eyeballs.
00:05:48.040 But when it comes to actual news coverage, they always say, but who will defend Canada?
00:05:53.520 They always bring it up as their founding mandate, which it was in language.
00:05:57.740 In fact, CBC Radio was created back in the 30s and 40s in order, ostensibly, to thwart the big powerhouse radio stations coming out of places like CBS New York and Chicago.
00:06:09.640 Those were some powerhouse radio stations.
00:06:11.720 And so all of a sudden, Canada was like, oh, we need our own soap operas.
00:06:14.740 That's how it got started.
00:06:15.860 Then they started covering the war and then we were off to the races. 0.77
00:06:18.600 Harrison, what did you think about that headline when you saw that Kamala Harris is getting more than 60 stories covered in one month on the Canadian broadcaster?
00:06:27.340 Well, in contrast, Justin Trudeau was only mentioned 18 times in that same amount of time, in that one month period.
00:06:33.440 So Harris gets 68 mentions and Trudeau gets 18.
00:06:37.480 And it's pretty obvious what they're trying to do here.
00:06:39.660 But I want to show you some of the headlines for the coverage that the CBC is pumping out about Kamala Harris.
00:06:46.780 Of course, you've got this one here.
00:06:49.360 Are Kamala Harris memes of coconut trees and brats summer part of her official campaign? 0.85
00:06:55.180 Some extremely hard-hitting journalism.
00:06:56.820 Let's show you the next one here.
00:06:58.640 What else do we have?
00:07:00.280 Oh, yeah.
00:07:00.840 Why is everyone going coconuts for Kamala?
00:07:04.040 Remarkable stuff.
00:07:05.240 Okay, I need to explain that to me like I'm six, Harrison.
00:07:09.360 What's with the coconut reference?
00:07:11.360 Well, when she famously said that you just fall out of a coconut tree.
00:07:14.500 They're trying to make that seem as though that is, you know, that is one of Kamala Harris's great examples of her legendary oratory skills. 0.79
00:07:22.240 We all know Kamala Harris is going to be in the pantheon of great public speakers. 0.95
00:07:27.380 Falling out of the coconut tree is one of her greatest hits.
00:07:29.680 So that's the origin of that particular meme.
00:07:32.440 But again, going back to something Noah mentioned, which is the argument that we hear from the most loyal defenders of the CBC is that if there is no CBC, well, then there's going to be no local news coverage of rural areas in Canada.
00:07:46.240 There's going to be no important coverage in French language.
00:07:49.820 Who's going to be reporting on the stories, on indigenous stories and stories in the far north?
00:07:56.020 Well, this is a clear example that even that argument carries no weight because, like I said at the very beginning, if Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, only gets 18 mentions in a month and Harris gets 68,
00:08:06.080 imagine how many times they mention the Manitoba Premier or Danielle Smith or local political leaders that actually matter to Canadians.
00:08:15.260 They don't. They don't care.
00:08:17.160 So they're just basically in this game of trying to make Kamala Harris out to be this figure that she is clearly not. 0.86
00:08:25.100 And, you know, Canadian news be damned.
00:08:28.440 That's interesting because the numbers back that up, what you were just talking about there, 0.90
00:08:33.360 like covering indigenous stories, covering local stories.
00:08:36.780 So, number one, the ratings, the rating share for CBC primetime is tiny.
00:08:44.240 So it's just over 2%.
00:08:46.200 So that means around 97% of Canadians are choosing to not watch CBC news for primetime.
00:08:54.580 Further, if you want to drill down, like you were mentioning local news,
00:08:57.660 about 1%, the last numbers we were able to find because they've started kind of making it a bit murky in their annual reports,
00:09:05.640 about 1% of Canadians are tuning in to the CBC supper hour news.
00:09:11.000 So I'm older than both you gentlemen.
00:09:12.960 Back when I was a kid, the 6 o'clock news was a big deal.
00:09:16.500 Like people sat around and they watched their TV, they watched their 6 o'clock news.
00:09:20.340 That is about 1% now.
00:09:22.300 So there, there goes your local.
00:09:25.020 As far as the indigenous stuff goes, that's really interesting too because, again,
00:09:29.220 always go back to the numbers and the data.
00:09:31.700 As far as we can tell, CBC is spending more on their executive brass pay than they are on indigenous coverage.
00:09:42.000 I had to go check that three times because I couldn't really believe it.
00:09:46.080 Like to use a comparison, like I watch APTN reasonably regularly.
00:09:50.900 They do an outstanding job.
00:09:53.140 They have a big investigative reporter team.
00:09:55.340 They cover stuff all the time.
00:09:56.660 I think they've got 11 indigenous languages that they report in.
00:10:00.280 And they get a tiny fraction of taxpayers' money.
00:10:02.880 It's really just a one-time thing where they have to have like their summer festival day that taxpayers contribute to.
00:10:08.520 All the rest of the operations are paid for through their own money that they generate.
00:10:12.840 So the CBC trying to use this argument of, oh, well, who will cover indigenous culture?
00:10:17.440 It doesn't stand up to scrutiny when you look at the actual numbers.
00:10:21.760 With this kind of coverage given to Kamala Harris, we're entering the territory of Harris having to give away some poutines to some of these CBC journalists. 0.51
00:10:30.240 If you recall, that was the gift that Trudeau gave to David Cochran for near sycophantic coverage.
00:10:36.080 It looks like that now.
00:10:37.460 Maybe it'll be a coconut poutine concoction will be given to the CBC journalists for all of their very, very helpful coverage for the Harris campaign.
00:10:46.960 That sounds gross.
00:10:47.880 I'm going to upgrade it a little bit.
00:10:49.440 Let's go with beaver tails. 1.00
00:10:50.820 Okay.
00:10:51.140 Let's go right on the Rideau Canal.
00:10:52.880 It's wintertime.
00:10:53.820 You're skating.
00:10:54.540 It's a beaver tail.
00:10:55.500 They could sprinkle coconut on there, on a beaver tail, along with vanilla cinnamon or something.
00:11:01.820 Oh, my gosh.
00:11:02.320 That's a lot.
00:11:02.940 I was quite surprised by those numbers.
00:11:05.200 Speaking of numbers, did we want to move on to Mr. Charles Adler being nominated for the Senate?
00:11:11.020 Let's do it.
00:11:11.800 So let's pull up the story.
00:11:13.300 Everybody has heard the news likely already.
00:11:15.420 It's the summer.
00:11:16.580 It's quiet in Canada, unlike the United States.
00:11:18.780 So Senate appointments really seem to be breaking news in this country.
00:11:23.760 And Charles Adler was appointed by Justin Trudeau to be the next independent senator, a liberal senator.
00:11:31.800 And that surprised some of the people who knew Charles Adler before 2019, 2018, say, when he was a conservative.
00:11:40.740 He's now, of course, far more progressive.
00:11:43.860 You would even consider him to be – most people would consider him to be pretty much on the far left at this point with what he has been tweeting about, the things that he's been talking about on his radio show.
00:11:53.840 So he has – he's really kind of – well, he's a changed man.
00:11:57.940 And he's going to change even more because he's just been appointed to sit in the Senate.
00:12:01.660 And there have been some hilarious examples of Charles Adler, well, let's just say, not being so independent.
00:12:08.160 Let's show a couple of these examples here for the audience who are watching on YouTube and Facebook.
00:12:13.840 We've got this quote here.
00:12:15.160 P.M. Trudeau is comfortable at Pride events because he's comfortable in his own skin, a self-confident Canadian.
00:12:22.540 Why does Pierre Polyev not attend these events?
00:12:25.020 Well, he's worried that the homophobes he panders to will barbecue him.
00:12:29.640 Leaders lead, paranoids pander. 0.98
00:12:32.700 You know, maybe it was that tweet that actually gave him the appointment.
00:12:34.960 Or maybe it was this one.
00:12:36.320 People ask why I'm not supportive of Polyev.
00:12:38.760 This is precisely why.
00:12:40.400 Voted PC for most of my life, provincially and federally.
00:12:43.220 But this is 10,000 miles from the center.
00:12:47.200 I would feel ridiculous supporting a Canadian freak show just because it has the word conservative in the brand.
00:12:54.040 And for those of you that are not looking at this, there was a picture of Polyev leaving a van with a tiny little Diagalon sticker there.
00:13:02.460 Diagalon symbol.
00:13:03.680 And, of course, that means Pierre Polyev must be a Diagalon member. 0.60
00:13:07.340 Scary, scary Diagalon.
00:13:08.980 How about one more here?
00:13:10.280 Well, it's a weird thing with Charles Adler, guys.
00:13:12.260 He has this, well, let's just call it a crush on Sean Fraser.
00:13:16.740 You know, let's see this tweet here.
00:13:18.900 Canada watching new version of A Star Is Born with Sean Fraser.
00:13:23.520 Unlike Pierre Polyev, he doesn't need image consultants training him to look and speak like a genuine human being.
00:13:29.420 Oh, easy there, Charles.
00:13:30.460 You know, it's remarkable, guys.
00:13:33.560 What a changed man.
00:13:35.800 He's now going to be sitting as an independent senator.
00:13:38.500 And he was once, believe it or not, a conservative.
00:13:41.080 With tweets like that, it's hard to believe.
00:13:42.760 Chris, what do you think?
00:13:44.260 Well, cards on the table.
00:13:46.180 I've known Mr. Adler for a long time.
00:13:48.580 Like, I'd have to really think hard because I was doing hits on his show and booking him for my old radio shows back when he was in Winnipeg at CGOB before Sun News Network ever got started.
00:14:00.300 And then I worked with him from startup to shutdown at Sun News Network.
00:14:05.740 Just.
00:14:06.980 We got along great.
00:14:08.720 He worked well with everybody as far as I know.
00:14:11.720 And then after Sun News Network was shut down, I did his radio show, his national radio show, at least once a week.
00:14:19.380 And so I know a lot of my colleagues at the CTV did his show once a week.
00:14:23.060 And I think it's I'm giving all of this context because I think it's important for for truth and facts.
00:14:28.060 And so that is the way that things were before.
00:14:32.500 Needless to say, there's been a remarkable change, a really notable change, so much so that even in the way he would describe people like that, like forget about the partisan, forget about ideology, just kind of describing a politician like that, like that wasn't really his jam.
00:14:49.600 Like he might do that sort of thing, maybe for Margaret Thatcher when really pressed and feeling like nostalgic, but not just your everyday minister.
00:14:59.860 And so my takeaway from this as a Taxpayers Federation is that there's so many people who are now upset about this on both.
00:15:08.260 I would describe as the left and the right for different reasons.
00:15:10.640 I think it highlights the idea that perhaps it's time to go back to a triple E Senate.
00:15:16.220 So Preston Manning, former founder of the Reform Party, he wanted a triple E Senate.
00:15:21.620 He wanted it to be equal, elected and effective.
00:15:24.580 And that's probably a good idea.
00:15:27.540 I'm going to defend the Senate a little tiny bit here, just a smidge when it comes to the idea of independent versus liberal versus PC and all that jazz.
00:15:38.320 The Senate, in two separate occasions that I can remember in the last four years, did tap the brakes on a couple of pieces of legislation that would probably be important to True North viewers.
00:15:52.080 The one that sticks out in my mind, and I'm going from memory, so please forgive me, is during the Emergencies Act.
00:15:59.480 So folks might remember, as far as I can recall, Emergencies Act was rushing through, went through the House of Commons, blah, blah, blah.
00:16:05.680 The folks that hit the brakes on that, if I recall correctly, one of them was a Kretchen-appointed liberal senator that said, um, are we really sure about this?
00:16:14.760 And now, of course, that we have the federal judge ruling, survey says you shouldn't have done that and you guys overstepped your bounds and blah, blah, blah.
00:16:22.180 So I can hear the argument for the idea of sober second thought, but man, when you've got $175,000 per year after six years of service, a huge pension, no way to recall people, it starts getting really unaccountable really fast.
00:16:37.480 And I can see why people want to go back to Triple E. Noah, did you want to get in on this?
00:16:40.740 Yeah, I think my biggest problem with this story is the sort of deception of it all.
00:16:46.500 I think that when Charles Adler declares himself as a conservative, to everyone who knows what he believes nowadays, he's clearly not a conservative.
00:16:56.260 I mean, the Conservative Party's leader, Pierre Polyev, you know, say what you will about him, I have some criticism about him, but he's clearly a conservative.
00:17:04.120 He's believed in conservatism his entire life, if you read his old essay or whatever.
00:17:08.780 But Charles Adler clearly isn't interested in conservatism, at least not anymore.
00:17:13.100 And it's completely fine for your political beliefs to evolve over time.
00:17:17.200 You know, if your political beliefs don't evolve over time, you're probably an ideologue, right?
00:17:21.280 But the problem is, is that if your political beliefs evolve, you should change your label to correspond with your beliefs.
00:17:29.580 For example, Charles Adler is not a conservative.
00:17:31.600 He should probably call himself a liberal or, you know, a centrist or something like that.
00:17:35.940 Not a conservative.
00:17:37.400 Clearly not a conservative.
00:17:38.600 So I think not only does that bother me a little bit, but also the fact that he's being appointed to a Senate group, the independents, that are mostly comprised of liberals,
00:17:48.920 or whether they're appointed by Justin Trudeau or appointed by past liberal prime ministers, which for me, I think is deceptive.
00:17:58.100 Because, as was mentioned before, these independent senators more times than not vote with the government.
00:18:05.060 There are exceptions.
00:18:06.320 And usually these exceptions come from liberals from the Jean Cartier era, for example, where the liberals were a bit more liberal, not illiberal, like they are now.
00:18:17.760 So it just seems like Justin Trudeau is trying to deceive the Canadian public when he calls these senators independent.
00:18:24.720 They're clearly liberals, even though they don't caucus with the liberals.
00:18:28.140 They clearly have liberal values.
00:18:30.540 I didn't want to say they have liberal values.
00:18:32.180 They have leftist values.
00:18:33.560 So it's a bit deceptive to call yourself an independent senator when you vote along with the Liberal Party all the time.
00:18:42.240 It's deceptive to call yourself a conservative when you're bashing conservatives all the time and praising, you know, liberal minister Sean Fraser.
00:18:48.740 And it really does a disservice to trust in Canadian institutions because when Canadians see that these independent senators are not acting independently, when Canadians see that the senator, Charles Adler, who self-declares a conservative, isn't, you know, voting in a very conservative manner, it undermines credibility in our institutions and the people that run them.
00:19:10.580 I just wanted to note, I think, I think the jury's still out.
00:19:13.900 Aren't we still out on whether or not this will be confirmed?
00:19:16.240 I thought I saw something about this is not yet confirmed, whether or not Mr. Adler will become a senator.
00:19:21.140 Well, I know that, yeah, the prime minister's office, they sent out a press release saying that Adler and the other senator, which we should probably get to, they were basically confirmed by the Senate committee that basically deals with appointments and the prime minister also announced it.
00:19:38.600 So I think it's more or less a done deal.
00:19:41.320 First nation, the Manitoba First Nations leaders actually have criticized the appointment and have called on, on the government to rescind Charles Adler's appointment.
00:19:50.660 So even, even praising the liberals and praising the left like this has not managed to get him on the side of some of these First Nations chiefs.
00:19:58.880 But I do think we're being a little harsh on Charles Adler.
00:20:01.460 After all, it's important to recognize that he is a self-proclaimed talk radio legend.
00:20:06.600 Don't forget that.
00:20:07.400 This is a famous, famous Charles Adler tweet calling himself a legend, a talk radio legend.
00:20:14.100 So, you know, it's important to, to, to make sure we give him, we give him his, his due as, as a legend.
00:20:20.380 He is a legend amongst us and maybe he will elevate the quality in the Senate and bring in more talk radio legend, legendary moments.
00:20:26.900 I wish I had that much self-confidence on myself, you know, I don't know if you want to call that hubris or, you know, just some other devious word in the thesaurus, but I'm definitely not going to, you're never going to see that on my Twitter.
00:20:39.340 That's for sure.
00:20:39.640 That one kind of surprised me, actually.
00:20:41.220 I'm surprised that that's up there.
00:20:43.300 All right.
00:20:44.020 So did we, I wanted to stress that I think a lot of the pushback apart from people, people who are political nerds or news nerds, all of us included.
00:20:52.060 Um, I think the average public is probably annoyed most about this because of the lack of accountability and the lack, like the lack of, uh, cost effectiveness.
00:21:02.080 I think a lot of people are still struggling right now.
00:21:04.800 We still see record demand for food banks.
00:21:07.180 I always check the MNP, uh, bankruptcy numbers and where they ask people, how close are you to not being able to make your ends meet?
00:21:15.640 50% half of Canadians are within 200 bucks of not being able to make their minimum payments.
00:21:22.740 I'm not talking paying off your credit card or your line of credit.
00:21:25.760 I mean, making your minimum payments and making rent and just enough to have food half.
00:21:31.200 That's crazy.
00:21:32.160 And so then when they see senators willy nilly making 175 grand plus expenses, like they get catered lunches, they get all these really fancy things on Parliament Hill.
00:21:41.660 I think that really grinds people's gears.
00:21:43.520 And so I think that's also why this is making news apart from him being, I think, 30 something plus year long broadcaster.
00:21:51.020 So there's so much data, so many records on there.
00:21:53.780 Yeah, Noah, you want to jump in?
00:21:55.160 Yeah.
00:21:55.380 Yeah.
00:21:55.560 Just to add to your point.
00:21:56.620 I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:21:57.940 When Canadians see like, you know, these senators making, uh, let these lavish paychecks, uh, it's not really something that, you know, people can relate to.
00:22:05.220 Uh, especially when you're appointing senators that, you know, uh, over their lifetimes, uh, donated to the liberal party, uh, thousands of thousands of dollars.
00:22:12.800 And that's, uh, the case with the, uh, Senate appointee Tracy Mugley, who donated to the liberals over 220 times in her lifetime, 221 times, uh, to be specific.
00:22:23.760 Between 2006 and 2020, uh, she donated about $18,000, over almost $19,000 to the liberal party, whether that's to her, uh, local EDA, whether that's to the liberal party proper, or in, uh, various liberal leadership elections.
00:22:40.980 Uh, some of the highest, uh, donations that she, uh, gave was, uh, I think over $1,000.
00:22:46.320 She also gave, uh, almost $1,000 in non-monetary donations.
00:22:50.320 So I guess, like, she's buying a lot of coffees for her liberal MPs or something like that.
00:22:55.220 I don't really know.
00:22:56.800 Uh, but these are the type of people that are being appointed to the Senate are, and are going to sit as independents.
00:23:03.220 You know, people who are lifelong liberals.
00:23:05.180 Those, uh, this, uh, woman actually ran as a liberal candidate in 2015 and 2019, not once, but twice.
00:23:12.640 Uh, you know, she lost both times.
00:23:14.260 So I guess, you know, Trudeau had to, like, you know, get one of his own in there because, uh, you know, she clearly couldn't do it, uh, on the, with the backing of the Canadian people.
00:23:22.680 Uh, but yeah, I mean, this is the type of, these are the type of people that are being appointed to the Senate.
00:23:27.140 People who have, uh, loads of money to just donate to political parties, uh, and, you know, sitting as independents, even though they're clearly liberal partisans.
00:23:34.820 I think that really erodes trust in our institutions, especially the, uh, unelected Senate.
00:23:39.300 It does.
00:23:40.160 And it's been going, this has been the standard operating procedure at the Senate now forever.
00:23:43.700 Like it has been full of political party hacks, both blue and red.
00:23:47.580 Like, and so, yeah, it's just not changing.
00:23:49.500 Is it Harrison?
00:23:50.260 No, I was just going to say that actually, that when, uh, when, when Justin Trudeau is eventually, uh, ousted as prime minister and the government switches over to the conservative side, it's going to be the same thing.
00:24:00.720 It's going to go to people who have donated the conservative party, who have been party loyalists for many years, failed candidates.
00:24:07.820 It'll be the same thing.
00:24:08.960 And, you know, it's, uh, it's fun to criticize it now, but it will be topic of conversation for a show on the other side of the debate in a couple of years time when Pierre Poliev makes an appointment like this, but on the conservative side.
00:24:21.940 And so it's just going to be what it's going to be.
00:24:24.020 And, uh, I think it's fitting to end the, end the show with, uh, with this subject.
00:24:28.700 We have our taxpayer, uh, our taxpayer specialist hosting us.
00:24:32.940 So this is like the taxpayer story right now in Canada.
00:24:37.140 Chris, what do you got?
00:24:38.140 Yeah.
00:24:38.760 So hopefully the next show will not involve any of my former colleagues or TV hosts, but for some reason it's like a blue light special on these folks.
00:24:48.120 So Tom Clark, uh, I loved working with him.
00:24:50.940 He was super nice to me.
00:24:52.200 I worked with him for years at CTV.
00:24:54.240 Um, he then I think went to global for quite a while.
00:24:56.920 I kind of tuned out of mainstream media for quite a bit.
00:24:59.120 The last few years, he was a global for a long time.
00:25:01.420 He is now the Canadian consul general in New York city.
00:25:05.780 And so for folks who are listening, who are like, what is that exactly?
00:25:09.360 It's kind of like a mini ambassador.
00:25:11.960 Okay.
00:25:12.380 And we have some of these folks in key positions to be fair around the world and New York city, definitely a key city still around the world.
00:25:20.140 The problem here is that there's this residence slash office slash like it's a map dot.
00:25:28.400 Okay.
00:25:28.600 Imagine you're dropping your Google map dot right next to central park.
00:25:32.560 Apparently it's been dubbed like billionaires row or something like that in New York city.
00:25:37.280 Last I checked is around $9 million for this pad.
00:25:43.540 And this is what's really got people's eyebrows raising saying really $9 million.
00:25:48.840 Why are we shelling out $9 million for the residence slash building crash pad for the New York consul general for Canada?
00:25:59.360 Here you go.
00:26:00.100 Global affairs Canada is quote, very proud of $9 million New York city condo purchase says consul general Tom Clark didn't influence.
00:26:08.680 Okay.
00:26:09.160 So that could very well be the case.
00:26:11.000 This could all be bureaucrats deciding this sort of thing.
00:26:13.660 Um, I would love to be able to privately pick Tom Clark's brain on this, on what he thinks about this.
00:26:21.420 And if he said anything, uh, a fun story, which wouldn't embarrass him at all.
00:26:25.680 Uh, back when I was at CTV at the Bureau, uh, I used to say this dorky thing of everybody should get together and go bowling.
00:26:32.320 It was just a throwaway line.
00:26:34.040 One Christmas I figured let's stop these boring office parties that everybody hates at Christmas time.
00:26:39.860 Let's go bowling.
00:26:41.760 And so we actually, the team of us, Bob Fyfe and Craig Oliver and everybody went bowling.
00:26:46.540 And Tom Clark was like, bowling.
00:26:48.420 Is that the sport where you rent shoes?
00:26:51.680 And he said it in this great anchorman voice.
00:26:55.120 And so I would just love to actually have a beer with him and say, listen, like, what do you think about this condo?
00:27:01.900 Because at the end of the day, $9 million, that is a ton of cash, especially again, all of this is taxpayers money.
00:27:10.060 This is not coming out of some magic bank account that Prime Minister Trudeau runs.
00:27:13.740 It's our money and it's a huge waste.
00:27:17.160 Yeah.
00:27:17.640 You know what?
00:27:18.080 It sounds pretty rough.
00:27:19.260 And I think that there was a big sticker shock for a lot of Canadians when the news broke.
00:27:23.280 Of course, $9 million is outrageous, uh, especially for residents.
00:27:28.540 Now, the part of this story that doesn't really get told, and I think in order to be fair, it should be mentioned,
00:27:33.020 is the fact that Canada just listed last week the old New York City residents for the Consul General,
00:27:41.180 and they listed it for $13 million.
00:27:43.120 So you're thinking that Global Affairs will likely be able to pocket the difference.
00:27:47.480 Will the difference go into something useful?
00:27:49.880 Well, no, it won't.
00:27:50.720 Obviously, it'll be wasted again.
00:27:52.460 But that is an important part of the story.
00:27:54.460 Oh, I didn't know that part.
00:27:55.420 That is really interesting.
00:27:56.400 So they're selling the $13 million old residents, and they're actually downsizing to a $9 million condominium, believe it or not.
00:28:04.740 And the story was that there was going to be a $2 million, it was going to cost $2 million to renovate the old condo,
00:28:11.520 or they could buy a $9 million condo, sell the old one, pocket the difference.
00:28:16.860 Here's the way I look at it.
00:28:18.420 In my opinion, it's actually very important for Canada to be able to project diplomatic strength
00:28:23.400 in the most important city likely in the world, which is New York City, besides maybe Washington, D.C.
00:28:29.280 You actually want the Canadian government to be able to use a residence like this to advance the interests of Canadians.
00:28:35.160 You probably don't.
00:28:36.740 And what the Conservatives are arguing is that the whole thing is absurd.
00:28:39.400 They shouldn't have spent any money on it.
00:28:40.940 You don't want them to be in an apartment that is falling apart, that is in need of repairs,
00:28:44.580 or that you end up, you're in a hotel conducting events.
00:28:47.860 The same thing goes with Sussex Drive, 24 Sussex Drive.
00:28:51.140 The way I look at it is the Canadian government, for whatever reason, has decided that,
00:28:55.560 no, they don't want to be the ones to put up the fight to try to save 24 Sussex Drive,
00:29:00.000 because taxpayers, it's going to cost the taxpayer too much money.
00:29:02.560 But the symbolism of having 24 Sussex Drive, the residence of the Prime Minister being infested with mice and rats,
00:29:08.600 while the Prime Minister lives in the back lawn of Rideau Hall at a nice home,
00:29:12.380 but it's not really fitting of the office of Prime Minister,
00:29:15.300 is something that I think Canadians should be concerned about.
00:29:17.960 There is a value for projecting influence and strength on the world stage in New York City.
00:29:23.480 I think this is a perfect example of it, and I think many of the people arguing against this
00:29:27.940 are those that would say, actually, we shouldn't be spending any money as well on 24 Sussex,
00:29:31.860 because who cares where the Prime Minister lives?
00:29:34.340 You know, if the government didn't spend $17 million, for example, on Indonesian foreign aid,
00:29:40.200 a country that doesn't need it at all,
00:29:41.580 or maybe we spent a few less billion dollars on Ukraine into the meat grinder,
00:29:46.760 we could actually save some more taxpayer money,
00:29:49.280 and that would have far more influence for Canadians.
00:29:52.020 But I guess the argument will be that we need to be up in arms over the condo.
00:29:56.580 There is my opposite side on this story.
00:29:59.620 What do you guys think?
00:30:00.480 I am surprised by your take, although I can see you, actually,
00:30:04.840 because I will say, like, I loved Tom Clark as anchor.
00:30:07.460 I thought he did a great job as an anchor, and I can picture you.
00:30:09.960 I can picture you as this anchorman.
00:30:11.900 You'd be doing a good job.
00:30:12.940 So maybe you want this gig, is what you're saying, in 20 years' time?
00:30:16.600 Maybe the only way a journalist can get into a $9 million apartment
00:30:20.060 is to be the Consul General for New York.
00:30:21.980 So I don't know.
00:30:23.500 Listen, I don't want Tom Clark living at the YMCA in Manhattan in his track pants.
00:30:30.000 Okay? I get that.
00:30:31.720 But I think there's a happy medium.
00:30:33.760 You know, can't he be living in a nice residence upstate,
00:30:36.420 take the train downtown for a lot cheaper,
00:30:38.800 and have, like, a really beautiful office space in New York for cheaper?
00:30:42.800 Although I will say, selling for $13 million and buying for $9 million,
00:30:46.940 if that's the actual case, that thickens the plot.
00:30:51.400 Noah, you wanted to jump in on this one?
00:30:53.740 Yeah, I think it's very fitting that I'm in between you guys and the frame,
00:30:56.880 because my opinion is probably in between you guys, too.
00:30:59.300 Like, I agree with Harrison on the 24 Sussex point.
00:31:02.100 I just think, like, $9 million for a condo, it's absurd.
00:31:05.540 I think, like, you know, if you hold meetings in a hotel that's, you know,
00:31:10.140 nice and posh, and, you know, you don't have to spend $9 million,
00:31:12.840 I think that's, you know, a good alternative.
00:31:14.880 You can rent out some nice office space.
00:31:16.720 You can rent out a condo for maybe $2.5 million.
00:31:19.560 It's not like $2.5 million is a cheap condo, you know?
00:31:23.200 I don't think I'm going to be able to get anywhere close to that in my lifetime,
00:31:26.980 although maybe I, you know, win the lottery or become rich in my career.
00:31:29.920 Maybe you become the Consul General to New York, Noah.
00:31:32.220 Come on.
00:31:33.320 Yeah, exactly.
00:31:34.040 You know, I got inspired to that.
00:31:35.220 Me and you will compete for that role, Harrison.
00:31:37.400 Yeah, we will.
00:31:38.060 Maybe we can trade it.
00:31:38.960 We'll take half terms.
00:31:41.200 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:31:42.980 But, you know, when you're renting out a condo with maccoba stone floors,
00:31:48.100 you know, a powder room with jewel onyx finishes,
00:31:51.220 a wet bar with cristallo gold quartz zite,
00:31:54.880 countertops and backsplash,
00:31:56.960 a bathroom clad in Italian white Venato marble.
00:32:00.880 I mean, you saw my roof.
00:32:01.840 Like, you know, I don't got no Italian Venato marble up in here, you know?
00:32:05.440 So, like, I don't think that you need to have, like, you know, like, to live like me if you're the Consul General.
00:32:15.380 But I also don't think that you need to be living in, you know, the lap of luxury either.
00:32:18.960 Did you have to practice pronouncing those things?
00:32:22.620 Because I didn't understand half of what you just said.
00:32:25.740 I didn't practice.
00:32:26.880 That's why you didn't understand it.
00:32:29.320 That sounds like very fancy marble.
00:32:32.220 On the real quick point on 24 Sussex.
00:32:35.980 24 Sussex actually isn't really a historical building.
00:32:39.900 It's been around since maybe the 1940s, 1950s.
00:32:43.240 Like, it was, and I forget who it was built by, it was like a millwright.
00:32:46.860 So, it was some fancy, you know, rich dude, had the house built.
00:32:50.640 My point is, is that it was always kind of slapdash added onto over the years.
00:32:55.620 So, it wound up being kind of wonky.
00:32:57.800 In fact, I remember when Lorene Harper was in there,
00:33:00.300 when Prime Minister Harper was living in 24 Sussex,
00:33:03.060 she said that she couldn't get a lot of the windows open because they were painted shut.
00:33:06.840 Like, it was all sorts of strangeness happening there.
00:33:08.920 And you're right, there's been an aversion to upgrading the thing
00:33:12.720 because the National Capital Commission wastes so much money
00:33:16.960 that if you give those guys an inch, they will take 10 kilometers
00:33:20.680 and they will waste money doing it.
00:33:22.920 So, this is now why we're in this bit of a weird situation
00:33:25.520 where he's on the Rideau grounds.
00:33:27.840 Now, I will say, Harrison, Rideau Cottage is a pretty fancy building.
00:33:31.740 Like, I think it's got 12 bedrooms or something like that.
00:33:34.540 Like, he's not living in a shack.
00:33:35.960 So, I think a better spending of taxpayers' money would be to sell the property at 24 Sussex.
00:33:41.480 And the area across the street where the Prime Minister is right now,
00:33:46.080 it's pretty secure.
00:33:47.660 They've already got fences and gates and everything there.
00:33:50.700 Just upgrade that a little bit so that he can have international diplomatic meetings
00:33:54.880 and call it a day.
00:33:56.520 I think that might be the smarter way to go for taxpayers.
00:33:59.620 Part of my playful side wants to do something fun with, like,
00:34:03.040 you know, a Canadian reno show and raise money that way
00:34:05.980 and, like, turn it into a bingo hall, the way Preston Manning had said.
00:34:09.000 But I don't think that's going to happen.
00:34:10.800 I think we should split the difference, sell 24 Sussex,
00:34:13.900 build up Rideau Cottage a little bit, and just call it at the end of the day.
00:34:17.300 Yeah, I generally believe that just my perspective is
00:34:20.640 the Canadian government, Global Affairs Canada,
00:34:23.820 wastes outrageous amounts of money on foreign aid projects.
00:34:28.080 And these often never get criticized for whatever reason.
00:34:31.820 Maybe it's politically a sensitive topic to address.
00:34:34.980 But it's a complete waste for us to be spending money.
00:34:37.520 Now, I don't believe it's a waste for certain projects in Africa, for example,
00:34:41.600 where I believe it's really needed.
00:34:42.900 But Indonesia, $17 million.
00:34:44.980 The amount of money we give to Honduras, for example,
00:34:47.140 it doesn't matter at all to Canada's diplomatic efforts.
00:34:51.280 Having an important place in the world where all the world leaders meet
00:34:54.260 and they can feel like Canada's a serious player, I think is important.
00:34:59.240 And generally, I believe that the residents of the prime minister
00:35:01.480 should be a fitting of the office of the prime minister
00:35:04.400 and the leader of the country.
00:35:05.760 So if it is renovating Rideau Cottage and saying goodbye to 24 Sussex, fair enough.
00:35:10.620 But in my opinion, these things matter.
00:35:13.180 The symbols of the strength of our country
00:35:15.720 and the importance of the government matter
00:35:17.700 far more than the amount of money that we just splash around the world
00:35:22.500 for useless projects, which ends up going into the pockets of leaders,
00:35:26.840 which we believe are enemies of Canada.
00:35:30.260 That's the most absurd part. 0.98
00:35:31.260 Or we're paying for a sex toy workshop. 0.96
00:35:33.280 I was going to say.
00:35:34.720 You don't even need to do...
00:35:36.500 So let's be concerned about the plight of Canadians
00:35:40.220 and the fact that we can actually spend money on our own people
00:35:43.160 while also making sure that the symbols of the state
00:35:47.060 and the importance of the government are met
00:35:48.740 and not actually be giving it away to people who don't care about our country
00:35:52.980 and are genuinely enemies.
00:35:54.940 We still give a million dollars,
00:35:56.700 a bit more than a million dollars to China, for example. 0.96
00:35:59.940 I mean, it is ridiculous.
00:36:01.800 And people want to talk about saving taxpayers money. 0.81
00:36:04.080 They should be talking about foreign aid.
00:36:05.580 Far more than they do about $9 million condos
00:36:08.640 or traveling expenses.
00:36:10.760 I really think that the argument is lost
00:36:13.200 if you're not talking about foreign aid.
00:36:14.460 You don't even, like Noah mentioned,
00:36:16.820 even moving past foreign aid,
00:36:19.020 just the absolute waste internationally. 0.99
00:36:21.440 Like sex toy shows in Germany.
00:36:23.220 Did you know we actually spent taxpayers' money in Canada
00:36:25.760 on getting old people to tell their sex stories overseas?
00:36:30.700 Like, we were contracting out old people's sex stories 1.00
00:36:33.900 with our money.
00:36:35.480 It's just absolutely bizarre, the amount of money.
00:36:38.300 I don't know.
00:36:39.060 Now I'm really afraid...
00:36:39.700 Maybe the sex stories of old people's sex stories in Canada 1.00
00:36:41.680 are, like, just unique and, you know,
00:36:44.080 just needs to be told to the entire world, but...
00:36:46.220 Now I'm really concerned about where the difference is on this...
00:36:50.840 Where the difference is going to go on the sale
00:36:52.460 of the old condominium and those few extra million dollars.
00:36:55.920 I don't know.
00:36:56.460 Maybe we'll try the Rive can, 2.0.
00:36:58.880 If they can double that amount.
00:37:01.220 Guys, this has been a delight.
00:37:03.500 Folks, if you have any comments,
00:37:06.040 be sure to hit us up in the comment section there.
00:37:08.720 Send us an email.
00:37:09.480 You can head on over to TrueNorth's website
00:37:11.340 and let us know what you think of the show.
00:37:13.160 If you have show ideas,
00:37:14.740 please send them along as well.
00:37:16.340 If you want to argue with any of us
00:37:18.440 about spending $9 million on a condo
00:37:21.960 or what color of track pants Tom Clark should wear at the YMCA,
00:37:26.580 please let us know.
00:37:27.880 Catch us back here next week for more Off The Record.
00:37:39.480 That was pretty solid hosting.
00:37:41.300 I'm thinking we should have a segment every time you're on
00:37:43.700 about dunking on former colleagues, Chris. 0.92
00:37:47.840 That would be ridiculous.
00:37:49.940 What are the odds of that, though? 0.57
00:37:51.280 Seriously.
00:37:51.900 I mean, that is a bit unfortunate,
00:37:55.260 but I think it went very well.
00:37:57.620 Good.
00:37:58.040 If I were either of those gentlemen,
00:37:59.980 I wouldn't be super mad at me.
00:38:01.660 I don't think so.
00:38:02.520 No, no.
00:38:02.860 Maybe you should text Tom Clark and tell him his job's in peril.
00:38:09.980 I think Polioff said that he would fire him
00:38:11.580 if he gets in office,
00:38:13.160 so you should let him know in advance
00:38:14.920 that he's not going to be living in that condo for much longer.
00:38:18.500 Harrison's moving in.