Off the Record - June 15, 2025


Most finance ministers fail taxpayer report card | Off The Record


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Length

50 minutes

Words per minute

191.67905

Word count

9,675

Sentence count

3

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Canadians are still alive in the Stanley Cup Finals, and the Oilers are still fighting for a chance to make it to the final four. The Canadians also cover the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's annual report card on all the province's finance ministers.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 so since we're gonna end with hockey canada maybe we should start off talking about some better
00:00:05.040 well not so much better hockey news but the oilers are still alive even though better i don't know
00:00:09.880 you guys got blown out 6-1 last game so the game card says eh that's not yeah well i heard some
00:00:16.220 people talking about like oh talking about winning game one or game two and i'm like hey it only
00:00:19.260 matters who wins the last game so uh we still got games to go listen i saw the maple leaves get
00:00:25.820 blown out 6-1 earlier in this playoffs and you saw what happened to them it's some uh strange
00:00:30.280 premonitions there and look i think i've never compared the oilers to the maple leafs again
00:00:34.580 the first round exit specialists were back to back in the stanley cup finals there's no comparison
00:00:39.340 ah well you know uh we'll get there eventually yeah places first place losers they say
00:00:47.140 that's true i remember tiger woods he's talking about like yeah second place sucks or third place
00:00:52.840 sucks worse though so you know you can always do worse yeah you can also have the perspective that
00:00:59.220 second place is the first to lose but you know the nba playoffs have been going on too noah have you
00:01:03.540 been watching them a lot yeah i know we got pacers thunder uh two small market teams so it's not
00:01:09.260 exactly a breaking record ratings records but uh i'm i'm quite enjoying it we got like a really solid
00:01:15.480 underdog story so uh you know let's go for talia's how uh tyree's halber and they're they're uh nba
00:01:22.780 twitter is uh calling him uh a terrorist they're calling him the haliband so uh yeah it's been a
00:01:29.340 pretty fun playoffs yeah it's hard enough for a canadian team to win in the nhl and there's so
00:01:35.460 many of them whereas in the nba of course there's only one canadian team so who knows when the raptors
00:01:40.880 will win again but still a lot of canadian players in the in the finals we've got benedict matherin
00:01:45.380 lou dort they're both from quebec uh andrew nemhart i saw him play when i was 10 he was like 12
00:01:49.980 so uh yeah some uh some great canadian talent there i think montreal could ever get a team
00:01:55.860 uh i don't think basketball is uh very popular in quebec but uh you know vancouver they had a team and
00:02:04.480 it didn't really work out well so i don't know maybe maybe calgary is a market that could
00:02:08.780 sustain basketball who knows they've been going for montreal to get their baseball team back for
00:02:13.420 decades but yeah that's probably not going to happen nope not happening anyways olympic stadium
00:02:19.900 first we've talked enough about sports let's let's hop into this thing
00:02:24.260 yeah so starting off guys i wanted to kind of cover uh canadian taxpayer federation's uh annual
00:02:34.900 report card on all the provincial finance ministers so depending on what province we're
00:02:39.540 in we might be surprised at the rating that our province got or surprised at the rating that some
00:02:44.820 other provinces got you can see the overall list right here and among every provincial finance
00:02:50.580 minister not a single one got an a a plus or a minus so i think that's the big takeaway that kind of
00:02:58.420 i mean the best marks at b plus which isn't terrible don't get me wrong but the majority
00:03:02.340 of finance ministers got a failing grade depending on i'm not just talking about f but i consider a d
00:03:07.700 minus and a d fail if you go if you go in school and you get a d i'm pretty sure that's a fail like
00:03:12.740 f is just worse but you still fail you need like a c plus to pass from my understanding
00:03:17.060 so based on that more finance ministers failed than cast which is it's just ridiculous uh and obviously
00:03:23.620 you guys are in different provinces too so what were your your key takeaways because uh alberta second
00:03:28.740 place hey not the worst we we did some good things but also some bad things uh what did you
00:03:33.460 guys take away well i'm an ontarian so uh when uh this article went up i immediately scrolled down
00:03:40.260 to where it says ontario finance minister peter bethlenfalvy and uh to with no surprise whatsoever
00:03:46.980 you got a d minus so uh you guys are eating a lot better in alberta when it comes from a
00:03:51.940 taxpayer's perspective but uh yeah i mean the d minus for bethlenfalvy is definitely deserved uh
00:03:59.940 a couple weeks ago the ontario finance minister tabled a budget showing that there's a 14 they're
00:04:06.580 projecting a 14.7 billion dollar deficit this is not the federal government that has a tax base of 40
00:04:14.020 plus million people this is a province that has a 14.7 billion dollar deficit i get it's the
00:04:20.420 biggest province in the country and that you know uh there there's a lot of people that you have to
00:04:26.020 accommodate for but you know this is a incredibly large uh deficit they are ballooning the debt to
00:04:32.020 the point where uh it is projected that in two years ontario's uh total debt will reach 500 billion
00:04:40.100 for a province that is an insane amount of debt to have and you know per person debt is set to reach
00:04:47.380 28 470 by the year's end the highest in the nation so ontario's finances under a supposedly
00:04:56.260 conservative government is getting worse and worse by the year and this is because uh premier ford he
00:05:02.100 campaigned on a bunch of spending commitments uh during the election before the election he sent every
00:05:07.780 ontarian a 200 checks just so you uh know uh what style of governance he's going to pursue and then
00:05:14.100 uh on the campaign trail he uh promised tens of billions of dollars in expensive uh spending
00:05:19.620 packages to combat the tariffs but uh you know for all the spending that the ford government has been
00:05:25.780 doing uh not just in this past fiscal year but in the past seven and a half years uh ontario's
00:05:31.140 unemployment rate is one of the worst in the country it's uh over eight percent and it's rising
00:05:35.940 every month uh canadians are still dealing with the cost of living uh crunch uh that inflation
00:05:42.020 has caused over the past few years uh ontario has some of the worst housing markets in the country
00:05:47.620 specifically in the greater toronto area where the average price of a home is over a million dollars so
00:05:53.380 the premier uh premier ford's government hasn't really been doing anything to accommodate that
00:05:57.860 and then you table uh a budget that has no tax release whatsoever but instead is ballooning debt
00:06:03.780 i think it's incredibly uh disappointing that d-minus is uh well warranted yeah i was actually kind
00:06:10.340 of surprised that he didn't get an f just from what i've seen as an outsider looking into ontario
00:06:14.740 of course he did get an f in debt and spending increase and and just a quick word on spending
00:06:19.300 increase the spending increased in every single province across the nation compared to last year
00:06:25.780 so i i i i really found that shocking that not a single province is saving money essentially and
00:06:33.780 i don't know though at the same time this might just be provinces feel so pressured to deal with
00:06:38.580 all the problems caused by the federal government's immigration that they they need to spend money
00:06:44.500 essentially to to help their provincial residents what did what did you take away from this alex
00:06:50.580 anything well yeah i mean i'm here in bc we've never really been known for financial management
00:06:57.540 oh yeah yeah it's not really a thing it's not really a big part of our reputation i think we just
00:07:03.620 had four credit downgrades in the last four years in bc so say that it's pretty fairly reflective of
00:07:10.180 the actual financial situation here for yeah four consecutive credit downgrades but hey we'll just
00:07:17.220 keep spending more the david eby government specialty right it got them re-elected so what can you say
00:07:23.460 but if you just look at the popularity of uh some of the premiers and look at the finance minister's
00:07:28.580 corresponding grades uh the correlation isn't great for example uh bob canoe he one of the most uh
00:07:34.660 popular premiers in the entire country uh his finance minister received a big fat f uh you had
00:07:41.620 the ford government that was elected just elected for a third term uh their finance minister as we said
00:07:46.580 peter bethenthalvi received a d minus uh it looks like uh the cackers uh might be uh thrown out by 0.74
00:07:53.220 uh quebecers in the next election but even france all ago was elected for a second term and his uh
00:07:58.900 finance minister uh is receiving a d minus on this uh report so uh i think a lot of canadians have
00:08:05.300 shifted their attention away from the provincial electoral scene and toward the federal electoral
00:08:10.660 scene hence why they're not holding uh their provincial governments to account in the same way that
00:08:15.940 perhaps they would during normal times and that makes sense you know with all the chaos in the last few
00:08:20.660 months of trudeau's tenure and then trudeau resigning we having a new uh prime minister and then an
00:08:25.780 election a lot of canadians just focus on the federal scene i think this is the same thing with
00:08:29.620 us but uh now that we have the time to sort of settle down uh we have some certainty and some
00:08:35.060 stability on the federal electoral scene canadians are going to be turning their attention uh toward
00:08:40.100 their provincial politics and the provincial finances uh and they're going to recognize that uh
00:08:45.220 it's not in a great state and it's the case for most provinces in this country yeah interesting you
00:08:51.620 say that no i never noticed that the worst performing provincial finance minister on this
00:08:57.060 report card from manitoba and wab canoe over the last few years every single poll i've ever seen on
00:09:02.820 provincial premiers and their favorability he is the number one rated premier in fact a poll came out uh
00:09:09.620 on thursday uh from angus reed showing the new the newest favorability of the premiers and again canoe
00:09:17.060 was in first place and his rating had gone up not down the only other premier who had a rating increase
00:09:22.580 was danielle smith uh all the other ones either were neutral so they didn't change or they went down
00:09:28.660 but that's a story for another day so but but not to cut you off like i saw a recent poll that showed
00:09:35.620 that premier ford's popularity is on the increase like i think a recent provincial poll had the
00:09:41.140 ontario pcs at 49 the liberals at 28 and like the ndp at like 14 15 49 like ford like i've never seen
00:09:50.100 that for the ontario pcs in polling you know this could be an outlier poll but the fact that you know
00:09:56.660 they're getting anywhere close to 49 in a you know hopefully uh legitimate public opinion poll is is
00:10:03.620 actually ridiculous to me it's actually like i'm personally offended by that because you know i've
00:10:08.980 i've been paying attention to what ford has been doing and uh he's not been doing a very great job
00:10:14.100 so um let's hope canadians are able to open their eyes especially to uh the fiscal mismanagement that
00:10:20.500 has been going on at queen's park yeah speaking of potentially not doing a great job although i don't
00:10:27.940 know if i'd go that far uh the chief justice had some uh very strong words perhaps for someone in
00:10:36.260 his position and maybe even could be seen as as partisan type language i mean this is very very
00:10:42.420 strong language yeah noah what did what did you think of what the canada's chief justice had to say
00:10:47.220 about trump although i don't think his comments were directly targeted at trump but through implication or
00:10:53.460 uh inference it was it was clear enough who he was talking about yeah so uh richard wagner uh
00:10:59.220 every now and then he decides to go to the media and uh do an interview uh if you recall around the
00:11:04.820 time uh or just after uh the freedom convoy had uh come to ottawa and been uh you know moved out by
00:11:11.620 the trudeau government uh richard wagner gave a interview and he said oh you know those truckers you
00:11:17.300 know they were uh disruptive and you know he had he had only negative things to to say about the
00:11:22.020 truckers and i think last year he also gave an interview uh that you know made some waves and
00:11:27.220 the ways that you wouldn't want them to make from the the chief justice uh so again you know he sits
00:11:32.180 down for another interview and he's asked about the situation in the united states and he implies that
00:11:39.140 the united states is headed toward a dictatorship that the rule of law and judicial independence is under
00:11:45.140 attack now you know like you could have your criticisms of the trump administration you could
00:11:49.700 criticize uh how they responded to certain uh judicial rulings but to say that trump is a
00:11:55.540 dictator after he was just democratically elected uh and to say that you know he's trying to uh make
00:12:01.700 become a dictator you know after you know his government generally does comply with uh judicial
00:12:06.820 orders uh probably not in the most judicious and uh expeditious way as uh many people would like him
00:12:13.700 to comply with these orders but you know he still does it uh and to say that you know they're going
00:12:18.340 towards a autocratic an autocracy uh i think is uh quite ridiculous uh isaac i know that you've uh
00:12:25.620 held back uh your uh adjectives and describing richard but i will not i will not hold back i don't think
00:12:31.860 he's doing quite a good job uh especially because uh later on uh in the review uh he was asked about
00:12:39.300 um upholding uh the supreme court traditions uh and he said that you know to celebrate the 150th
00:12:45.620 anniversary of the supreme court they're gonna go away from the red and iconic red and white robes
00:12:50.420 uh that the supreme court has sort of just uh stripping away uh a sort of very long tradition
00:12:56.100 long-held tradition to uh i guess create robes that are more fitting of uh canada's uh you know tradition
00:13:02.900 traditions which you know it's kind of like a bit of a conflict there if you're you know trying to
00:13:08.900 think about that a bit uh you know with some sense but also he uh he uh the supreme court they put up
00:13:15.220 a big statue of richard wagner in the lobby of the supreme court which is not something you generally do
00:13:21.220 while you're still serving on the court you usually get your statue commissioned after you leave uh and
00:13:26.420 he said you know like uh the reporter asked well who uh who purchased the statue uh for like who's the
00:13:33.060 one that paid for it and you know wagner said oh i don't know uh i don't know who uh commissioned
00:13:38.500 the statue but you know it's there uh and i'd like to see my face every time i walk in the door
00:13:43.460 so uh definitely not you know a flat very interview that flattered himself with uh conservatives or
00:13:49.540 canadians in general uh what did you guys think of uh richard wagner's a strange eccentric uh
00:13:55.540 interviews especially as a comments on autocracy in the united states just quickly on the statue that's
00:14:02.260 i think ironic because if historically that's what dictators do but there's statues of themselves
00:14:08.100 everywhere yes of course i i i mean good to see the irony here but alex yeah you're you're a crime 0.55
00:14:16.980 reporter so what did you think of that and and more more importantly perhaps just the importance of
00:14:23.940 uh of a supreme court justice and any judge for that matter just remaining non-partisan and kind of
00:14:28.820 not sticking their nose where where it doesn't belong well it's obviously a politicized comment
00:14:33.940 right i mean if when justin trudeau was doing the same thing in ottawa you know and stomping
00:14:39.780 peaceful protesters with horses he really didn't seem to take exception to it so you know it's a shame
00:14:45.700 to see a judge be so politicized that he doesn't he isn't able to see things consistently and and with
00:14:52.660 principles right that's actually kind of a i think a reasonable expectation of the public from their
00:14:57.460 judges right is that they see things with some level of neutrality absolutely and you know one of the
00:15:04.820 most celebrated lauded things about our supreme court is the supported supposed uh non-partisan
00:15:11.460 nature of our supreme court uh you know i took a couple law classes in university and one of the big
00:15:19.060 things that my professors you know lauds is you know how fair and reasonable and unlike the american
00:15:25.140 the bad american supreme court that our court is like you know and then you read these decisions
00:15:30.420 like the insight case or uh you know the judges are saying oh well you actually have to grant uh the
00:15:36.020 safe injection site uh mr harper mr harper uh and you have these cases where they're striking down
00:15:41.380 mandatory minimum uh laws you know very reasonable moderate mandatory minimum laws uh that the the
00:15:48.340 the court is striking down under the under section eight the prohibition against a cruel unusual punishment
00:15:54.820 uh there's just there's so many decisions that are expressly political uh that you know i i can't i
00:16:02.660 don't even have time to recite but uh to imagine that the court is non-partisan uh it is it is a fantasy
00:16:09.780 and richard wagner himself is doing a great job in you know just uh dispelling that illusion of
00:16:17.540 tearing down the bricks of uh you know this uh conventional wisdom that has been developed by our
00:16:23.300 laurentian elites that our supreme court is an infallible uh non-partisan and you know are just
00:16:29.140 sort of like philosopher kings well guess what these are humans who actually have their own political
00:16:34.020 beliefs and their beliefs are just as objectionable as everyone else's and we have the right to
00:16:40.020 criticize them and they should be criticized because wagner definitely has been acting in political uh
00:16:45.460 in ways that have been politicized and uh you know it's incumbent on our judges especially the chief
00:16:51.460 justice representing the court to not engage in such tomfoolery well it's also a bit of a play to
00:16:59.300 pay to play system too right i think i read somewhere that more than 50 percent of the judges in
00:17:03.780 canada aren't only liberal voters they're liberal donors right because we we um have our political
00:17:11.060 parties appoint judges in canada right yeah and and and on the same beat i mean alberta for example
00:17:20.420 is one of the only provinces who has its own senate election but of course the senators we elected were
00:17:25.460 not selected to the senate trudeau picked his own ideologues to to stack the senate with but that's
00:17:31.700 a different story and before we get they can't do anything yeah or don't move on to a different
00:17:37.460 part of politics which for me this was an absolutely shocking poll which suggested quite
00:17:44.180 heavily that canada's moving towards a two-party system because the ndp is uh just they're done
00:17:50.020 they're done based on this poll uh so basically this angus reed institute poll showed that only 13
00:17:56.500 percent of respondents would definitely consider supporting ndp in the future whereas 41 percent
00:18:02.420 said there was absolutely no way they would ever support the ndp in the future and there's a lot to
00:18:07.780 break down in this poll but a few interesting things uh younger canadians were much more optimistic
00:18:13.860 about the ndp whereas uh canadians above the age of 35 were essentially much more pessimistic and
00:18:20.100 and thought the the party's best days were behind them uh and then we also saw something for past
00:18:27.460 ndp voters and which parties they went to for example less than one percent of those who voted
00:18:32.980 conservative would vote ndp in the future perhaps not surprising but that number rises to 18 percent
00:18:38.500 among liberals because the liberal party absorbed so many ndp voters but as for the voters that they
00:18:46.020 absorbed i mean so many of them are saying they're not going back for example um uh yeah so 51 this is
00:18:56.420 this is 51 of past ndp voters who voted liberal did so just for so that the conservatives would lose
00:19:04.660 so that that's not great and uh and honestly arguably the main reason the conservatives lost
00:19:09.620 the federal election was that that so many ndp voters left that party to vote liberals if they had
00:19:14.420 stuck with the ndp the conservatives likely would have won the election because there would have
00:19:18.020 been a bigger vote split but also generally just uh 47 of past ndp voters believed that the party's
00:19:26.660 future is bright whereas 28 in total say that the best days are behind it and then there was a bunch
00:19:32.660 of stuff on singh and his performance which was split but yeah what do you guys think about the ndp's
00:19:39.140 future i mean how long will it take for the party to recover federally yeah i think that the ndp they're
00:19:47.700 definitely in a dire position now this is perhaps the ndp being artificially underestimated because
00:19:55.620 they had a an incredibly unpopular leader and currently an interim leader uh so perhaps if they
00:20:01.620 have someone who's just you know so much more competent than seeing you know a jack layton-esque leader
00:20:08.340 that you know they can revive the party's chances and you know like at the end of the day the ndp does
00:20:13.220 have a decent amount of name recognition amongst the canadian public and you know with some competent
00:20:18.660 leadership with some incompetence from the liberals uh you know they could definitely uh bring their
00:20:24.180 support up especially if you look at say uh provinces like uh manitoba where the ndp is actually quite
00:20:30.420 popular on a provincial level uh in british columbia uh it's the same thing in alberta you know the ndp
00:20:37.540 they're still the clear number two party to the ucp but they still poll in the 30s and 40s
00:20:43.860 provincially it's not like you know this is a rump party uh you know in a in a one party province or
00:20:50.100 whatever but and you look in saskatchewan the ndp made great gains in the last provincial election uh
00:20:56.420 last year so the ndp there's still a relevant force at least on the provincial level it's just that the
00:21:02.340 federal party is has been ran so incompetently in the past few years that people have a very
00:21:10.020 negative uh view of the ndp the federal ndp they associate with singh and all of his uh just
00:21:16.980 incompetence and it's like faux radicalism but also like you know his his champagne socialism you know
00:21:24.420 it's like this is the the image that the ndp is associated with and you sort of had charlie angus
00:21:30.740 complaining about that in the media uh earlier this week uh but yeah yeah i think uh at the end
00:21:36.420 of the day it's going to be very very hard uh for the ndp especially since they are not an official
00:21:41.540 they don't have official party status so they do not get money from uh the parliament uh for each uh vote
00:21:48.660 that they received that they got in the election uh they don't have that privilege so they're going to
00:21:52.980 have to work really hard to rebuild the already battered uh party finances but uh i'm curious about
00:21:59.540 you alex because you're you're in british columbia do you feel like uh the as like since the british
00:22:04.660 columbia is uh the british columbia ndp is a powerful political party do you feel like that will
00:22:10.820 correspond to perhaps the federal ndp becoming a relevant force in british columbia again yeah i mean
00:22:17.460 i think the ndp still has a lot of good faith support here in bc you know i'm speaking on behalf
00:22:23.060 of true north's left-hard correspondent here in bc if i allowed to say that we might have to cut that
00:22:32.420 out um yeah i mean people people here still kind of like the ndp and i i don't take these polls too
00:22:38.820 seriously especially in between elections because i find party loyalty in canada is pretty dynamic
00:22:45.700 it's not like in the united states right where you have generational republicans and democrats
00:22:50.820 people here have very little loyalty to whoever they're voting for and yeah typically they'll
00:22:56.260 they'll vote for whoever they think has the most compelling party leader whoever that happens to be
00:23:02.500 i also think with trudeau moving so far to the left it kind of rendered the ndp meaningless as a
00:23:07.380 political party but now as we're seeing carney move the liberals back to the center a little bit
00:23:12.820 i mean it's probably too early to tell but it appears that way then it starts to make the ndp look
00:23:19.140 more appealing to people on the left i would say so i expect those numbers to change but you know just
00:23:25.860 to like you know piggyback off of that even like despite mark carney's pivot to the center relative
00:23:31.460 to justin trudeau who is like you know so far left that it's hard to you know even conceptualize the
00:23:36.580 current political you know uh dynamic right now uh but you know cardi bringing the liberals back to
00:23:42.740 the center uh did not really boost the ndp in any sort of way actually they plummeted to like six percent
00:23:48.900 in the last election despite sort of optimal ideological uh circumstances so you know something
00:23:54.580 i've been pondering uh recently in the past few years is is canada just moving to a two-party system
00:24:01.300 or at least a system in which having a third party that could win elections is just unsustainable
00:24:07.540 now the ndp has never really been that it's really been the liberals and conservatives but
00:24:11.460 they've managed to you know gain official uh opposition status in 2011 they've had a sizable
00:24:18.100 parliamentary caucuses uh but if you look in say alberta the alberta liberal party died so now it's a
00:24:24.900 two-party uh state there uh with a conservative ndp and bc you know it's the liberals and the
00:24:31.780 conservatives and the ndp they couldn't sustain themselves the liberals had to die the conservatives
00:24:36.500 had to rise up and that's a two-party province it's the same thing in manitoba it's the same thing
00:24:41.540 in saskatchewan ontario is a bit different but if you look at uh a lot of the atlantic provinces
00:24:47.140 there are two-party races uh so you're kind of seeing this sort of realignment on the provincial
00:24:52.900 side of politics sort of happen uh in federal politics and you know if this is a long-term
00:24:58.020 trend in which just having a third party uh you know to the liberals or conservatives is unsustainable
00:25:04.740 that causes that you know that means there's some real real political trouble uh for the federal ndp
00:25:10.420 if their party's just not relevant anymore yeah i think that one of the most brilliant things that
00:25:15.060 the carny campaign did in the last election was not show their cards right like this this kind of
00:25:21.620 right word lurched back to the center of the liberal party we're really seeing it post-election
00:25:27.060 we didn't see it so much during the campaign a lot of major social issues we had no idea what
00:25:32.020 mark carney's opinions were on them during the election in fact we still don't um you know safe
00:25:36.420 supply comes to mind transgender issues it's pride month he's barely mentioned it at all which is
00:25:44.740 actually kind of a refreshing change from the rainbow hysteria that we went through with justin trudeau for 0.97
00:25:49.940 the better part of the last decade so yeah i mean in a country where most people are generally very
00:25:55.140 politically apathetic there are a few things quite as attractive as a politician people know nothing
00:26:00.420 about right and that's really kind of what i think was the linchpin of mark carney's campaign
00:26:06.500 and why he was so successful but now as he's moving further to the center i think that it starts to
00:26:11.380 make the ndp look attractive again to people who are more have lefting leftist sensibilities let's say
00:26:17.540 it's it's a decent theory and i think we'll have to wait and see but moving on to our next story
00:26:24.180 here alex for any listeners who might be familiar with to catch a predator uh an on the ontario police
00:26:30.900 force if i'm correct was doing a a similar thing or a similar method to catch uh what was the child
00:26:38.580 predators or what what's the situation here alex yeah so as i understand it from the police statements they
00:26:44.500 did um what they call a child luring uh probe or mega sting and so they posed as children online very
00:26:51.460 similar to the old chris hansen show to catch a predator that was formerly you know on dateline nbc
00:26:58.180 i think they went on to internet chat rooms and they tried to lure adult while it was all men of course
00:27:04.500 um to come meet kids and then they would arrest them it's really what i find fascinating about this
00:27:09.780 story is that they were able to arrest and charge 36 people in only two weeks so this actually brings
00:27:17.460 rise to a few questions for me number one why didn't they do this earlier uh the whole creep
00:27:23.140 catchers phenomenon again it's better part of a decade it's been going on and actually police
00:27:27.860 organizations were criticizing these online vigilante groups that were doing exactly what the police ended
00:27:33.700 up doing and were incredibly successful at in a very short amount of time so that's really my main
00:27:39.460 question why didn't they do this earlier why aren't they doing it more often but kudos to them for
00:27:44.260 doing it at all yeah that's my question too alex i think well myself and probably other people who
00:27:49.540 were watched to catch a predator just assumed by watching that that like the big police organizations
00:27:55.540 like fbi level would be doing things like this like oh that's just what they do of course that's what
00:28:00.340 they do and you assumed like that this was already happening so i'm just so surprised that you're
00:28:05.060 saying that this is like a new thing and it hasn't been ongoing the last like few decades
00:28:09.140 because i just had i was under the assumption that that it would have been well i assume that
00:28:13.220 they do a little bit of it but i mean this big on this level of scale is quite impressive and
00:28:18.420 apparently required cooperation between over 20 different policing organizations so i think that's
00:28:23.300 one of the issues too right is jurisdictionally it might be hard to to work together but again i'm just
00:28:28.900 happy that they're doing it sorry go ahead no no but it's like you know these police agencies they're
00:28:34.820 not really doing their job when it comes to you know dealing with uh potential pedophiles and so
00:28:40.580 you have this sort of gap in the law enforcement market almost so you have these you know ordinary
00:28:47.140 citizens going up and you know you know creating a youtube channel where the whole premise is that
00:28:52.820 they create these videos where they catch these uh quote-unquote predators you know they you see you can
00:28:58.580 find this content you know quite often on youtube uh not and chris hansen is actually doing it on
00:29:04.420 youtube too uh but you have like a bunch of other spin-off uh youtube channels where you have people
00:29:09.460 who you know conduct very similar uh sting operations so you know there's a clear like gap in the market
00:29:15.620 uh you know law enforcement market for you know getting rid of these uh predators off from our streets 0.74
00:29:21.460 you know and you know i have a younger sister who's like 10 years younger than i i want to make sure that
00:29:26.980 you know when she walks to school or you know she goes to play at the park that you know she's safe and
00:29:32.660 she doesn't have to we don't have to worry about you know potential predators uh roaming around so
00:29:38.580 if the police did a better job and you know conducted these operations more often i think you know a lot
00:29:44.340 of parents uh would feel uh better about you know sending their kids off to do x y and z sort of like how
00:29:51.700 parents used to do it in the 80s and 90s and stuff like that well i think one of the more disturbing
00:29:56.500 things about this case too is that it's not when they're walking to school that's the most dangerous
00:30:01.140 place now it's in the home right because these predators were all online right so the predator
00:30:06.500 is now in your home essentially and so i think that that's a sobering reminder to parents that you know
00:30:13.300 you shouldn't just trust your kids to to parent themselves on the internet and because the predators
00:30:20.420 are prolific and there's a lot of them yeah and just to add one more point like uh it's it's really
00:30:26.420 important that it's law enforcement you know conducting these sting operations not necessarily
00:30:30.660 like youtubers because like at the end of the day like youtubers they might be doing it for the right
00:30:35.620 reasons but you know they're probably doing it for the fame attention and the money uh you know and so
00:30:40.580 they get into it for the wrong reasons and you know you see some of these videos where they're just like
00:30:44.420 beating up people uh perhaps they're like they're catching a predator look but the actual predator
00:30:49.300 they're catching is someone's like severely autistic or like has like down syndrome and like that you
00:30:54.180 know like and then they're just like assaulting a person who's like autistic and it's like just it
00:30:59.540 just feels like really weird like it's best that we actually like leave this to actual law enforcement
00:31:04.980 authorities who can conduct these operations properly instead of you know chasing money and clout but of
00:31:10.420 course the effectiveness of these programs lives and dies in the courts right so i think one of the
00:31:16.180 things people are really upset about is that when they did the release 34 of the 36 had already been
00:31:22.100 released from custody by the time that they had announced this to the public now it's 33 one of
00:31:27.940 them has been remanded after two new charges which i just brought about yesterday so um yeah yeah i'm
00:31:34.020 sure they'll all they'll all be recharged because they'll just commit crimes again as we've seen with
00:31:38.100 this catch and release policy i mean it's just like it's the same people committing the crimes over
00:31:42.180 and over again and they just keep getting let out so really at this point it's like the rcmp for
00:31:47.380 example like i was talking about if they did this cross-jurisdictionally and they're doing all this
00:31:51.140 stuff just for these people to be released it's like what's the point that that's what i keep seeing
00:31:55.140 these police organizations say what do you want us to do we arrest these people they're out the next day
00:32:00.260 like what do you want us to do well we i mean it's they're in a terrible situation it sends a really
00:32:06.500 bad message too right because you know there there is such a thing as sex tourists right so if canada 0.91
00:32:12.180 has a lax criminal justice system especially when it comes to pedophiles then we become a safe zone
00:32:17.220 for sex tourists right and that's obviously not what we want if we want to keep our kids safe so
00:32:22.340 i implore everybody to put pressure on their local judges and to keep track of what they're doing and
00:32:27.940 i think that's the best way that we can change the system wow we're really kicking off the weekend on a
00:32:33.940 dark now they well yeah and i mean it's all problems you have to understand them right so
00:32:41.460 sticking with the sex theme sort of uh alex you for those who don't know alex has been uh
00:32:48.900 sort of participating in the hockey canada trial so he knows what's going on uh and we're reaching the
00:32:54.500 the end stages of this because if i'm correct the defense recently presented all of their arguments
00:32:59.700 and now the crown is going to be presenting their arguments so yeah what what have you taken away
00:33:03.940 from this trial so far alex so many things it's a it's a really it's a bizarre trial um for so many
00:33:13.540 reasons i think one of the most stomach churning things about this trial is putting it into the
00:33:20.980 context of what we were just talking about the fact that we have this revolving door justice system
00:33:25.460 for predators and monsters and here we are i assume that this case cost the ontario prosecution
00:33:31.140 services well over a million dollars to investigate and then put on trial a 19 year old getting a
00:33:40.340 well i guess he would be 26 now but we're putting him on trial for a quote unquote blowy in a hotel room
00:33:46.980 seven years ago i don't know i don't know if this ever should have gone to trial at the same time i also
00:33:53.460 understand the spirit of believing victims of course and so i will stop short of saying that
00:33:59.940 it shouldn't have gone to trial i just question maybe the priorities of the prosecutors given how
00:34:05.780 many other people are seeing their charges dropped due to what the ontario prosecution services says is a
00:34:11.620 lack of resources yeah no i understand the contrast in what you're saying wherein these players are are
00:34:19.220 getting put through this public trial this huge trial whereas as we just talked about child
00:34:25.220 predators are are literally let out of bail then on bail the next day i mean this is crazy yeah no
00:34:31.220 have you paid attention to the to the hockey canada trial at all i've been paying attention to it in
00:34:36.820 passing but what really you know stands out to me is that you know every time i walk by my grandma
00:34:43.380 who's watching six o'clock news you know you get another update of the hockey canada trial and it
00:34:47.860 feels like i've been hearing about this for years because i have been hearing about it for years it's
00:34:52.500 been it's been so long yeah as you said this is an incident that happened seven years ago and you know
00:34:57.540 it's really frustrating for the victims and the accused to not receive a verdict on this i know uh there
00:35:05.700 were some complications and the trial that just couldn't be helped but you know when you're waiting you
00:35:10.740 you know years upon years uh for a verdict it takes a toll on you especially if you're you know
00:35:16.500 the potential victim and you have to go up on the stand multiple times and you have to you know have
00:35:20.980 this in the news cycle over and over again and if you're uh you know the the hockey players and even
00:35:27.380 and especially if you know you're innocent and you have to be dragged through the mud uh for years upon
00:35:33.460 years and have your name in newspaper headlines and stuff like that it's it's really it must be really
00:35:38.820 tough especially uh on them and their families i wouldn't really wish it on anyone uh so it you
00:35:45.700 know i think for the benefit of everyone uh it's best we get this over with uh as quickly as possible
00:35:51.460 i know there'll be another month until uh we hear a verdict so uh let's hope that's a quick and speedy
00:35:58.340 month and you know let's let's get this over with i think it's best for uh the nation that we don't
00:36:03.380 dwell on this for another year yeah i know it's interesting you say that just quickly uh because
00:36:09.620 even if everyone in this trial is innocent and that's the case i mean the emotional toll that
00:36:14.020 they would have had to gone through over these seven years they they are paying a a severe price
00:36:18.100 for that in itself like charges aside that that enough in itself but i mean that's the saying the
00:36:23.860 wheels of justice turn slowly right anyways alex yeah uh the the if i can just add one thing about that
00:36:30.180 the headline for that story because that was the a quotation from daniel brand who is the lawyer for
00:36:35.380 alex formanton who said she just wants money uh my feelings on this trial have evolved over time so
00:36:41.380 just looking at it holistically i don't believe that that's actually the case at all i think it's
00:36:45.700 a rather audacious claim because she already settled a civil suit with hockey canada in 2022
00:36:51.700 the the defendant or sorry not the defendant the complainant who's identified as em in this case
00:36:57.300 really has nothing to gain from doing this other than feeling understood so so i think that some of
00:37:04.420 the the claims that the defense lawyers have made and some of the arguments that they've made have been
00:37:09.620 i think damaging to i just don't i don't find them convincing i'll just leave it at that at the same
00:37:16.740 time does any of the behavior that is being alleged occurred here is it does it pass a bar of
00:37:21.620 criminality i'm not i find that nebulous as well so this this brings me returns me to my original point
00:37:28.980 why are we even doing this right like i i think at the heart of the matter is that you have two
00:37:34.420 different movements you have this me too movement right which is and i understand the spirit of it
00:37:39.300 like completely and genuinely the idea that you should believe all sexual assault survivors because
00:37:44.340 frankly like people just don't falsely report sexual assault that often i mean even the the
00:37:50.100 statistics that show it happens relatively often i think the highest i've ever seen is two to eight
00:37:54.900 percent of accusations are false that's that's high enough right if it ruins somebody's life i mean
00:38:01.380 you know if one out of 50's lives are being ruined i mean that's nothing to just need that but i just
00:38:06.100 don't think that it's this really common thing that happens um that people are falsely accusing others
00:38:11.780 to destroy their lives so i get the me too movement of believing all survivors but it runs headlong
00:38:18.420 into the presumption of innocence right these two concepts can't possibly coexist right they're
00:38:24.820 they're mutually untenable and and so i think that in a way this trial maybe is a good thing because
00:38:30.580 it will remove some of the ambiguities that we have regarding that conflict of interest and as well as
00:38:35.860 you know some of the ambiguities surrounding consent generally yeah that's something just quickly
00:38:40.660 to touch on that i've always struggled with was of course we we learn from a child that innocent
00:38:46.900 intel proven guilty this is a core value in our society and yet i don't feel that sports in
00:38:53.540 general uh encompasses very well like we see these people get accused of things that in no way are
00:38:59.140 proven yet and they're kicked off the team or whatever they they have to be put through the ringer
00:39:03.700 so like you said these these two things can't be true at once uh just quickly if you want to uh this
00:39:10.020 is up to you because obviously it's just your opinion but obviously we're going to hear the verdict i
00:39:14.420 think in about a month what do you expect uh the judge is going to come back with so i first of all
00:39:20.660 i'm happy that it's going to be jury or sorry trial by judge and the reason that i'm happy for that is
00:39:26.020 that when you get a jury verdict you just get the verdict there's never an explanation that comes along
00:39:30.500 with it and in a trial like this where i think there is a genuine public interest in removing ambiguity
00:39:35.540 around consent i think it will be helpful to have the judge give their reasons for the decision
00:39:40.740 based off of the evidence i've seen and i'm not a legal expert this is actually the first sexual
00:39:45.540 assault trial i've ever covered um so i i would take my opinion with a grain of salt but i could
00:39:51.780 foresee a situation in which so all of the players have been charged with one count of sexual assault
00:39:57.940 and one player michael mcleod who was the player who invited the other men into the hotel room he is
00:40:04.580 charged with an additional count of party to an offense so i could foresee this bizarre outcome
00:40:11.780 happening where he would be guilty of party of an offense but not guilty of sexual assault along with
00:40:17.940 the other five players which then obviously brings rise to the question of well what is the offense yeah
00:40:25.220 now i saw this during the coups trial obviously a very different trial very different circumstances but
00:40:29.940 they were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and possessions of a weapon for a dangerous purpose
00:40:34.580 the jury came back with not guilty on conspiracy to commit murder but guilty on possession of a
00:40:40.500 weapons for a dangerous purpose which brought rise to the question well what is the dangerous purpose
00:40:45.940 right so these things do happen um and i think that there is kind of some pressure on the judge to
00:40:53.460 impart justice in some capacity so yeah i don't think it's beyond the bounds of believability
00:40:59.140 that everybody will be acquitted on the sexual assault charges and that mcleod will be guilty 0.68
00:41:03.460 on the party to an offense and we're all left a little befuddled yeah do you think this pressures
00:41:08.100 the judge in any way because they might be thinking uh this is going to set some sort of precedent
00:41:13.060 going forward in in cases like this like do you think they feel that feel that pressure because
00:41:16.980 they're really i don't know building the framework for for for future trials here i imagine so i i've
00:41:23.620 looked into some of the case history in previous trials by judge uh involving this this judge and
00:41:30.100 she is a very competent judge that's a very kind person from my perception having watched the trial
00:41:36.420 and somebody who really has an understanding and appreciation for the presumption of innocence
00:41:41.700 and not rendering a guilty verdict unless she's convinced beyond all reasonable doubt
00:41:47.620 so just so to answer your question does she is there pressure for her to establish some type of
00:41:51.620 precedent i believe that there is and i think that it is and possibly does pass the bar of illegality
00:41:58.740 i think it's certainly immoral to have consensual sex with a girl and then when she goes to the 1.00
00:42:03.620 bathroom invite all of your friends in um i i think that that may actually qualify as an offense it's a
00:42:11.700 pretty unique situation i can't really see too many circumstances in which that would ever happen
00:42:16.740 um but yeah i mean if she feels compelled morally then i could see her wanting to establish a precedent
00:42:23.860 there because i think that that behavior is wrong and and we should call it out as such
00:42:28.500 and my predictions whatever alex's is yeah no i was going to give you the final word that's it
00:42:33.700 eh yeah that's it all right i'd like to thank my colleagues noah jarvis and alex zolton
00:42:38.260 or just remember everything you heard today was off the record
00:42:47.300 awesome say that more often that'll make it a lot easier to do off the record just
00:42:51.380 whatever alex says i agree it's a weird case man i don't know i don't know yeah no i'm i'm just
00:42:57.460 i'm just excited i mean for the organization that you got to be on the case i think that's awesome
00:43:02.180 oh thank you i appreciate that i was excited that they let me do it like i wasn't sure they would
00:43:06.900 yeah yeah so especially because you kind of came in halfway through right i did i did i missed you
00:43:12.740 weren't there from the start which i'm really bummed actually that i missed it and i i i don't know
00:43:17.940 if i said it on the show i wish i did if i missed it but she is a very credible witness
00:43:23.540 like she is not self-victimizing she's not sensationalizing and she's actually taken
00:43:28.820 accountability a bunch of times said like oh this is kind of my fault too so i think what we
00:43:33.460 were dealing with is that like society itself doesn't know what the lines of consent are
00:43:40.820 do you know what i mean yeah what sort of uh like ruling do you want the judge to come back with on
00:43:46.820 the consent uh issue i think that he should be guilty of party to an offense
00:43:52.580 but i know that that doesn't make sense yeah but it's like i'm also kind of like a kind of try to
00:43:59.460 make like a people pleaser everybody happy kind of person generally but what sort of jurisprudence
00:44:03.460 do you want the judge to establish regarding like what qualifies his consent so what it is
00:44:09.620 so you could say i think the the the charge party to an offense doesn't capture what he did wrong
00:44:19.140 but she based off of the evidence that i can see certainly did not consent to all of these men
00:44:24.340 coming into the room so it could even be the the offense you could see could be voyeurism right
00:44:29.460 because she was naked and he invited all these men into the room to basically gawk at her and tell her 0.92
00:44:34.180 to masturbate on the floor and we don't need a voyeurism charge successful against any of the men 0.68
00:44:40.100 in order to establish that as a potential offense right right that would be a whole other trial
00:44:45.700 but yeah i think like that was definitely wrong and there's just there's i haven't seen any evidence
00:44:52.420 that convinces me in any way that she agreed to having all those men come in once they came in
00:44:57.540 she says she went into autopilot and you know was goading yeah that's the thing because she definitely 0.92
00:45:03.780 uh at least feigned consent when they were there right but she didn't consent to them coming in the
00:45:08.740 room so there's two things that's that's the weird thing right yeah yeah and like i'm absolutely
00:45:13.780 certain that she did say like are you pussies gonna fuck me and everything but you know what 0.96
00:45:18.740 people get drunk and they have too much fun sometimes and like whatever it is what it is
00:45:24.100 and she takes accountability for that right like she's like she's not the other thing was i i was
00:45:29.700 reading one of your articles didn't you say like she was in some way pressured to bring this
00:45:33.220 suit forward by her parents or something like that that's a consideration too yeah so she had a
00:45:38.020 boyfriend at the time so her mother um was the one who originally went to the police and then her 0.70
00:45:43.700 father-in-law was kind of pressuring her and that actually came up as well
00:45:47.620 in cross-examination where they said they characterized her as a people pleaser and they
00:45:51.620 said like are you just doing this to make your family happy and she said yeah that's possible
00:45:56.900 you know so yeah she she often says yeah that's possible which has been really damaging to her case
00:46:03.620 right they've kind of like taken and that's the other thing that's interesting too is that you
00:46:07.460 have five really high paid and like highly competent defense lawyers so it's like a five on one the best
00:46:14.660 yeah yeah it's the best of the best and so that's why i'm quite sympathetic now like my at first i thought
00:46:20.180 that the defendants were all innocent for sure and as the trial has progressed i've felt less and less
00:46:24.980 that that's would you say that's comparable to like the oj trial like they just have stacked lawyers and
00:46:29.780 yeah i don't know what her is her lawyer comparable to that or or no yeah i would say that that is a 0.88
00:46:34.340 good comparison or like the coots one again would be another example where like all of the the crown
00:46:39.540 had all of the good lawyers right and the coots guys were kind of like out in the lurch 1.00
00:46:45.460 this is yeah what about what about her lawyer though is are they any good yeah very good very
00:46:50.100 competent but she's playing it's like playing speed chess against five people right because all of
00:46:54.820 those defense lawyers are because carlson could be like 500 people at once but yeah yeah but like
00:46:59.300 they all have their own arguments they all have their own theories and so you're playing like five
00:47:03.460 different games at once and that can't possibly be easy it's been a real uphill battle for her as
00:47:07.780 well given that almost all the evidence is witness testimony from a drunk knight seven years ago
00:47:12.900 right like how are you going to prove anything beyond all reasonable doubt when that's all the evidence
00:47:17.220 you have yeah that's tough yeah so i think that she's performed like regardless of the outcome
00:47:22.660 i think she performed really admirably and but do i think this should have gone to trial no not really
00:47:31.860 no well uh well you'll you'll be our resource on that you know for the rest of the trial i'm glad
00:47:37.860 yeah it's i also find interesting how uninteresting it is like everybody thought there was this big
00:47:43.140 raucous gangbang but like a couple guys got like 30 second blowjobs and two guys got like laid in the
00:47:48.580 bathroom and it doesn't sound like any of them were well actually came up in court none of them
00:47:54.500 were particularly good performers short and sweet eh that's what you mean it was supposed to be a
00:48:02.580 there's four guys watching there's a bit of pressure too right like it really was just teenagers
00:48:07.300 awkwardly exploring their sexuality like the goalie for instance he was getting a blowjob for like 30
00:48:12.100 seconds and he's like i actually made eye contact with one of the guys in the room so i like lost my
00:48:16.340 direction of course right it's like it's not like it's not like pornography like a big raucous gangbang
00:48:22.820 or anything right like this is pretty it was pretty lame like the details i shouldn't use that word i
00:48:27.940 mean there's a better word i could use i'm sure it was pretty vanilla and like awkward and yeah do you
00:48:34.500 think the like on july 27th or whatever when the verdict is like how big do you think that news will be
00:48:39.540 i guess it depends on the i think it'll be a nothing burger because even if like he gets guilty on that
00:48:45.380 one count party to an offense i don't think there is a mandatory minimum sexual assault there is
00:48:50.740 right like i think it was really yeah it's like five years prison time or something um but party to
00:48:56.100 an offense i think that five hundred dollar fine like after yeah yeah like a couple like two weeks
00:49:01.060 of community service ridiculous after the bigger news story the bigger news story will be if somebody
00:49:06.820 signs one of the players that that's because the canadians care more but like i was just saying
00:49:11.700 about the sports thing you're innocent until proven guilty not only that these people are
00:49:15.380 innocent like proven innocent and then they can't get signed that would be bullshit i would be if i 0.84
00:49:21.780 were in their shoes like i went through seven year goddamn trial prove myself innocent and you won't sign 0.86
00:49:26.500 me crazy yeah they worked their whole lives to be in the nhl this is no like small feat yeah for sure that
00:49:34.500 is very true i wonder yeah like because really the government has no place in telling people
00:49:41.140 what two consenting adults can and cannot do but you yeah i don't know at the same time i think
00:49:46.660 inviting five people well it was like 10 people at one point mind you this is also important detail
00:49:53.060 most of them came in because they wanted pizza which if you know like i think we're all young enough
00:49:58.500 to remember like what it was like to be a 19 year old boy pizza is a very compelling reason to do
00:50:02.820 anything it still is as far as yeah man if you got i'm there yeah i just gotta i just gotta double
00:50:08.660 check the rooms i'm going into i guess so this one player that the splits guy i mean as far as i'm
00:50:14.820 aware he just came in for pizza and everyone's like do the splits footer and he did the splits over
00:50:20.180 and he walked out seven years on trial for that seven years like his whole career is over yeah that's so crazy to me