C-18’s hidden cost to taxpayers
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Summary
In this episode, I am joined by Chris Simms, the Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, to talk about Bill C-18 and why it's a disaster waiting to happen and why the government should stop funding legacy media companies.
Transcript
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hey everyone welcome back to the alberta roundup i am joined by chris sims the alberta director of
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the canadian taxpayers federation today we are going to talk about bill c18 everyone's favorite
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piece of legislation not obviously chris we are very concerned about c18 over here in the media
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there's a lot of uncertainty about exactly what it will do but we do know that facebook and now
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google have said they are just simply not going to allow link sharing to news platforms which is of
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course a big problem for us then of course heritage minister pablo rodriguez stepped in and said don't
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worry if you guys are not able to have money from this legislation like we said it would do we will
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step in and help you out chris can you explain why that's a problem well i think a lot of us saw
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this problem coming and it was interesting to see people from the so-called left and right all pleading
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with the federal government at the same time saying uh this is a disaster waiting to happen so big tech
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giants typically like google and facebook don't stay up at night worrying about whether or not
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canadian uh newsrooms are getting per click revenue that's just a rounding error really when it comes
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to their bottom line so it doesn't seem like they're super interested in paying for links and so now
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like you said the heritage minister piped up and said oh don't worry we need to make sure that these
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newsrooms stay open who's we the government i guess and we are going to make sure that you have the
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resources you need now resources of course is government speak for taxpayers money this is a
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huge problem for two major reasons one as a long time lifelong journalist myself it's wrong for
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journalists to be paid by the government period you cannot hold a government to account if you're
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counting on that government for your paycheck so that doesn't fly and two there's no way that
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taxpayers should be on the hook to fund media companies and keeping newsrooms open that is not
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the role of the taxpayer here and so we're coming after this for two major reasons one is accountability
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and the second is the cost when we're talking about the cost we know that taxpayers are already doing
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so much to keep these failing legacy media outlets afloat we have the just under 600 million dollar
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bailout that the federal government promised to journalism companies we know that's been paid
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out over the past couple of years do you know what the cost of that actually boils down to per newsroom
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that's a great question so it was canadaland that actually sat down and did the math so credit to them
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they worked it out and they said on average it boils down to about 13 000 per journalist that is taking
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it now i gotta stress not all media outlets were taking this money but the problem as you well know
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with journalism is the perception right it's the perception of bias it's the perception of ethics
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that erodes trust so if everybody just assumes that say a broadcaster a mainstream network broadcaster
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is taking taxpayers money they're going to go with that and they're going to think that and that's going
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to erode trust and let's get down to the exact cost here with 13 000 imagine that you are a journalist
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on parliament hill you're part of the parliamentary press gallery it's your job ostensibly to hold the
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government to account the government pays 13 000 of your salary it could be a deciding factor whether or not
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you have a job the opposition wants to scrap that program how on earth are you supposed to call that
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game straight like no human being would be able to and even if you tried again the perception is there
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that you're being paid by the government the perception is a huge issue and i just find it so
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frustrating as a taxpayer myself and i know that other canadian taxpayers feel this way we've seen such a
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decline in trust in media and yet we're being forced to basically boost these canadian companies
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that we don't support their work we see the propaganda and it was so obvious during the
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covid 19 pandemic here in alberta it was very obvious during the recent alberta election and so
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we're being forced to pay these salaries through our taxes and it feels just very wrong and it feels
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very discouraging and i think the only way that we would see a change in it is a change in government
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as you've mentioned the conservatives don't want to continue this policy but we have a media that
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seems to be actively campaigning against the conservatives and it's hard not to draw that
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parallel when you're saying well you know some of you guys might go under if we had a conservative
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government and this is exactly the problem with taking money as a journalist from the government
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this is the problem you're either directly on the payroll so you're either part of the cbc
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which gets 1.2 billion dollars from the government every year and by the way throws a little fit when
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twitter labels them government funded media they are they are if they have a problem with being called
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that there's a real simple solution they can stop taking government money they can stop taking
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taxpayers money and then on top of the cbc now we have this so-called media bailout and this is exactly
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the pickle we're in right now and it's to his credit mainstream columnist for the globe and mail
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andrew coin said we're going to wind up seeing the government as grantsmen this is putting us
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in an unending conflict of interest and you brought up the issue of trust and i recently wrote a piece
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i don't know where it's going to eventually get printed but i keep tabs on something that's called
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the trust survey or the trust index it's been going on for 30 years it's a major survey of most
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countries including canada rachel it just took my breath away because a couple of years ago around
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40 percent of polled canadians thought that journalists were quote deliberately trying to
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mislead them with things they know to be false so i'm not talking mispronunciation accidental numbers
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screw up typo none of that that still keeps journalists up at night or it should none of those
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accidents i went back and checked that stat the most recent one that's there more than 60 percent
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of canadians now think that journalists are actively trying to mislead them with statements
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they know to be false like that's just shattering if you think about all the different types of jobs
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that journalists have you can cover city hall you can be covering like brutally difficult court cases
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where you have to be accurate even things like you know massive weather warnings of oh my goodness
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like there's a tornado warning things like that of your day-to-day now 60 percent of canadians
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think that they're telling a fib this is a really major crisis and from the taxpayers perspective
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two of the major elements that need to change here are no government funding because that will save us
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money but also no government funding because we need to try to get some of that accountability and
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trust back it's the family and friends event at shoppers drug mart get 20 off almost all regular
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priced merchandise two days only tuesday february 24th and wednesday february 25th open your pc optimum
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app to get your coupon yeah those numbers are absolutely staggering but honestly not terribly surprising
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canadians aren't just jumping to these conclusions on their own they actually have reason to believe them
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i myself have spoken and written publicly about the censorship i experienced during the coven 19
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pandemic trying to cover things that were critical of lockdowns and of vaccine mandates this of course
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was while i was still working within the mainstream media and in recent months we've had you know the
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inquiry into the coven 19 pandemic we've had a lot of journalists that worked at big legacy media
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outlets like global and cbc say there was censorship and we were told to cover these things from a certain
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way with that way of course being pushing the government narrative so canadians are educated
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and they are coming to these conclusions based on the evidence that's all around them and unfortunately
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with legislation like c18 it's going to make it harder for canadians to find trusted and reliable
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news sources so certainly something we will be keeping a very close eye on well i have you chris i also
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wanted to talk to you about the clean energy regulations the clean fuel regulations rather that came
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into effect on canada today happy canada day everyone we have a new tax for you from the
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liberal government of course you know it just seems crazy to me that we're having more of these standards
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put in place we know it's going to drive up costs for canadians and every single person i know is
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struggling right now young families are really struggling it's so disheartening what does this new
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tax mean for albertans it's just disgusting uh i straight up had a guy phone me out of the blue
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because they see you know see us having these conversations rachel and they think that we're
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government people or can help somehow right because they don't know um he was out of food
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he was completely out of food he and his diabetic wife and he clearly didn't have a lot of access to
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information and means and stuff and so i phoned the calgary food bank and i made sure to get a hamper
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out to him and stuff and he was really at his wit's end um and that was surprising that was the first
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one i've gotten like a hot call here in alberta in a year in british columbia i used to get those calls
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all the time it was brutal from working people and i'm circling back to bc for a reason because bc has
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had two carbon taxes now for years they have had the highest first carbon tax in all of north america
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and they've got the highest second carbon tax in all of north america the second carbon tax is a form
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of government fuel regulation that basically uh fines energy companies for the content of carbon
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in their product so what that means is if the company can't reduce its carbon content it gets a fee
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or a fine coming from the government they then take that cost and pass it on down to the consumer
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which makes things like gasoline and diesel cost more at the pump in british columbia right now
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on average it makes it cost around 15 cents extra per liter of gasoline and around 17 cents extra per
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liter of diesel layered on top of the first carbon tax prime minister justin trudeau took a look at the
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situation in bc and said huh that's super cool i'm going to duplicate that across the whole country
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like i'm not really kidding he said so that he's using it as a template and so now as of july 1st
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we now have a clean fuel standard we now have a second carbon tax coast to coast it's across canada
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we don't know how much it's going to cost right out of the chutes so like i explained there's like
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international credit trading systems and stuff we're going to have to wait and see how much cost is
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actually being passed down to the consumer to figure out what it's going to be extra at the pump
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but within the next seven years it's going to be the same amount as it is in bc and this is coming
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from the parliamentary budget officer so an independent officer of parliament has done all
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the math on this you can go find his study it's going to be about 14 cents extra per liter of gas
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and around 17 cents extra per liter of diesel and keep in mind diesel is the lifeblood of the economy
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right now we don't have dilithium crystals right now i wish we did like tomorrow that'd be great
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we don't diesel is our mode of power it moves our trucks and it moves our trains which carry all of
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yeah so the costs of everything are obviously going to increase and it just seems like
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with this policy as well with everything else the liberal government does we don't really know what
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the cost is going to be we don't really know what the impact is going to be we do know what's going
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to drive a cost we do know what's going to drive business out of canada same with c18 we don't
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really know what's going to happen it's just seems pretty crazy to me that we have a government that's
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so carefree with passing legislation without being exactly sure of what it's going to do i don't know
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how that happens but it just seems to be the common thing nowadays we're passing all this legislation
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it's very unclear how it'll be achieved and you know when we look at this new fuel standard that's
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going to drive a cost about 14 cents back when i was in ontario i thought you know at some point
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maybe i will turn to having an electric vehicle but that's just not something people at alberta are
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interested in they don't think it's going to be reliable for the winters it's not something they're
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considering doing whatsoever so this is really just driving up costs without a real solution for
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people unless they're just going to give up driving altogether which we know the liberal government
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would love and this is another element you brought up the issue of electric cars and like i said i mean
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i think a lot of people would switch if they could trust that there's going to be an affordable
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alternative dependable energy source but this is a really interesting stat so let's use even bc as an
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example okay which is super keen on the idea of electrification if everyone say santa brought
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them a free electric car boom it's in your driveway just for that personal transportation and bare bones
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home heating like just enough to keep your pipes not frozen forget like transport industry separate
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that personal use for personal use only the staff that i was told by an expert on energy was that bc
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would need nine new site c dams nine of them i was shocked because anybody who's familiar with energy
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in british columbia knows that site c has been like a 25 year long planning project it's a massive
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hydroelectric dam up in the interior and the idea that the amount of juice that they would need based on
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our current technologies would be nine new ones tomorrow if we all switched so this is the other
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element and the other part of the equation that the government just isn't answering because they're
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saying well just trust us here's a rebate here just trust us get an electric car and people are
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going oh where's the energy coming from and how much is it going to cost me and there's so many
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unknowns there and getting back to the fact that you know the the trudeau government seems bent
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on punishing especially western canadians it was the parliamentary budget officer that did the
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math rachel the two the two combined carbon taxes within the next seven years are going to cost around
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thirty nine hundred dollars extra for alberta families that's with rebates factored in net it's going to
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cost us almost four grand per alberta family well chris certainly some dark news stories here i don't
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imagine people are feeling super you know lifted up and enlightened after this it is very difficult
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unfortunately we do need to be aware of these things and we so appreciate the work that you are
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doing to really crunch the numbers and bring all the facts to light as we mentioned there is a lot
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of unknown but certainly the work at the canadian taxpayers federation is shining a bit of a light
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in what seems to be a lot of darkness and uncertainty right now so we really appreciate that
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and we appreciate you coming on the show today and we'll talk to you soon thanks chris thank you