Why Canada’s EV mandate won’t work + CBC stacked with six-figure bureaucrats
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Summary
If you're not getting time off, especially if you're one of those first responders out there working, thank you so much for the work you're doing. I wanted to mix it up a little bit here because a lot of folks might be traveling back from visiting friends and family, you might be coming back from the cabin or the cottage. You might be enjoying our beautiful Rocky Mountains wherever this show finds you. I hope you're having a safe and fabulous long weekend!
Transcript
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Welcome to the Candice Malcolm Show here on Juneau. Thank you so much for giving us a part
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of your long weekend. I hope you're having a safe and fabulous time. If you're not getting time off,
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especially if you're one of those first responders out there working, thank you so much for the work
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you're doing. I wanted to mix it up a little bit here because a lot of folks might be traveling
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back from visiting friends and family. You might be coming back from the cabin or the cottage. You
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might be enjoying our beautiful Rocky Mountains wherever this show finds you. Thank you so much
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for making us part of your long weekend celebration. I wanted to put a quick bug in your ear because if
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you're driving a car, if you're taking a road trip as part of this beautiful long weekend, we're on
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borrowed time here before the federal government really messes up your ability to purchase the
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vehicle you want to. I'm talking of course about the looming ban on gasoline and diesel powered
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vehicles. People often refer to this as the EV mandate. I don't like saying that though because
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I find it lets it go under the table. It slips off and under the door. This is a ban that is going to
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be on the sale of what I would call normal gasoline and diesel powered cars. Now based on stats,
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the latest quarterly one stats we have for this year show that just over 9%, 9 with an N, 9% of new
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vehicle sales have been EVs this quarter in Canada. So that's less than 10%. So that means it's not a
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super popular choice for people for whatever reason. A, a lot of people still can't afford to buy a fully
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battery powered car, even with the federal government rebates factored in. Okay. On average,
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your average, you know, commuter sedan compared apples to apples, it's about $20,000 more to buy
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a fully electric battery powered version of that. Okay. Two, a lot of folks can't use a battery powered
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vehicle, an electric vehicle for their uses. They could be hauling horses to a rodeo. They could be
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hauling a camper for their kids to go enjoy. They could have a boat. Okay. They could be a trades
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person. They could be hauling a whole bunch of tools into more remote locations that don't have
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super convenient fast charge stations. People are infinitely complex. Okay. As Dr. Jordan Peterson
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points out a million times over, everybody's personal lives are super complicated. Most people have
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trouble just managing their own lives. Imagine the government and bureaucrats deciding they can manage
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this for you. It's not going to work for three huge reasons. One, the state has no place in the garages
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of the nation. Okay. It shouldn't be up to the government to get up in your grill and say what
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kind of vehicle you can and cannot buy. Two, we don't have the energy for this. And by we,
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we mean Canada. If Santa Claus came along and changed all of our vehicles that we already own.
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Okay. They're in your driveway. Okay. They're in your garage. You're privately owned vehicles.
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Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. All of a sudden they're just battery powered. We would need 14 huge,
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new, can-do nuclear reactors. The big ones. The big ones that we see in Ontario. Okay. A place
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that's like Pickering. Each of those things costs anywhere between 12 and 15 billion dollars each
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to build. Each one of them takes about a decade to build. So we don't have the energy to plug in
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all of these vehicles that now Prime Minister Mark Carney is going to try to force you to buy.
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I used to call them Trudeau trolleys, these battery powered cars. We can just call them
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Carney cars now. Right? Because that makes sense. I've said to people, this is really Carney's new
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car ban tax. Sorry, that's a bit of a mom joke. But this is really serious because it's going to
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start affecting your bottom line real fast. People think this is only going to hit in a decade.
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No, no, no, no. In five months, in five months time, the Carney government is going to start
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forcing and punishing car dealerships to sell 20% of their new car sales as electric vehicles.
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Some say the bubbles in an aero truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.
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Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.
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Rich, creamy, chocolatey aero truffle. Feel the aero bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.
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Remember what I said? There's only about 9% right now. Guess who's going to have to eat that extra 11%?
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You. Yeah. Car dealerships are going to be punished financially by the federal government if they
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don't make the federal government's quota. And it's also going to affect your ability, the supply
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of normal gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. Meaning when you go to the lot, it might not be
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available. The one that you've been counting on and saving up for. So as you're enjoying, hopefully,
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your long weekend. Okay. Hopefully you're doing the life is a highway thing with Tom Cochran.
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That would be awesome here in Canada. Remember your ability to choose what kind of vehicle suits
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your needs. Most is being frittered away really fast. And the restrictions kick in in five months
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time. And it is going to cost you big money. Speaking of money, we don't have the money by the
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way, even if you wanted to go full Jetsons. Okay. Wouldn't that be nice to be, you know, electrify
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Canada and everybody gets to do the 18 thing and dig in and build stuff. We don't have the
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cash for that. Okay. We have un-money. Okay. The current federal liberal government has doubled
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the debt in 10 years. Okay. So we do not have the cashflow or the private investment to be able to do
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this. Heck, we would be hard pressed to build a single rail line. Remember how that's how Canada got
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started? We'd be hard pressed to do that. If the federal government were the one trying to
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actually make that happen. So we cannot afford to electrify the whole country in order to meet
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this mandate. Natural Resources Canada itself is estimating that this whole electrification scheme
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is going to cost about $300 billion. Okay. That's like close to a third of a trillion dollars.
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Money we do not have. So they shouldn't be telling us what kind of vehicle we can drive.
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We don't have the energy for this. And we don't have the money to create the energy for this.
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Speaking of money and huge wastes of cash, we all know that the CBC is costing you, the taxpayer,
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$1.4 billion this year. It cost you $1.3 billion last year. See what happened there? The cost goes up.
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Now, despite the CBC trying to say, oh my goodness, the cupboard is bare. We're going to have to make
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cuts. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. It's not true. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation obtained documents
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that shows the middle management at CBC. I'm talking managers and assistant managers and producers
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and executive producers and analysts and advisors and you name it, supervisors. Okay. They've got those
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folks coming out their ears. The blob at the CBC middle management level is just getting bigger
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and bigger. How much bigger? Let's find out. Joining me now is Franco Terrazzano. He is my good friend and
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federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Franco, I teed you up with this idea that we really
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need to dig into what the CBC is spending money on. Specifically, it's bloated, obese, crazy-sized
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middle management sector. It is astonishing. So very quickly, the anecdote goes something like this.
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For every one journalist in a normal newsroom outside of the CBC, you guess that there's like
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four other reporters at the CBC with 12 managers above them. But you've got the documents. You've got
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these ATIP, Freedom of Information Request documents that show this is true. So give us the list. What
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kind of management are we talking about here at the CBC? Yeah, well, you know what? Turns out you
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essentially have a circus tent full of bureaucrats for every one acrobat at the CBC. Okay. So we got
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internal records from the CBC showing, you know, how many employees they have that are paid more than
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a hundred grand a year. All right. And it lays out all the different positions. I have some notes in front
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of me and ladies and gentlemen, buckle up. Okay. Because the CBC's own records show that they have
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180 managers, 277 senior managers, 124 directors, 106 senior directors, 28 executive directors,
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493 producers, 493 producers, 36 technical producers, 168 senior producers, 86 executive producers,
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130 advisors, 81 analysts, 120 hosts, 80 project leads, 30 lead architects, 25 supervisors, and many
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other bureaucrats that are paid more than a hundred grand. So I mean, the bureaucratic bloat at the state
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broadcaster is unreal. It's insanity. Taxpayers are the ones footing the bill. I mean, Chris, look,
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I mean, CBC is pretty much exactly what you'd expect a news station to look like if it were run
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by the government. That's exactly it. We could do the whole show. That's it. But no, let's dig into it
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a little bit more because a lot of folks who are listening are probably shaking their heads thinking,
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do they really need that amount of managers? No, no, they do not. Okay. If you work in a newsroom,
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you've usually got like a room, hopefully full of reporters, usually not anymore, but full of
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reporters. Then there's like maybe two editors and there's one news manager. Okay. There might be some
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mucky muck in a far away office who's managing both the radio and TV. But as far as management goes,
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there's usually one person for like the whole room for the whole day. So this is just nuts,
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but it's not surprising because it shows. We often see that the CBC has got tiny audiences,
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like their audience share for CBC Newsworld, their prime time is 1.8%, meaning 98% of the TV
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viewing public in Canada is choosing to not watch them. And as a longtime journalist, I couldn't tell
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you what an architect is at a media company, much less a lead architect. Maybe they're the ones who
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design like the space age national set or something. But on top of that, it isn't just the term manager
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in there. You've got like advisors. Okay. I looked that up on what that is. And I found a job posting
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for the state broadcaster and an advisor is somebody who advises and wanders around. I don't know if they
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wear a robe and sandals, but they have to like advise their employees on everything from like history
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to like DEI practices at work. Like this is such a bloat here, Franco.
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Well, I guess that's one way to get your viewership numbers up. Hey, just add some more bureaucrats and
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middle managers, right? Like, I mean, look, I'm laughing because otherwise I'd just cry. I mean,
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hundreds of managers, directors, producers, many other bureaucrats all paid more than a hundred K at
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the CBC. Is it, is there any wonder why it's costing taxpayers more than a billion dollars
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every single year? And like, look, we, we also got some separate access to information requests that
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show how the number of CBC staffers taking a six figure salary have ballooned over the years. Okay. So
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you actually look now, uh, more than a thousand CBC staffers are taking six figures. Um, it's the
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increase is more than 300% since 2015, right? So the, the number of CBC staffers taking a six figure
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salary has increased by more than 300%, uh, since 2015. And you know, like, here's the real,
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here's the real practical thing for people who are listening in government or just our regular
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Canadians and our friends. Um, look, the CBC is always crying poor, right? Always saying the
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cupboards are bare. Hey, government, government, give us more taxpayer cash. Pretty, please, pretty,
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please. And, and now you have a government that's talking about a spending review. Well, these
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records, the CBC's own records, where you have all these managers, managing managers proves that
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there is so much fat on the CBC steak that they can cut. Yeah. Big time. And I'm going to warn people
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right now. Okay. As they're going into these negotiations, blah, blah, blah. On the fall,
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you watch the CBC will do something dramatic. They will take one thing that somebody still likes at the
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CBC and they'll, they'll kill it on the air. They'll like, get rid of it because that's what
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they did back when prime minister Stephen Harper was in charge. And he went through all the departments
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and said, Hey guys, could you guys find, I think it was between five and 8% savings.
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What did the CBC do? Did they trim down their huge middle management bloat? No. Did they stop all
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their, you know, crazy staff meetings that they have all day, every bloody day? No. They just canceled
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a CBC radio program that everybody liked that cost next to nothing to produce because it was all done
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on the phone internationally. It was this little tiny half an hour long show because it caused a big
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splash. And that's what you watch. Mark my words. That is what they're going to do. And what's
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frustrating here, Franco is exactly to your point. We often hear them say, Oh my gosh, we're going to
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have to do rollbacks. We're going to have to do layoffs. The cupboards are bare. Blah, blah, blah, blah,
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blah. So much so that the former CEO, Catherine Tate, the lady with the bright red hair that was
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at committee all the time. She went on the national, like on TV with Adrian Arsenault saying, Oh wait,
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no, we can't really talk about bonuses, but she said they were going to have layoffs. They said
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they were going to have cuts. Um, nope. That one year they spent $1.3 billion from taxpayers.
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The next year, $1.4 billion. That's more money, not less. They are not saving money at the state
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broadcaster. Hey, speaking of bonuses, let's talk about the CBC sleight of hand for that segue.
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Okay. So, uh, you folks, you'll all remember back in what it was December, 2023, right? Uh,
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where the CBC just weeks before Christmas announced a bunch of layoffs, but Oh, they're still going to
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be handing out bonuses to the fat cats. Remember that? I remember that. I also remember, uh, you
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know, CBC going around, you know, begging for more taxpayer cash. Okay. So then there was public
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backlash and there was backlash from across the political spectrum about these taxpayer funded
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bonuses, right? Uh, we released some polling showing 70% of Canadians were against the bonuses,
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even an advocacy group that's in favor of the CBC, uh, friends of Canadian media. They said
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that the bonuses were unbefitting of a national public broadcaster. And you know, that's their
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words, not mine, because I always say state broadcaster. Um, okay. So anyway, I've heard
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you say unbefitting before. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. So look, massive public
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backlash against these bonuses at the CBC. So what does the CBC, uh, brass do? Well, they think they
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come up with a very clever solution. They say, okay, folks, we're going to end the bonuses. Well,
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not quite. So records that the CTF obtained from the CBC shows that they did cancel the bonuses,
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but then they turned around and jacked up the salaries massively. Okay. So last year, the CBC
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handed out record high pay raises of $38 million for comparison in the year before in 2023, they
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handed out $11 and a half million. Okay. So the higher pay raises more than offset the elimination
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of the bonuses. So essentially what the CBC did is they didn't listen to Canadians. They
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didn't save Canadian taxpayers any money. They're just trying to avoid a bad press day by ending
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the bonuses and then turning around and jacking up the salaries with these massive, massive pay
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raises. You know, I'm wondering if they thought that Canadians would fall for this, that if they
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just removed the big label on the bucket of money that says bonuses and squeaked on a Sharpie
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that says pay raises instead, that people would just be fine with it. Good on you for finding that
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out. I really wanted to ask you this though. What kind of put, did we get pushback on this? Like did
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the CBC get all huffy about this, us calling them out on this? Yeah, they did. I can't remember exactly
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what they said, but they're, they're upset that we're calling it a sleight of hand. Well, we're upset
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with you for costing taxpayers so much money. Okay. So we're upset with you too. So the feeling is
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mutual. Uh, yeah, they got upset about it, but look, I mean, well, what they did is they ended the
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bonuses kind of right. Except when you read the fine print, they just turn around and hand out record
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high pay raises. So look, I mean, the moral of the story here for, for taxpayers is this, right?
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The CBC's own records show that it has a bloated bureaucracy full of highly paid managers,
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managing managers. Um, the, the next takeaway is that, you know, the six figure salaries that the
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CBC has ballooned by more than 300% since 2015. And finally, well, look, the CBC isn't saving
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taxpayers money. If it just replaces taxpayer funded bonuses with higher taxpayer funded pay raises. So
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look, uh, the only way to really end the gravy train and oh boy, is it full steam ahead? It's just
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a defund the CBC. Yeah. Big time. I will end on this two things. One, I think it was in your first
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round of a tips that you were talking about there where we were listing all the managers,
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managing managers and the advisors and the whatever lead architect people, um, that all make up just
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picture an office tower. Okay. Full of humans. That's the CBC and you're paying for it all. Okay.
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It's not the folks out there in the field. Um, there were like what, 200 roles that were blacked out
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there. I remember looking at the documents and I think there's around 200 positions and I'm using that
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word because I don't know how else to describe it because we don't have the names. We don't have
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the roles. We don't have the amount of money they're making. We know they're making more than
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a hundred grand, but we don't know their names and we don't know their roles, but we're still
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paying for it. Is that what's happening? Yeah. They, they redacted more than a 200 roles.
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Okay. They did. Yeah. Okay. Transparent. Crazy. And for folks who were like, oh, well,
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maybe it's a host and it's a state secret. No, no. There are hosts listed on there. Okay.
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Including with some of their names. So it's not that. So I don't know who these phantom people
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are, but you're paying for them. 200 of them. Lastly, the CBC is trying to make it so that we
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can't find out how much they're spending on advertising. Okay. And we're not asking for
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trade secrets of exactly how you got some great ad deal or whatever. No, no. We're asking for the
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lump sum amount of what the CBC, the state broadcaster is spending on advertising outside. So when you're
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watching hockey or something and you see another ad for CBC gem, how much is all that costing you
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cumulatively? They're refusing to tell us. So even though it's taxpayers money, they're refusing to
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tell us. So that's why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is fighting the CBC on that front.
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Franco, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for actually putting names and numbers
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to the long held suspicion that the CBC is super management heavy. We actually have a joint op-ed
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that's coming out in the Toronto Sun newspaper chain on this describing the blob that has taken
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over the CBC. Thank you so much. Hey, thank you, Chris. There you have it, folks. This is why it is
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so important to subscribe and to support independent media. Okay. Fundamentally, let's just, you know,
00:20:19.280
move ideology aside. Doesn't matter. Left, right, upside down, purple. Journalists should not be paid by the
00:20:26.900
government. Okay. It is a direct and obvious conflict of interest. It is super important for
00:20:34.600
journalists to speak truth to power, to be able to ask those hard hitting W5 questions without fear
00:20:42.780
of reprisal from the state. In fact, the term free press doesn't mean a whole bunch of old timey rolled
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up newspapers in New York somewhere being given away for free on a newsstand. That's not what a free
00:20:56.640
press is. Free press is free from government, from government influence, from government interference,
00:21:04.520
and from government money, which is why it's super important for folks like you to sign up and support
00:21:11.580
independent media and journalism like we have at Juno News. So spread the word, red pill your friends,
00:21:19.860
let them know that it's super important to support independent journalism and the work that they do.