The Critical Compass Podcast - September 26, 2026


CBC Filmed an Empty Room. Independents Got 20 Million Views. ｜ Jason Lavigne

Mentioned
Rodney Palmer Dean Allison Detective Helen Groose Thomas Lukasik John Johnston Helen Groose Proverbs Bigfoot Carney
Stablecoins, CBDCs & Alberta’s New Economy ｜ Fergus Hodgson, Brett Oland & Paz Gomez

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

139.39

Word count

1,860

Sentence count

133

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We're not supposed to predetermine anything.
00:00:03.120 And that's why I'm really disappointed in the media.
00:00:05.420 You don't have to agree with what the Canadians have to say.
00:00:08.300 You don't have to agree with the topic.
00:00:10.020 You don't even have to support the topic.
00:00:11.860 But it's still newsworthy.
00:00:13.600 We don't have public broadcasting.
00:00:15.780 We have state broadcasting.
00:00:17.760 The organizations he used to work for, SWITCH,
00:00:21.140 and he gave us a definition of public broadcaster,
00:00:24.620 which is you do what the public's looking for,
00:00:27.520 a little local story. Maybe it's popular there. It gets to the national level. It gets some more
00:00:32.300 attention. Public broadcasting. State broadcasting. Very different. They don't do that. They bring you
00:00:41.060 the narrative. This is when media is now telling you, don't believe your trusted sources.
00:00:48.400 Turn against even your own father if they don't agree with what the CBC is telling you.
00:00:57.520 How many people here learned about this event on X?
00:01:05.420 Just a couple hands. Facebook, CBC.
00:01:12.540 You laugh, but this goes into the talk.
00:01:15.260 How many people heard about the Allison Inquiry?
00:01:19.100 Okay, so it's about a third of you, maybe a quarter of you.
00:01:23.260 The rest of you didn't hear about it because it wasn't carried on mainstream.
00:01:27.520 This was a four-day event, 50 plus witnesses, Canadians from across the country, even a few
00:01:33.860 Americans. Senator John Johnston was there, which is the first time a sitting U.S. Senator
00:01:40.300 was under oath on Parliament Hill at a committee meeting to testify. How many people knew about
00:01:46.960 that? That's newsworthy. But where was the news? Well, I can tell you where they were. CBC's head
00:01:54.780 office is 20 yards across the street. And they weren't there. Now I'm going to be very clear
00:02:02.540 about this because I want to be an honest journalist. They actually were there. For the
00:02:07.560 first five minutes, 30 minutes before the event started, they filmed an empty room and left.
00:02:13.720 CPAC is like a permanent fixture. We pay taxpayer funding to have CPAC there to bring the parliament
00:02:21.000 to Canada, to bring lawmakers to Canada, to bring committee meetings to Canada.
00:02:27.280 They were there at the beginning, similar to CBC, but they never went in the chamber.
00:02:31.620 They just were in the hallway filming a few people coming in, and then they left.
00:02:36.700 When we inquired, why isn't CPAC of all, CPAC not here broadcasting this? Because it wasn't,
00:02:44.180 in their eyes, an official event. I'm not sure when their mandate was official events.
00:02:51.000 it was parliament, it was a chamber, it was led by MP Dean Allison, and it was Canadian speaking.
00:02:59.960 What was one of the top news stories for CBC during this? Carney talking to Thomas Lukasik
00:03:06.680 in Banff. 50 witnesses from across Canada was there to testify and share their stories,
00:03:13.440 but the media wasn't. When you went online to check out what was the media talking about,
00:03:18.800 Were they talking about this event?
00:03:21.240 Their top story was, there's no media coverage at this event.
00:03:27.980 It's very circular.
00:03:30.080 They're the ones not doing the media coverage,
00:03:32.740 and the only thing they talk about is there's no media coverage.
00:03:37.060 But independent journalists like myself were there.
00:03:40.600 And we got a shout out by Dean Allison at the end,
00:03:44.280 because we calculated the numbers and took a look.
00:03:46.280 without mainstream media there.
00:03:49.840 This inquiry outside of Canada
00:03:52.120 was the number one or number seven worldwide topic,
00:03:56.140 had over 20 million views,
00:03:58.700 and it was only brought in by independent media.
00:04:06.660 So I would encourage all of you to go to the Levine Show.
00:04:10.120 We had it all there.
00:04:11.480 It's about eight hours a day.
00:04:12.640 It's all there to be streamed.
00:04:14.360 one of the people that's in this room was there. She was one of the witnesses.
00:04:22.200 Detective Helen Groose from Audible Police Services.
00:04:30.900 And one of the reasons why I'm bringing her up during my speech about citizen journalism
00:04:34.740 is because part of what we do is investigate. We're not supposed to predetermine anything.
00:04:41.180 And that's why I'm really disappointed in the media.
00:04:43.400 You don't have to agree with what the Canadians have to say.
00:04:46.280 You don't have to agree with the topic.
00:04:47.980 You don't even have to support the topic.
00:04:49.920 But it's still newsworthy, and you should at least come and see it
00:04:53.120 and share it with Canadians so they can make up their own mind.
00:04:56.300 But Detective Helen Gruse, when she started to investigate, 0.92
00:04:59.560 look into, ask a question or two, she got persecuted.
00:05:04.480 Her testimony as a police officer, detective,
00:05:07.480 in Sexual Assault Child Abuse Department looking into the sudden death of several babies
00:05:15.180 shortly after the rollout, spent over four years, hundreds of thousands of dollars defending
00:05:22.280 yourself, was convicted, sentenced, two-year demotion, and now in Ontario, as he testified,
00:05:30.920 there's a new law there. Police officers are no longer allowed to start an investigation
00:05:37.440 on their own without permission from supervisors.
00:05:41.940 Some countries that do this, North Korea, China,
00:05:47.940 all of the ones that have dictators,
00:05:51.280 their police need permission before they can go ahead
00:05:54.160 and look into crimes, investigations, and start one. 0.99
00:05:57.160 Sure, she can pull over a speeder,
00:05:58.520 but if she wants to look into a lot more details
00:06:01.480 about what's going on around her in her community,
00:06:03.400 if people bring complaints or people are dying,
00:06:06.120 She needs permission now in Ontario.
00:06:09.080 When it comes to media, when I first started doing this,
00:06:12.640 I thought a citizen journalist was me, the citizen,
00:06:16.720 doing the act of journalism.
00:06:18.700 And I thought, wait a minute, I'm a nerd.
00:06:21.400 I write software, but I'm not learning the truth out there.
00:06:26.240 And it started in 2021, really strong,
00:06:28.380 but going back even further to 2012 is when I shut off CNN
00:06:32.940 because all they were talking about was a Mayan calendar and the end of the world.
00:06:37.160 Like, huh, this feels like a narrative and propaganda, so I shut them off.
00:06:41.580 But the convoy here in Ottawa and Canada is when I realized,
00:06:46.040 oh, we have this here too.
00:06:49.220 They're not telling us the truth.
00:06:52.320 Now, one of the other testimonies was Rodney Palmer, CTV, CBC, former,
00:06:58.560 so don't hold it against him, but during the good days, he testified.
00:07:02.940 and he shared how he watched the organizations he used to work for switch. And he gave us a
00:07:09.060 definition of public broadcaster, which is you do what the public's looking for, a little local
00:07:15.280 story, maybe it's popular there, it gets to the national level, it gets some more attention.
00:07:20.480 Public broadcasting, state broadcasting, very different. They don't do that. They bring you
00:07:28.160 the narrative. So he played an example of CBC during early COVID days for the vaccine where
00:07:35.360 they were saying the Wuhan lab is not the source. And what he pointed out is how would
00:07:41.880 they know? It was so early. It could be the source, maybe it's not. But how was it so
00:07:48.580 definitive? And then he pointed out the second half of the story, which was, don't believe
00:07:53.980 your crazy dad. This is when media is now telling you, don't believe your trusted sources.
00:08:02.240 Turn against even your own father if they don't agree with what the CBC is telling you.
00:08:08.420 He played another segment. It was a fantastic, so you guys should check this out.
00:08:13.460 CBC for kids, or children, were being told the vaccine is safe, it was tested on thousands of
00:08:22.300 people and nobody got hurt. Well, we know now it wasn't safe. It was never tested on thousands of
00:08:29.920 people and people got hurt because what he also pulled up was Health Canada stats that day 119
00:08:38.720 Canadians died from the vaccine. So the same day they're telling your children nobody's hurt,
00:08:45.100 Health Canada says 119 deaths.
00:08:49.320 That's when he knew we don't have public broadcasting.
00:08:53.120 We have state broadcasting.
00:08:55.300 Because they're there to program you and tell you what's going on from their narrative
00:09:00.020 and disconnect you from your traditional trusted sources like your dad or your family
00:09:05.720 or the other ones that you used to do.
00:09:08.320 When we were there covering this, we were being attacked online by a so-called journalist.
00:09:15.100 They're making fun of us.
00:09:16.240 They're like, huh, this room should be full of Bigfoot if it's real.
00:09:20.740 Something along those lines.
00:09:23.360 And I push back to them.
00:09:24.820 I'm like, listen, you're not supposed to predetermine truth.
00:09:28.380 You're supposed to come out and see what's going on and share it
00:09:31.840 so we can decide what we believe.
00:09:35.760 Not for them to decide beforehand and push it out.
00:09:39.660 It's been gross.
00:09:40.720 but i am very pleased that we were able to get the message out number seven globally
00:09:47.340 on this messaging and now a lot more people now see what's going on how many people here still
00:09:54.580 watch cbc 1.6 billion dollars of your money goes there and this is why i like a lot of the
00:10:05.800 conversations that we're having here because this is capitalism and morality. Because we need a free
00:10:11.040 market because the market doesn't trust them, so the government props them up. And why don't we
00:10:17.420 trust them? Because they have no morality left. They lie to us all the time. They don't know
00:10:22.480 what's good or bad. They provide what Rodney talked about, which is a trusted news initiative
00:10:27.840 narrative and provide it down to even our children. A gentleman shared a piece of the
00:10:37.440 Bible with you, some scripture with you. So I will share Proverbs 31, 8 and 9. This is
00:10:44.640 the King James Version. Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed 1.00
00:10:53.040 to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy."
00:11:02.560 That means we're supposed to tell the truth. We're supposed to be journalists. We're supposed
00:11:08.720 to get out there and plead the cause of the poor and the needy. And when you had 50 people sitting
00:11:15.280 on Parliament Hill sharing how 15 minutes after they got their injection, they felt tremors,
00:11:21.840 felt like they were being electrocuted, can't feel their legs anymore, lost sons.
00:11:30.460 And the only media there is independent citizen journalism.
00:11:36.440 Citizen journalism isn't me the citizen who's a journalist.
00:11:41.920 It's a journalist for citizens, because that's all we have left.
00:11:48.340 We don't have real journalists anymore.
00:11:51.840 so we don't have the big bank accounts we don't have the supporters the sponsors
00:12:01.460 we don't have any of that because quite frankly i was talking at the table during that breakout
00:12:06.740 session how do we support ourselves the truth is folks most of us don't we're just getting by
00:12:14.340 god provides but we need to kind of change the attitude because if you guys really want truth
00:12:20.640 not their truth or your truth, but the truth, you need to support the up and coming independent
00:12:28.100 journalists out there. So I'd like to thank you all very much for being here today. We're going
00:12:34.280 to do some panels and have some more conversations, but Fergus, thank you so much for what you're
00:12:39.500 doing here today. And more people like this need to do this. Thank you.
00:12:50.640 Thank you.