In this week's show, Corey talks about Howard Stern's fall from grace, the CRTC's attempt to censor podcasts, live streaming, and discourse that the government doesn't like, and why it's a good thing you can't have it all.
00:00:30.000Good day, welcome to the Corey Morgan Show. This is my weekly, that adds up to 45 minutes, but it covers an hour on those cable stations from the Western Standard where I cover the top news items I want to discuss, get some ranting out of the way and interview interesting people.
00:00:48.080Today's no exception. A little later on, I'm going to have Elise Mills on. She's a strategist and counsel on global public affairs. We're going to talk a bit about the latest efforts to basically censor podcasts, live streaming, basically discourse that the government doesn't like.
00:01:06.180So yes, those of you watching live, use that comment scroll. Guys, I see Mr. Stonley was there fast saying present and paradoxy. Get in there, send those comments to me, questions, things for the guest.
00:01:16.200Again, like I say, I don't always read them all out on the show, but I do see them all there and I appreciate it. It helps keep things flowing and that. And I see some interesting concepts going on sometimes.
00:01:26.920Just make sure to keep it civil. We don't have to be at each other's throats. That's my job.
00:01:32.220So I'm going to get on the throat of some things and, oh yeah, since that was brought up by Paradox, he's saying a great interview with James Lindsay yesterday. Thank you very much.
00:01:40.160Yeah, James Lindsay was on, look on the YouTube archives. He was here. We had a good talk for a little while on the Save Our Children thing.
00:01:46.960He's been touring Alberta and he did a huge event in Calgary last night, actually. So check that out after this show, of course.
00:01:53.740So I'm going to start, though, on, yeah, the latest thing from the CRTC, the registry. I'm going to talk about what used to be one of my favorite radio hosts, Howard Stern.
00:02:04.260Howard Stern's show, it was a radio powerhouse in the 1990s. I mean, he gored sacred cows in the United States in his shock jock style of performing.
00:02:13.180I mean, it changed the way radio morning shows were done all the way around the world.
00:02:17.000I mean, while opponents were trying their hardest to cancel them in the U.S., it only brought him more attention and made his brand even more powerful.
00:02:22.940He crushed competing DJs across the USA and his show syndication seemed unstoppable.
00:02:28.860He would just absorb fines for profanity from the SEC and he'd just keep expanding his reach.
00:02:35.140Things changed, though, when he brought his show to Canada.
00:02:38.820Yes, in 1997, some people might not remember it, particularly out west, but two radio stations in Canada, one in Montreal and one in Toronto, picked up his show and started broadcasting it.
00:02:47.360And Stern's brand of humor, which included everything from, yeah, fart jokes to having women simulate orgasms over the air, was welcomed by many listeners and reviled by many others.
00:02:57.600But, I mean, it did work the ratings and market share for both of those Canadian stations expanded quickly.
00:03:02.140People wanted something fresh in radio and he brought it.
00:03:04.760But then, Stern committed Canadian blasphemy.
00:03:22.240Complaints from thin-skinned Quebecers flooded into the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council and, of course, further to the CRTC, the Canadian Radio Television Commission.
00:03:31.320Stern was threatened with a cancellation, of course, if he didn't back down.
00:03:35.700And in typical Stern fashion at the time, he offered a middle finger to the Canadian regulators in response.
00:03:41.300So despite the high ratings on the radio stations hosting his show, they were forced to drop him under threats of CRTC action.
00:03:47.840He didn't last very long north of the border.
00:03:50.140See, in Canada, the concept of letting consumers decide what they want to watch or hear all by themselves isn't considered a right.
00:03:56.080The Canadian way is to have the state carefully cultivate and control what our eyes and ears are exposed to.
00:04:01.820And the CRTC is the enforcement arm of that.
00:04:05.380The CRTC, see, they didn't go after Stern himself.
00:04:52.280It would be impossible, though, to try and register and chase down every one of those podcasters, streamers, and so on, those creators out there.
00:04:59.660So what the CRTC is doing is the next best thing.
00:05:01.900They're going after the service providers.
00:05:05.160You see, podcast audiences for the individuals can range anywhere from a few dozen listeners and viewers to millions of people.
00:05:10.520But one commonality among the podcasters is they have their content hosted by large Internet service providers.
00:05:17.420It's the only way really to attain broad reach, and the content creator doesn't have to do the technical investment of self-hosting and trying to get the algorithms and get out there.
00:05:25.940So basically, the CRTC is doing the equivalent of what they did with Stern.
00:05:30.800And if the host gets pulled and a podcaster loses hosting services, the podcast dies on the vine.
00:05:37.440Liberal apologists are dismissing the latest regulations from the CRTC, you know, to register streaming hosts and saying it's irrelevant because it only applies to hosts with over $10 million in revenue.
00:05:51.000The problem is, though, almost every podcaster is dependent on being hosted by providers who have over $10 million in revenue.
00:05:59.420If the provider is later compelled to regulate the content to the creators, there would be little that either party is going to be able to do to stop it.
00:06:06.520I mean, if the platform has its license pulled in Canada, it could be blocked from broadcasting in the country.
00:06:10.460If the creator, of course, loses their platform, they're out of luck, too.
00:06:32.420The new regulations from the CRTC put streaming services under their thumb and puts the job of policing the content into the lap of the platforms.
00:06:40.420It's an insidious backdoor way to control content.
00:06:44.180And what problem is being solved with these new regulations anyways?
00:06:46.660How have unregulated podcasters and streamers disrupted society so much that we needed new legislation for government to control their content?
00:07:00.000They have been a thorn in the government's side, though, as they'll focus on issues that the subsidized, cowardly legacy media outlets are afraid to touch.
00:07:07.720The government can't buy the love of independent media as it has with legacy media, so it's resorting to try and control it instead.
00:07:14.100The government's attempt to shake down Meta and Google with Bill C-18 backfired, and it harmed Canadian media, at least independent media.
00:07:21.100They're just going to subsidize the rest of them otherwise.
00:07:23.440Their attempts to control content through C-11 and the CRTC, though, might succeed, and the loss of freedom is going to be immeasurable.
00:07:29.740The Trudeau liberals have always had an authoritarian streak, and this move isn't surprising.
00:10:45.580They get a lot of people calling them out, you know, questioning their coverage.
00:10:50.480I mean, I have seen some stuff happening at protests, things that I've gone to.
00:10:54.400And I've got to admit, some people have been pretty nasty and abusive to legacy media representatives when they see them there.
00:11:01.300You know, I started seeing later protests.
00:11:03.700CBC cameras would be there, and they wouldn't put their branding on their cameras and things like that to avoid the abuse.
00:11:09.260I do say to people, I understand, rest assured.
00:11:11.460I mean, look at how often I pound on legacy media.
00:11:15.040But it doesn't call for being violent, for being threatening.
00:11:19.560Just ignore them, you know, don't give them time.
00:11:23.900You know, when they're looking for interviews at those things, just turn away, those sorts of things.
00:11:28.900But there are some people did get in the face of the reporters, some people getting in the face of the camera people, people who've even, you know, vandalized news trucks I've seen before and things like that.
00:11:39.880But don't give the state broadcaster and other media outlets room to play victim.
00:11:49.380If they can show a picture of a bunch of protesters screaming and getting in the faces of their reporters, it actually inspires more control.
00:11:57.740That gives the excuse to the local authorities to say, you know what, we need more police to shut down these protesters.
00:13:33.500This is a very basic actuarial question.
00:13:37.460This is a large chunk of our revenues that can be dedicated to programs that we seriously need.
00:13:42.740This is something to remind people, because this is what brought the crash in the 90s,
00:13:46.320when realism finally hit with enough voters and taxpayers, and we kind of corrected things.
00:13:50.880Because interest rates were really high, and people started realizing that government budgets were being overwhelmed with interest payments.
00:14:45.680You have a right to know how they're spending it, what they're doing with it, and not back off when the government refuses to tell you what they're doing with your money.
00:15:42.720I mean, it'll have the same effect in a way, but it's going to take a little longer.
00:15:45.980But this is a really, really dangerous turn of events going on with our government right now.
00:15:50.080I know people on social media thought I was being completely extreme when I was saying this, but it reminds me of the stories that my parents would tell me.
00:16:01.420I have journalists in my family that work in the UK and the United States and had worked in Canada at one point for what was then Southern Press, which you might remember, Corey.
00:16:12.520And one thing that was really concerning to me was it has echoes of McCarthyism in it.
00:16:18.640It's guised as the great savior of, you know, journalism.
00:16:25.780But what it really is is a cultural redefining or a shift.
00:16:30.540It's meant to follow in to what they were looking for way back five years ago when they appointed the media czar.
00:16:37.340I think what we need to remember is that this has been a piecemeal approach.
00:16:41.100So your viewers and listeners and readers will probably not remember that in 2017, 2018, right around the election of Trump came Canada's response, which was guised as we are very concerned about certain voices.
00:17:00.160So we're going to start regulating what you can say and what you cannot say on social media.
00:17:05.180So we're going to appoint a czar. At that point, it's now it was Melanie Jolie, who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs, and she was our czar of social media.
00:17:18.740Then you started to hear the rumblings of what they were thinking about and how to control the media, which was it's a three pronged approach, Corey.
00:17:26.060Really, the ultimate goal is to keep the CBC as basically right now what it is, is an outsourced PR firm for the Trudeau government.
00:17:36.420And I've never seen the CBC quite like this before.
00:17:41.300As you know, I spent over a decade as a permanent fixture on the CBC as a conservative.
00:17:47.660So it's about protecting, so some of that legislation was about protecting the CBC, but it was also about quietly, or what I would call the creep of government, melding our minds into what Trudeau saw the country as being.
00:18:04.040And that's, we really begin with the social media czar, we ramp up to C-11, we ramp up to some other pieces of legislation that people have forgotten about, that really pertain to the CBC, pertain to how, what the CBC is allowed to do and what it's not allowed to do.
00:18:24.120The CBC has only lost once in the court at the old CRTC, which was really about what they were trying to produce, which was, which was almost like a digital print sheet, right?
00:18:38.580The Tor Star and National Post and many others won that, you know, thank goodness.
00:18:45.140But this, what we're seeing now is what I call phase three.
00:18:48.740And what bothers me most about this is not, is it, well, several things, Corey, and I, and I ranted at you, called you on a Friday night and said, we've got to get on top of this.
00:19:03.240Is that now this is guised to something that's supposed to help us to sort of shut out what they don't want us to hear, which are these negative voices that have political overturns or undercurrents or, you know, overtones to it.
00:19:20.140The reality is I don't, I want to be in a country where I disagree with people.
00:19:24.740I do not want to be in a country where we're all saying, yes, that, that, that is absolutely fantastic.
00:19:30.200I absolutely agree with this mushy middle sort of woke Trudeauism that I think is separate to what the traditional liberal party is.
00:19:39.580The other part about it is it has a registry and it reminds me of the McCarthy inquest, right?
00:19:46.520Where journalists were brought forward for different reasons, but it's similar.
00:19:51.180It was about you jump on my bandwagon, you believe in what I believe in, otherwise you're a communist.
00:19:57.720Well, what Trudeau has said many times, whether it's vaccines or the way he's come about this and it would come towards media and public conversations and public debates and freedom of thought in this country, Corey, is are you a conservative?
00:20:12.040And if you are, you're a misogynist, you're an anti-vaxxer, you're, you know, so on and so on and so on.
00:20:18.800And I mean, he's compared people that have questioned his policies to being Nazis, to being homophobic, to being misogynist, to being people that are racist.
00:20:38.700I think this is a, this is not only overreach, this is an abuse of what's supposed to be an independent institution in this country, which is the CRTC, which is to help us navigate the ever-changing media landscape.
00:20:53.300And that includes the digital space, and that includes podcasts.
00:20:57.420And quite frankly, all you're doing is pushing people out.
00:21:00.820You're not embracing more diverse opinions.
00:21:17.600And he's going to leave a legacy, and he's going to bare knuckle this, white knuckle this, all the way to him getting kicked out of office.
00:21:24.760And it's going to take the conservatives' years to untie or untangle us from the precedents that this legislation or the legislations that we've seen pass forward and the regulatory changes that have been made.
00:21:39.440It's going to take us years because, as you know, Corey, once you take that giant leap forward, it's really hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
00:22:37.460And most of the time, I'm sort of cringing because, you know me, Corey, I live at the intersection of the law, legislation, precedent of parliament, all that sort of good stuff.
00:22:48.300And then, you know, I mix it all in with what I think we need as not only Western Canadians, but what we need as a change for this country.
00:22:55.900So when I listen to Joe Rogan, especially his advice on what you should be taking during COVID, I just wanted to pull my hair out.
00:23:02.860But would I ever get behind anything that makes it difficult for him to have his voice heard in this country?
00:23:10.720No, the same can be said about many of the far left groups that I have to listen to or even the hosts that I listen to on the mainstream media that have significantly changed in the last few weeks, especially out here in Western Canada.
00:23:26.820I can't even believe what I'm listening to sometimes, but it's important to scream at your radio.
00:23:32.900It's important to have, you know, to fight, to get up and feel that feeling that you want to hear, have your voice heard.
00:24:46.180If I was spreading hate or inciting violence or hatred or slandering somebody, there's all sorts of legal recourse that I'll be subjected to that I'm going to pay some consequences for acting like that.
00:24:58.880Lauren Kinsella, the pundit, is a prime example of the king of the watchdogs on, you know, be careful what you say.
00:25:07.860Nobody has lost their ability to sue somebody or to contact the police.
00:25:20.840This is he's trying to change the culture of the country.
00:25:24.560And I think at a time where Canadians are sort of stopping dead in their tracks, saying, wait a second, there's lots of things going on where this country is trying is being pulled in several directions.
00:25:39.700You know, you know, the rights of a few have outnumbered the rights of the whole.
00:25:45.580And I don't understand what the endgame is into attacking media the way that he has.
00:25:52.040I mean, the way that things have gone from Bill C-11, they have been absolutely a gigantic, enormous failure.
00:26:01.860We've had failures on the foreign policy stage.
00:26:04.480Canada tripped, fell on its face, and the whole country tried not or the whole world tried not to laugh.
00:26:09.180The other part to this is he talks about freedom of expression and everybody having a right to an opinion, everybody having the right to say what they want to say.
00:26:21.300But in fact, Trudeau has worked very hard at limiting the avenues for you, for people like yourself, Corey, or anyone else to be able to express that opinion.
00:26:31.780And, you know, the legislation, C-11 and its sister and companion legislation have but crippled and killed the Canadian media industry.
00:26:42.680The only group that's surviving is the CBC.
00:26:45.940I recommend your viewers and those who follow you on Twitter and your readers go and check out the release of the CBC's, O'Budsman's annual report about the CBC and their rebuttal.
00:27:38.120I think everybody has a dog in this fight.
00:27:40.980If you're mad at the CBC, this is a great way to jump in and raise your voice again.
00:27:45.880But what I'm really here to say is that forget about the little schoolyard scraps that you've had maybe with, you know, you don't like Trudeau.
00:27:55.880The trucker, you know, the trucker's convoy wasn't a schoolyard scrap.
00:27:58.840It's sort of part hand in glove with some of this stuff.
00:28:02.880But, you know, this is the real, this is the big kahuna.
00:28:06.880This is the one piece of regulation which should have come through legislation because there's a piece of the Constitution that requires, if he's going to search for more money through taxation, whatever, that requires him to go through Parliament and then have it passed, obviously, through the Senate.
00:30:18.720I mean, at this point, we can oppose and speak up and push back however we can.
00:30:22.660But we kind of got to wait now to see how it's going to unfold.
00:30:25.600So I appreciate you coming on to talk to us today because I don't think enough people understand just how serious this really is and how bad this could really get.
00:30:36.000So if I could just make a quick note, Corey, I have joined an organization that we will go public shortly where we will be fighting and exposing the concerns and the issues and the legal issues around this type of regulation.
00:30:55.460I'm jumping the gun a bit here, but I want your viewers to know that this is something that I believe in so wholeheartedly as a Canadian that I'm now going to devote my time to this group.
00:31:10.700It's at very early stages, but it will be people that you know who are going to join forces no matter who they vote for, what partisan world they live in, what they do for a living.
00:31:22.020The people that I've spoken to and the people that have joined the group are very concerned about this encroachment of our rights.
00:31:30.320And this particular piece that has come out with the CRTC was not the beginning.
00:31:38.320So hopefully, Corey, we can keep you updated.
00:31:41.340I know we're here to support you, too.
00:31:44.360You're one of the hardest-working guys in media, and I just really appreciate you giving me the opportunity today to express how problematic this is and how serious this is.
00:31:55.020Well, I appreciate that, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys put together because we need that opposition.
00:31:59.460So quickly, before I let you go, where can people find you on, I guess, X or formerly Twitter and other areas to keep track when things do start unfolding from you?
00:32:08.240They might remember me as formerly Gracie Style.
00:32:12.780Unfortunately, as I left Twitter, I lost that.
00:32:15.200Somebody else has that, so don't follow it.
00:32:39.260It's a little bit of a ragtag group right now, but we're hoping that we'll be able to really get in there and influence public opinion in the sense of why you need to pay attention to this.
00:32:51.400So, yeah, come and follow me on Twitter and enjoy the ride.
00:32:55.120It's getting feisty in there, and as Corey knows, I'm watching Corey's account and always ready to back you and jump in at a moment's notice, but you rarely need it.
00:33:23.560We're still allowed to use it in Canada for now anyways, and you can find the Twitter account, the newer one, and other such things as that.
00:33:40.060You guys are already alternative media watchers, but unfortunately, a whole lot of our Canadians, these – we'll see independent media disappearing, and they won't notice.
00:33:49.180They won't realize that all the alternatives disappeared somewhere.
00:34:02.120But if enough complaints – see, that's what they do.
00:34:04.320Like I was talking about with Howard Stern.
00:34:05.940If they flood the CRTC with complaints about Rogan, CRTC will contact Spotify, who will have had to register in Canada, and they'll say, look, you've got to block Rogan from Canadian IPs.
00:34:19.460You are not allowed to stream that here any longer.
00:34:22.100Or we will block you from Canada altogether.
00:37:30.560So what do we get from this clown, one of our city councillors, and every city has councillors like this, too, Courtney Walcott?
00:37:37.340Because we had another report that came out recently showing with our safe consumption centre in Calgary is anything but.
00:37:44.120Maybe it's a little safer for some of the addicts who hang around in there and consume their drugs, but it's made the entire residential district around it unsafe for everybody else.
00:37:54.500They can't leave anything out for a second.
00:37:55.780There was a local citizen talking on the news the other day saying, I'm afraid when I open my door, I'll be greeted with somebody with a knife.
00:38:18.380Showing that these centres aren't helping, that they're causing more damage to the citizens than they are aiding.
00:38:24.940And your solution is to ignore what these citizens who are enduring this and suffering through this are asking about, what they're complaining about, and say, what we need is more of this.
00:39:22.140There's things when you're getting to a point where, okay, you'll finally admit it was wrong, it failed, it isn't working, and you'll back off.
00:39:28.100But when you completely and consistently ignore the facts right in front of your face that it isn't working, you're in a cult.
00:39:39.720The only thing I can see changing Courtney Walcott's mind, or Mark's mind, this ass clown who sent me this little beauty of an email, is actually dealing with it face to face.
00:39:48.960But they talk from their comfortable suburban homes.
00:39:52.220And, you know, paradox, you're saying, you're so right, I refuse to take transit.
00:39:54.700And, yeah, those who can afford to refuse to take transit are refusing to take transit.
00:40:00.300Unfortunately, there's a lot of students who have to get to school.
00:40:02.880There's a lot of seniors that they can't drive.
00:40:05.200They have to take transit to get around, doctor's appointments, things like that.
00:40:09.300There are single mothers going out to get groceries.
00:40:12.300They don't have the funds to take Uber everywhere they're going.
00:40:16.680There's people who have to take transit.
00:40:18.560And how fair is it to make them sit in that, deal with that?
00:40:25.080These people who are working, these people who are paying their taxes, these people that are following the laws.
00:40:29.640And we're bending over backwards, enabling and facilitating the scumbags who are breaking the laws, who are stabbing people, who are robbing people.
00:41:20.460They make sure that people get on a train paid their fare.
00:41:24.180And people say, well, what difference would that make?
00:41:25.900Well, do you think the guy who pissed himself standing in the middle of the train screaming at the ceiling with the shopping cart bought a ticket?
00:41:32.580Do you think the guy, I bet you the fellow who stabbed somebody the other day or one of the other dozens of people have been stabbing people on trains lately and in bus shelters and spots like that.
00:41:41.680Do you think any of them bought a ticket?
00:41:47.220They're going to try and turn it into 12 bucks by panhandling or stealing or whatever they're going to do and get more drugs to get their next fix.
00:41:52.240So if you actually secure the trains, these guys can't get on them and the innocent commuters who are just trying to get to work, who are just trying to live their life, can do so safely and comfortably as should be their right.
00:42:07.460It's not, it shouldn't be asking too much for that.
00:42:42.520To be on the train yesterday in Calgary, the majority of people who are just trying to get around to watch one addict perforate another with a knife.
00:43:28.080But please, for the sake of everybody else, have a look and realize that these morons like the Courtenys, there's two Courtenys who are kind of slow on Calgary's council, and Mayor Gondek, and again, this is happening in cities across North America, are wrong.
00:43:46.560But now, again, towards the tail end of the show, Terry O'Malley brought up, reopen mental hospitals, that's where they belong, and they won't endanger decent people.
00:44:17.480And closing down all of the mental health long-term facilities throughout North America was well-meaning through the 60s and 70s and 80s, but it was a disaster.
00:44:33.180And if you put them out into the community, as they did, they end up in the streets.
00:44:37.140They end up harming themselves or others.
00:44:39.660They end up addicted to other things because they aren't being properly cared for or medicated.
00:44:43.540And that's how they end up taking other crap like meth or fentanyl.
00:44:46.800I mean, it doesn't fix things for everybody.
00:44:48.420But there's a whole lot of people on the streets right now that should be in a facility with long-term care, even if they're younger, if they have mental health issues.
00:45:11.420Put aside those visions of an old Victorian Dracula-style mental hospital with people locked in cages and experimented upon and things like that.