Disturbing Developments： Efforts to control Canada's Newspapers & Internet
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Summary
We re talking about some developments in the Canadian news media scene that some find disturbing. They speak to an appetite for government control and perhaps even censorship, and it s beyond the newspapers, it s the internet as well. We have somebody here with us today who can make sense of all this. Peter Menzies, my former boss in years gone by, was a publisher at the Calgary Herald and for nearly 10 years, a commissioner with the CRTC. These days, he is a freelance commentator but he is most commonly to be seen in the Mcdonald Laurier Institute s publications and as somebody who has lived in both worlds, he s probably the right man to make sense.
Transcript
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Welcome Western Standard Watchers. We're talking today about some developments in the Canadian
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news media scene that some of us find quite disturbing. They speak to an appetite for
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government control and perhaps even censorship. And it's beyond the newspapers, it's the
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internet as well. Complex subject. We have somebody here with us today who can make sense
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of all this, and that's Peter Menzies. Peter Menzies, my former boss in years gone by, a
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publisher at the Calgary Herald, and for nearly 10 years, a commissioner with the CRTC. These
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days he is a freelance commentator but he is most commonly to be seen in the mcdonald laurier
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institute's publications and as somebody who's lived in both worlds he's probably the right man
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to make sense of all of this so let's go right to it peter welcome to the show thank you nigel
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good to be with you again good to good to see you there so um you know we think we have peter we
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we have a free press in this country do we what's going on not just with the legislation but the
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whole media business well the whole media business has struggled quite a bit ever since the internet
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was invented and classified advertising went away to kijiji and craigslist and others and it's uh had
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a very difficult time adapting and so what you've had is they've been looking for government
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assistance via bailouts and what you're seeing is kind of a merger of this the old broadcasting
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news world where they were always you know it was contractual when you got a broadcasting license
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that you would accept certain terms and conditions in when you when you took on that license so
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broadcasting people have always been a little bit more comfortable with having the uh somebody from
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the government telling them how many you know how they should conduct themselves and and what sort
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of standards they should keep and that sort of stuff those of us who uh grew up in the newspaper
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industry find that abhorrent uh just the very idea that anybody from the government would even have
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an opinion on how you should do your business was to be fought tooth and nail at every step of the
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way but these days having suffered more and more from the call it legacy print industry
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are being enveloped by that broadcasting mentality on the other side there's about 220
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startups online products such as such as your own who are not complaining for the most part
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and are moving forward independently and maintaining some of those independent traditions.
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In other words, the state has no place in the newsrooms of the nation.
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So, Peter, before we get down to the brass tacks of what is going on,
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the status of a newspaper reporter, let me put it to you,
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he stands in the place of the free citizen who is entitled to ask questions of government
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Is that a fair description of where a reporter sits
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Okay. So really, any attempt to control the press can be interpreted
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as an attempt to control the citizen, or is that going too far?
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I mean, if you're trying to control the information flow
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to the citizen, you are interfering with their freedom
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of expression, because freedom of expression and freedom of speech isn't just about what
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you say, it's about what you get to hear. And if you interfere with that information
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flow, that free press information flow in any way, I mean, you're entitled to give your
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spin on things and give your own view of things. Politicians have done that for years and years
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and years. But if you go beyond that, you've crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed.
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Yeah. So the Western Standard does not take the government money that you've been speaking of. What is the risk to the public and to newspapers themselves when they accept this money?
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well i think you lose your viewers and readers trust i think when when people know about that
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i mean people haven't really known about you know the uh the control the crtc has over uh
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broadcasting for years because you have to count on the broadcasters to tell you to tell you that
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and they're not likely to do that because if people think you are beholding to anybody else
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anybody other than them they your readers your viewers need to believe that they are
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your primary interest it is they that you serve and if they think you are serving anybody other
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than them um even through you know minor compliances and that sort of stuff or particularly
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the government they won't trust you so you're actually going to kill your own business some
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people might say peter and they would they would use an example like the recent coverage of the
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allegations of chinese electoral interference that the newspaper industry media the tv companies were
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big in this coverage too um that they have actually proceeded as if they didn't have any
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reason to be beholden to government that the money is not making any difference and they publish
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stories that obviously this government would prefer had stayed under wraps so really it's all
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okay is there any merit to that you got it i mean there's merit to the argument i mean you can say
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that that bob fife and stephen chase have have not have not succumbed to any outside pressures and i
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think the globe and mail deserves some pretty good kudos for that um the globe and mail is also owned
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by perhaps the richest family in canada and one of the 50 richest families in the world so they
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have some flexibility in terms of pressure and how people view their view the pressure on them
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they've never really as far as i know made a lot of money um they've always been supported by the
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thompson family and and so they have that security and and and they they have the flexibility to be
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that way but the key issue with most of the media yes some reporters will still be able to do their
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a good job right but it's whether or not the public trusts them to do that i mean the fact of
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the matter is people are surprised that these guys broke these stories right and they shouldn't be
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they should be expecting them to break these stories a very fair point in addition to that
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That program that we've been talking about, whereby governments fund newspapers, there is also two important pieces of legislation going through Parliament right now, Bill C-11, Bill C-18.
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In fact, the Western Standard publisher, Derek Fildebrandt, is there testifying to the Senate today.
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A lot of people, I think, would appreciate an explanation of what those two pieces of legislation do and what dangers they may pose for a free press.
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Sure. Very broadly, Bill C-11 is the one that's already been enacted. It got royal assent on April the 27th. It actually, for the first time, puts the CRTC in charge of the entire internet. Well, not the entire. Everything that's audio and visual on the internet is now considered broadcasting and is going to be governed by the CRTC through the Broadcasting Act.
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The threat there, of course, is that the Broadcasting Act compels the CRTC to make sure that the system, as it is known, and the Internet is now part of that system, is of high standard.
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You can see that already, where they've decided to take a complaint to remove Fox News from the list of approved foreign broadcasters.
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So Fox News could go out of the old cable system.
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Now that the CRTC is in charge of the Internet, Canadians could be denied access to it over the Internet as well.
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So once you start taking an infinite world of information in which the consumer is completely free to pick and choose what they want,
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which is what the Internet has always been and was intended to be,
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and you put CRTC in charge, which is governed by nine commissioners appointed by cabinet in terms of that.
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When I was one, they used to call us patronage appointees.
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They don't use that term with the liberal appointees, interestingly enough,
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because I guess patronage was a little demeaning, and I kept trying to figure out what I was getting paid back for.
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in people's views. They can see it that way. And I don't say that to demean the people who are on
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the commission. There's some sharp cookies on there, and they've got a big job to do. But
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basically, people are losing their freedom to watch what they want to watch, when they want
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to watch it, how they want to watch it. So, Peter, I mean, my first reaction to the Fox News story
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was that it was a stunt by people who didn't like Fox News, but that it couldn't really go anywhere.
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Are you suggesting that that's a real possibility?
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You know, first of all, I mean, the group that's complaining is an LGBTQ2 group,
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and the CRTC has been instructed to take special care of certain groups,
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Just last year, the CRTC, which, you know, as Bill C-11 was going along,
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everybody was saying oh no the crtc doesn't censor anything of course they do that's why they're
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there right that's the whole point of them what's the point of having a broadcasting regular
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regulator dictating terms and conditions and hours of the day and that sort of stuff and
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unless they're regulating last year they sanctioned society radio canada the french cbc
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for allowing on-air guests and commentators to use the n-word in reference to pierre
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Valliere's seminal 1968 book where he compared black people to the demise of black people to
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or the treatment of black people to the treatment of quebecois in canada and that sort of stuff so
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they've sanctioned society radio canada for that three commissioners dissented one of them wasn't
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reappointed one of them left for another job there's only one of those left so i think there's
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some indication there that the other commissioners are comfortable with censorship uh in terms of
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that and uh you know having watched a couple of the hearings and viewed a couple of them
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some online activity by one of them i'd say that of the four chairs that are eight chairs that are
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currently filled i'd say there's a very good chance at least three likely four would be
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happy to go ahead and take fox news out i have to say peter that i don't believe most canadians
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are aware of the crtc's censorship role if we lose fox they will be aware of it but it will be too
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late yep is there anything that the concerned citizen before we go to bill c18 is there anything
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that the bill the concerned citizen can do at this moment with regard to the fox yeah the crtc
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has opened a public consultation on the matter it's open until june the second it's on their
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website i i can it's it's not the easiest thing for people to find so you guys might want to post
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it but people anybody is free to go in there and post a comment pro or con you know please take
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fox news down please keep fox news alive in canada i mean the strange thing about the fox
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news thing is it's it's not like it's on your basic cable package you have to actually want
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it you have to buy it you have to make an additional subscription to it it's not like
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you know i told somebody earlier today it's not like you're going to run downstairs to
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the family room and go oh my god the grandchildren are watching fox news david save us right
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you have to you know you have to ask for it right so but uh that said um you know people have been
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kind of waiting for this moment and now that the crtc is in charge of the internet like i said
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and this actually started with the decision on rt russia tv last year that the crtc made
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um that whole thing was mismanaged in a way that opened this door and whether or not fox gets
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uh taken out this time these complaints aren't going to stop there are lots of groups
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who want to use the crtc to make sure the internet and the news world is a safe space
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for them in which they will only hear what they deem to be reasonable voices and there's a school
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of thought that believes that only progressive voices are reasonable voices and would the liberal
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party of canada be among that group of people that is hoping for that kind of an interpretation from
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you'd have to say from their convention last weekend and some of the resolutions they passed
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that yeah they're all in on that you know there was one resolution that the government examined
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ways to be able to make sure that social media companies only allow information to be posted
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where the source can be verified, which takes away unnamed source stories from journalists,
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essentially. And, you know, I mean, people can say those are just resolutions.
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Well, that would have undercut the whole China inquiry, wouldn't it? Unnamed sources.
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Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it would get rid of all of that.
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Right? And it would get, I mean, it would have got rid of Woodward
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I mean, there's a lot of stories that would have gotten rid of.
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and I don't like unnamed sources being, you know,
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But at the same time, the government has no business controlling that sort of thing.
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And there's a real trend right now on the left of the spectrum for control of the Internet.
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And that's Bill C-11 getting control of the Internet.
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they left a provision in there allowing them to regulate um you know social media posts they said
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they weren't going to use it but when the senate tried to take it out they put it back in so it's
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there for a reason it's there to give them flexibility to do something and and sooner or
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later it'll probably lead to a certain amount like this fox news complaint that will lead to uh that
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where you know like just accepting the complaint and holding the process that'll put a real chill
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in newsrooms right there's no question that's what's going to happen and this is video what
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we're doing right now is video on the internet so right now we are conducting ourselves uh at
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the pleasure of the crtc a chilling thought talk to us about bill c18 what does that do bill c18
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is uh basically a shakedown by uh large legacy media companies to force facebook and google to
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give them money they uh this started with rupert murdoch in australia who owns 60 of
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uh he owns fox news too but he owns 60 of australia's media and he had complained for
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years that uh well facebook and google they're stealing our stuff they're making money off it
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they're not sharing this is a rip off they should be forced to pay us because they're profiting at
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our expense which is uh i mean murdoch's a very powerful person in australia he basically
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decides who will be prime minister and for how long as things move as things move along
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but that's just nonsense it just it doesn't work that way right i mean how does it work peter it
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well it works right now with facebook gives you a free distribution network right newspapers used
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to spend as you well know a ton of money on distribution there's paper boxes corner stores
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you know delivery people the depots etc etc trucks a huge amount on that sort of stuff
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facebook gives you a free way to go right google's google's certainly different right because google
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actually scrapes the internet for information and puts it up there through its search engine
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both of them have been neither of them set out to kill newspapers and I don't think either of them
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did the internet may very well have killed newspapers because of the way it fragmented
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its its revenue sources saving consumers billions of dollars in the meantime in terms of classified
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ads but the the publishers are in control of what they post to Facebook and when they post it to
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Facebook, they post a link. And when you click on the link, it
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drives you to the website, right where they can monetize it
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through exposure to their advertisers. I'm pretty sure
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Facebook makes a little bit of money somewhere along the line
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in there. And they have been reinvesting with newspapers
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through various funds and that sort of stuff and some
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commercial arrangements. Postmedia I think has deals with
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them and Google, Toronto Star does, Globe and Mail does. Others may as well. What Bill
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Satine's trying to make them do is every time, if I'm a newspaper, every time I put something
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on my page that's a link, they want Facebook to pay me for what Facebook just gave me for
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free um and there's no cap on the amount that they would have to pay either right so i think
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both google and facebook would be willing to and there's a good argument to be made hey these guys
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can't just be taking money out of this country and not leaving any behind don't get me wrong there's
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there's lots of problems with big tech that need to be dealt with but this isn't one of them i
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mean almost uncomfortable sometimes saying hey this is a mugging right but it is it's it's it's
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basically a mugging of big tech and as a result of it facebook is almost certainly if bill c18 is
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is not amended um going to stop people from being able to post links to news stories on their
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facebook page so bill c18 is before the senate right now yeah yeah so back to the commons and
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then passing in royal assent yep yeah i i mean i'm not sure the senate the senate tried really
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hard with c11 with a lot of thoughtful amendments um and sent it back and they just got completely
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rejected and they just folded when it came back the second time i'm not sure they have the stomach
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for the fight anymore um and it's getting close to summer but i'm hoping they'll put in some
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amendments like for instance the way the bill is created most of the money this is how this
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bill will work if it works right well and it will only be google paying in probably but say they
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both pay in because it's based on links the biggest single beneficiary of this bill will be the cbc
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the second biggest beneficiary will be bell bell media ctv the third will probably be rogers
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in terms of that none of these guys need a subsidy none of these guys are on the edge of
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bankruptcy right in terms of that sort of stuff the cbc sure as hell doesn't and it it distorts
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the marketplace with its presence right now anyway because it's not really a public broadcaster
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in television so it will very much support the broadcasters the newspapers will get you know
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according to one estimate from heritage about 54 million bucks a year to split between them
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and as i recall 54 million bucks is about what the calgary herald used to turn as a profit in
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one year and 54 million dollars sprinkled across the entire non-broadcast industry will do nothing
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at all to to change the shape of journalism but it will entrench the status quo and the powerful
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at the expense of entrepreneurial projects such as yourself so actually the federal government
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probably quite pleased with the way this thing is moving along they will have more effective control
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over the canadian media through this through what bill c18 does sure and they'll have fewer people
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they have to deal with um they'll you know they can they can always make a phone call right you
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can you meet people uh from some of these companies they all have lots of you know government affairs
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people regulatory affairs people you can have the conversations you need to have uh to provide the
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sort of feedback you want to provide and that's and that sort of stuff so it it becomes much more
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clubby again right once you once you bring in the crtc and once they bring in government control
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of this or of that it becomes very clubby and and it's really sad because the internet was such a
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wonderful thing right it was so free and everybody celebrated it at the beginning
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when it was bringing down tyrannical governments and then you know i mean it was it was a lot of
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fun um when when people were getting the outcomes they wanted but when other people in power weren't
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getting were feeling threatened by it all of a sudden they had to control it so peter we've got
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government programs to fund newspapers we've got bill c11 we got bill c18 is there a grand plan
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here or did this just kind of all fall together in a fortuitous way from the point of view of those
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who like the idea of control oh the big one's still to come the the the real dandy is going
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to be something called the online harms act um and it's been in development for a couple of years
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and it will be it it will bring itself in under the cloak of protecting people from
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things that they're already protected from like uh child pornography uh terrorism recruitment
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those sorts of things uh hate speech uh like criminal code hate speech these things are
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already governed sharing uh uh sharing intimate images without permission these sorts of things
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they'll say it's all about doing that but those things are already illegal you can't you you you
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can't post those things on the internet without the police knocking on your door and you having
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to defend yourself in court but online harms would be more about redefining hate for instance so it's
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know i mean we i think we've all seen that quite a bit people talk people use the word hate very
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use loosely now and they refer they use it to refer to things that they dislike that they find
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hateful but certainly don't meet the bar that uh the courts would demand for hate um so you'll see
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uh there's talk in there of creating a a sort of same thing similar sort of sister body to the crtc
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with somebody called a digital safety commissioner who can order takedowns of posts they find
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offensive and that sort of stuff so you know if fox news got in trouble with the crtc and got banned
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it could do what a couple functionaries in the federal government failed to do we learned
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recently due to some freedom of information request stuff where government comms people
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got in touch with Facebook and asked them to remove a post containing a Lorne Gunter column
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because they said it misrepresented them, right?
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If the online harms comes along and you have a digital safety commissioner,
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they could go straight to him or her who could then order Facebook to remove the post.
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I think they want to get C-18 largely done with before.
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When they first introduced it and sent it out for comment,
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Twitter responded to it saying it looks a lot like North Korea or Iran.
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So these things are part of a package then?
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And you throw in the extra ideas that came out of the Liberal Convention last weekend.
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There very clearly is a very great deal of concern within the progressive movement
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and the Liberal Party and with the New Democrats as well
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in terms of that there's just too much freedom of speech.
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Well, since you mentioned the NDP, let's quickly, before we go,
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take a look at what's happening here in Alberta.
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I know you'll be aware that the Western Standard
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has been denied permission to ask questions at NDP meetings.
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We don't even get the press releases to know where the meetings are going to be.
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Our reporters get shadowed as long as they're there.
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But they're sort of standing there and, you know,
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eventually they may get a chance to yell out, hey, what about?
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And there's somebody from the NDP who's been standing at their shoulder
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through the whole period now i think that's a bit naff have you ever had to deal with that in all of
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your time in journalism no no and nobody and nobody should have to that's thuggery if it's as
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you described um well we'll show you we'll show you the video jothy bradley western center i got
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a question about the the military don't yell your questions out okay you know that your policy with
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your particular outlet where you have operated in hate speech against our candidates how we
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Happy to have that discussion with your editors.
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If you just have somebody, I mean, if you're standing there and some big guy is standing next to you,
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or even some little guy, or even some male or female is just sort of there, right?
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Now, if politicians want to not take questions from some certain media, I suppose they have a right to do that during a campaign, I guess.
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But once you become premier of the province, your job is to represent not just the people who voted for you.
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And so these sort of instincts are, you know, I mean, if you ask inappropriate questions, you know, maybe do five minutes in the penalty box or something, I don't know, but they have no business doing this and the instincts it reveals are really troubling.
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Different government in Ottawa, can they blow this all up
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and restore things back to a more freedom-loving situation
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without making the situation impossible to operate?
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I mean, even the Bill C-18 stuff, the CRTC was at the Senate last week
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and they noted that it's going to take them two years to be ready to to really do anything c11
00:29:39.180
the crtc announced a plan today late 2024 they might have if everything stayed on schedule which
00:29:46.880
it won't um they would have you know that's when the first changes have become official i think in
00:29:53.420
terms of regulations and that sort of stuff if the federal conservatives stick to their theme
00:30:04.620
they will have no trouble dispensing with these bills
00:30:29.200
Well, yes, there's hope. As they say in football, it's the hope that kills you, though, sometimes.
00:30:36.280
Just to coin a phrase, the state has no business in the newsrooms of the nations.
00:30:41.420
Peter, I'd like to thank you very much for giving us your time this afternoon.
00:30:45.300
Valuable insights on a matter that just is so important to so many people in this country.
00:30:54.600
Thanks very much. And like I said, people can go to those links and have their say.
00:31:02.760
Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.
00:31:09.220
These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and legislation in Canada.
00:31:17.080
And more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
00:31:22.400
We've become a member. It's absolutely worth every penny.
00:31:25.180
you can become a western standard member for just ten dollars a month or 99