Western Standard - April 07, 2022


Globe and Mail editorial complaining about Canadian tax breaks.


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

200.50967

Word count

1,154

Sentence count

49

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Globe and Mail's editorial on tax cuts for struggling Canadians is a perfect example of why the government should get rid of all subsidies to legacy media outlets like the Globe. It's time to put an end to the government's handouts to Canada's mainstream media outlets.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 legacy media, the establishment media, the mainstream media, all the things we want to
00:00:04.980 call them. Well, there was a piece that came out the other day from the editorial board of the
00:00:09.980 Globe and Mail, and they truly embarrassed themselves. They really did with their recently
00:00:13.900 published rant against tax cuts for struggling Canadians. So with a complete lack of self
00:00:19.000 awareness, they referred to the tax cuts being made by premiers Doug Ford, Jason Kenney, Scott
00:00:24.040 Moe, and John Horgan. See, not even all conservatives. Horgan's no conservative.
00:00:27.200 In response, though, they've been doing these tax cuts in response to skyrocketing energy prices,
00:00:32.440 and the Globe and Mail editorial board called it an opportunity to shower voters with money.
00:00:38.440 Let's be clear, cutting taxes isn't showering anybody in money. It's letting them keep their
00:00:43.480 own bloody hard-earned money in their pockets. If anybody's indeed being showered with money,
00:00:48.060 it's Canada's mainstream media outlets, including the Globe and Mail, and they've been slurping at
00:00:51.860 the subsidy trough to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts over
00:00:56.340 the last couple of years. So it's pretty galling watching a media outlet that's shamelessly
00:01:01.840 taking a bite out of taxpayers in order to bail out their own unsustainable business model,
00:01:06.700 only to listen to them complain that the government's letting those same taxpayers
00:01:09.660 keep a little more of their own earnings. It honestly gave me a vision of a fat pig raising 1.00
00:01:15.100 its head from a trough and squealing in rage because it saw a nearby starving laborer nibbling on
00:01:20.480 a couple of crumbs that had been left to him by the farmer. You know, how dare you let that peasant 0.82
00:01:24.840 eat those leavings when it could have been given to us? These are subsidy prostitutes of the media, 0.98
00:01:30.780 and they've just developed such a sense of entitlement to the earnings of Canadians,
00:01:34.300 they express fury at the very thought of giving taxpayers a break. Any money kept by Canadians, I guess, 0.85
00:01:40.940 is a little less money that Canada's rotting legacy media outlets may not be able to take, I guess.
00:01:47.620 I mean, these high costs of energy are harming the entire nation right now,
00:01:50.400 and we're struggling to climb out from an economic hole created through years of pandemic measures,
00:01:55.760 and the high energy prices are only making the struggle that much tougher.
00:01:58.980 If a person doesn't drive a car, high fuel prices are still contributing to the rise of costs for every consumer,
00:02:04.460 whether it's food goods or any consumer goods that are being delivered to your house.
00:02:09.120 Many people are sitting right on the financial edge, and these brakes and fuel tactics are giving them
00:02:12.660 some much-needed breathing space.
00:02:14.020 The editorial board at the Globe and Mail doesn't understand the fiscal struggle, however.
00:02:19.000 Perhaps if the government cut off the constant taxpayer-funded bailouts to newspapers such as the Globe
00:02:24.440 and made them make the same kind of cutbacks that other Canadians had to,
00:02:27.980 they'd begin to get a glimmer of understanding why tax breaks are welcome and needed by Canadians right now.
00:02:33.860 I won't hold my breath on the government cutting subsidies to media outlets anytime soon, however.
00:02:38.280 I mean, editorials such as the one at the Globe demonstrate that the media bailouts are working
00:02:41.440 exactly as the government hoped they would.
00:02:43.920 The Globe editorial parrots the liberal talking points in defending carbon taxes so completely,
00:02:49.060 it reads as if it was written by a communications flack with Trudeau's own party,
00:02:52.560 or even Environment Minister Stephen Gilbeau.
00:02:55.440 Who knows, maybe it was.
00:02:57.180 As mainstream media outlets become increasingly dependent on the government to transfer taxpayers' money to them,
00:03:02.340 these outlets are naturally going to find themselves beholden to their government masters.
00:03:05.720 They'll feel less inclination to cover the government with a critical eye,
00:03:08.680 and will be increasingly tempted to write puff pieces made to make the government officials smile.
00:03:14.020 It's gross, crony capitalism at its worst and ugliest.
00:03:17.820 Currently, there's a group of five government-appointed members who form a committee that determines
00:03:22.700 who is or isn't an official journalist and what outlet is or isn't a legitimate news source.
00:03:28.100 Their meetings are held in secret, and the requirements for what they consider to be qualified outlets are kind of nebulous.
00:03:33.640 In a recent interview on the Canada Alliant podcast, the committee chair was repeatedly said of outlets,
00:03:40.860 when asked what is or isn't considered journalism, that's journalism, but not the kind of journalism that qualifies for the program.
00:03:47.200 So the standards are arbitrary and fuzzy, and these guys just kind of make it up on the go.
00:03:52.280 We, more than likely, they'll consider journalism whatever the liberal masters tell them to consider journalism.
00:03:56.920 The Western Standard applied and qualified, actually, as a Trudeau government-approved outlet, by the way,
00:04:01.900 but we refused to apply for or take any of those media subsidies.
00:04:04.860 We just wanted to see if we could do it.
00:04:06.520 If we took subsidies, we'd lose our sense of editorial independence and be on the road to becoming just another trumpet beholden to the government.
00:04:13.880 Principles remain more important to us than government handouts, as they do with many alternative outlets.
00:04:19.520 Of course, that's why the government doesn't like alternative media.
00:04:22.720 That's why it's so important that we don't allow the federal government to continue with its quest to centralize and control media.
00:04:28.480 They would shut down every alternative media outlet in the country if they could, and rest assured, they're trying to find ways to do it.
00:04:34.380 The federal government's dividing media into a preferred class and a subclass.
00:04:38.680 The preferred class is subsidized, celebrated, and gets good government access.
00:04:42.740 The subclass is often decried as being a provider of fake news and is denied access to government press events,
00:04:48.280 and it's under constant attack from legislation such as Bills C-11 and C-18.
00:04:53.420 The state-manufactured media hierarchy has fostered a sense of elitism and entitlement among the members within the legacy media outlets.
00:05:01.640 The insulting piece in The Globe and Mail wasn't written by some lone columnist.
00:05:05.900 That was the official opinion from their editorial board.
00:05:08.560 Their paper, while shamelessly taking subsidies from the pockets of taxpayers,
00:05:12.140 is officially opposed to giving citizens a tax break.
00:05:15.280 So please, keep that in mind as you consider subscribing to or reading material from legacy outlets such as The Globe and Mail.
00:05:21.940 I mean, you can't yet stop the government from showering your tax dollars on the mainstream media,
00:05:26.700 but you can at least stop giving them any more of your own money directly.
00:05:30.040 They won't respect your wallet or your right to keep the money you've earned,
00:05:32.900 so why should you do them any favors in return?
00:05:35.480 Let them slide into full state broadcaster status like the CBC.
00:05:40.460 While they still cost a fortune, at least people have stopped reading and viewing them as their ratings prove out.