Western Standard - Ottawa's eternal quest to shape what Canadians say and think

00:00:00.000 Good evening Western Standard viewers and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.

00:00:21.480 It is Thursday, August the 7th. One of the big differences between Canada's political parties

00:00:27.560 as that when in power, conservatives tend to leave hard-working Canadians alone

00:00:32.880 to do their thing and set government up so that they can follow their dreams.

00:00:38.300 Not so the liberals, on the other hand.

00:00:40.280 They try to set up government so that Canadians will follow 0.98

00:00:43.420 what the liberals think would be a better dream.

00:00:47.500 Some people call it social engineering or wokeness.

00:00:51.460 Whatever you call it, the liberals just can't leave well enough alone,

00:00:55.520 and it means they're always looking for more control.

00:00:58.960 With me today is Peter Menzies, who has been patrolling this constituency for a couple of decades.

00:01:06.420 Welcome, Peter.

00:01:07.400 Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

00:01:09.800 Peter, you had a long career in print media.

00:01:12.280 You were a publisher of the Calgary Herald.

00:01:14.000 You actually were my old boss for several years, and then you were a CRTC commissioner.

00:01:19.460 So you know print and you know electronic media.

00:01:22.160 And, of course, as the Liberals started pushing into the Internet, you saw firsthand what was going on.

00:01:29.440 So when I say they want to use newspaper subsidies to control what Canadians read

00:01:34.300 and the CRTC to control what they say on the Internet and read on the Internet, am I overstating my case?

00:01:43.940 I don't think you are.

00:01:45.400 I think the difference between one of the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals is that liberals have a great deal of faith in government as a force for good and believe that when they do something because they did it, it must be good.

00:01:59.780 Whereas conservatives have a more what I would call Jeffersonian approach that government should only do what only government can do, and it should focus on doing that well and generally have a more laissez-faire approach to the world.

00:02:12.580 They will regulate things, of course, you know, age restrictions for things like pornography and that sort of stuff.

00:02:20.460 They're in favor of, but they do not get into the realm of what you may say and what you may not say to the extent that the liberals instincts lead them there.

00:02:32.020 So there was a suite of bills that the liberals brought in to control the Internet, control what Canadians can do and say and read.

00:02:42.580 internet there's bill 11 bill 18 and bill c63 they 63 didn't go through but

00:02:49.620 peter can you explain to us how the liberals used those three bills or intended to use them

00:02:58.500 in order to control the internet sure well i mean part of the instinct goes back i can remember a

00:03:02.660 few years ago heidi fry who was uh head of the heritage committee um in parliament but she said

00:03:10.820 a few years ago have you seen the internet oh my god people can say anything on there

00:03:15.700 right and and so it sort of goes holy people can say anything well i mean isn't that what we were

00:03:22.340 isn't that what our democracy is supposed to be about exactly the the whole foundation and hetty 1.00

00:03:26.900 fry was an ndp uh no liberal cabinet cabinet minister yeah you know she's been for years

00:03:33.220 she's in her 80s now but she has yeah i think she's most famous for talking about how

00:03:37.860 how, as we speak, they are burning crosses in Prince George, and overstatements like that.

00:03:45.000 But to me, that sort of expressed—

00:03:46.440 That was kind of very free speech, wasn't it?

00:03:48.380 It was.

00:03:49.380 It was.

00:03:50.740 But to me, that sort of expresses the instinct.

00:03:53.140 Good heavens, people are saying anything they want.

00:03:56.240 And I think they probably had a view before that if something happened that they didn't like,

00:04:01.620 they could have lunch with the local publisher or something like that,

00:04:06.000 and that they could count on their gatekeeping powers to ensure this.

00:04:11.820 But they started with the Online Streaming Act was really where they started,

00:04:16.480 and that was about giving the CRTC control over all audio and video on the Internet.

00:04:24.480 The CRTC originally wasn't set up to do that.

00:04:27.080 No, no, no.

00:04:27.520 The CRTC was set up to do over-the-air radio and television,

00:04:31.160 which has to do with Spectrum, which is a crown asset.

00:04:34.760 so they have a legitimate crown purpose in regulating that.

00:04:40.460 But they've always had rules about what you could say and couldn't say

00:04:43.240 that go along with getting your television or radio license.

00:04:47.140 But the internet, of course, is not a finite resource like Spectrum.

00:04:52.080 But they just decided that the internet was broadcasting.

00:04:54.920 They basically just made that up because the internet isn't broadcasting

00:04:57.580 and gave the CRTC control over it.

00:05:00.420 So far, it has excluded podcasts, but it'll get into that eventually.

00:05:04.760 just because that's the way regulatory creep works.

00:05:08.320 But that sort of set the stage for managing how you consume content on the internet.

00:05:16.780 It gets very complicated, so I won't go into all that.

00:05:19.420 And then the Online News Act was about setting up a regime that would fund,

00:05:27.460 provide either through the government's actions or through its own resources, funding for media.

00:05:33.380 And that involved media then being approved by a government appointed committee.

00:05:40.400 And then the last one was Bill C-63, which died on the order paper when Justin Trudeau left, and that was called the Online Harms Act.

00:05:50.980 And the most dangerous part about that was adding new powers or reinstating old powers to the Canadian Human Rights Commission so that you and I could complain about each other anytime we wanted.

00:06:03.800 Well, yes, that was an incredible intrusion into free speech rights.

00:06:10.400 The idea, as I recall, the legislation that was dropped was that an individual who didn't like what I was saying or didn't like what you were saying could say, you know, on the basis of what Mr. Menzies has said in the past, I think he's likely to say something hateful in the future.

00:06:30.120 Yes.

00:06:30.640 And therefore he should be, what was supposed to happen after that?

00:06:34.580 Well, I think you could go to court and get an order to restrict you to your premises prior to an event.

00:06:48.580 I'm not sure about taking away the computer, but I'm sure that probably denying access to the internet or some kind of...

00:06:55.780 It went down that road.

00:06:57.380 I don't want to say that it did or that it didn't because I don't have the stuff in front of me.

00:07:01.420 So this is the role of minority report.

00:07:03.460 We think you might be about to do something, so we're therefore going to limit your freedom.

00:07:07.280 You're under house arrest.

00:07:08.800 Oh, yeah.

00:07:09.460 No, exactly.

00:07:10.660 It's one thing because our hate speech legislation came in to stop people from standing up on a podium with a megaphone or any other electronic means of communication and saying,

00:07:20.740 tonight, I think people should pick up baseball bats and attack Presbyterians or any other 1.00

00:07:27.640 specific group that they wanted to, that that was hate speech that was likely, that was intended 0.82

00:07:33.780 to provoke violence against an identifiable group. And we're a long way from that when we get into,

00:07:43.720 I think you might say something that might hurt somebody's feelings. Therefore, we will make sure

00:07:50.580 you don't have access to any public forum.

00:07:53.300 Well, now, for the sake of the anxious viewer,

00:07:54.940 let's just re-emphasize that legislation did not go through.

00:07:58.760 It died on the order paper when the parliament was brought

00:08:03.500 to go for the last election.

00:08:05.900 So that is not law today, but it's the same government,

00:08:10.120 almost man for man, woman for woman.

00:08:12.340 You think this is going to come back, Peter?

00:08:13.920 Well, I think it'll come back certainly in some shape or form

00:08:16.100 because some of the groups pushing for it originally,

00:08:18.900 The original online harms graph, the factors within the Jewish community were pushing for protection from things that could be said against them.

00:08:35.160 They should have pushed a little harder, Peter, by the sound of things.

00:08:37.420 Well, and the Islamic factors within the Muslim community were pushing for it too because Islam was being criticized online and they were opposed to that.

00:08:47.660 And I think as we've seen with the government's decision to, even without consulting parliament, recognize the state of Palestine, that is a significant voting bloc that's being catered to and shifting Western political dynamics in, I want to say, unforeseen ways, but they were foreseen but ignored.

00:09:12.360 Foreseen but ignored.

00:09:13.680 How frequently is that the case?

00:09:15.740 So let's see. So what we have is a government that, unlike the one that preceded it, which tended to just leave people to keep the law, but think what they want, read what they want, talk what they want, you've got now a government, and we've had a government for 10 years, that cares very deeply that you think the way they think you should think.

00:09:39.660 yes the rest of you i think justin trudeau expressed it very well when he referred to

00:09:44.760 people with unacceptable views so i think that might include you from time to time too

00:09:50.040 but uh heaven forbid but but but but this whole idea of getting into the the this approved and

00:09:57.960 disapproved the state i mean these are things that churches did right that that uh you know

00:10:03.480 no, that is apostate, that is blasphemy, that is this, you know, those sorts of controls.

00:10:10.200 These were not things that liberal democracies engaged in, and yet they just keep going that way.

00:10:16.400 And it's actually very frightening to see because you realize how authoritarianism grows, right?

00:10:24.980 When people who seem like nice people, who say they're doing this to keep us safe, it's always about safety, right?

00:10:31.200 So it's about your safety, your emotional safety.

00:10:34.380 One thing about physical safety, that's an entirely different thing.

00:10:37.640 But if it's about your emotional safety, so you might say something that just, you know, triggers me or makes me go, oh, my God, oh, my God.

00:10:46.020 I mean, I don't feel safe, you know, in this.

00:10:48.340 And that's what happened with the evangelical singer last week.

00:10:52.980 People were saying, wow, I don't know that people going to his concert.

00:10:56.500 I know that what sort of people would be going to his concert?

00:10:59.420 They could be walking by my house.

00:11:00.600 i don't feel safe and people react to that rather than saying you know pull yourself together right

00:11:06.840 do you you know find counseling uh you know see a priest do something uh well actually i wanted to

00:11:14.040 i wanted to ask you we're talking about showing foot or however you however you pronounce that

00:11:20.140 german name carefully i think yes it's under your breath behind your hands uh you know i'd never

00:11:27.640 heard of this guy until about 10 days ago. The knock on him is apparently that he has

00:11:37.960 a suite of opinions that 20 years ago would have been pretty unremarkable. He's not a

00:11:44.780 fan of gay marriage. He thinks the whole LDGT thing is immoral. He is a validly, openly 1.00

00:11:55.260 Christian wants to worship God with raised hands and so forth, which is, you know, that's how some

00:12:01.840 people do worship, and they've been free to do that for a couple thousand years. He has also

00:12:08.560 spoken up for Donald Trump in the United States, which is not surprising that there is certainly

00:12:18.720 quite a faction among Trump's followers

00:12:21.660 who would identify as born-again Christians.

00:12:25.660 And he sings their music.

00:12:28.620 So, yes, he's a Trumper. 0.57

00:12:31.580 And that, I think, was what got him kicked off

00:12:35.740 a Parks Canada site in New Brunswick,

00:12:39.400 which is where this particular line of news began.

00:12:41.880 And the reason they kicked him off

00:12:44.220 was that it didn't align with Parks Canada values,

00:12:49.740 which were to promote inclusion and safe spaces.

00:12:54.720 Now, a couple of questions for all that.

00:12:57.880 First of all, when did government agencies

00:13:00.240 start having values that, you know,

00:13:04.320 like collect the money as you go into the park

00:13:07.380 and stick it in the box and feed your grass cut?

00:13:11.280 Yes.

00:13:11.620 Those are values.

00:13:12.520 And don't litter.

00:13:13.460 That should be about the end of it.

00:13:15.640 But that is a perfect example of how something that sounds harmless, right,

00:13:20.840 it's going to be inclusive.

00:13:22.160 We have this is what we value.

00:13:24.360 Now, you can value that within your employment ecosystem.

00:13:28.080 You can do that if you want.

00:13:30.600 But you don't invent values like that that could be violated peacefully

00:13:35.680 by any citizen or any visitor.

00:13:39.680 They do, and that's the sort of, you know, if you point to something like that when it first occurs, people will say, well, that's a little kooky.

00:13:49.300 Aren't you being a little paranoid?

00:13:51.600 But there's a long bit of evidence you can go back and say, well, this is what it leads to.

00:13:57.040 Because what appears to be harmless has suddenly been used.

00:14:01.360 It's been weaponized.

00:14:02.760 Values have been weaponized to use.

00:14:04.900 Some people will agree with, obviously, following social media.

00:14:09.060 lots of people agreed with it. There was a rush of people agreeing with it. Many of us disagreed

00:14:15.700 with it because we're hung up on this old-fashioned idea that you are going to be offended in life,

00:14:24.020 right? There were, as mom used to say, sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never

00:14:28.980 hurt you, the sort of thing, that you got to suck it up, buttercup, and get through life.

00:14:32.980 And that is true tolerance. I'm sure this singer and I could sit down and talk for quite a while and I would leave in disagreement with him. Or there could be others that do. But he has a right to hold views that some people find offensive, provided he's not calling for harm to be done to anybody.

00:14:59.740 But this liberal definition seems to be that holding the view is itself harmful, right?

00:15:08.380 Just if you hold a view that is unfashionable or old-fashioned or not liberal or not within their very narrow, I think that's called the Overton window of acceptable views.

00:15:23.340 And that's what you see the CBC generally present.

00:15:26.820 And that window is getting narrower and narrower and narrower.

00:15:30.340 So people who hold views that even five, six, ten years ago were perfectly mainstream are now out of the mainstream.

00:15:39.920 And that applies social pressure and eventually legislative and regulatory pressure on your behavior.

00:15:46.660 so this is starting to sound a lot like the kind of society that the soviet union

00:15:55.460 established for its own citizens back in well i guess they got 1917 but they got control around

00:16:02.260 by 1921 and that's what they started doing and you see that with every authoritarian regime that

00:16:08.260 you've seen in the last hundred years and probably if you were a historian and you wanted to go

00:16:12.660 Go further back, you would see it with the French Revolution and the English Revolution.

00:16:18.560 You know, the round heads are not particularly tolerant of dissenting religious views.

00:16:22.940 But this is what we're talking about, is a secular religion that this government holds to and is trying to force fit upon an entire country.

00:16:33.920 Pretty much. I mean, I used to think it was just used for their political opponents, right?

00:16:37.980 The old practice of demonizing your political opponents, which both parties have always historically tried to use.

00:16:45.060 But it's spilled out of Parliament and into the streets so that we are now pointing at each other or given the power to.

00:16:51.520 You mentioned the opponents.

00:16:52.760 I mean, as you know, I worked for Harper for six years.

00:16:56.020 Well, I don't recall us in that period of time having these kinds of mind control programs.

00:17:02.620 In fact, they would have been anathema to Mr. Harper.

00:17:06.520 But, you know, there wasn't even anything being quietly done by the sneaky operatives.

00:17:13.180 What's the difference between the conservative way of thinking and the liberal way of thinking?

00:17:17.960 Well, I think the difference, I mean, I'll use one case to sort of illustrate a point.

00:17:23.060 There was the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

00:17:26.440 This was when I was at the CRTC, which is the sort of proxy for the CRTC content control, you know, like swear words and that sort of stuff that you're not supposed to say.

00:17:38.780 And they banned, based on the complaint of one woman in Newfoundland, the Dire Straits song, Money for Nothing, was banned because it uses an old-fashioned reference to gay men that was the same word the English used to refer to a cigarette.

00:18:02.840 And this caused this woman offence. 1.00

00:18:07.680 So the playing of that song was banned.

00:18:11.540 So what happened in that case was with some encouragement,

00:18:19.260 the CRTC suggested that the Broadcast Standard Council review its decision,

00:18:26.580 that this was sort of an extreme move to do that.

00:18:31.400 Now, I think Dire Straits themselves re-recorded the song to use a different word or something like that, but that was, that to me illustrated the instincts of that government, which was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, right?

00:18:43.840 Like, you know, sure, people shouldn't gratuitously offend each other.

00:18:48.020 Like, we, I think everybody agrees with that, that you shouldn't, but you are free to do it.

00:18:53.780 Good. The state will not intervene and ban you or ban your music or that sort of stuff.

00:19:02.380 And that's, like I said, entirely different.

00:19:05.000 Whereas the liberals assume that state intervention is always useful.

00:19:08.520 I think that's my take on it anyway.

00:19:10.780 There may be occasions when they don't, but they think that if they do it, it must be good.

00:19:16.020 And it doesn't really matter how extreme it is because, well, we wouldn't do anything extreme, would we?

00:19:22.100 We're liberals.

00:19:23.300 We don't do that, but they do it more and more and more.

00:19:27.600 So, I mean, it's easy for you and I with our backgrounds

00:19:30.980 and our experience in the industry to sit here and damn the darkness.

00:19:34.380 But from the perspective of the viewer, the person in the living room,

00:19:41.500 the person on the street, how do you push back against this?

00:19:45.140 I mean, do you just make yourself a martyr?

00:19:47.120 and by mockering yourself illustrate the darkness

00:19:52.960 that is descended upon us,

00:19:54.300 or is there a better way of doing it?

00:19:55.760 Well, it's just really challenging.

00:19:57.780 I guess one of the things you can do is retire

00:19:59.840 and then you're free to say whatever you want.

00:20:03.780 But there's social...

00:20:04.680 Well, actually, you're not.

00:20:06.100 Well, no, I'm not,

00:20:07.080 but I'm more free than I am within the sort of social...

00:20:10.640 You don't have an employer to cut you off in the past.

00:20:13.100 That's right. If I were to just pull you out a little more, Peter, and you say what you really think, we could probably get a human mind story going there.

00:20:21.500 I'm just saying it. But there's corporate pressure because a lot of companies have this sort of stuff and people will turn somebody in.

00:20:31.460 Yes.

00:20:31.860 Right. People will say, I mean, people get pushed out.

00:20:35.640 The HR departments have also moved into the realm of values and feelings, not actions.

00:20:42.280 You want the foreman's job, you know how to get it.

00:20:44.880 Yes, yes.

00:20:45.560 And then there's social pressures.

00:20:46.780 Like you go to parties and barbecues and that sort of stuff,

00:20:50.660 and you look around and you say something,

00:20:54.440 and then you don't get invited to any more parties.

00:20:56.620 And this sort of casual social pressure is, I mean,

00:21:00.060 I'm pretty convinced that most people don't spend a lot of time thinking

00:21:03.260 about some of these big questions and big policies, particularly socially.

00:21:07.720 they just kind of look around and see what the popular view is

00:21:12.460 and quietly adopt that because we're human beings

00:21:18.360 and we want to be accepted socially

00:21:20.060 and have status within at least our peer groups.

00:21:24.800 Now, there's other types of peer groups,

00:21:26.560 like the Western Standard Peer Group,

00:21:28.320 where you could say something like,

00:21:31.100 I don't know, I don't think all regulation is bad

00:21:33.680 and I might not get invited to a party.

00:21:36.100 if depending how many libertarians are around me right no but you might get taken down to the fox

00:21:43.140 and have things explained to you that's uh which is art's more gentle way of dealing with uh dealing

00:21:48.240 the social deviation no but i mean it's a it's uh it's a problem all right for for people who

00:21:56.720 and i mean i thought you were going to say something like we you develop communities

00:22:01.640 that are safe you know you find the people who agree with you and you know you you just look

00:22:08.680 after each other you said that much better than i do starting with social deviation yeah um look

00:22:15.240 we're almost out of time here peter i hate to say it but uh there's one thing that that uh you wrote

00:22:21.780 just a couple of days ago that really intrigued me and you you've been a frequent critic of the

00:22:28.120 federal program that permits that that gives money to newspapers to keep them from going bust

00:22:36.540 yeah and we share that we don't take that yeah that's something to hear the western standard

00:22:40.880 um to our cost i might add however you then came out and said never mind all that there's going to

00:22:48.800 be ai that takes down the newspapers it could be uh how does that work well ai scrapes information

00:22:56.880 from the internet, right?

00:22:58.000 So it needs dependable information.

00:23:00.360 So on the one hand,

00:23:01.480 it could actually rescue newspapers.

00:23:04.100 But if you can get

00:23:05.880 an appropriate commercial agreement

00:23:07.760 between, say, you know,

00:23:10.000 if AI wants to use

00:23:11.120 Western Standard's content,

00:23:13.260 that's, in my mind,

00:23:15.180 that doesn't count as fair use

00:23:16.820 under the Copyright Act

00:23:18.080 because you're using it

00:23:19.940 to build a global commercial platform.

00:23:24.060 So Western Standard

00:23:25.000 would have to be compensated.

00:23:26.880 in that example. That's if they do that, right? Or if they are encouraged to it or if they are

00:23:33.580 legislated to do it, which is sort of one thing. That's what the Online Harms Act missed. It went

00:23:38.120 with links when people could see AI coming. On the other hand, if you are a newspaper reporter

00:23:45.880 or a reporter of any kind, a platform reporter, news reporter, and all you do is rewrite press

00:23:51.840 releases and maybe throw in a quote, you're cooked because AI can do that. And for smaller

00:23:59.060 publishers, that can actually be quite useful. You can just feed the news releases into your

00:24:05.960 system and you'll get a quick rewrite of it. You don't have to have your reporter spending time

00:24:11.560 doing that. You can actually then take your journalism resources and apply them to getting

00:24:18.220 what we used to call enterprise news, which is news you find through your own digging and that

00:24:23.160 sort of stuff, which is exclusive to you. So it could be a savior, but it could just kill the

00:24:30.000 whole thing because the big impact it's had so far is people don't go to links anymore the way

00:24:38.160 they used to. Already there's like a 20% decline in people going to links and platforms need people

00:24:46.500 to go to links to see the

00:24:48.440 advertising, to buy

00:24:50.440 subscriptions. That's their source of revenue

00:24:52.620 is through links

00:24:54.580 and if that continues to decline

00:24:56.220 then media will be in

00:24:58.560 real trouble unless

00:25:00.280 their salvation

00:25:02.440 could also be people subscribing.

00:25:05.380 So I would encourage

00:25:06.540 people watching this to subscribe

00:25:08.500 to Western.

00:25:10.520 It's less than going to the movies for

00:25:12.440 a month of hot news.

00:25:15.460 And you might save democracy while you're doing it.

00:25:18.600 Well, let's do it then.

00:25:20.440 Get your subscriptions while they're hot.

00:25:23.940 Peter, it's great to see you again.

00:25:25.700 It was a great pleasure, Nigel.

00:25:27.580 We need to do more of this.

00:25:29.900 But thanks to Peter Menzies, former Calgary Herald publisher,

00:25:33.900 former CRTC commissioner, and friend of the Western Standard.

00:25:38.420 And just take a look in the background, and you see real reporters,

00:25:42.180 not artificial intelligence, real reporters doing news for the Western Standard.

00:25:48.000 Ladies and gentlemen, good night. For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

Western Standard - August 08, 2025

Ottawa's eternal quest to shape what Canadians say and think

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