00:09:30.420There doesn't really seem to be a clear consensus
00:09:32.140exactly how much it's going to cost so no first would you just tell us about what rachel notley
00:09:37.100says she's going to do with the net zero electricity grid and then tell us about what the ucp's price
00:09:42.460dig is they're attaching to it okay uh rachel notley has promised to uh get to net zero on the
00:09:48.460electricity grid by 2035 which is in line with some of the commitments that uh ottawa has made
00:09:57.340Now the kicker is that under the Paris Accord, the international agreements, Canada isn't required
00:10:04.060to be net zero until 2050. So the two parties are not quibbling on reaching net zero. What they're
00:10:11.980quibbling on is the amount of time that it's going to take to get there and how much more it's going
00:10:17.100to cost by rushing it to 2035 as opposed to extending it out for another 15 years.
00:10:22.940and that is going to involve a massive build in infrastructure and it's also going to mean
00:10:30.060higher electricity prices for Albertans as we are forced to retire some of this fossil fuel
00:10:36.480fired electricity in favor of renewables. All right so could you tell us now Brian G.
00:10:42.620Rebecca Schultz on behalf of the UCP come out today and say well that's all fine and well but
00:10:49.260Richard Notley's plan is going to cost the economy and rate payers $87 billion and see power bills for families and businesses go up 40% more than they otherwise would.
00:11:00.000So why don't you talk about kind of their analysis and tell us if you think they're barking up the right tree or is this just a bit of spin?
00:11:11.240Well, those numbers come from the Alberta Electric System operator.
00:11:14.400So I would say that they are fairly reliable.
00:11:17.620The additional 40% that they're talking about is in the form of the carbon tax, which is going to
00:11:23.540increase in that time period. I'm not exactly sure what it's going to be by 2035, but it's probably
00:11:28.660going to be close to double, which will inevitably add higher costs to electricity bills. There's
00:11:34.900absolutely no doubt about it. So in your analysis of this, you think they're barking up the right
00:11:41.860tree here that this comes with an 87 billion dollar price tag i think it could be for sure
00:11:48.340absolutely part of the problem today was is that they didn't provide any numbers on what their own
00:11:53.540plans were going to cost and what the difference would be so when when they were pressed and they
00:11:57.940were asked well how much less would we have to pay if we extended out to 2050 they couldn't do that
00:12:06.100So it was a little bit of a lopsided comparison.
00:12:10.500And in the reports that inspected the NDP's goals here, the econometrics from Navius Research and the Independent Alberta Electricity System Operator,
00:12:23.380Did they have any analysis about the reliability of the power grids, risk of blackouts, brownouts, anything that would take place if this was followed through on the move towards a net zero grid by 2035?
00:12:37.320The NDP, no, they didn't provide any of those numbers, but I have read those reports and I can tell you that coal is about 80% reliable, whereas wind is only about 35%.
00:12:47.180percent and right now coal is only about seven percent of the electricity supply while wind is
00:12:54.700about 17. and what we've seen is that electricity prices rose 60 percent last year in direct
00:13:00.860correlation to the amount of wind capacity that was added to the grid and presumably we're going
00:13:06.380to be expecting more and those prices have more than doubled since 2018 for the same reason uh
00:13:14.940Corey, I mean, I always take with a grain of salt whenever, if a party makes a promise and say, well, it's only going to cost this, or when another party says the other guys are going to cost that, I mean, we always should be cautious of these kinds of things.
00:13:29.640but Sean seems to have a reasonable degree of confidence
00:15:08.840You don't think it's just better if you're going on the attack,
00:15:11.860you put kind of your lieutenants up rather than have the leader dirty hands?
00:15:15.860Because Notley has largely done that herself.
00:15:18.340She'll put up Sarah Hoffman, Shannon Phillips, Joe Ceci.0.76
00:15:22.040she'll put her lieutenants out. And they do at least the hardest attack with the sharpest nails,
00:15:26.520not least still throws a lot of barbs. But you know, do you think this is a strategy perhaps,
00:15:31.720you're more premier like rather than down and dirty?
00:15:34.600I've certainly seen it done that way. You know, you watch various conservative
00:15:38.600politicians move up through the ranks and they pay their dues as attack dogs. And then when they
00:15:43.720get to the top, then they, they're more statesmanlike. So you may have something there.
00:15:49.640I was going to mention on this the thing that nobody seems to talk about explicitly is that
00:15:55.320the whole push is to have us all driving electric cars and having all of our homes heated by
00:16:00.840electricity so there's two things one is where's the generation coming from because if you unless
00:16:07.240you've got a reliable base load you will have brownouts and the other is it is not just the
00:16:14.040generating capacity it's not even just the major transmissions line all the wiring around
00:16:19.400towns is going to have to be ripped out and replaced with something higher capacity you live
00:16:23.800in a little subdivision i've seen it you've if you're the only one with an electric car and i'm
00:16:27.800not accusing you of having an electric car as a dirty accusation that would have been low blow but
00:16:32.840if you were the only one on the block who had one then you just go home plug it into the garage and
00:16:37.480away you go no problem if everybody on the street has got one the local transformer is going to blow
00:16:43.000so everything is going to have to be changed i don't even know i mean i haven't read the report
00:16:47.400maybe Sean can can tell us but that 87 billion dollars does that even include all the local work
00:16:54.120that has to be done and if it doesn't well there's going to be more yeah well there's uh certainly
00:16:59.480more uh digging into this for uh Sean to do Sean thank you very much for uh joining us on the
00:17:03.960pipeline today and uh look forward to further analysis from you uh on this one I think this
00:17:08.920has the potential to become surprisingly one of the bigger election issues thank you very much
00:17:13.960Okay. So let's kind of turn to the broader campaign strategy so far and what we're expecting. The UCP has been, I think, been employing a combination of trying to script Daniel Smith a bit more. I mean, Daniel Smith, Danielle, the radio host, you know, freewheeling, speaking, shooting from the lip, and speaking very frankly.
00:17:42.080I think a lot of people like that, but it's inherently dangerous because you'll say things that are impolitic virtually every day.
00:17:49.880And so I think they've tried to script her and control her more and limit her exposure.
00:17:56.200I mean, no longer do they have two questions per reporter.
00:17:59.300It's one question per reporter, but more reporters.
00:18:12.080We'll start with you, Nigel. What are you expecting to see for UCP strategy going? I mean, they've been kind of sucking up to Calgary, obviously, in the center, making very non-ideological promises.
00:18:25.220You want an arena? You got an arena. Tax cuts, I think, was a fairly conservative promise, but certainly puts kind of a nail in the coffin of the flat tax if you're creating another lower income tax bracket.
00:18:38.760You can't get rid of lower brackets and get rid of higher, maybe, but not lower.
00:18:42.680What do you think we're going to see for their strategy for, say, the next week or two?
00:18:47.820Well, probably for the next few days, at least, they'll carry on as they've done
00:18:54.160because the public attention is not yet on this.
00:18:57.680Our own internal information suggests that the people aren't really in an election mood at the moment.
00:19:05.180But when they are, that's when you'll see the larger announcements coming up.
00:19:11.780I mean, not only has hardly announced any policy at all yet.
00:19:15.760I can't think of anything that she said, but she would say, well, I will do this, and this is what it's going to cost.
00:19:19.760Well, she'd made some vague promises about hiring more doctors, everyone gets a doctor, things like that.
00:19:26.140Everybody gets a lollipop as well, you know.
00:19:38.940When you say that we're going to hold the, what is it, the 13 cents a liter,
00:19:43.340we're going to keep that going, not collect that, give people a break.
00:19:47.400That's a very specific, costable policy.
00:19:51.680So they're going to build their case on, and they've made no secret about it,
00:19:57.660they're going to build their case, that they're there for prosperity, jobs, to help people do
00:20:04.000better. I think the NDP is going to carry on with essentially a fear mongering. We're going to talk
00:20:09.320about the NDP in a bit. We're talking just the UCP. That's what they're going to do. Yeah.
00:20:14.760Corey, based on what we've seen for the first, well, I guess we're not even in the first week
00:20:19.760of the campaign, but I mean, it unofficially started early. So roughly the first week of
00:20:23.460the campaign. What are you expecting, say, for the short, medium term of the campaign, the next one
00:20:28.380to two weeks from the UCP? Maybe more of the same. I mean, they've certainly got some planned policy
00:20:33.440announcements, but I think they're going to be a bit tentative, and they really want to measure and
00:20:37.680see how they're being responded to. I mean, that helps them model what they're going to do in the
00:20:41.580second half of the campaign. I do believe that's part of why it's been a little quiet right now.
00:20:46.300They're just being cautious and trying to keep Premier Smith under control because, yes, as you
00:20:51.760said her greatest strength as a radio host is she'll talk and explore things and examine them
00:20:55.920but now there's this this this large amount of of you know also imagine if cory ran for premier
00:21:02.620all the crap they'd find on him in the first 10 seconds of a google search well that's it i mean
00:21:06.740they've had to search through hours and hours of her show they don't need to download one of mine
00:21:10.440they just stop there be like we got enough we got enough to hang them and we're going to see that
00:21:15.340for a while though i'm sure she's going to be playing some degree of response to things that
00:21:19.800keep dripping out that they'll bring out from past recordings. One thing I've been surprised by is so
00:21:25.380far the lack of opposition research from the UCP against the NDP. The NDP have been meticulous in
00:21:32.840opposition research. Anytime anyone has even sniffed around a UCP nomination, the NDP have
00:21:40.200done a colonoscopy into everything they've ever done, said, whispered, or farted. They're on it.
00:21:48.100And, you know, they certainly did it last time.
00:21:51.800And then as soon as, you know, those candidates kind of get defeated, if, you know, say the three of us ran in a nomination and Najinai get defeated and Corey is for some reason the candidate here, then they'll release dirt on the two who lost to kind of smear the party overall.
00:22:08.800The UCP, the NDP has been very strong on that.
00:22:10.560You've seen very little from the UCP on it.
00:22:12.560There's been a little, I mean, they, you know, they had a, I think about two weeks ago, they did kind of a release on some of the very anti-police and defund the police or police are all wife beaters kind of stuff from various NDP candidates, primarily in Calgary and Edmonton.
00:22:29.560A little bit of that stuff, but that was all pretty public record already.
00:22:32.760Let's start with you, Corey. Why do you think the UCP has been so light on opposition research so far? Or do you think they're just kind of sitting on a Fort Knox of dirt right now waiting until these guys are stuck on the ballot and can't be removed before the cutoff?
00:22:49.840I don't know. I mean, it could be tactical that they're hanging on until a little later. But usually with that sort of stuff, you want to hit it as it's happening. I mean, as you said, the NDP have been effective. It's kept the UCP on their heels. They're having to apologize almost for half of their nominations.
00:23:02.940One candidate just the other day pre-apologized for something and didn't say what they were apologizing for, just that they've done something offensive.
00:23:10.020been the past. And we know it's out there. I mean, the NDP has no shortage of some flaky folks
00:23:15.040attracted to the party as well on the far left that I'm sure have some great quotables out there
00:23:20.620in social media that they're not nearly as hard to find things on candidates as it used to be 20
00:23:24.280years ago. So all we can guess is either UCP hasn't been looking for some reason, didn't look at it as
00:23:29.300a strategy, or they do have stuff. And as you said, they're sitting on it and waiting for the right
00:23:33.840time to use it. Nigel, why do you think UCP has been so quiet on the opposition research? Or is
00:23:39.720it just that the NDP have impeccably vetted candidates who have never done, said, or written
00:23:45.380anything controversial? Impeccably vetted according to NDP principles, I would have to say. I mean,
00:23:50.660you made reference to some anti-police statements made by, I think it was about
00:23:55.560three NDP candidates. Three to five. And there was a few more that had sort of signed on to
00:24:02.180things that you wouldn't want to vote for. But I think that's fine. I mean, that's virtue for them.
00:24:08.600Well, I did take notice that most of the legacy media took virtually no notice of that.
00:24:15.900I mean, you know, NDP put out something saying some UCP candidate once said that he doesn't personally like to dress in drag.
00:24:24.280Well, then all of a sudden that's a scandal.
00:26:38.100But, I mean, what won the NDP last time around was actually a positive face.
00:26:43.120I remember the 2015 election well, and Rachel Notley presented what looked to be a bright vision, you know,
00:26:49.320and an alternative to a messed up Wild Rose Party and an arrogant Jim Prentice.
00:26:54.720Now, I mean, I looked at, you know, the imagery and the tone of each rally, for example, and it's just a matter of how they present themselves.
00:27:02.860But Premier Notley is going to watch it.
00:27:04.660If you push too far, you start looking.
00:27:12.520It could be something you start to come across, though, as embittered and with a personal chip, which I don't think people necessarily respond to that well.
00:29:04.660I want to talk about the NDP's move. They're really zeroing in on Daniel Smith's position on private health care. And I think this is a smart move for them because Daniel Smith is on the record pretty clearly stating that, you know, this is a sacred cow that should be slayed, you know, like your auto insurance.
00:29:28.580Perhaps you should pay something for it, a deductible when you have an accident.
00:29:32.000There's still insurance and everyone's got it, but have a deductible of some kind, user fees.
00:29:36.400She's been on the record talking about, or at the very least, the right of people, you know, my buddy, my choice stuff, to purchase your own health care.
00:29:46.420Danielle Smith has, she said she hasn't flip-flopped.
00:29:49.380I think she has flip-flopped, which I think is too bad.
00:29:52.300I think her original policy position was a good one and sensible.
00:29:55.760But if you're, I get it, might not be the most popular thing, but she's, you know, Rachel Notley's been saying, well, Daniel Smith says she wants some private health care. You can't trust her when she says that she doesn't. Daniel Smith is saying, well, kind of ignoring what she's said previously, saying, well, I don't say that right now.
00:30:15.760And that struck me as an odd tactic. I think it would be much better to say, I have some views, privately, that are not very popular, and I know that Albertans don't have an appetite for this, so I'm not going to seek a mandate for it, just like Stephen Harper did with abortion.
00:30:34.220I'm personally pro-life, but I know Canadians aren't there, the broad majority of Canadians aren't there, so I'm not going to seek a mandate for it, and I'm not going to legislate on it.
00:30:41.460Nigel, why do you think she didn't go that route? Instead, she kind of just took kind of a meeker
00:30:47.600route, trying to just pretend she didn't have some of these policy positions, which I don't think
00:30:52.080are that radical, but she's kind of saying, I don't, just kind of pretending she never said it.
00:31:00.320Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, we all know that she did. And one of the things about the NDP
00:31:05.280me a hypocrisy on this is that we have private health care. Every time you go to the dentist,
00:31:10.520that's health, you're paying for it. Well, they certainly love private abortion,1.00
00:31:14.260privately delivered, because it's much more efficient than it would be from the government.
00:31:17.660Abortion in Alberta, I think, is almost universally privately delivered. But I don't
00:31:21.580talk about the NDP there. I'm going to talk about just first Smith's, we're going to go back to the
00:31:25.160NDP, but Smith's defensive strategy on this. Just, she's just kind of ignoring, pretending she0.99
00:31:30.660hadn't said it rather than have a story kind of like i said you know hey i've got like anyone i
00:31:36.260hold some positions that not everybody else shares so i'm not seeking a mandate on it that simple
00:31:40.660yeah she could have said that i guess and she figured the least said about it the quicker to
00:31:45.140go away now discounts the ndp's initiative on this but uh it's no point in digging in on it and saying
00:31:51.460yeah well actually i did used to i did used to think that but um obviously now you know don't
00:31:57.300make it a complicated statement. That's all. So it's just a... Corey, it seems to be a very muddled
00:32:03.220defense. When there is a very clear defense that, hey, just Albertans aren't there right now,
00:32:06.900so I'm not seeking a mandate on it. Instead, it's been a very muddled defense, I think.
00:32:11.220Premier Smith's been very muddled in general. That's been something of a trait coming up with
00:32:15.460her, and it's challenging. But I mean, no matter what she says, the response from the NDP is going
00:32:20.260to be the same. You can see where their tact is, is that you can't trust her. They're basically
00:32:24.020saying she's going to lie about whatever. I think she's kind of playing into it by not taking a
00:32:27.800clear position here. Take a clear position, they'll just say, well, look at all the pictures
00:32:31.400saying, what will she do next and showing the weather vane? You know, so it doesn't really
00:32:35.500matter what she says, they're going to do the same attack. What I'm wondering, it would be
00:32:39.840refreshing, but I understand it's politically dangerous. It'd be nice to see somebody defend
00:32:43.320it, just stand by it. We are seeing polling numbers for the first time in a long time,
00:32:47.840federally, saying that Canadians are more receptive to health care reform than they've
00:32:51.360ever been before. And we're having this problem in every province under every government. We need
00:32:57.680to look at something new. But still, it doesn't seem any politicians are courageous enough yet
00:33:02.160to say, yeah, I'm going to take that on. Yeah, the Supreme Court of Canada has actually,
00:33:05.720it's ruled back in 2005 that... The Schiele decision, though, applies unfortunately only
00:33:12.500to Quebec. Well, that's the way they've managed to make it stick. It actually applies across the
00:33:16.540country, but they've managed to informally manipulate the... It's very weird the way that's...
00:33:21.000Well, so the NDP, though, have been focusing on this with health care.
00:33:25.680I mean, it kind of plays to an NDP strength.
00:33:27.540It's a sword issue, as they say, for the NDP that they can attack with it.
00:33:30.780Health care is traditionally a shield issue for parties on the right.
00:33:35.320You want to minimize the damage against yourself, but you're probably not going to score too many points on health care.
00:33:42.580Corey, how successful do you think the NDP have been as an attack issue on this?
00:33:48.100I think they've been, for my bias, but unfortunately quite successful. I go out and about
00:33:53.780through the week. I talk to a lot of people and things, and that's, if I've heard anything where
00:33:57.700there's conservative leaning people who feel uncomfortable, they're saying the same sort of
00:34:01.060thing. Boy, I don't like the NDP, but oh, I don't want to have to take a credit card out to see my
00:34:05.940doctor. That messaging is sinking home with some people, and I'm sure the NDP are starting to hear
00:34:10.980a little more of that, and that means they're going to go harder on this. So the fear works
00:34:15.300with this issue. Now, how does, pardon the pun, but how does Daniel Smith and the UCP inoculate
00:34:21.080themselves, vaccinate themselves, if you will, from an NDP attack on this? Because so far,
00:34:27.480I think it's just been muddled and not terribly effective. No, just do what you did. They did
00:34:31.980the Jason Kenney-style big cardboard cutout, but, you know, I think that kind of got old with
00:34:36.120Kenny. Just come right out and say it and keep saying it until it sticks. Well, that's what
00:34:41.800they've been doing but like her explanation I think her policy position today does not jive
00:34:46.920with her puzzle policy positions of a year ago when she was on the radio or at the western you
00:34:52.600know show on the western standard it doesn't jive with it she hasn't had a story to explain that and
00:34:57.560seems pretty lost right now so what can they do besides repeat what's not working currently
00:35:02.200Well, that is sort of actually a big cardboard cutout, and even that would be dismissed as a, you know, just frivolous, you know.
00:35:14.680So, no, she's going to have to simply point to the past, have we done it? No, we haven't. Will we do it? No, we won't.
00:35:25.260New rule for elections. When one party says you will do something and you say you won't, but the other party keeps on insisting you will do it, you get to be allowed to do that thing if you win the election.
00:35:36.840So when the liberals say Stephen Harper will put soldiers on the streets with guns, well, then Stephen Harper is allowed to put soldiers on the streets with guns.
00:35:44.940Or the liberals say the conservatives are going to ban abortion. Well, then that gives the conservatives a mandate to, you know, limit abortion.
00:35:53.420If you're going to be accused serially of doing something, you say you're not going to, I think it kind of gives you a backdoor mandate to do that thing.
00:36:03.020So we'll return our attention a little further afield here.
00:36:05.700So we have the Online News Act coming on now. And the Canadian Radio Television Commission, the CRTC, one of the most evil, evil conceptions ever to be brewed out of Ottawa, has now said that they've met with publishers.
00:36:28.680And they've decided that under this new act, the CRTC, which is an arm of the federal government, gets to determine if a newsroom can show what's a credible news organization that would benefit from all the new the new round of free money coming.
00:36:45.180So, you know, so we have Bill C-18. I'm actually flying out to Ottawa early next week to testify at the Senate to do my best to not kill the bill, at least try to minimize how terrible it will be for independent publishers like the Western Standard.
00:36:59.500But this, you know, this bill is supposed to take money, confiscate money from Google and Facebook and give it to publishers because Google and Facebook helped us get our content in front of people.
00:37:09.360I still can barely wrap my mind around the bizarre reasoning of the bill, but to determine who gets to have any of this money, for example, who's eligible for all the so-called free money?
00:37:22.400Well, they're going to have to, again, get into further, the feds, they go deeper into the business of determining who's a newsroom.
00:37:29.160And that means also dictating a journalism code of ethics that has to be met by otherwise independent news organizations.
00:37:37.820Nigel, you've been around the news business for a long time.
00:37:41.280Calgary Herald, a number of other regional, local publications in the West.
00:37:51.640But, I don't know, what's your reaction?
00:37:54.780Just as a journalist to the idea that the CRTC gets to define who's a credible newsroom
00:37:59.620and what your code of ethics is going to be.
00:38:01.280What? The basic thing is, does anybody have the right to report and comment? If you go downtown,
00:38:10.320you go to and you see something, do you as a Canadian citizen, whether you work for a newspaper
00:38:15.920or not, do you have the right to tell somebody else what just happened? The answer is yes,
00:38:20.160of course you do. So the issue is now, yes, but because now it's money, this is the federal
00:38:26.800government handing out dollars exactly and so the feds aren't going to say well uh joe blow with uh
00:38:33.280a blog or a twitter account we're not stopping him from saying something but if he wants to get
00:38:37.920free money from ottawa taken from google and facebook well he's going to have to do these
00:38:43.440certain things that means we get to decide who's credible news organization and you have to comply
00:38:48.720with the code of ethics well i i kind of doubt that the crtc is actually relishing doing this but
00:38:54.800the law is going to be that in order to be eligible for the money, you have to have a code
00:39:00.640of journalism standards and practices and ethics. And I suppose the CRTC feels the need to make
00:39:07.920sure that everybody has the same set of rules. As long as the National Post isn't supposed to have
00:39:15.600the same set of rules as the Toronto Star, you know, but that's actually the kind of dilemmas
00:39:20.960that they are going to face in the absence
00:39:24.060of a national organization setting those standards,
00:39:27.560the CRTC will by default come up with them.
00:39:30.660My problem with this, apart from just the whole principle of it,
00:39:37.260is that this is about another, the government has been trying
00:39:41.500to get into the news media and regulate it.
00:39:45.260You said I've been in the business a long time.
00:39:47.160I've been in before even the Kent Commission was called,
00:39:49.260and that was 1980 and that was about newspaper concentration of ownership but somehow they made
00:39:53.820it about content as well and trying to set standards and that's why we have press council
00:39:58.860different subject but you know it's government control of the press they tried it then they keep
00:40:04.620coming back trying to find different ways and their goal ultimately will be to say you are a
00:40:10.220journalist and you are not you can have a public voice you can't that sounds like a certain person
00:40:16.860running for the premier of Alberta. Well, since you mentioned it. Yeah. Okay, Corey. So, I mean,
00:40:25.180it's an inescapable fact that journalism is now a highly regulated industry. You know,
00:40:36.380when I decided to re-found the Western Standard back in December 2019, one of the biggest reasons
00:40:42.540I picked journalism was that it was a virtually unregulated industry there was virtually nothing
00:40:50.220three and a half years later and we're almost dairy farmers like we are this is
00:40:57.020clearly they're they're cartelizing the industry it is being hyper regulated soon
00:41:02.460they'll have us doing the equivalent of dumping out milk surplus milk here
00:41:06.220but it keeps on going further and further and it's all about attaching dollars to things for them for
00:41:13.420the most part it's all about attaching dollars and why do they attach dollars is for the sake of
00:41:18.160control yeah it's because if you don't if you don't follow the line you don't get the money
00:41:23.020because you know they can't outright come out and just ban inconvenient media that is critical of
00:41:29.320the government and you know perhaps outside of the laurentian mainstream they can't ban it
00:41:35.020constitutionally but what they can do is try to manipulate uh have the government manipulate
00:41:39.740algorithms they'll see 11 to promote government friendly content downgrade government not friendly
00:41:46.140content and even more powerfully fund and make economically prosperous pro-government media
00:41:53.820and try to bankrupt anti-government media um but this always involves them getting into the sticky
00:42:00.540stuff here. Do you think the CRTC, I will touch on what Nigel said, do you think the CRTC actually,
00:42:06.540the guys there are very happy about doing this? No, I think they have enough to do, but there's
00:42:10.920enough, I guess, busybody bureaucrats, there's someone who'd like to take that on. You know,
00:42:15.720they'd like to convince themselves that they're on a moral crusade, I'm going to make the media
00:42:19.460better for the populace and the citizens, and they'll set their codes. But I just can't accept
00:42:25.180that sort of control on any level in any circumstance. I mean, if the industry were
00:42:30.420to be controlled in any sort of way, it should be an industry organization. And I don't even think
00:42:35.240there should be that but a government organization setting the rules. It's just exceedingly dangerous.
00:42:41.020And it's it's going to end very poorly for all of us. So I want to quote here from Senator Pam,
00:42:46.540Paula Simons. So as I mentioned, on Monday morning, some point Monday, I'm flying out on
00:42:53.660I'm testifying before the Senate on Tuesday on Bill C-18, this bill exactly, and Senator Paul Simons, she was appointed by Justin Trudeau representing Alberta, although I'm not sure how you can represent something appointed to it, but it's neither here nor there.
00:43:08.720Now, she's a veteran of the Edmonton Journal, and she's definitely on the left side, but she was a good journalist.
00:43:16.060She dug into a lot of things and brought a lot of issues to light.
00:43:20.780She was a quality journalist, even if I don't really agree on many of her conclusions on these things.
00:43:26.360She called this bill, and now the CRTC having to come up with a code of ethics, defining newsrooms, et cetera,
00:43:35.760She called it anathema to a lot of print journalists who do not believe the government, the state, the crown, should in any way be regulating the ethics of newspapers.
00:43:49.300They should be neutral in how they apply.
00:43:51.000They should not be written in such a way as to include or exclude a particular kind of news organization as long as that organization can show it's a credible news organization.
00:44:03.060But the problem is, we all have very different definitions of what is a credible news organization.
00:44:11.080There are people on the left who will insist, despite the scale, scope, and code of ethics our journalists work with at the Western Standard,
00:44:19.060they'll say, well, you're not credible, therefore you can't be here.
00:44:22.460And equally on the right, there'll be many conservatives who look at the other side and say, you're not a credible news organization.
00:44:29.800So I don't know how you can, I don't think there is such a thing as a neutral definition that would not be playing political favorites here, Nigel.
00:44:39.280Well, that's why the way we've done things from the past, you know, since Confederation has been one of the strengths of journalism in Canada that anybody with a point of view can get up and express it.
00:44:51.280now it all became complicated when there was money attached to it but it is through money
00:44:57.840that governments will try to control the dissemination of information very powerful
00:45:03.040we knew it we talked about it when it came in we all knew what the game was and it's unfolding
00:45:08.560before us because once there's money involved well then it's got to be fair they're going to define
00:45:12.800what fair is and i i you know we live in dark times i'm going to close with this
00:45:18.640Pablo Rodriguez, the Minister of Heritage, which oversees the CRTC, says, he said, the Online News Act is one piece of a large and complex puzzle that aims to build a safer, more inclusive, and more competitive internet for all Canadians.
00:45:36.340I've spoken to my G7 colleagues about all of this, and I can say one thing, the whole world is watching Canada right now.
00:45:43.860On that last part, at least, I think we agree.
00:45:47.840I think if this is allowed to pass and then eventually take root here, I think we're going to see a lot of other wannabe tyrants in the developed and undeveloped developing world.
00:46:00.800Take notice that if you can do this in Canada, you'll probably do it anywhere.
00:46:05.640All right, Nigel, Corey, thank you for joining.
00:46:08.100I thank all of you for joining us today.