Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford and Senior Columnist Corey Morgan discuss the biggest news stories of the year, including the Freedom Convoy, the fall of Jason Kenney, the return of Danielle Smith, and the great gun grab of this year.
00:01:05.120I'm going to call you number two like a Picard except.
00:01:08.060It's better than the number two reference in South Park I thought you were going for.
00:01:10.880No, no, no, I was going for the old naval term, second officer.
00:01:14.280Number two. Or Dr. Evil. Number two. Yeah. Okay. For those of you who got it. It was mildly amusing.
00:01:23.560Okay. Today is going to be a bit of a change. We're going to be talking about the top stories of 2022, or the biggest stories.
00:01:32.640A mixture of the two. Some of the ones that were the biggest and most important, which are obvious, like the Freedom Convoy,
00:01:39.760and others that maybe didn't get as much media attention as they should have,
00:01:43.680but were very significant and important for 2022,
00:01:46.420like a huge new federal regulation over the media and the internet in Canada
00:01:51.440that just really didn't get the attention they should have.
00:01:53.880But we'll be talking about things like the fall of Jason Kenney,
00:01:56.660the comeback of Danielle Smith, the great gun grab of this year,
00:02:00.580and, of course, new federal controls over the media and internet in Canada.
00:02:03.820Before we get going, though, Corey's going to tell you all about my favorite sponsor,
00:02:07.100the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
00:02:08.480Ah, yes. Well, the name says it all. They're an association for people who enjoy shooting sports, whether you're a hunter, target shooter, or gun collector. It doesn't matter. It's nobody's business what you do with them anyways if you're law-abiding. But you need an association to stand up for your rights, plus to share resources. They've got stuff like links to sporting events and upcoming gun shows. And most importantly of all, they're standing up for your right to own, possess, transfer firearms.
00:02:32.220So if you own firearms, you are doing yourself a disservice if you are not a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
00:02:38.340Their website is cssa-cila.org, or just Google them out, Canadian Shooting Sports Association, easiest way.
00:02:46.060Beauty. All right, thanks a lot, Corey.
00:02:48.460Also, you've got to get your Western Standard membership if you don't have it yet.
00:02:51.600If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, shame on you.
00:02:54.080In fact, you can actually now buy the Western Standard as a gift.
00:02:58.240You got your dipshit niece, nephew, son, daughter going to university, getting all sorts of silly ideas about Marxism and being woke in their heads.
00:03:08.440Maybe expose them to some hard news and straight opinion.
00:03:12.440Get your kid, get your nephew, anyone who really needs a slap upside the head, a Western Standards membership for one year.
00:03:19.540You get it at westernstandard.news, and I believe, just click on membership and you'll find an option in there.
00:03:25.860All right, so we're going to start off with what was probably the biggest story of the year, quite possibly the most important story of the year, and frankly, the first really big news story of the year.
00:03:38.220So we're just going to have to start with it, the Freedom Convoy.
00:03:43.260You know, we all know where this came from.
00:03:45.100We had on and off again lockdowns in every province in the country.
00:03:49.440We had vaccine mandates discriminating against people in ways none of us had seen in our lifetimes.
00:03:56.440And then I guess the spark that really set it off was make the federal government making it illegal for Canadian truckers to reasonably reenter Canada when doing long hauls to the states and back.
00:04:11.440essentially putting a lot of these truckers out of work because they were so dangerously spreading COVID driving around trucks by themselves for weeks on end. And that that finally set it off and it came as one would hope from Alberta. This was this was an Alberta grown movement comes out of here, goes to Ottawa and and the rest is history. Nigel, why do you think what was the big impact?
00:04:41.440of this? Why do you think this deserves to be one of the biggest stories of 2022?
00:04:46.880First, it is the big story because it tied up the downtown of the Capitol for several weeks.
00:04:54.240That in itself makes it the big story. The other part of it though, is that it was a genuine,
00:05:00.240decent, relatively well organized and peaceful demonstration where citizens came together to
00:05:08.960tell the government what was on their minds that the government was wrong and then first the
00:05:15.040government wouldn't meet them to be more specific the prime minister would not receive any
00:05:21.600communications from them have them over to the have the representatives over there to
00:05:27.600to the good lord they were parked right outside the laundry block i think they heard far to walk
00:05:31.920i think they heard them and uh you know he wouldn't talk to them and then they brought in
00:05:36.000And then, as it is pretty clear from the inquiry,
00:05:40.000they brought in the Emergencies Act, which, of course,
00:05:42.900is the old War Measures Act by another name.
00:05:45.800And so it was a massive government overreach that sparked it
00:05:51.600in the first place, and a tone-deaf government wouldn't hear
00:05:55.500them when they got there, and finally,
00:05:57.800a massive government overreaction that brought it to a close.
00:06:04.100and you know this has been brewing for a long time we've had we've had mr trudeau in office
00:06:12.500now since 2015 and although he puts a sunny face on it you keep seeing legislation walking along
00:06:22.500that is intended to limit people in so many ways i know we're going to get to some of those other
00:06:27.540ways later but you know there has been a feeling brewing in this country and you could really
00:06:33.860feel it here in Alberta. I'm saying, okay, it's time to take a stand, it's time to fight back,
00:06:40.080it's time to say no to all this. I think that was the feeling that put Pierre Polyave into the OLO.
00:06:46.880So that's where I want to pick up a curry here. Okay.
00:06:49.240Let's talk about the political fallout of this. The most tangible political fallout was the end
00:06:55.640of Aaron O'Toole as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. That was a very direct result.
00:07:00.580He equivocated, opposed it, mildly supported it.
00:07:05.860Most people don't know this, but there's a lot of background stuff where he was going to try and use this to oust Polyev from the conservatives.
00:07:18.400I think that's a pretty direct result that came from it.
00:07:21.020More indirectly, but I still think related was I think it at least contributed to the end of Jason Kenney.
00:07:25.860because it really just, it mobilized the anti-lockdown, anti-mandate, kind of pro-freedom movement to a whole new level.
00:07:33.720And it elevated it to the center stage.
00:07:36.500And you had Kenny kind of equivocating again.
00:07:39.380You saw him kind of in a panic trying to get rid of some of the mandates he had so he didn't look like Trudeau.
00:07:45.360But, you know, at the Coutts blockade and in Ottawa, people were coming at Kenny just as hard as they were coming at Trudeau.
00:07:52.860So I think a bit more indirectly, but still related.
00:07:55.540This probably also helped to take down Kenny and eventually, again, leads to Smith.
00:08:02.840How fair do you think, the O'Toole one is obviously fair,1.00
00:08:05.580but how fair do you think it is kind of linking the Kenny and Smith part in,
00:08:08.360and what do you think were the other big political ramifications that came from the Freedom Convoy?
00:08:13.120Yeah, well, I mean, with Kenny, I think maybe it might have been the final thing,
00:08:16.680but this was kind of already happening.
00:08:18.100I mean, he just he tried to play both sides of the fence with the COVID restrictions and he burned and he just basically infuriated both sides.
00:08:26.680He had no base of support left anymore when the time came.
00:08:29.660And when things were brought to such a head, it was it certainly fed the finale.
00:08:35.820I mean, it fed people in realizing they can oppose something.
00:08:38.700I think a large part of what this story was, was a segment of people shed off the Canadian attitude of, well, I'm pretty upset with that, but I'll just let it go and shrug.
00:08:47.180No, they got up and they did something and they pushed back and they sent the government into panic.
00:08:53.560They were powerful, whether you agree with the convoy or not.
00:08:56.900They made an impression and it changed the political atmosphere.
00:09:01.300And the long run still has to be measured out in that.
00:09:04.820I think that Daniel Smith and Pierre Polyev both rode into their leaderships by playing to that segment of the base to win that.
00:09:11.740But that segment also is a minority within the electorate at large.
00:09:15.860So they've got to watch that they don't corner themselves too far into that.
00:09:19.020But the convoy changed the face of politics in Canada without doubt.
00:09:22.740I mean, the Sovereignty Act, the Saskatchewan First Act, again, we're both responses to a federal government that's viewed as overreaching and getting too much into our face.
00:09:30.620I don't think we would have seen those kind of acts three years ago, no matter who the premiers were.
00:09:35.120So it's had an impact and we're still seeing what's going to come from this.
00:09:38.360You know, Corey, you can just see the strength of feeling that was behind there when the truckers said, yes, by all means, send us money.
00:09:46.380They raised more money in a week than the Liberal Party raised in three months.
00:09:50.580I already read my column. I got the numbers down.
00:09:55.680You know, we should we should we should freeze the bank accounts of anyone who's ever donated to the Liberal Party.
00:10:01.040Far more dangerous to Canada than a couple of truckers.
00:10:03.440Okay, well, segues in nicely. The I think one of the definitely in Alberta, and it was a national story was the fall of Jason Kenney. A year ago, today, very few people I think would have predicted that Jason Kenney wouldn't even make it to the end of his first term.
00:10:24.440You know, when he was driving around Alberta in the blue truck, trying to drum together the UCP and then his leadership race, he always would say about Rachel Notley, one and done.
00:10:34.420We're going to make the NDP the first one-term government in Alberta history.
00:10:38.940Well, Jason Kenney was also one and done.
00:10:41.200In fact, Rachel Notley lasted almost a year longer than Jason Kenney did.
00:10:48.840A lot of the country has a hard time wrapping their minds around it.
00:10:51.680There's a lot of conservatives elsewhere. They remember the older Jason Kennedy, the one that was elected UCP leader, the cerebral smart guy, staunch conservative.
00:11:01.500They didn't really see the Kenny that Albertan saw over the last two and three years that, you know, was locking down, was kind of dealing with Ottawa very technically.
00:11:10.820Lots of furrowed brows and news releases, but not actually doing very much.
00:11:17.840We'll kind of kick off with you, Corey.
00:11:19.680What were the big reasons you think that fueled the fall of Jason Kenney that few outside of probably the Western Standard offices here would have predicted was even in the cards a year ago?
00:11:34.580Well, I guess maybe two years ago wouldn't have been in the cards.
00:11:39.340You could kind of see it coming a year ago now.
00:11:41.640Most of the media a year ago, I don't think we're taking it.
00:14:05.840Well, there are quite a few reasons why that could be so.
00:14:09.100One of them is that the legacy media gets its idea, gets a narrative in its head.
00:14:16.280Not just about this, but about anything.
00:14:18.660and it makes it once once the idea is firmly there it takes quite a lot to dislodge that idea
00:14:25.620so all right the narrative was that uh premier kenny had been a very successful federal cabinet
00:14:31.700minister he'd come back to alberta he bought the blue truck he'd driven all over the problems he'd
00:14:36.340organized the party put the two together now we have the united conservative party and he'd gone
00:14:41.860out in one very very convincing electoral victory over over um rachel notley what sort of trouble
00:14:49.300could he possibly be in and it wasn't until you kept getting these stories about uh nomination
00:14:56.500meetings that where a kenny candidate had been not only chosen but others have been disqualified
00:15:04.980disqualified for one reason or another and often the reasons weren't particularly good now the
00:15:09.380first time you first time a reporter gets a story like that well it's an outlier when you get enough
00:15:15.220of them they start to think oh what is going on there so it took a while to change the narrative
00:15:21.060that's that i think is the first one the other thing and this sort of leads directly back to the
00:15:28.260government's response to covet is that somewhere along the line the media forgot that their job
00:15:35.940was to question and to challenge what the government was saying not to necessarily come
00:15:41.780out in gross opposition to it but say if you're doing this why are you doing that they forgot that
00:15:47.540and instead they lined up got the press release if it comes from the government if it comes from
00:15:52.580alberta health then this must be the right thing to do we're doing a public service by making sure
00:15:57.380you have accurate information except half the time it wasn't accurate information it was the
00:16:02.100the very opposite. It was deceptive, and I would go so far as to say manipulative, but anyway,
00:16:07.740that's a different argument. So it wasn't a long stretch from not getting the narrative about
00:16:17.680Kenny, but then seeing him as the official spokesman for the authorized point of view.
00:16:25.560And so he doesn't think the media gave him a break, but in a lot of ways they did.
00:16:34.500I think the biggest one has still been missed here.
00:16:37.480I think it's that most people who work in journalism simply didn't know who any of these people were who were so angry.
00:16:44.580Those people, they tend to live not where journalists live.
00:16:47.280journalists tend to live in the downtown major urban centers of the country, mostly in the Ottawa,
00:16:53.520Montreal, Toronto, triangle, but, you know, even media here, they live in downtown Calgary,
00:16:59.920downtown Edmonton. These people came from rural or they came from suburbs, not all but
00:17:05.840disproportionately. And they had very different worldviews, different political views. And,
00:17:12.560you know, just as we might say, well, I can't, it's impossible that the NDP could ever win
00:17:16.560in Alberta because I don't know anyone who votes any people maybe because we don't roll in those
00:17:19.840circles because we have our bubbles and the media live in their own social bubbles they just simply
00:17:24.560didn't know these people the media people who work in the media for the most part didn't know anyone
00:17:30.320who was really angry about mandatory vaccination mandatory masking lockdowns and and so this
00:17:36.720their worldview was unable to to touch it that these people don't really exist they are a small
00:17:41.840fringe minority you know you're on to something there derek and it reminds me if i can tell you
00:17:46.640a 20 second little little anecdote to that point it was 2006 stephen harper's election victory had
00:17:53.440just been announced and there were some of us in the editorial board who were still there waiting
00:17:59.040to comment on this you're talking about the calgary yeah this is the calgary herald in 2006
00:18:03.760and somebody from the newsroom comes down this is not a not a result they were expecting now they've
00:18:09.600got to get comments from conservatives and i won't name this individual because he's still active in
00:18:14.400the in the business but he said any of you guys listen we need some contacts anybody we need a
00:18:20.320conservative you know all they knew were liberals so there is a certain amount of what you're saying
00:18:26.560there that they probably didn't know who to ask or who to go and see they didn't know about corey
00:18:32.320Yeah. Yeah, I think it's kind of a, it's the symptom of just a broader issue that helps. It's not always that the media have an agenda. It's just, they just might not know people outside of these circles who don't live where they do and think like they do.
00:18:51.200That's right. Biggest source of media bias is just, I don't see the point of this, and choosing to report something else when actually it's quite an important story.
00:18:59.060Well, our tangents are working great today, because I think this rolls over nicely into the comeback of Danielle Smith.
00:19:07.920I don't think a lot of people a year ago would have said, I think Danielle Smith is going to be premier.
00:19:13.320Now, I remember it was just over a year ago, November 2021, me and Corey, before you joined us,
00:19:21.740we were at the UCP convention at the Gray Eagle Casino just outside Calgary here at the Suitsino Reserve.
00:19:26.120and uh danielle smith was she was doing some freelance work with us and so she was on the show
00:19:32.520and uh jason kenny's behind her on the stage and she just kind of says uh you know if jason kenny
00:19:39.320wasn't the leader anymore i'd run to replace him and we all just kind of fell out of our chairs
00:19:43.400danielle smith announced on the western standard in the same room with jason kenny that she wanted0.58
00:19:49.320his job i hope we've got a clip of that oh we do you know what we should make a note of that because
00:19:53.960that's a highlight. That was a real highlight. That was the first solid hint that, holy crap,
00:19:59.820she's making another go of it. But most, well, it wasn't a hint. She said she would if he's gone.
00:20:05.820It was a pretty frontal shot. But still, at that time, it was like, eh, could she really win?
00:20:12.760Because she had just so much baggage from kind of the disastrous end of her time as Wild Rose
00:20:19.160leader. She had a tremendous start to it, but then totally melted down the most spectacular fashion1.00
00:20:23.880in December of 2014. Oh, geez, actually, we're on the anniversary date. I think it was the 21st.
00:20:31.520I'll never forget. It was like Pearl Harbor for me when that went down. But again, I don't think,
00:20:38.380I was skeptical at first that she could do it, but I thought she had a real chance. Most of the
00:20:43.820legacy media think didn't really give her chance though it's they had just seen Kenny defeated by
00:20:50.220what they saw is a redneck rabble but of course it's going to be Kenny's chosen success or or1.00
00:20:55.660if not hit Travis Taves it was going to be Brian G because he's the big name
00:21:01.420Daniel Smith was just too radical too out there and but then she just dominated um
00:21:06.940We'll start with you, Nigel. Why do you think the comeback of Danielle Smith deserves to be one of the big stories of the year? And why would it be different than most ordinary leadership campaigns to stand out this way?
00:21:22.940You know, because BC had a leadership campaign.
00:21:25.360Sorry, I just asked you a question, then go right back to myself.
00:22:14.420In 1916, they didn't see that coming the next year either.
00:22:17.5801917. Well, 1917 was the revolution, but before it happened, they didn't see it coming. And just the same, a lot of people last year didn't see this coming.
00:22:26.480But like 1917, everyone should have seen it coming in 16.
00:22:30.960It's hindsight, eh? 2020. Well, I think there's a number of reasons why that, again, there's a number of reasons why this one dominated.
00:22:39.540for the first thing in the bc if you want to compare it to the bc leadership succession
00:22:44.100uh i mean mr horgan was diagnosed with cancer otherwise he'd still be there yeah so you know
00:22:52.020it was very sad it wasn't the worst ndp premier that you could possibly imagine and i think a lot
00:22:58.740of people felt genuinely sorry about it when he announced his intention to uh to retire but you
00:23:03.940know it had to be done and somebody had to take the job and they went through the motions there
00:23:08.180There was no palace coup to take them down.
00:23:10.600No, there was no, you know, nothing personal about anybody.
00:23:15.900So that explains a relatively low key of the B.C. leadership race, whereas, of course, I mean, just a few moments ago, you outlined the different factions that were operating within Alberta.
00:23:32.360You know, that mad as hell not going to take it anymore crowd out in the country.
00:31:59.380Okay, well, God, our segues are perfect because we were talking about, you know,
00:32:03.900Smith saying she's not going to comply, you know,
00:32:06.640force the Alberta government, police and prosecutors to comply with federal gun grabs.
00:32:11.000Well, we're going to talk now about the great gun grab of 2022.
00:32:15.460It's maybe a bit of a misnomer because it's been happening for a long time,
00:32:18.760But I think it's fair to say 2022, the gun grab coming from Ottawa reached a whole new level.
00:32:26.380We had in the spring, the federal government announced that they will ban the sale, gifting, and transfer of handguns in Canada.
00:32:36.700And they thought that, well, that means everyone's going to stop buying guns right now because they know that we're going to be banning it and they're going to be worthless.
00:32:43.180Much to the shock and horror of Ottawa and the Toronto Star, handgun sales went absolutely freaking crazy.
00:32:56.940Remember we announced it? I told everyone at the Western Standard, everyone's like, oh my god, we got to get our handguns.
00:33:01.880So I said, the Western Standard will loan any employee up to $500 to buy handguns.
00:33:06.460We called it the Western Standard, I think we called it something along the lines of the Western Standard Employee Armament Loan Program.
00:33:12.380And I guess this got out the Toronto Star saw it. They ran a big story saying, my God, look at these absolute nuts out west. They haven't got the message. You're not supposed to have handguns anymore.
00:33:24.600And then we had wholesalers contact us and say, we're going to sell any Western and standard employee handguns at wholesale prices.
00:33:48.160I'll literally, it will be illegal very soon from now.
00:33:51.580So handgun sales went through the frigging roof.
00:33:53.840record handgun sales this summer. Eventually, then the federal government was panicking because they
00:33:58.480didn't have a bill to ban it, so they had to find some weird, bizarre regulatory workarounds. I think
00:34:03.780they did something involving like dairy import bans, some obscure powers the government had to
00:34:09.800try and regulate the stop of it. So there's that on handguns. Now, I know handgun owners, we don't
00:34:15.460get as much sympathy as regular hunting rifle and shotgun owners. People say, oh, what do you need a
00:34:21.500handgun for? Well, this is still a free country, isn't it? I don't have to answer your stupid questions. I can have a handgun because I want a handgun. That's all the reason I need. But either way, handgun owners have less public sympathy than, say, hunting rifle and shotgun owners. So then fast forward to this fall and the liberals bring in a new bill. And it's to do put in legislation what they said they were going to do and that's ban the sale of handguns. And then just a few weeks ago, we get an amendment.
00:34:51.500to the bill at the committee level. And it's more or less the liberals are just going to ban a shit ton of regular hunting rifles, all sorts of basic stuff.
00:35:00.500If you've got a detachable, you've got a semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine. Well, surprise, surprise, that's now an assault style rifle.
00:35:08.500Absolutely not stuff. And it seems to have blown up in their faces. We'll start with you, Nigel.
00:35:18.500you think this deserves to be one of the big stories of 2022? And at what point do you think
00:35:24.480the media started to catch on that this was not a story that's just going to anger the hardcore gun
00:35:31.400enthusiasts? Well, they started to get that when they suddenly realized, well, if it's a hunting
00:35:36.660rifle and it's used for hunting, that probably isn't what the crime problem is on the bad streets
00:35:42.760of major cities in canada so you know not that we like guns they said but there seems to be a
00:35:51.000logical disconnect in what the federal government is trying to do and even some of the you know the
00:35:56.760people that we criticize here for the way they attack things well that actually doesn't make
00:36:02.600any sense does it how is this going to help so that was the first that was the first thing um
00:36:08.440The thing with the reason why a lot of people are exercised about this,
00:36:17.940and tell me if this is another of these fortuitous segues,
00:36:21.840but you can't take this in isolation from some of the other things that the federal government has done.
00:36:29.180If it was just a firearms issue, maybe you could.
00:36:32.180But this is also, and I know you want to talk about this later,
00:36:35.900This is coming from a government that wants to restrict press freedom.
00:36:39.420This is coming from a government that spent two and a half years
00:36:42.620telling people what to do about a pandemic
00:36:45.880without really knowing themselves what was the right answer.
00:37:27.460I think this story has kind of taken on a new life. When it was just handgun owners, we're a fairly small part of the population. People seem to think that, you know, legally purchased handguns. People go, they purchase a handgun on Monday and they go knock off a 7-Eleven on Tuesday. That's not happening. Handguns used in the Commission of Crimes in Canada are more than 99%, 98, 99% are smuggled from the United States.
00:37:57.460but the amendment to this bill when I started ensnaring regular bonafide
00:38:03.160hunting rifles that people could not deny these are legitimate hunting rifles
00:38:07.340I think there is sort of an agrarian romanticism in Canada still of the
00:38:12.280hunter the hunter is you know there might not be a lot of sympathy for the
00:38:16.640oilfield worker but there there is a romanticization of the farmer and if
00:38:21.280most people aren't farmers we kind of idolize it kind of agrarian way same
00:38:24.760And with the hunter, we, most people don't have much sympathy with someone who goes down to the gun club and fires off a nine mil for the afternoon.
00:38:32.120But, you know, the guy who goes out, shoots deer, shoots a moose, it's a very Canadian thing to do.
00:38:39.040Why do you think the media itself actually started to pay more attention to this and actually put at least some critical light on the new gun grab stuff?
00:38:50.640Well, part of it is because of they threw their own fart catchers under the bus.0.97
00:38:54.760We've had this debate going on for months and months, say, on social media with the other blue checks and legacy media find.
00:39:02.120And people like me say they're coming after legitimately on fire.
00:39:04.840No, they aren't. No, they aren't. They're never going after hunting firearms.
00:39:08.420They're never doing it. And they said it a dozen times, a dozen ways.
00:39:11.660And now suddenly there's no denying they have just gone after a whole large amount of hunting firearms that were never a problem.
00:39:19.000So these defenders of that act now have an egg on their faces, and not all of them are as shameless with their lies as Minister Mendicino, who would just lie and forget about it the day after.
00:39:28.320I know the same feeling back when I was still somewhat supportive of Premier Kenney when I was saying, look, he said he's never bringing a vaccine passport.
00:39:36.140He's obviously never going to bring in a vaccine passport.
00:39:38.880And then later on, people were rubbing my face.
00:39:41.620And geez, Corey, I thought you said, I guess I was wrong.
00:39:46.500And even I didn't think he would go that far.
00:39:48.400I was like oh so but the media feels that way I mean they were carrying water for this for quite a while and suddenly now they don't have a defense for this anymore either so I mean elements of the media anyways and the vocal people within it so I think that's part of it they're like okay that's enough I can't do this for you guys anymore if you're going to keep moving the goalposts this isn't worth it you're obviously not going after criminals you're going after guns well our it's funny the biggest stories of the year I've put in more or less as much as
00:40:18.380could chronological order of when they took place. They all segue so perfectly to each other. And this segues us perfectly to our last one, federal control over the press and the internet segueing from what you said Nigel about
00:40:33.380there seems to be all of these strange attempts by government, particularly the federal government to assert new levels of control scope and size and scope of control over people's lives, particularly from the federal government.
00:40:46.380federal government. And they seem to be kind of siloed on their own. But when you kind of zoom out at the bigger picture, it's much more worrisome. And one of the most worrisome has got to be federal control over the press and the internet in Canada. Now, this is going back some time, but not that long before we return the Western Standard to publication, the federal government announced a $600 million bailout package for the media.
00:41:14.240And people watch here, no, we don't take that. But then we've started to see other bills, the online harms bill, which would heavily censor social media for offensive content.
00:41:27.240Sometimes stuff that's probably genuinely bad and should probably not be there. But also, we know the way this would go.
00:41:34.240It would just be offensive stuff, stuff that challenges the federal government and the official narratives of things.
00:41:40.240or then we saw, or you call it misinformation or disinformation, you just label it misinformation, disinformation, and you're gone.
00:41:47.240They should ban that one, yes. Yeah. Of course. That kind of thing.0.79
00:41:51.240And then the most recent one, something called the Online News Act, which sounds fairly innocuous,
00:41:59.240but I'd always be cautious when the government has news in an act.
00:42:04.240That means you have some kind of regulation of the news and of the press.
00:42:08.240And so we've got the Online News Act, which is the one that's really gone below the radar right now because the legacy media don't want to talk about it too much because they lobbied for it.
00:42:18.560You've got something called Newspapers Canada, which is the lobby organization representing the big corporate press conglomerates in Canada, Post Media, Globe Media, Tor Star Corp, all these things.
00:42:28.120And the idea is more or less put a gun to the head of Facebook and Google and say, you owe these guys money because you did them the favor of distributing their content.
00:42:40.980Tons of you guys are watching this on Facebook right now.
00:42:44.120And if you're watching this on Facebook right now and this bill passes as it is, we will be banned from Facebook at some point in the new year.
00:42:51.420As Facebook has said, if this bill passes, we're not handing money off to companies that haven't earned it from us in a regular commercial agreement.
00:42:58.620We're just going to kick the news off of Facebook.
00:43:01.720And the legislators have put this bill together in such a way as it makes it illegal for the Western standard to say, we want no part of this.
00:43:09.600We don't think Facebook owes us any money, and we don't owe Facebook any money, and we just want to put our content on Facebook.
00:43:17.220So you've got now federal control over social media platforms and the media itself together, trying to really go after the distribution of media.
00:43:27.360So with you, Nigel, why do you think it's come to this?
00:43:32.380Why do you think the legacy media lobbies so strongly for it?
00:43:37.540And do you think this is one of the it's definitely not gotten the top five, six press stories of the year by coverage.
00:43:44.080But why do you think it deserves to be in here?
00:43:45.860yeah why would the media report on them trying to fleece uh companies using the power of the
00:43:52.520government i think you just the way you ask the question is to suggest the answer look i mean
00:43:58.560what this is the long game here what this is going to do is going to put us back to the days when
00:44:04.160you you the only place you got your news was from a newspaper you're not going to be able to just
00:44:10.860login while you have your coffee at your kitchen table check the news before you
00:44:15.480head off to work because it won't be there if Facebook does indeed say what
00:44:20.040do what it says it's going to do let's face it well you'd be limited to going
00:44:23.820to westernstandard.news that's the only place you'll be able to find or
00:44:27.540nationalpost.com or whatever yeah but it won't show up in your feeds anymore
00:44:31.200isn't going to show up in your feeds and so you know if you can sort of
00:44:35.160picture picture the days when things got passed around by fax and the only way
00:44:39.900could get a hold of somebody was by a landline you know the days before the internet that's the
00:44:46.780that's kind of the the technology that you're going to be dealing with you'll hear things on
00:44:51.580the radio you you want to see it on tv you can turn on but you're not going to be able to get
00:44:56.780the the feeds on your phone that you can read while you're on the c train going to going to
00:45:02.540the office and that's really going to hurt now that works for the um this works in two ways one
00:45:10.860is that uh the the media the old media when they're the only game in town will of course
00:45:20.460have some stay of execution i don't know whether it's possible to drive people back to newsprint by
00:45:25.820taking away electronics but there'll be some upside to them but if they do it goes the other
00:45:31.580way and they do get they do decide to and Facebook relents on this the old media gets paid
00:45:41.820and they're also getting paid by the government how fair impartial and unbiased do you think
00:45:50.780you could possibly be to ask the question is to imply the answer exactly um
00:46:22.500And Facebook has been throttling how much news shows up in your algorithms for some time.
00:46:27.360Like we've seen our proportion on Facebook go down.
00:46:30.040All the other publishers I've talked to all see the same thing.
00:46:32.560So they've been kind of putting their thumbs on the scales of how much news shows in your feeds now.
00:46:37.820But it's still a big portion of what we get.
00:46:40.680But it's a relatively smaller portion of what the big guys, the old print media and the broadcast media rely on.
00:46:48.060They can always go back to, you know, so if they lose Facebook, well, they can always just last for more subsidies to make up the difference.
00:46:57.060Ah, geez, Facebook's so mean. Give us more cash, Papa Trudeau.
00:47:00.060But I want your take on why do you think it hasn't been one of the biggest stories of the year in terms of coverage?
00:47:09.060One, it is probably one of the most substantial federal bills in decades.
00:47:14.060Well, I would bet there's probably been countless columns that have been spiked by perhaps some
00:47:18.460guys who thought they could write up on this and they submitted it and somewhere in the editorial
00:47:22.860level, they said, no, we're just not going to talk about that right now. I mean, the self-interest
00:47:26.640is evident. They don't want to highlight something that is protecting a dinosaur. And that's what it
00:47:31.820is. And they're going. And it's the story of the year. I guess it'll be more of the story I told
00:47:37.260you so when this collapses, I think, though, because, yeah, I mean, it'd be nice to think
00:47:42.320that perhaps people can go back to the days of paper and
00:47:44.360print, but they won't. But things will change. And the
00:47:46.880internet is it's living, they're going to be playing
00:47:50.040whack a mole. I mean, if Facebook isn't covering it,
00:47:51.980you gotta remember, Google is a big factor in this too. So
00:47:54.320you got to get direct URLs, what you'll see is a boom in
00:47:57.000secondary advertising, because now you're gonna have to
00:47:58.880advertise elsewhere to reach people, let them know, come here
00:48:02.780to read our content, and people aren't gonna like that. I think
00:48:06.380it'll help with in the long run with Maverick publications like
00:48:09.800hours, if you even want to call it that, an alternative and new media. And this is the last
00:48:16.800gasp. So I mean, you can subsidize and keep that dying institution alive for a while, but their
00:48:21.480business model is broken. And they'd rather chase subsidies and forcing people to take part in their
00:48:27.280old model rather than adjust themselves. Like I'll just throw in a quick analogy from my past career
00:48:32.440when I was a surveyor. It frustrated me. I spent my first three years out there getting abused by
00:48:36.600surveyor as a rodman yelled at freezing cold and holding the rod and pounding laugh before they
00:48:41.720would even let me touch a transit. And then I had to learn my formulas and I had to learn how to
00:48:45.640calculate area and elevations. And then GPS came along and completely wiped out my trade.
00:48:51.560You know, nowadays, a person could pull out a smartphone and learn doing seconds without any
00:48:56.040training what took me years to get to. And some surveyors got lost with that they couldn't adapt
00:49:01.400themselves to GPS, I learned how to do digital mapping and other things and adapted and got
00:49:05.880another 15 years out of that career. But some of the older surveyors, they couldn't, and they got
00:49:10.840left behind. And what we've got right now with a lot of the legacy media members are those older
00:49:15.080surveyors, they're fighting it with all they've got. But unless they can change themselves,
00:49:20.360they're going to get left behind, they're going to lose this in the long run.
00:49:24.200I think you're right. And I mean, this bill passes, it's going to be very tough on us,
00:49:29.080even though we want absolutely nothing to do with it. But we will endure. Actually, that's,
00:49:33.800that's a really important reason why y'all need to be on our newsletter because if we get shut
00:49:38.200off of facebook if this bill passes and facebook gets shut down for us you're going to need to get
00:49:42.600your morning blast in the morning that's uh that's how you're gonna have to find us it's gonna it's
00:49:46.840gonna be tough so make sure you remember make sure you're on our newsletter go to westernstandard.news
00:49:52.520well gentlemen it's been a hell of a year it's been a very good year i think um
00:49:58.840Catch our big. We are running, it's now over 20 long columns by people who know what they're
00:50:12.660talking about. You're a fanatic editor, right? Fanaticism is in the DNA. Look, we've got a lot
00:50:20.240of really smart people who are delivering their thoughts, not only about what has happened in
00:50:25.3802022, but also in 2023. After this, after this program, you'll see the trailer for it. So watch
00:50:32.420it and come to our website and take a look. These people know what they're talking about.
00:50:38.020Yeah, it's a great series that Nigel set up from a lot of our best columnists across Canada,
00:50:44.580retrospective on 2022 and looking forward into 2023. Nigel, Corey, it's been a great 2022 with
00:50:53.300with you guys. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to all our readers. And Merry Christmas and
00:50:59.600New Year very soon to all of you, our loyal Western-centered readers, watchers,
00:51:06.140and listeners. It's been such an honor to be with you this year in this
00:51:09.680tremendous year of growth. Just, I had a great 2022. So thank all of you for that great year.